Quirin Heinz

The first players in Flight D of the Ultra Stack Championship began playing at 11am (TST) this morning at Red Space in Taipei. The last players were finally able to leave their seats at 9pm after twenty-one 25-minute levels.

It was a long and intense day for this fourth flight, which had the most entries: 437 (354 unique) among the six flights.

It was Germany's Quirin Heinz topping the flight, bagging up an impressive stack of 3,008,000. Former APT Main Event champion Shixiang Khoo bagged the second-largest stack, with Taiwan's Ting Yu Chen rounding out the top ten, and 60 players making it through to the Final Day.

Ultra Stack Championship Flight D Top Ten Chip Counts

We caught up with Heinz after he bagged up his stack, and he was happy to recount one of the hands that that propelled him to the top of the leaderboard:

"I had ace-jack offsuit in the hijack, I opened to 60,000 and the small blind called. The flop came ace-ten-four. I bet 60,000 again and my opponent called. Then there was a six on the turn and another ace on the river. The small blind took the lead by betting 150,000, I went all-in and my opponent called with ace-nine while I had ace-jack!"

Second place in Flight D is a familiar face on the APT circuit, the friendly Singaporean player Shixiang Khoo, winner of the 2023 APT Summer Series Danang Main Event, who also took a few moments at the end of the game to tell us that the start of this flight had not been easy for him.

Khoo was seated at a difficult table, notably with Oliver Schulze, a formidable player who caused him some problems. Fortunately, Khoo was moved to another table. He sat down in his new seat with 130,000 chips and felt much more comfortable. It was at this table that he built up a nice stack of chips. His best move?

A 3-way pot won with a pair of kings against ace-jack and a pair of tens: "There was a million on the table, and that move helped me a lot!’ said Khoo.

Shixiang Khoo Shixiang Khoo is on track to claim his second APT major title

Other notables to make it though included the Netherland’s Joris Michl (1,219,000), Germany’s Fabian Gumz (1,161,000), India’s Nishant Sharma (548,000), former APT Super High Roller champion Shung Er Sua (261,000), and India’s Abhinav Iyer (183,000).

60 survivors from Flight D will participate tomorrow, Wednesday 19 November, in the Final Day of this Ultra Stack Championship, alongside the 40 qualifiers from Flight A, the 38 from Flight B, the 19 from Flight C, and the survivors from Flights E and F, whose games are still in progress at the time of writing.

Cards will be in the air at 11:15 a.m. local time. The game will start with blinds of 20,000/40,000 with a big blind ante of 40,000, and levels will last 30 minutes each.

Coverage of the Final Day of this tournament will be available live and in full on the APT blog.

Hon Cheong Lee

As the clock was paused and the tournament director announced hand-for-hand after the current hand , three players were eliminated simultaneously. Jun Jie Lim, Nguyen Huu Dung, Hon Cheong Lee busted out leaving only 60 players to move into the final day, all in the money.

The survivors are now bagging up their chips. Stay tuned for a recap of the day's action.

Ching Wei Hao found himself forced to go all-in because he didn't have enough chips to pay his big blind and big blind ante. Only a miracle could keep him alive and get him into the money.

Sitting on the button, Edison Marzan was also in an unenviable position, as he only had 116,000 chips left. He decided to push them in front of him.

Sukhrat Massimov, armed with a premium hand and a substantial stack, called from the small blind.

Here are the hands turned over preflop by the three players still in the game:

Ching Wei Hao: Q Q

Edison Marzan: A 8

Sukhrat Massimov: A Q

The dealer then revealed the five cards on the board: 8 6 7 Q 6

Despite hitting his middle pair, Marzan was eliminated. Massimov lost only a few chips, while Hao threw his arms up in the air, as the pair of queens he received not only held up, but also made a full house and allowed him to triple up when he had more than one foot in the grave.

Chang Kok Leong open-shoved all-in for 485,000 under the gun. Action folded around to the small blind Ben Gur in the small blind made the call putting Leong at risk.

Chang Kok Leong: A J

Ben Gur: K K

The board ran 6 T K J 6 giving Gur a full house.

Action was picked up with two players with their chips in the middle on a completed board of K 9 Q A 4 .

Kuan Yu Chen: 9 9

Darius Neagoe: J J

Neagoe turned a one-card flush ending Chen's tournament run with less than 10 players to the end of the day. Hopefully Chen will head to the registration counter to re-enter in the last two remaining flights

Approaching the bubble, Weicong Sng in small blind shoved on short stack Chang Seog Chae in big blind

Both players had a legitimate hand to go all-in given their stacks.

Chang Seog Chae: K J

Weicong Sng: A 9

The board of 2 A 2 9 7 gave Chae no chance, which left him on the sidelines just short of the money.

With 130,000 in the middle and a flop of 5 7 A , two players were heads-up. After the action was passed to him, Fabian Gumz bet 28,000. Jun Young Park stayed on to see another card.

The turn peeled 2 , and Park checked once again but ended up folding after Gumz cranked the heat with a 67,000 bet.

Park started counting his chips after the hand. With the end of the day relatively close, players were just hoping to survive.

Kuan Yu Chen opened to 50,000 under the gun and when action folded around, big blind Seunghun Ko called to see a flop.

With less than 20 players before the bubble, action was slowing down and this held with Chen and Ko when they checked down through the runout of Q 9 3 5 2 .

Ko showed first with K 7 . Chen took the pot down after he turned over A T for ace-high.

Level 18 has now concluded. 79 players are on a 15-minute break before returning to play for a spot among the 61 survivors who will advance to the Final Day tomorrow morning.

Two short stacks clashed in this hand.

Sorakit Saengcharuern open-shoved all-in for his remaining 151,000 chips.

All other players folded to small blind Matthew Xin, who called while covered.

Matthew Xin: 2 6

Sorakit Saengcharuern: 7 7

The dealer ran out the board: Q 4 2 K 8

Xin was eliminated from the tournament, while Saengcharuern collected the 249,000-chip pot and caught a breather.