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Asian Poker Tour Launches 2023 Season With APT Hanoi; Running February 3-12

Ben Wilson / 18 Dec 2022

MANILA, PHILIPPINES, December 18, 2022 – Asia-based poker aficionados have something to celebrate in the new year, with the Asian Poker Tour (APT) announcing a new stop for the launch of their 2023 season.

Running February 3-12 Asia's most prestigious poker tour returns to Hanoi, Vietnam for the upcoming APT Hanoi .

"These dates have previously been announced for APT Manila, and while unfortunate that we won't be able to launch the season in the Philippines at the luxurious Newport World Resorts, we are looking forward to an exciting event there in the second half of 2023". said Neil Johnson, APT President.

“Players should absolutely mark down the dates we’ve released for the first half of the year. There will be several thrilling announcements in the coming months you won’t want to miss!”

"While you never like to have to make changes, we're thrilled that our great partnerships in Vietnam is allowing us to begin our year in the beautiful city of Hanoi and we're excited knowing what we will still be able to offer our players in Manila with Newport World Resorts during the second half of 2023."

This will be the third time the APT has visited the Vietnamese capital, with the last visit resulting in a record-breaking Main Event field and expectations are high for another great turnout.

Event Highlights

• Superstar Invitational : Feb 4-5
• Main Event : Feb 6-11
• High Roller : Feb 10-12

Asian Poker Tour 2023 Calendar

The 2023 season is set to be a busy and exciting year for poker in Asia with the release of an action-packed live events schedule from the Asian Poker Tour (APT). Some of the most popular APT tournaments are returning, bigger and better than ever before, alongside brand new events yet to be announced.

In addition to the upcoming APT Hanoi , players should mark the following dates in their calendars:

• Feb 3-12: APT Hanoi
• Mar 24-Apr 2: APT Phu Quoc, Vietnam
• Apr 28-May 7: APT Taipei, Taiwan

For the latest news on the Asian Poker Tour, please visit www.theasianpokertour.com

For further information, please contact [email protected] .

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New chapter for Asian Poker Tour: APT...

  2023 marks a new chapter for the Asian Poker Tour ...

New chapter for Asian Poker Tour: APT Hanoi 2023 revamped schedule and five-year sponsorship deal with Natural8

2023 marks a new chapter for the Asian Poker Tour with new owners, APT Events Private Limited , aiming to take the brand to greater heights. This past week revealed some of those changes starting with a revamped APT Hanoi 2023 schedule. F ollowing the release, the APT also announced an agreement with Natural8 that will see the online brand as title sponsor for five years. The tie-up begins with an APT Online series featuring $10,000,000 in guarantees. 

APT Hanoi 2023

APT, the longest running land based poker organizer in Asia, opens its 2023 season at the Vietnam Series of Poker (VSOP) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Viewed as the coolest looking poker room in the capital, the festival runs from February 3 to 12. It features 41 events and VN₫ 20 Billion (~$852,900) in guaranteed prize pools.  Amateurs and pros are in for a thrill with a variety of games priced from VN₫ 4,400,000 (~$185) to VN₫ 107,000,000 (~$4,560). Here are the highlights.

Guaranteed Events

The star of the festival is the APT MAIN EVENT which weighs in at an ambitious VN₫ 10 Billion (~$426,400) guarantee. This is double the amount of its first visit. Significant changes have also been made to the starting day formats. 

• Day 1A retains its 60 minutes per level
• Day 1B will see blinds increase every 45 minutes
• Day 1C and Day 1D will see blinds increase every 30 minutes
• Day 2, Day 3, and Final Table retain its 60 minutes per level
• Day 1 flights play ten levels

High Roller Events

The Vietnam high roller scene is vibrant and players worldwide have taken notice. At each festival, demand increases, therefore for the series, nine are scheduled with the Super Star Invitational (Open Event) peaking at VN₫ 107M buy in. 

Unique Events

Aside from staple tournaments, the APT introduces new events and gives space to past favorites such as the Women’s Event and Crazy Pineapple. 

For more information, head to the APT Hanoi 2023 schedule . Along with this release, the APT also included the full schedule for APT Phu Quoc 2023. The event takes place from March 24 to April 2 at the Corona Resort & Casino Phu Quoc. Details can be found here.

