The Asia Pacific Poker Tour has a new Manila record. Registration for the 2026 APPT Manila Main Event closed on 1,413 entries, building a prize pool of PHP 97,666,560 — roughly USD 1.61 million — against a PHP 60 million guarantee that was never in doubt. South Korea’s Joungsun Kim bagged the Day 2 chip lead with 855,000, about 171 big blinds.
The PHP 80,000 (~USD 1,300) buy-in ran four Day 1 flights at Cove Manila inside Okada Manila, and the final tally cleared both recent editions: 1,246 entries in 2025 and 1,304 in 2024. The winner now plays for PHP 15,530,000, or about USD 255,800.
Day 1C carried the field
The four flights were lopsided. Day 1A opened with 300 entries and sent 47 through. Day 1B added 348 and advanced 56. Then came Day 1C — 527 entries in a single flight, 94 survivors, and the moment the record stopped being a question. The Day 1D turbo mopped up another 238 entries and, thanks to its shallower structure and later bag, pushed 72 players into Day 2.
That is 269 returning players from 1,413 entries, a survival rate that says plenty about how deep the Manila structure plays before the money.
Kim out front, two former champions still alive
Kim’s 855,000 is comfortably clear of the chasing pack. Cezar Quiambao, flying the local flag, and China’s Wesley Zikai Huang each bagged 484,000 — a shade over half the leader’s stack but well above the average.
Behind them, the tournament’s own history is still in play. Xiong Cheng, who took the 2024 Manila title, returns with 221,000. Minwoong Jeong, the 2025 Championship winner, has work to do on 120,000. The one name missing is defending champion Justin Ong, who fired at the flights without finding a bag and hands the trophy over by default.
Sixty-two bustouts from the money
A field this size pays 207 players, which leaves 62 eliminations between the Day 2 restart and the bubble. Min-cash is PHP 128,000 — about USD 2,100, or a shade over 1.5 buy-ins — so the short stacks scrapping to ladder in are playing for a genuine result rather than a consolation.
The stack distribution makes for an ugly middle. Anyone sitting in the 120,000–220,000 range, including Jeong and Cheng, is close enough to the money to feel it and short enough that folding into it is not a plan. Expect the bubble to arrive faster than the raw numbers suggest.
Where the tour heads next
Manila has now delivered three straight Main Events north of 1,200 entries, which is a useful data point for anyone still treating Southeast Asia as a secondary stop on the circuit. It is the volume, not the buy-in, doing the work: a four-figure entry fee and a five-figure field is a formula the region keeps proving out.
Next on the APPT calendar is Korea, running September 3–14 at Paradise City Casino in Incheon — the same city currently hosting a separate Asian Poker Tour festival, in what has quietly become one of the busiest live poker corridors in the region.