Kai Fu Wong Leads Final Nine in Record-Breaking WPT Cambodia Main Event

The penultimate day of the record-breaking Season 18 World Poker Tour Cambodia $1,100 Main Event at the NagaWorld Integrated Resort in Phnom Penh has reached the nine-handed final table and six different nationalities are still in contention in the biggest live poker event of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

What started with 148 hopefuls at noon local time turned out to be a 13 hour day at the tables of the Ballroom in Naga 1 in order to determine the nine remaining contenders for the final table. Malaysia’s Kai Fu Wong (pictured above) emerged as the chip leader with 4,700,000 and two other finalists have more than 50 big blinds at their disposal. Brian Tougias follows in second place with 4,140,000 and Singapore’s Alex Lee is third with 3,415,000.

Lee is arguably the most-experienced finalist with more than $800k in live cashes and fourth of Singapore’s all-time money list. Jae Kyung “Simba” Sim has more than $700k in cashes to his name and fellow countrywoman Jiyoung Kim won her maiden WSOP bracelet this year after defeating 967 opponents in the $1,000 Ladies Championship.

Sim sits in the middle of the pack with a stack of 1,630,000 and Kim is the short stack with 695,000. Frenchman Aladin Reskallah, who is currently being coached in a poker boot camp here in Cambodia, is fifth in chips with 2,570,000 narrowly behind Australia’s Kue Seong “Michael” Tchong. Hailing from Melbourne, Tchong has an Aussie Millions ring to his name and defeated none other than Mustapha Kanit in heads-up for his career-best score of A$138,180 in 2018.

The remaining finalists are Si Yang Phua (1,650,000),  and Yong Cheong Foo (1,040,000), who have 28 and 17 big blinds available. There will be 49:14 minutes remaining when the action resumes as of 1 p.m. local time once the player group pictures and player introductions are completed.

Final Table Seat assignments

Seat 1: Yong Cheong Foo (Singapore) – 1,040,000 (17bb)

Seat 2: Jae Kyung Sim (South Korea) – 1,630,000 (27bb)
Seat 3: Si Yang Phua (Singapore) – 1,650,000 (28bb)
Seat 4: Aladin Reskallah (France ) – 2,570,000 (43bb)

Seat 5: Brian Tougias (United States) – 4,140,000 (69bb)

Seat 6: Alex Lee (Singapore) – 3,415,000 (57bb)
Seat 7: Jiyoung Kim (South Korea) – 695,000 (12bb)
Seat 8: Kue Seong Tchong (Australia) – 1,040,000 (17bb)
Seat 9: Kai Fu Wong (Malaysia) – 4,700,000 (78bb)

Kim has the chance to take over the top spot in the 2018 WPT Asia-Pacific Player of the Year if he wins the tournament, as he already finished 17th in the WPT Korea Main Event in Incheon two months ago.

Here is what the nine remaining finalists are playing for:

1st place: $131,430 – 1,500 POY points
2nd place: $92,152 – 1,350 POY points
3rd place: $59,400 – 1,200 POY points
4th place: $43,941 – 1,050 POY points
5th place: $33,574 – 900 POY points
6th place: $26,583 – 750 POY points
7th place: $22,007 – 600 POY points
8th place: $17,504 – 450 POY points
9th place: $13,146 – 300 POY points

One-third of the field had to leave empty-handed on Day 2 as 148 hopefuls returned and just 94 made the money. Big names that came up short of a cash prize were the WPT Asia-Pacific champions Vincent Chauve, Dhaval Mudgal and current POY ranking leader Hari Varma, WPT champions club member Hoyt Corkins also ran out of chips a few spots away from the bubble.

Chauve flopped top pair and top kicker with ace-king only to see Linh Tran turn over pocket sevens for a flopped set. Varma couldn’t get there with middle pair and a gutshot against top pair and Mudgal vanished shortly after as well. Corkins was unfortunate enough to run with jacks into the pocket aces of Ying Lin Chua.

On the money bubble, Phanlert Sukonthachartnant (pictured below) saw his stack reduced to a miracle and the second on the all-time money list ended up as the bubble boy when his ace-eight suited came up short against two callers.

Once the min-cash was secured, the floodgates opened and former big stacks such as Jingjing Ke and Richard Marquez headed to the payout desk much earlier than they had hoped for. The only remaining WPT champions club member in the field, Taiwan’s Pete Chen, got it in with king-jack and Kai Fu Wong called with ace-king suited to remain ahead on an eight-high board.

Many other notables would have to follow the path to the payout desk including Sven Mc Dermott, Linh Tran, Chenxu Zhang, 2019 WSOP bracelet Abhinav Iyer, and Ping Liu. Iyer four-bet shoved with jacks into the queens of Alex Lee and found no help. For Liu, a late roller coaster ride ended in 13th place when Wong’s nines remained ahead of ace-nine suited.

The WPT.com live reporting team will be on the floor to cover all the action from start-to-finish on the final day and full coverage of the event is also available on Somuchpoker.