APT signs Natural8 as title sponsor for five years

In line with its season of progression, the APT has also announced a five-year agreement with online platform Natural8. In the official announcement, APT Chief Executive Officer, Fred Leung said, 

“2023 is going to be a transformative year for the Asian Poker Tour and inking this deal with Natural8 is a massive step towards reaching our new era initiatives. This collaboration with N8 will greatly improve our live event offerings and provide opportunities for players that didn’t previously exist.”

Linking up with N8 will no doubt cast a larger net. To kick off the deal, N8 is sponsor for several events in the released live schedules and plans to host a massive Asian Poker Tour Online (APTO) $10,000,000 guaranteed festival some time in February. Details have yet to be announced. 

Tricia David

Tricia David has long experience as a recreational poker player and has been covering poker events since 2010 for numerous outfits in Asia. She spent one year working part time with Poker Portal Asia then became editor and lead writer for all event coverage of the Philippine Poker Tour (PPT). Under the PPT, she overlooked content for their website, and produced live updates on all their events. In addition, she served as the live and online events website content writer for the Asian Poker Tour. Currently, she does live events reporting in Asia for online news site Somuchpoker and is also one of their news contributors.

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Asian Poker Tour announces 2023 Calendar

MANILA, Philippines – November 10, 2022 – 2023 is set to be a busy and exciting year for poker in Asia with the release of an action-packed live events schedule from the Asian Poker Tour (APT). Some of the most popular APT tournaments are returning, bigger and better than ever before, alongside brand new events yet to be announced.

The Asian poker season launches with APT Manila 2023 held at the luxurious Newport World Resorts from February 3-12. The ten-day series features the PHP 77,000 (~USD $1300) buy-in Main Event which comes with a PHP 30,000,000 (~USD $516,000) prize pool guarantee.

“2023 is going to be a transformative year for the Asian Poker Tour and it seemed fitting to begin the journey in Manila with our long-standing partner at Newport World Resorts.” said APT President Neil Johnson.

“Players should absolutely mark down the dates we’ve released for the first half of the year. There will be several thrilling announcements in the coming months you won’t want to miss!”

Asian Poker Tour 2023 Calendar

• FEB 3-12: APT Manila (Main Event PHP 30M Guarantee)
• MAR 24-APR 2: Phu Quoc, Vietnam
• APR 28-MAY 7: Taipei, Taiwan
• JUNE 2-11: Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

For the latest news on the Asian Poker Tour, please visit www.theasianpokertour.com

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Russia could begin full mobilisation after 2024 presidential election, Kyiv official says – as it happened

Secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council says Russia has increasingly put its economy onto war footing. This live blog is now closed

• Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 635
• 20 Nov 2023 Closing summary
• 20 Nov 2023 At least 11,000 Ukrainian children are reportedly being detained at 43 re-education camps across Russia, says MoD
• 20 Nov 2023 Russia may begin full mobilisation after 2024 presidential election, says senior security official
• 20 Nov 2023 Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch meets Zelenskiy in Kyiv
• 20 Nov 2023 Ukraine sacks two high-ranking cyber defence officials, says government official
• 20 Nov 2023 US defense secretary vows support to Ukraine 'for the long haul' on surprise trip to Kyiv
• 20 Nov 2023 Morning summary
• 20 Nov 2023 Two killed by Russian shelling in Kherson, Ukrainian authorities say
• 20 Nov 2023 US defence secretary visits Kyiv
• 20 Nov 2023 Opening summary

Nato supports Bosnia’s territorial integrity and is concerned by “malign foreign interference,” including by Russia , in the volatile Balkans region that went through a devastating war in the 1990s, Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg , has said.

Sarajevo is the first stop on Stoltenberg’s tour of western Balkan countries that will also include Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia, the Associated Press reports.

“The Allies strongly support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Stoltenberg told reporters. “We are concerned by the secessionist and divisive rhetoric as well as malign foreign interference, including Russia.”

There are widespread fears that Russia is trying to destabilise Bosnia and the rest of the region and shift at least some world attention from its war in Ukraine .

Morning summary

The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, arrived in Kyiv on Monday for a visit. “I’m here today to deliver an important message: the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine in their fight for freedom against Russia’s aggression, both now and into the future.”

Two people were killed early on Monday after Russian forces shelled a parking lot in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, authorities said. Regional prosecutors opened a war crimes investigation into the artillery strike, which occurred at about 9am (7am GMT) and injured one other person, the regional prosecutor’s office reported.

