Day 2 action in the Pokerstars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour Main Event in Seoul, South Korea, saw 83 players on hand to start play, the survivors of 165 initial Day 1 entrants at the Walker-Hill Casino. The 83 players worked down to the 16-spot money bubble as action was halted for the day, with Brian Kang emerging as the overnight leader following a wild close to the action.

The day began with Jan Van Dyk and David Saab atop the leaderboard, though neither would survive the session. First, though, came the winnowing of the shorter stacks, with several notables among them. Australian Van Marcus, who final-tabled last year’s APPT Manila stop, was one of the first. Marcus exited after getting his
chips in after a

flop. Marcus held

for trips, but Michael Bang held

for the same trips and a better kicker, which held up when the board completed with the

and

.

Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier lasted only a short while longer. ElkY’s last 16,000 went in against Osawa Masahiro after an

flop. Again it was trips vs. trips, with ElkY’s

trailing Masahiro’s

, and again the higher kicker held. This time the turn and river brought the

and

, ending Grospellier’s tournament run.

Meanwhile, both start-of-day leader Van Dyk and recent APPT Macau winner Eddie Sabat made early climbs. Van Dyk eliminated two players to become the first to top 100,000 in chips, while Sabat neared 60,000 after doubling through early, then collecting a second large pot. Sabat, though, took a couple of big hits to depart midway through the session. On his final hand, he got his chips in on a big draw with

and a board of

-10. Sam Faqiryar was in the hand with A-J, however, which held up when the board completed with 8-6.

Jan Van Dyk fared no better as the day wore on. First, his pocket jacks went down to a shorter stack’s pocket eights when an eight fell on the river, and as his stack withered, he pushed all in from the cutoff with

. Hori Katsiyohi pushed over the top from the button with

, which held up when the board rolled out

.

David Saab, meanwhile, moved out to the lead with about 160,000 in chips, but the prosperity wouldn’t last. Saab shipped half his stack to Brian Kang after trying to bully Kang while holding

on a

flop. Saab raised to 8,000, was check-raised to 24,000, and then pushed all in. Kang snap-called with

and pulled in the massive pot when the turn and river both brought aces. Saab regained those chips and more in a hand where he eliminated Jae Jung. Saab tried to re-steal a pot pre-flop with

, which turned out to be ahead of Jung’s

when Jung decided to play for the rest of his chips and pushed all in. Saab was priced in for the call and won when the board ran out

. “I will not fold!” cried Saab as he pulled in the chips.

Saab dropped a third of his chips soon after when he flopped two pair with 9-7 on a

flop, but had to dodge two all-ins, those of Wooka Kim with

and Hidenari Shiono with

. The

turn was harmless to Saab, but the

river gave the main pot to Kim and a larger side pot to Shiono, who had Kim well covered. Then Saab crashed out of the tournament in 17th, again while trying to bully Brian Kang.

The last hand of the night saw Saab raise to 6,000 preflop, with Kang calling from the button. Saab bet out for 17,500 after the

flop, and Kang called again. “Blah blah blah I check the turn dark,” said Saab, rising from his chair as the turn brought the

. “Careful, my friend,” Saab admonished Kang, but Kang bet 25,000 anyway. Saab immediately check-raised all in, and Kang immediately called. Saab showed

for bottom pair and a flush draw, while Kang opened

for another small set. The river brought the

, sending Saab off as the bubble boy and boosting Kang to the lead as play ended for the night.

The chip counts for the 16 survivors:

Brian Kang – 302,000
Yoshihiro Tasaka – 245,000
Sam Faqiryar – 242,400
Hidenari Shiono – 154,700
Diwei Huang – 131,300
Daniel Schreiber – 125,700
David Horvath – 92,500
Wooka Kim – 44,900
Fam Kai Yat – 41,200
Yuji Masaki – 39,000
Michiyuki Kondo – 37,100
Daniel Williams – 35,500
Hori Katsiyoshi – 23,800
Kwok Gi (Ken) Yeung – 21,800
Robert Campitiello – 20,900
Terry Gardiner – 16,100

Action resumes at 1pm Seoul time on Sunday (late Saturday night in North America), as the final-table lineup is setlled and the winner decided in the PokerStars.net APPT Seoul Main Event.

The Hand:

Blinds 400/800 with a 100 ante.
Terrence’s stack: ~72,000
Villain’s stack: ~70,000
Terrence holds: , Villain holds: 9-x

Pre-flop:

Folds around the table to the villain in MP1. Villain raises to 2,400, and it’s folded to
Terrence on the cut-off; Terrence calls, and the button and blinds fold.

