Chi Jen Chu Leads After Day 1b in Cambodia; Sameer Agarwal and Ashish Munot Among the Big Stacks

Sameer Agarwal second in chips after Day 1b

The second return of the World Poker Tour to the Kingdom of Cambodia may very well set a new attendance record for a live poker event in the country, in fact, all signs point towards that. Back in 2019, the WPT National Cambodia Main Event drew 750 entries and it seems all but a formality to surpass that figure by a significant amount. Once again, the five-star NagaWorld Integrated Resort in the capital of Phnom Penh hosts the series, which has been a thorough success so far.

After an already very successful first starting day, the Season 20 WPT Prime Cambodia $1,100 Main Event has attracted an even bigger field in the second flight and already surpassed the initial $500,000 guarantee by a very solid margin. Following the 264 entries on Day 1a, another 346 entries came on top and that boosted the overall attendance to 610 entries. Yet again, the top 12.5% finishers advanced to Day 2 and 43 survivors punched their ticket for Sunday’s penultimate tournament day.

Taiwan’s Chi Jen Chu narrowly missed out on the overall lead after claiming a stack of 706,500. While he was counting the chips at the end of the night, Kunal Patni was watching from up close as he was cheering on fellow players from India at the very same table. Patni retains his top spot by the fraction of a big blind and another two players bagged up more than half a million in chips.

One of them is Patni’s countryman Sameer Agarwal, who consistently grew his stack throughout the entire day and advanced with 644,500 in chips. South Korea’s Jiho Song completes the Day 1b overnight podium with 595,000. Another player from India with an excellent spot to run deep in this potentially record-breaking event is none other than Season 20 WPT Prime Hanoi runner-up Ashish Munot. After a slow start into the day, Munot went on somewhat of a roller coaster before knocking out Crown Poker Club Hanoi founder Tobias Bui in the most classic of setups with aces versus kings. Ultimately, Munot advanced with 452,500 and will certainly be among the big stacks for Day 2.

Ashish Munot

Other notables advancing with healthy stack sizes are Steve Ng (429,500), Peter Kim (336,000), Michael Falcon (323,000), Lester Edoc (288,000), Laksh Pal Singh (241,500), and David Erquiaga (201,000). Kanchan Sharma, Hwany Lee, Jeffrey Lo, Michael Allen, and Kevin Tang all booked their ticket for a min-cash as well.

Some of those who failed to bag and tag chips were Eric Wasylenko, WPT Global ambassador Andrew Neeme, Duy Ho, Japanese TV star “GACKT”, Aladin Reskallah, inaugural WPT Prime champion Zarvan Tumboli, Victor Chong, Vincent Huang, Phillip Nguyen, Florencio Campomanes, and Lloyd Fontillas. Many of them are expected to be back in action on Saturday, August 20, 2022 when the third and final starting day kicks off in the Ballroom at Naga 1.

Day 1c will get underway at 1pm local time and the late registration will be open until approximately 5.30 pm local time with unlimited re-entries available during the first six levels. The final flight tends to have a very strong turnout and it would be no surprise to see yet another bumper field show up.

Stay tuned for more live poker action from the Kingdom of Cambodia as the WPT.com live updates team will provide as many key hands as possible from the Season 20 WPT Prime Cambodia $1,100 Main Event until the conclusion on August 22.