A Ukrainian soldier and a woman have died after a grenade exploded in a Kyiv apartment, police in the Ukrainian capital have said, but the cause of the blast, which injured a second man, was not immediately clear. Explosives technicians and investigators were working at the scene of Sunday’s explosion in the Dniprovskiy district, Kyiv police said in a statement.

The Ukrainian army said it had pushed back Russian forces “three to eight kilometres” from the banks of the Dnipro River, which if confirmed would be the first meaningful advance by Kyiv’s forces months into a disappointing counteroffensive . Ukrainian and Russian forces have been entrenched on opposite sides of the vast waterway in the southern Kherson region for more than a year, after Russia withdrew its troops from the western bank last November.

A Ukrainian teenager who was taken to Russia from the occupied city of Mariupol during the war and prevented from leaving earlier this year has returned to Ukraine . Bohdan Yermokhin, who turned 18 on Sunday, appealed to Zelenskiy this month to help bring him back to Ukraine. “I believed I would be in Ukraine, but not on this day,” Yermokhin told Reuters while eating at a petrol station after crossing the border.

About 3,000 mostly Ukrainian trucks, including those carrying fuel and humanitarian aid, were stuck on the Polish side of the border on Sunday due to a more than 10-day blockade by Polish truckers, Ukrainian authorities said . Polish truckers earlier this month blocked roads to three border crossings with Ukraine to protest against what they see as government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Air defence units in Moscow intercepted a drone targeting the city late Sunday, mayor Sergei Sobyanin said . Sobyanin, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said units in the Elektrostal district in the capital’s east had intercepted the drone. No casualties or damage were initially reported. Air defences had also thwarted a drone attack on the Russian capital overnight to Sunday, authorities said earlier.

Russia launched 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones targeting Kyiv and the Cherkasy and Poltava regions overnight into Sunday, the Ukrainian military said, of which 15 were shot down . The overnight strikes on Kyiv were the second attack on the Ukrainian capital in 48 hours, said the city’s military administration spokesperson, Serhii Popko.

Five people including a three-year-old girl were injured in Russian artillery shelling of Kherson on Sunday morning, the Ukrainian interior minister, Ihor Klymenko , said . “All of them sustained shrapnel wounds. The child and the grandmother were walking in the yard. Enemy artillery hit them near the entrance,” Klymenko said on the Telegram messaging app.

The pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin , who is in custody awaiting trial for inciting extremism, said he wanted to run for president even though he understood the March election would be a “sham” with the winner already clear . Girkin, who is also known by the alias Igor Strelkov, has repeatedly said Russia faces revolution and even civil war unless President Vladimir Putin’s military top brass fight the war in Ukraine more effectively. A former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who helped Russia to annex Crimea in 2014 and then to organise pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine, Girkin said before his arrest that he and his supporters were entering politics.

The Kremlin, facing the prospect of a European Union ban on imports of Russian diamonds, said on Monday that EU sanctions tended to have a “boomerang effect” on those who applied them, Reuters reports.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was commenting on a proposed EU ban on diamond imports from Russia as part of a new sanctions package against Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine .

Russia is the world’s biggest producer of rough diamonds by volume. Peskov told reporters such a move had been anticipated for a long time, but was likely to backfire.

“As a rule, it turns out that a boomerang effect is partially triggered: the interests of the Europeans themselves suffer. So far, we have been able to find ways to minimise the negative consequences of sanctions,” he said.

EU diplomatic sources said last week the proposal under discussion was to ban direct diamond imports from Russia from 1 January and from March to implement a traceability mechanism that would prevent imports of Russian gems processed in third countries.

The Kremlin said on Monday that president Vladimir Putin will set out Russia’s view of what it sees as the “deeply unstable world situation” when he addresses an upcoming virtual G20 summit.

Russian state TV presenter Pavel Zarubin said on his Telegram channel on Sunday that it would be the “first event in a long time” including both Putin and western leaders.

According to the state RIA news agency, the G20 virtual summit will be held on Wednesday.

The Kremlin said on Monday it regretted Finland’s decision to shut crossings on its border with Russia , saying it reflected Helsinki’s adoption of an anti-Russian stance, Reuters reports.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov , speaking at a regular news briefing, also rejected Finland’s accusation that Russia is deliberately pushing illegal migrants towards the border and said that Russian border guards were following all instructions.

Finland, a member of the European Union and – from this year – also of the Nato military alliance, closed four crossings on its border with Russia on Saturday as Helsinki seeks to halt a flow of asylum seekers it says was instigated by Moscow.

