The Asian Poker Tour is currently hosting APT Korea Championships with a total of twelve days of festivities running from August 8 to August 19 at Paradise City, Incheon. As announced, this festival marks the start of the APT utilizing the Ante Big Blind format for all of their events. Half of the events have already completed. Impressively, a large contingent of Japanese players made the trip dominating the field at nearly every event including the Main Event which wrapped up yesterday.
Iori Yogo wins the Main Event
The ₩1,100,000 buying Main Event attracted 192 entries for a prize pool of ₩186,240,000 (~US$164,200). The final 8 players was nearly an all-Japanese affair with one player from the USA. Claiming the victory was a very familiar face in the Asia-Pacific region, poker pro Iori Yogo. Several months back, Yogo won the Championships Event at APT Philippines making this recent win his second APT championship title. Yogo earned ₩40,463,000 (~US$35,875).
Entering the final day, Yogo was not only the most decorated and experienced tournament player in the 8-man lineup but he also had the second-largest stack bested only by Tsubasa Kamei. Kamei eventually fell in 5th place with Yogo delivering the loss. Yogo went on to eliminate a total of four players. His heads up match was very lopsided as he led in chips by 6:1. It took only two hands to knock out Daiki Horikawa and ship in the title.
Final 8 payouts
Prizepool: ₩186,240,000 – Buyin: ₩1,100,000 – ITM: 32 places
1st Iori Yogo – Japan – ₩40,463,000
2nd Daiki Horikawa – Japan – ₩26,975,000
3rd Tomoharu Furuya – Japan – ₩18,833,000
4th Yosuke Murata – Japan – ₩13,709,000
5th Tsubasa Kamei – Japan – ₩10,361,000
6th Stu Terakawa – USA – ₩8,098,000
7th Shiga Mitsuhiro – Japan – ₩6,522,000
8th Toshimasa Sakato – Japan – ₩5,395,000
Masato Yokosawa wins the CoinPoker Super High Rollers
One of the first events to conclude was the CoinPoker Super High Rollers. In most cases, this special APT event rarely garners interest however this one drew in 6 players namely Winfred Yu, Calvin Sung Won Lee, Daniel Hyon Gin Lee, Masato Yokosawa, Dennis Chung Yuan Yu, and Kilian Loffler.
With the buy-in set at ₩16,000,000, and two players adding-on, the prize pool came to ₩124,160,000 (~US$109,500). Winning it was Yokosawa defeating Daniel Lee in a 4-hour marathon heads up. Initially the money was intended only for the winner however, due to the length of the final match, both players opted to pay out 2nd place.
Payouts
1st Masato Yokosawa – Japan – ₩74,160,000
2nd Daniel Lee – USA – ₩50,000,000
Eric Tsai and Kevin Clark win CoinPoker High Rollers events
There were two CoinPoker High Rollers events in the roster with the first one won by Taiwan’s Eric Tsai. Tsai topped a field of 57 entries to pocket the ₩32,229,000 first prize. He defeated Japan’s Inotsume Kazuma at heads up. Kazuma is running well at the series with three cashes in total and is currently running a very close second to Iori Yogo at the APT Player of the Series race.
The other CoinPoker High Rollers was a single day event with New Zealand’s Kevin Clark topping the 48-player field. He earned ₩28,904,000 and his first APT cash and title. Clark also reached the money in the earlier High Rollers event pocketing ₩10,919,000 for his 4th place finish. That puts him at nearly ₩40M in winnings at the series.
The festival will host its Championships Event today and will run for the next five days. Numerous side events will also run alongside before the series closes on August 19. We will have all that final info for you once it concludes.
Article by Tricia David
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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