The WPT National Korea festival has already served up some interesting side event action, but today, we are on to the Main Event, with day 1a and 1b now in the books.
WPT Korea Main Event (Photo PKC)
Day 1A
The opening day of the tournament saw many important names in the Asian poker world pay the KRW2,200,000 buy in ($1888) and take their seats. The final number of entries for the day 1a reached 68, with only 24 of those surviving to the end of the day.
Raymond Wu, Bryan Huang, Sixiao Li, Jason Lo, Tetsuya Tsuchikawa, and Sparrow Cheung are just a few of the big names who were heavily involved in day 1a action. Some of the names mentioned in that list have not only survived the first day, but taken sizable chip stacks forward to day 2. At the end of two starting days, Bryan Huang is 51st in the chip counts, Sparrow Cheung is 46th, Tsuchikawa 25th, but it was Jason Lo and Sixiao Li who really stole the show. Both are members of Poker King Club’s team of pros, and they are now 1st and 3rd in the chip counts. Lo leads the way with 176,000, and is fresh off the back of winning the bounty tournament a couple of days ago.
Jason Lo (Photo PKC)
Day 1B
The second starting day always had a tough task ahead to match the excitement of day 1a, but with many more top pros taking to the felt today, it certainly did a good job. The total number of entries for day 1b grew to 92 giving us a final field size of 160 for the Main Event. The total prize pool is now set at KRW310,400,000 ($266,000). Of the more notable names to participate in today’s action, the following are still alive and carrying stacks forward into day 2: Sam Ng (160,600), Alex Lee (140,400), Kai Paulsen (38,600). The chip leader at the end of day 1b was James Lee and he will be joining the big stacks from day 1a as the field merges.
WPT Korea Main Day 1B (Photo PKC)
The top 3 finishers in this event are also set to win a free seat into the next Poker King Cup which will take place in the Philippines on June 9th.
Day 2 Seat draw
| Player Name | Country | Chip Count | Table | Seat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jason Wai Tung Lo | Hong Kong | 176,000 | 4 | 1 |
| James Lee | USA | 168,800 | 4 | 2 |
| Sixiao Li | China | 165,000 | 2 | 8 |
| Sam Ng | Malaysia | 160,600 | 7 | 3 |
| Toshiya Ogawa | Japan | 150,500 | 1 | 5 |
| Alex Lee | Singapore | 140,400 | 3 | 5 |
| Yubing Wang | China | 135,500 | 6 | 3 |
| Ling Dong Meng | China | 131,500 | 2 | 2 |
| Hoi Wong | Hong Kong | 122,100 | 2 | 9 |
| Eddy Liang | Chinese Taipei | 121,200 | 4 | 8 |
| Fei Luo | China | 109,000 | 6 | 2 |
| Chengxin Wang | China | 108,000 | 3 | 2 |
| Chung Wei Wu | Chinese Taipei | 102,400 | 2 | 1 |
| Liwei Han | China | 101,100 | 3 | 7 |
| Xin Xu | China | 97,700 | 4 | 5 |
| Zhi Chao Zhang | China | 88,400 | 3 | 1 |
| Meng Dian Peng | China | 81,300 | 6 | 5 |
| Yiguang Xu | China | 76,800 | 5 | 4 |
| Zheng Ge | China | 74,900 | 5 | 3 |
| Qifeng Duan | China | 73,100 | 1 | 7 |
| Xi Jie Sun | China | 70,500 | 3 | 9 |
| Hattori Akiteru | Japan | 68,900 | 5 | 6 |
| Fei Huang | China | 68,400 | 3 | 3 |
| Shang Shang Liu | China | 65,300 | 5 | 1 |
| Tetsuya Tsuchikawa | Japa | 63,100 | 6 | 4 |
| Shaobo Li | China | 58,400 | 1 | 2 |
| Kenji Hata | Japan | 57,400 | 2 | 4 |
| Guofu Chen | China | 56,400 | 4 | 9 |
| Zhe Wang | China | 55,700 | 5 | 2 |
| Gareth Pepper | New Zealand | 53,800 | 1 | 9 |
| Hongjun Liu | China | 52,500 | 3 | 4 |
| Chuan Song Chen | China | 50,300 | 1 | 4 |
| Hyunshik Yun | Korea | 50,300 | 7 | 1 |
| Henrik Tollefsen | Norway | 48,800 | 6 | 7 |
| Fen Gao | China | 48,300 | 2 | 7 |
| WeiQing Yang | China | 47,700 | 5 | 5 |
| HuaFeng Gu | China | 46,800 | 4 | 7 |
| Fei Gao | China | 46,500 | 4 | 3 |
| Phachara Wongwichit | Australia | 45,600 | 1 | 6 |
| Yuto Takeuchi | Japan | 45,300 | 5 | 7 |
| Andy Asihwardji | Canada | 45,000 | 3 | 8 |
| Kai Paulsen | Norway | 38,600 | 6 | 1 |
| Jie Xin Liu | China | 38,000 | 7 | 7 |
| Celine Li | China | 33,900 | 2 | 6 |
| Fan Fan | China | 32,800 | 7 | 5 |
| Sparrow Cheung | Hong Kong | 31,500 | 4 | 6 |
| Chang Ting Chen | China | 31,400 | 7 | 2 |
| Kai Jun Xiao | China | 31,100 | 2 | 5 |
| Jia Yu | China | 30,300 | 6 | 8 |
| Vincent Kwun Ngai Li | Hong Kong | 29,200 | 7 | 6 |
| Bryan Huang | Singapore | 27,800 | 2 | 3 |
| Yin Liu | China | 25,500 | 4 | 4 |
| Zhong Yang | China | 25,000 | 1 | 1 |
| Yuefeng Tang | China | 23,400 | 1 | 8 |
| Kaixun Zhang | China | 22,100 | 6 | 6 |
| Tanaka Masatoshi | Japan | 21,000 | 7 | 4 |
| Kilian Loeffler | German | 14,400 | 7 | 8 |
| Shuai Sun | China | 13,700 | 5 | 8 |
| Nakata Kinichi | Japan | 12,500 | 3 | 6 |
| Kawata Yuji | Japan | 12,000 | 1 | 3 |
Louis Hartwell
Graduated in Media Communication at the University of Lausanne, Louis Hartman is a co-founder of somuchpoker.com. He began his career in Cambodia as freelance journalist. In same time he was making his living by playing poker every night at that time. Intense learner, he read dozens of poker strategy books to improve his skills during many years. With a strong interest about poker "behind the scene" in Asia and his communication skills, Louis launched Somuchpoker in 2014.
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