APT Experience: Korea’s Gyeong Byeong Lee seizes the Main Event

Early last night, the Asian Poker Tour wrapped up the Main Event of its ongoing festival, the APT Experience Manila 2016, at the Waterfront Manila Pavilion Hotel and Casino in Manila, Philippines with Korea’s Gyeong Byeong Lee overpowering the final table to seize the P1,574,000 first place purse ($33,638).

Korea’s Gyeong Byeong Lee conquered APT Experience Manila 2016 Main Event

It was an interesting mix at the final table with two previous APT champions, Canada’s Linh Tran and Korea’s Seung Soo Jeon, along with APT regulars Denmark’s Michal Kim Falcon, Korea’s Jae Chul Chang, and Filipino player Chris Mateo, plus three fairly new players in the APT circuit, UK’s Gabriel Carter, Japan’s Tomoyasu Arai, and Lee.

Lee entered the final table running slightly behind the leader Tran but quickly jumped ahead when he eliminated Falcon in 8^th place. This was to be the first of four heads Lee would claim throughout the day. Lee’s next victim was Mateo who entered the final table with a healthy stack, running third in chips. Before Mateo met his end, he first lost a large portion of his stack to Jeon when he tried push Jeon out of a pot preflop but instead was called and his bluff revealed. Afterwards, Mateo was able to double up through Lee with pocket tens but all for naught as Lee exposed another Mateo bluff and sent him packing in 7^th place. Next on the chopping block was Chang who was unable to establish any momentum at the final table and exited in 6^th place at the hands of Tran.

With three APT regulars already burned out, newcomer Arai ended the hopes of both APT champions, Jeon and Tran. Arai eliminated Jeon in 5^th place, denying him a third title, and then proceeded to scalp Tran in 4^th place, denying him a second title. At three-handed, Arai took the lead from Lee but Lee was unfazed. Instead, he took full control of the table, winning multiple pots from both Arai and Carter.

The heads up round was reached when Lee eliminated Carter in 3^rd place. Entering heads up against Arai, Lee had a dominating lead with a 4:1 chip advantage. Needing to gain some ground, Arai shoved multiple times earning himself many small pots, but it barely inched his stack upwards as Lee won his fair share. With such a monstrous impenetrable stack in front of him, Lee simply waited for the right hand to call one of Arai’s shoves, and when it happened Lee was holding pocket tens against Arai’s ace-jack offsuit. With no improvement to Arai’s hand on the board, Lee shipped in his first-ever win at the APT, a win he can surely brag about.

Final Table Payouts:

1^st Gyeong Byeong Lee – Korea – P1,574,000

2^nd Tomoyasu Arai – Japan – P921,000

3^rd Gabriel Carter – United Kingdom – P637,000

4^th Linh Tran – Canada – P465,000

5^th Jeon Seung Soo – Korea – P385,000

6^th Jae Chul Chang – Korea – P317,000

7^th Chris Mateo – Philippines – P262,000

8^th Michael Kim Falcon – Denmark – P219,000