Mitja Rudolf Leads After Day 1b in Cambodia; Big Field is Looming

The second of three starting days of the inaugural WPT Cambodia $1,100 Main Event has attracted a field of 216 entries to boost the total field size to 404 entries with one final flight to come. It seems quite possible that the initial guarantee of $250,000 for the first WPT stop in the Kingdom of Cambodia at the stunning NagaWorld Integrated Resort may be tripled as a big field is expected for Day 1c.

Compared to the first flight, there were also far more re-entries as 41 participants took advantage of the single re-entry option during the nine levels of registration and at the end of the night, 43 players bagged up chips and a rather unusual name in the Asia-Pacific Region appeared at the top of the leaderboard.

Slovenia’s Mitja Rudolf made the trip to Cambodia with friends including Tomaz Kogovsek and his first attempt on Day 1a was not crowned by success as he was one of the late casualties. This time, things went much better as he emerged among the bigger stacks mid-way through the day in a big three-way all-in and earned more chips with aggression thereafter.

In the final level of the night, Rudolf called the shove of Kok Keong Tan with pocket tens and Yong Cheong Foo also came along. Rudolf bet a king-high flop and jammed the turn to force a fold from Foo, revealing pocket tens for a flopped set. Tan was drawing dead with fives and the hand vaulted Rudolf to a stack of 384,000.

Second in chips is 2019 WSOP bracelet winner Abhinav Iyer, who follows close behind with 367,000. Apichai Jewampai completes the Day 1b podium with a stack of 323,000. Both Iyer and Jewampai emerged as big stacks in the final stages of the day.

Other notables that made it through are Nadav Cohen (213,000), Jack Hardcastle (211,000), Linh Tran (196,000), former Asian player of the Year and WPT Champions Club member Pete Chen (164,000), Chenxu Zhang (131,000), WPT champions club member Hoyt Corkins (127,000), Sera Ota (127,000), and Phanlert Sukonthachartnant (122,000)

Top 10 chip counts after Day 1b:

Mitja Rudolf – 384,000
Abhinav Iyer – 367,000
Apichai Jewampai – 323,000
Julian Warhurst – 273,000
Michael Wood – 239,000
Nadav Cohen – 213,000
Jack Hardcastle – 211,000
Peter Leworthy – 211,000
Jakub Kotas – 207,000
Christos Vlahos – 200,000

More than two-thirds of the field headed the rail without anything to show for and included in the batch of notables that came up short of making Day 2 just yet was the current points leader of the Season 18 WPT Asia Pacific Player of the Year race Hari Varma.

Only ahead thanks to a better top prize compared to Hamish Crawshaw, Varma fired two bullets on Day 1b. He was left with crumbs on a three-way all in the first time and lost a flip with ace-king to jacks to bow out a second time. Crawshaw didn’t even enter as he was busy in the $2,200 Single-Day High Roller in which he cashed and that ended with the victory of Phachara Wongwichit.

Some other big names that will have to try again on Day 1c after coming up short in the second flight were Sofia Lovgren, $5,000 Super High Roller runner-up Gabriel Carter, Michael Falcon, reigning WPT Asia Pacific Player of the Year Vincent Chauve, Zongxin Liu, Benjamin Gonzva, Aladin Reskallah, and Konstantin Pogodin.

Chauve was all in with ace-queen and picked up two callers. On a four-card club board, the Frenchman and Thailand resident ended up with ace-high only and Christopher Shebat made a flush with jacks, Teck Hooi How lost the main and side pot with pocket kings as he held no club in his hand.

So far, the field size for the 2019 WPT Cambodia $1,100 Main Event includes 404 entries and 77 players punched their tickets for Day 2 so far. With the best stack forward in play, everyone that already has chips for Day 2 can try again to establish an even better position for the race to the money.

Day 1a: 188 entries, 34 survivors
Day 1b: 216 entries, 43 survivors

Day 1c kicks off 1 p.m. local time and the registration for the final flight remains open for the first nine levels and following extended break until approximately 7.30 p.m. local time on Saturday, November 23rd, 2020.

Full coverage of the event is also available on Somuchpoker.