J88Poker’s new live tournament series, J88PT got underway with two festivals in a two-week period: J88PT Ultra Stack Taipei and J88PT Shanghai.
Everything you should know about both festivals:
J88PT Ultra Stack Taipei: Huang Wei claims the title
The Ultra Stack having taken place between September 18th and 23rd at the Ace8 International Poker Association.
This was the third live event to be hosted in Taipei, with the other two having taken place at the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Association. They were a success, with over NT$ 6.2 million in prize money awarded at the Main Event in 2018 and over NT$10 Million in 2019.
This time, J88Poker has augmented its new series of live events by adding smaller buy-in events and guarantees to J88PT Ultra Stack compared to their original tour. To ensure the series met International standards, J88Poker invited in Chris Christian, who has worked for 10 years as a tournament director for PokerStars at WPT, DPT and APL.
His entire team also came on board, helping to deliver a professional series. Also, most of the events were broadcast on Twitch and YouTube.
The Main Event for the Ultra Stack attracted a total of 311 entries through 4 flights. On Day 1C, the prize pool surpassed the guarantee. With buy-ins of NT$12,000 (US$387) each, the advertised 3M guarantee rose to NT$3,732,000 (US$121,800). Day 1 was a multi-accumulator, so many players took several shots in order to try and build a huge stack for day 2.
The one who managed to accumulate the biggest stack was Kim Ji Woon, J88Poker CEO. This year, he is in excellent form and only a few months ago he was busy playing at the WSOP, finishing 47th in the WSOP Main Event out of 8,569 entries. He was the chip leader in the Ultra Stack Main Event for some time until the final table was almost set.
Another notable player in the Ultra Stack Main Event was Chen Hao. The J88Poker team pro almost got to the final but was eliminated in 9th. His results at this series so far are impressive, with two titles having been won, in a Turbo and Turbo Win the Button event.
Other J88Poker team pros have also excelled. Lim Yohwan ‘Boxer’ and Chen An Lin both reached the final table.
Choi Eun Bin, a poker player from South Korea is also worthy of a special mention, having earned her seat at the final table following her victory in the Short Deck KO Turbo event.
The Main Event was eventually won by Huang Wei from Taiwan!
The final hand:
The final hand saw Wei-Cheng Yin’s A♠J♦ go up against Huang Wei’s A♦10♥. When Wei-Cheng Yin raised to 500K pre-flop, Huang Wei pushed all-in and quickly got called. The flop of 9♥10♦6♣, brought some much-needed help in the form of a pair of 10s for Huang Wei. He was then able to survive with a 2♦ turn and a 3♠ on the river to be crowned champion.
The final table payouts are as follows:
1st place – Huang Wei NT$700,000 (US$22,896)
2nd place – Wei-Cheng Yin NT$500,000 (US$16,354)
3rd place – Sin Ren Chen NT$322,000 (US$10,532)
4th place – Chen An Lin NT$240,000 (US$7,850)
5th place – Kim Ji Woon NT$180,000 (US$5,888)
6th place – Li “Neo” Han Chen NT$150,000 (US$4,906)
7th place – Lim Yohwan NT$120,000 (US$3,925)
8th place – Choi Eun Bin NT$96,000 (US$3,140)
Besides the Main Event, J88Poker also scheduled a lot of side events to keep those on the rail entertained.
Here are the side event champions:
– Progressive KO – Kun Chuan Chen – Taiwan – NT$69,520 (US$2,275)
– Turbo – Chen Hao – China – NT$60,750 (US$1,988)
– Hyper Turbo – Wei Bo Ye – China – NT$50,000 (US$1,636)
– Turbo Win the Button – Chen Hao – China – NT$57,550 (US$1,882)
– Short Deck KO Turbo – Choi Eun Bin – South Korea – NT$41,500 (US$1,357)
– Iron Man – Fang Hao Huang – Taiwan – NT$113,640 (US$3,717)
– High Roller – Kuan Yu Chen – Taiwan – NT$374,200 (US$12,239)
Hong Jinho wins Shanghai stop
J88PT Ultra Stack finished on September 23rd, and there was less than a week before J88PT moved to Shanghai. The event took place at the WanTi Club, with J88PT and the club working together for the first time. The main focus was the Main Event tournament which had a CNY1,380,000 (US$195,240) guarantee. For this special occasion, J88Poker released carefully crafted J88PT series trophies.
The Main Event ran over a period of 6 days and had 4 opening day flights. The tournament attracted a healthy field size, with the most popular flight turning out to be Day 1D with 295 entries. In total, the Main Event collected 860 entries – which is a new record for J88PT to date. This is particularly noteworthy as this was J88PT’s first event in Shanghai.
With a CNY3,000 buy-in and a good turnout, the CNY1,380,000 (US$195,240) guarantee was boosted up to CNY2,580,000 (US$360,916).
Day 3 saw the final table get started, with two J88Poker Team Pros still in the hunt. Hong Jinho ‘Yellow’ and Justin Shin were among the most experienced players at the table, and it is no surprise they went on to meet each other during the heads up battle for the title. Hong Jinho was eventually able to win the Main Event with the most desirable of hands – AA. It should be mentioned that Hong Jinho only began his poker career last year but is already number 33 in the All-Time Money List for South Korea with $119,174 in live earnings. This latest win will only strengthen his climb up the ladder.
Immediately after the Main Event had finished, Hong Jinho moved on to the Monster Stack, which was the only side tournament at J88PT Shanghai. The tournament saw 132 entries, and Hong Jinho was one of the last to enter. Even though his starting stack was well below the average, he managed to build quickly and made it to the final table, eventually finishing in 3rd place. Qian Qing Tian from China took the top prize.
This may only be the first year of J88Poker’s live event brand J88PT hitting the market, but it is already gaining recognition in Asia.
The next live events are not scheduled yet, however, online platform J88Poker is holding a special online event called Super Burning Sunday on October 27th. The Main Event will have a guaranteed prize pool ₵3,000,000 and a buy-in of ₵8,800.
Article by Craig Bradshaw – Sponsored by J88Poker
