J88Poker Tour wrapped up another successful festival at the CTP Club – Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Association. The first edition in December 2018 – which so happened to be their first-ever live venture – saw a packed house everyday that this second edition was staged just a short three months after.
The festival ran for six days from March 29 to April 3. Players from all over Asia attended representing nations and regions: Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and of course Taiwan. The Main Event not only smashed the advertised guarantee but it also doubled up to NT$10,170,000 (US$330,000). Winning it was Taiwan’s own Chi Hang for NT$2,152,000 (US$69,000). Hang also claimed the highly coveted WSOP 2019 Main Event ticket and the J88PT championship bracelet.
Overall the festival paid out NT$23 Million (US$746,000) in prizes spread across 11 events. One of the last to conclude was the High Roller event. We have that result for you below.
Eemil Tuominen wins the High Roller for his second trophy
The only player to lift two trophies at the festival was Finland’s Eemil Tuominen. Days ago, Tuominen won the Pot Limit Omaha event for NT$162,260; last night, he shipped an even bigger payout for his victory at the High Roller. Tuominen overcame a deficit at heads up against Korea’s Kong Seung Su to claim the handsome NT$1,432,500 (US$46,500) first prize.
The High Roller event ran for two days with registration still open on the second day. Nearly every player at the table had achievements to boast of. At the close, 52 was the tally and at NT$88,000 each, the prize pool amounted to NT$4,035,200 (~US$131,000).
Catching the action at 10-handed with the bubble round just one elimination away, Jiwoon Kim’s stack plummeted on a set over set turnout. It was all in preflop with Kim holding pocket fives that was dominated by Kong’s pocket kings. The flop awarded Kim a set but a higher set to Kong came on the river. Kim was down to 3bbs and soon busted. As for Kong, he brought his stack all the way to the heads up round. The bubble burst on Vincent Li with 
dominated by Phachara Wongwichit’s 
.
Once the money flowed, players dropped quite fast. Heads up was reached at the fall of Pete Yen Han Chen. Kong began the round with the chip advantage against Tuominen but couldn’t rein it in. Tuominen overtook and eventually closed it out. The last hand was Q-10 versus A-7. Though not needed, Tuominen paired his ace to send Kong packing in 2nd place.
Payouts
1st Eemil Tuominen – Finland – NT$1,432,500
2nd Kong Seung Su – Korea – NT$908,000
3rd Pete Yen Han Chen – Taiwan – NT$575,000
4th Phachara Wongwichit – Thailand – NT$393,500
5th Alan Lau King Lun – Hong Kong – NT$262,300
6th Terry Fan – Taiwan – NT$201,700
7th Chen Hao – China – NT$141,200
8th Kei Shinagawa – Japan – NT$121,000
That wraps up our coverage of the J88Poker Tour 2019 at CTP Club. Congratulations to all the festival winners!
More: More: J88Poker Tour Full Coverage
Article by Tricia David
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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