The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, arrives in Kyiv on Monday morning.

Two killed by Russian shelling in Kherson, Ukrainian authorities say

Reuters reports that two people were killed early on Monday after Russian forces shelled a parking lot in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, authorities said.

Regional prosecutors opened a war crimes investigation into the artillery strike, which occurred at about 9am (7am GMT) and injured one other person, the regional prosecutor’s office reported.

The Kherson governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said the two dead were drivers for a private transport business.

Images posted on Telegram showed firefighters dousing cars that had been blasted apart, one day after a separate strike on the city wounded five people, including a three-year-old girl.

Russian forces have regularly shelled Kherson from across the Dnipro River since the regional capital was reoccupied by Ukrainian troops last November.

Ukraine said last week it had secured a foothold on the eastern bank of the Dnipro and that its troops were trying to push Russian forces further back.

US defence secretary visits Kyiv

The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, arrived in Kyiv on Monday for a visit, he said on the X social media platform, Reuters reports.

“I’m here today to deliver an important message: the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine in their fight for freedom against Russia’s aggression, both now and into the future.”

The visit comes amid increasing division over Ukraine aid in the US legislature. A joint Ukraine-US military industry conference in Washington is due to take place next month.

That event, due to be held on 6-7 December, is intended to boost Ukraine’s domestic arms production as its fight against a full-scale Russian invasion nears the two-year mark.

Reuters reports that a Japanese delegation led by senior industry and foreign ministry officials and including business representatives is visiting Ukraine on Monday for talks ahead of a reconstruction conference that Japan will host, the industry ministry said.

Japan, which has been supporting Ukraine with funds and by accepting refugees since Russia invaded in February 2022, has also been promoting support for Ukraine at the level of the G7, which Japan chairs this year.

Kazuchika Iwata , the state minister of economy, trade and industry (METI), and the state minister for foreign affairs Kiyoto Tsuji , are visiting together with representatives of Japan companies, METI said in a statement.

In Kyiv, the delegation, which includes members of Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby, in charge of a committee on Ukraine’s reconstruction, plans talks with the prime minister, Denys Shmyhal , government officials and companies.

Shmyhal said this month Ukraine would need budget support of about $42bn this year and next year to plug a massive deficit and aid reconstruction from the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion.

METI said the visit was an opportunity to hear about Ukraine’s needs and to discuss specific projects and accelerate public and private efforts to help.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy – who visited Japan in May during a G7 summit – and the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, agreed this month to hold a Japan-Ukraine Conference for promotion of Economic Reconstruction in Tokyo on 19 February.

Opening summary

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine .

A Ukrainian soldier and a woman have died after a grenade exploded in a Kyiv apartment, police in the Ukrainian capital have said, but the cause of the blast, which injured a second man, was not immediately clear.

Explosives technicians and investigators were working at the scene of Sunday’s explosion in the Dniprovskiy district, Kyiv police said in a statement.

“A citizen contacted the police with a report that an explosion rang out in a neighbouring apartment,” they added.

The news came as Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed the commander of the military’s medical forces , Maj Gen Tetiana Ostashchenko, and said “new priorities had been set” in the operations of Ukraine’s military after a meeting with the defence minister, Rustem Umerov.

“There is little time left to wait for results. Quick action is needed for forthcoming changes,” the Ukrainian president said in his evening video address.

In other key developments:

Russia launched 20 Iranian-made Sha hed drones targeting Kyiv and the Cherkasy and Poltava regions overnight into Sunday, the Ukrainian military said, of which 15 were shot down . The overnight strikes on Kyiv were the second attack on the Ukrainian capital in 48 hours, said the city’s military administration spokesperson, Serhii Popko.

Five people including a three-year-old girl were injured in Russian artillery shelling of Kherson on Sunday morning, the Ukrainian interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said . “All of them sustained shrapnel wounds. The child and the grandmother were walking in the yard. Enemy artillery hit them near the entrance,” Klymenko said on the Telegram messaging app.

The pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who is in custody awaiting trial for inciting extremism, said he wanted to run for president even though he understood the March election would be a “sham” with the winner already clear . Girkin, who is also known by the alias Igor Strelkov, has repeatedly said Russia faces revolution and even civil war unless President Vladimir Putin’s military top brass fight the war in Ukraine more effectively. A former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who helped Russia to annex Crimea in 2014 and then to organise pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine, Girkin said before his arrest that he and his supporters were entering politics.

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