Friday, 29th March 2024 10:11
Home / Uncategorized / ACOP Main Event: ABC for Yifan Zheng on Day 4

The task was simple. Turn 25 into 9. Not a huge ask, but we’ve been in this place before and it’s usually not as simple as it sounds. After all, this is the business end of proceedings. There’s big money on the line and the Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) Main Event final table was the reward for those who could survive the day. But a whirlwind Day 4 of play, including crucial simultaneous eliminations on the final table bubble has seen the final table reached in just over five hours of play.

We started out with two members of Team PokerStars still in contention when Day 4 kicked off. One was American Randy Lew and the other was Japan’s Naoya Kihara who entered the day as one of the short stacks. Unfortunately Kihara was unable to survive as he ran his K♣ Q♣ into Aiden Tam’s dominant A♦ Kâ™  to be bundled out in 22nd place.

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Our two remaining female players fell during the day with Yujung Choi (21st) and Cheryl Peng (16th) unable to make history as the first female winners of an open ACOP event. Day 2 chip leader Kevin Schulz was out in 15th place and Aiden Tam dropped in 14th place as play continued to steam roll its way towards a final table.

However things got dramatic when simultaneous eliminations saw our last eleven form the final table of nine in one clean hit.

Over on Table 1, Asia Player of the Year contender Terry Fan was all in with Aâ™  K♦ and looking to double up through overnight chip leader Jonathan Depa’s A♣ J♣ but the board was spread 4♦ 4â™  J♥ 9â™  3♦ to see Depa spike a brutal three-outer to end Fan’s run short of another final table in Macau.

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Fan thought that he’d also bubbled the POTY points, but in the end they were split when Peter Chan’s tournament came to an end at the same time on Table 2. The action flop was 9â™  8â™  5♥ with Chan getting his chips in with 8♦ 8♥ for a set, but he found himself up against the worst possible hand as Yoshitaka Okawa made the call with Jâ™  7â™  for a monstrous combo draw. Owaka took the lead with a straight when the 10♣ turn card fell, and Chan couldn’t pair the board on the J♣ river.

And just like that, our final table of nine was set!

Yifan “Alvan” Zheng will take a big chip lead into the final day as he bagged up 1,513,500 in chips, with Yat Wai Cheng the only other player with seven figures. Devan Tang, Sunny Jung and Team PokerStars Online’s Randy Lew are all through, while Chane Kampanatsanyakorn has some work to do as the short stack with just over six big blinds, despite the final table starting with an average stack of over one hundred big blinds.

Final Table Line Up
Seat 1: Jonathan Depa (USA) – 979,500
Seat 2: Randy Lew (PokerStars Team Online) (USA) – 202,000
Seat 3: Devan Tang (Hong Kong) – 779,500
Seat 4: Yoshitaka Okawa (Japan) – 859,500
Seat 5: Sunny Jung (Korea) – 270,000
Seat 6: Chenxiang Miao (China) – 368,000
Seat 7: Yat Wai Cheng (Hong Kong) – 1,080,000
Seat 8: Chane Kampanatsanyakorn (Thailand) – 38,500
Seat 9: Yifan “Alvan” Zheng (China) – 1,513,500

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Yifan “Alvan” Zheng will take a healthy chip lead into the final table

Thanks for your company again today. We hope you’ll join us again tomorrow as the final nine battle it out for glory in the ACOP Main Event. It kicks off at 3:00pm local time, while the big boys will be out to play in the High Roller event at 6:00pm. It should be another fun day. See you then!

Heath “TassieDevil” Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.

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