The Asia Pacific Poker Tour Open made its debut at the PokerStars Manila poker room at the iconic Okada Manila.
Anticipation was high for the first international PokerStars tournament to run in the Philippines after close to a three-year hiatus. The APPT Open Manila looks primed to set some solid records, with the opening event – the ₱15,000 APPT Open Kickoff – crushing its ₱2M guarantee.
The man best positioned to take the prize is the USA’s Cory Sridathong, who topped the Day 1A counts with a stack of 691,500 after sending the Philippines’ Ronn Ryan Mesina to the rail on the last hand of the flight. Other notable big stacks include the USA’s Ofer Greenberg (420,500), and Singapore’s Vincent Sin (326,500) – the latter of whom topped the Day 1B chip counts.
While the Asia Pacific Poker Tour has been hosting a Manila leg since 2007 this is the first time the newly launched APPT Open series has visited the Philippines’ capital.
The inaugural APPT Open took place in Chinese Taipei back in early February of 2020 and saw 245 entries compete for US$427,925 in prize money, with local Zong Chi He taking the $97,367 top prize.
It is worth noting the last time an APPT event – APPT Manila 2019 – took place in Manila back in August 2019 it proved to be the richest in the Philippines’ history with 5,740 players competing for a massive ~$4,068,895 in prize money over the 10-day, 25-event series.
While player numbers and prize pools are not expected to exceed what was a record-breaking event, anticipation remains high for the first Manila-based international PokerStars Live event to take place since the easing of worldwide travel restrictions.
The Philippines is now once again welcoming international visitors, with no quarantine restrictions.
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