The Asia Poker League has been the latest event for Asian poker players this week, with the Xi‘an Baoyulin Poker Club providing the location for what was the third event in China to be hosted by the APL. This event is the third of this year too, with two APL Road Series festivals having already taken place earlier.
Dai Luiheng wins High Roller
The High Roller during this series was attended by 63 players, each paid CNY15,000 (≈ USD2,180) to enter. The prize pool topped CNY916,650 (≈ USD133,263). J88poker’s Jin Tian was one of the key players to watch in this event, and she did not disappoint, making a deep run and eventually finishing 4th place. Despite Tian’s efforts, it was Dai Luiheng who eventually made his way to the title, bringing home the CNY 275,000 (≈ USD39,979) first prize. Chen Ping took 2nd place for CNY 175,000.
High Roller Payouts
1st Dai Luiheng – CNY 275,000 (≈ USD39,979)
2nd Chen Ping – CNY 175,000
3rd Zhang Ning – CNY 130,000
4th Jin Tian – CNY 100,000
5th Cui Dongdong – CNY 85,000
6th Li Nan – CNY 60,000
7th Zhou Jianguo – CNY 50,000
8th Zhang Yijie – CNY 41,650
Main Event attracts 760 entries
Currently ongoing, the Main Event of the festival which features a CNY 5,500 Buy-In (≈ USD801) attracted 720 entries, creating a prizepool of CNY 3,686,000 (≈ USD535,888) in the process. The current chipleader is China’s Lou Ke Dong with a stack of 264,500 chips.
James Kim, General Manager of the APL said to Somuchpoker:
“We are very pleased with the attendance of this event. It’s our first event in Xi’An and we hope that this turnout will encourage more international players to make the trip to China to play poker”.
Final table of the Main Event will be played out on August 22nd.
Korean players crush the side events
Event 4, the CNY3,300 buy-in No Limit Hold’em saw Korean player Cho Tae Joon emerge as the victor, setting a precedent for Korean players in this series’ side events.
The CNY2,200 Turbo event also saw a Korean succeed, as Ki Junh Young came out on top of a field of 14 entries, taking home a CNY13,560 (≈ USD1,976) piece of the CNY27,160 (≈ USD3,957) prize pool.
Not only that, at another event – the CNY4,400 Knockout which drew 19 entries and created a CNY55,290 (≈ USD8,056) prize pool, once again we witnessed another Korean success as Jun Young Kim took the win for CNY24,790 (≈ USD3,612).
Given that Judic Kim, founder of the APL is also Korean, it is exciting to see such success from up and coming players from the country during this latest instalment of the APL.
Next: APL Vietnam
During APL Xi’An, the organisers also confirmed the dates of their next festival. The Asia Poker League will return for a second event in Vietnam from Nov 15th to 25th. The host this time will be Pro Poker Club in Ho Chi Minh City.
The Main event will guarantee an 8 billion prizepool (≈ USD344,096), and the buy-in is set at VND 16.5M (≈ USD714.01).
Article by Craig Bradshaw