Flop:

Villain checks, Terrence bets 3,600, Villain check-raises to 10,000, and Terrence calls.

Turn:

Villain checks; Terrence checks behind.

River:

Villain thinks for quite a while, then bets 14,000. Terrence thinks for an extended period of time, then raises to 32,000. Villain tanks for several minutes, gets the clock called on him, and calls. Terrence taps the table and reveals his . Villain instantly mucks and later says he had a nine.

Street-by-street analysis:

Pre-flop:

Folds around the table to the villain in MP1. Villain raises to 2,400, and it’s folded to Terrence on the cut-off; Terrence calls, and the button and blinds fold.

Tony: This seems like a pretty straightforward street. Terrence knows villain is open-raising a lot of hands, and he’s got a solid suited handed in position with deep stacks for exploiting the villain. Pretty easy stuff.

Celina: Both players had big stacks, with room to play a lot of post-flop poker. The structure of the tournament was very deep, so at 90 BBs, pre-flop calls can be made with small pocket pairs, suited connectors and so on. Terrence’s call here with is pretty standard.

Flop:

Villain checks, Terrence bets 3,600, Villain check-raises to 10,000, and Terrence calls.

Tony: When the villain checks, Terrence’s bet seems pretty obvious. When he gets check-raised he likely thinks the villain either has a big pair, a draw, or a bluff. He can pretty much expect the villain to lead out with most of his tens or medium pairs, so I think he probably imagines he fares well against his range. I think Terrence will be folding on a fair number of turns if villain bets very large, especially if it’s some form of scare card.

Celina: Terrence made a standard bet; most of the time, he should win the pot there and then. Villain probably expected Terrence to bet here if he checks, so he could check raise-here with air, draw or top pair. Terrence, holding top pair, can see a couple of possible straight draws out and probably figures that the villain will probably be betting the flop with a ten. Making the call here to see how the villain will proceed on the turn is the best option.

Turn:

Villain checks; Terrence checks behind.

Tony: Terrence can’t afford to get check-raised here again since it will always blow him off his hand, so he checks behind intending to call a river bet on about any safe river. Villain has taken a fairly weird line, especially if he has a big pair, so Terrence likely believes he has a bluff or perhaps semi-bluff.

Celina: Terrence made the correct check here, as he does not want the pot to be too big, so both of their stacks are in play for the final street. At this point, Terrence does not know if he’s still ahead or behind, and getting check-raised here would be disastrous.

River:

Tony: The villain thinks for quite some time then fires 14,000. Terrence now believes that villain has perhaps tried a bluff on the flop with a hand like A-J/A-Q/A-K because he believes a flop continuation bet will get played back at so often on a board of this texture. Terrence believes that if he raises the villain on the river (turning his one pair into a complete bluff, in his mind) then villain will almost always have to put Terrence on two pair, a straight, or a back-doored flush. In theory, I think Terrence’s raise is a very good and complex play, as if I was in the position of the villain I would always be folding one pair. However, that the villain called with a very weak folding makes me think Terrence picked the wrong time and wrong player to pull this on, though it’s the kind of play I could see using in the future in the right circumstances.

Celina: I literally stood there with my mouth open when the hands when turned over. I was standing on the rail watching with a friend, and we both tried to guess their hands and we decided that the action on the river could mean someone probably hit a flush / set / two pairs. Once we saw Terrence’s hand turned over, we can begin to see the logic for the river playing out the way it did. Villain represented a big hand when he bet the river; it looks like he hit the ace, but most of the draws wouldn’t get there excepting the back-door flush. Terrence is thinking he is probably behind now and decides that he can represent a much stronger hand by raising here and that would most likely get villain to fold a better hand. Villain probably concluded that this was a good spot for Terrence to bluff him off a hand by making a raise here, and thus decided to make the call. Villain was correct that Terrence was bluffing, but it was with a pair of tens. Terrence had accidentally turned his bluff into a winning value bet with second pair.

Tony ‘Bond18′ Dunst is a professional online poker player living in Australia. Dunst is one of the moderators of the strategy forum at the 2+2 forums, and is noted for his tongue-in-cheek recaps of big stories in the online poker world that he posts on 2+2 and pocketfives. Celina Lin is Tony’s girlfriend and a good player in her own right. In fact, Celina has just signed on with PokerStars as a player/endorser, and will represent Team PokerStars at events all over the world. These two spend an incredible amount of time at home discussing poker hands. In each volume of this ongoing column, Dunst and Lin break down a hand and ‘discuss’ it in a way only a boyfriend and girlfriend can.

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