GIDEON GALPO WINS THE PPT MAIN EVENT

After eight hours of final day action, Gideon Galpo overcame the the final 18 lineup of the Philippine Poker Tournament Main Event to be crowned the first Metro champion of 2019. Galpo pocketed P389,000 for his dominating performance along with a MSE seat worth P6,500.

Galpo entered the final day with a slightly average stack. He doubled up early through the day’s opening chip leader Izutsu Shjirowith As-Jc top pair over Ad-3s on a board of 7c-Ah-Qc- 4d-10s with his shove called on the flop. Not long after, he proceeded to rail two players simultaneously, Philip Baider (15th) and Ellezer Castillo (16th).

Galpo’s next victim was Ahmed Noor whose pair of threes lost the flip to Galpo’s Ah-10h. After Bonifacion Mondalo’s fall in 11th place to Jester Intia, Galpo entered the final table of 10 players with the kingly stack followed by Intia.

At the final elliptic, Danvic Ruiz made a bid for the leader’s status by knocking out two players in one go. Falling were Izutsu Shojiro (9th) and Jimmie Javier (10th). Though both players had the edge on Ruiz with Ad-Qd and As-10d, the board paired both of Ruiz’s cards Ac-4d to move into second command.

Next out was once again delivered by Galpo. He booted Geno Gendrano (8th) to distance himself further from his remaining six opponents. Using his big stack, he put the heat on Trifie Montebon and Intia in two separate hands to amass over half the chips in play.

Taking 7th was Jolas Guerrero followed by RVS Cup 2017 champion Christopher Chua (6th), then Joel Melchor in 5th place. This brought about the four-handed round with Galpo and Ruiz still leading while Intia and Montebon as the bottom two. A deal was proposed but rejected. Montebon fell in 4th place to Ruiz.

At three-handed, Ruiz landed himself a huge double up against the leader Galpo in a crazy hand that saw his 4c-4s improve to a straight on the river against Galpo’s Ah-Qs. It was all in preflop. The board ran 3d-Ad-2s-9c-5c.

A deal was once again discussed and this time it was sealed. Galpo was guaranteed P350K, Ruiz P340K, and Intia P230K. The eventual winner would pocket another P39K and of course the coveted title.

After several exchanges, Ruiz took a big hit to his stack while Intia benefited fully. Not long after, Ruiz fell in 3rd place to Galpo when his two overcards were unable to crack pocket fours. This led to heads up. Galpo was in full command with a 2:1 advantage over Intia.

Ten minutes in, Intia took the lead for the first time with a monster double up while holding pocket aces. Another ten minutes went by, Intia’s lead quickly fizzled down to 10bbs with Galpo claiming it back and more. On a flop Kc-Qc-Jh, Galpo bet, Intia check-raised, Galpo thought on it then called while wishing Intia “good luck”. Intia had top pair Kh-6h while Galpo held 10s-2h open ended draw. That draw immediately connected on the turn 9d and with the river 2d, Galpo was back up and way up amassing 90% of the chips in play.

Intia battled back, was able to double up once, but it still wasn’t enough to be a threat. Galpo nailed it shut with Ad-6d over 9h-6h on a board of Kc-5d-6s-8s-2d with the shoves on the flop.

Congratulations to Gideon Galpo! He rose above the 487 entries of the Main Event, knocking out 6 players on the final day to capture his first-ever Metro victory.

Final day payouts
1st Gideon Galpo – P389,000 (deal)
2nd Jester Intia – P230,000 (deal)
3rd Danvic Ruiz – P340,000 (deal)
4th Trifie Montebon – P98,000
5th Joel Melchor – P72,000
6th Christopher Chua – P56,000
7th Jolas Guerrero – P44,000
8th Geno Gendrano – P36,000
9th Izutsu Shojiro – P28,000
10th Jimmie Javier – P24,000
11th Bonifacio Mondalo – P20,000
12th Ahmed Noor – P20,000
13th Emmanuel Segismundo – P18,000
14th Lemmor Patulot – P18,000
15th Philip Baider – P18,000
16th Ellezer Castillo – P16,000
17th Carlos Monton – P16,000
18th Bobby Nacario – P16,000