Carter Chan Bursts Bubble on Day 1a and Leads 24 Survivors in Taiwan; Yohwan Lim and Pete Chen Advance

Day 1a chip leader Chik Fatt “Carter” Chan

The return of the World Poker Tour to the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Association in Taipei City is off to a great start for the flagship tournament of the 2022 WPT Prime Taiwan TWD 33,000 Main Event. Known as the CTP Club in the heart of the city, the poker room is one of seven branches that regularly hold poker tournaments and the marquee event of the stop attracted a total of 189 entries on Day 1a.

After more than 14 and a half levels of 40 minutes each, the bubble burst with the elimination of Joseph Phua and that pot catapulted Singapore’s Chik Fatt “Carter” Chan into the top spot. He turned his starting stack of 30,000 into more than 23 times as many chips and bagged up 691,000, surpassing Yohwan “Boxer” Lim (575,000) on the overnight leaderboard. Both are well ahead of third-placed Kuan Chieh Chen (485,000), who was one of several players to gain the entry via a live satellite at the venue.

Especially Lim confirmed his known nickname in the final stages after he scored several vital punches with big pots and eliminations. However, it was Chan who claimed the spotlight when the chips were bagged after winning a big flip with ace-king versus queens thanks to four diamonds on the board.

Other notables advancing from the first of three starting stacks are Kenji Hata (312,000), Chi Ying Tsai (154,000), Hotstone player Seung Hwan Baek (125,000), Jenam Yu (107,000) and WPT Champions Club member Pete Chen (85,000).

Among the familiar faces of the Asia-Pacific region to bow out were the likes of Park Yu “Sparrow” Cheung, Chen An Lin, Hamish Crawshaw, 2019 WPTDeepStacks Cambodia winner Brian Tougias, Tae Hoon Han, Yu Chung “Nevan” Chang, and Natalie Teh to name all but a few.

They have another two chances to run up a stack for Day 2 and stake their claim for what shapes up to be a significant prize pool. It even seems likely that the previous attendance of the 2020 WPTDeepStacks Main Event nearly two years ago may be surpassed.

Back then, the TWD 15,000 buy-in attracted a field of 526 entries and prize pool of TWD 6,768,000 of which the top 64 finishers earned their share. In a field filled almost exclusively with players from Taiwan in December 2020 due to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, Huang Chyan Pu defeated Chuan Lung Lai to claim the top prize worth TWD 1,317,800.

Two flights remain and both of them get underway at 1pm local time on November 18 and 19 respectively. Both of these heats boast an identical structure with 40-minute levels and will play down to the money bubble, as approximately one out of each eight entries will advance.

The poker tables at CTP Club

Local staff expects two busy days ahead and most tables were already used for today’s extensive schedule, which featured three Side Events and a Main Event satellite. Stay tuned for more live poker action from Taipei as the WPT.com live reporting team will be on the floor for the entire duration of the 2022 WPT Prime Taiwan Main Event until a winner is crowned on November 21, 2022.