The Asian Poker Tour concluded its fourth festival of the season with APT Korea Seoul 2018 wrapping up on June 24 at Paradise Casino Walkerhill. This was the tour’s first visit to the city bringing with them ten days of nonstop poker festivities. The top story was online player Jinwoo Kim. Last year, Kim finished 2nd at the APT Korea Incheon Main Event, losing only to Albert Paik. Hungry for a live tournament title, Kim returned to the APT Main Event felt and this time he bagged it.
This victory was an overwhelming one for Kim who was quoted as saying, “the title was everything”. But his run wasn’t exactly a smooth one. He had scares along the way.
For starters, Kim entered Day 2 just one spot above the shortest stack in the rung. Even late registrants had over double his stack coming in. At one point, Kim dropped even lower, to just 5 big blinds, with the money not yet in sight. By the end of the day, he impressively drove his stack from the dregs to the very top of the heap. At Day 3, Kim continued to amass more chips, entering the Final 8 table running third rank.
For a majority of the final table, Kim stayed in the upper tier of the chip counts exchanging leads with New Zealand’s Paul Hong. When the players dwindled to half, Kim railed Hyun Kyu Bae (4th) and Roman Shcherbakov (3rd) to face Hong at heads up. After an ICM deal was reached, they played for the title and an extra KRW 2M. Kim went on to win it, pocketing KRW 26,225,000 (US$ 23,576) and his first-ever career title. With Hong having the larger stack during the deal, he earned KRW 34,337,000 (USD 30,868.) making him the top earner at the series.
The KRW 1,100,000 buy Main Event kicked off with 170 entries for a prize pool of KRW 164,900,000 (USD 148,245). Among the 29 places pocketing a share of the pot were 12 Japanese players which included Kosei Ichinose (10th) and Ken Okada (26th).
Final 8 payouts
1st Jinwoo Kim – USA – KRW 26,225,000 (deal made)
2nd Paul Hong – New Zealand – KRW 34,337,000 (deal made)
3rd Roman Shcherbakov – Russia – KRW 16,744,000
4th Hyun Kyu Bae – Canada – KRW 11,999,000
5th Masaki Fujitani – Japan – KRW 8,915,000
6th Jason Sun – China – KRW 6,808,000
7th Okabe Shoei – Japan – KRW 5,485,000
8th Teruhisa Aoyama – Japan – KRW 4,542,000
Stephane Blouin wins the APT Player of the Series
With this victory, Kim also took second in the APT Player of the Series. Winning that race was Canada’s Stephane Blouin.
Stephane Blouin took down the Welcome Event and proceeded to cash in three other events to win the APT POS title. His list of achievements:
1st NLH Welcome Event
4th Head Hunter
2nd No Limit Hold’em One Day
3rd Pot Limit Omaha Hi
Taking 3rd in the APT POS race was Russian player Roman Shcherbakov with two cashes, 3rd place at the Main Event and 2nd at the No Limit Hold’em 1.
Kai Jan Chou wins the High Rollers and PLO Hi
The only player to win two titles at the series was Taiwan’s Kai Jan Chou. Chou was victorious at the Pot Limit Omaha Hi event besting the small field of 16 players for a light earning of KRW 4,501,000 (USD 4,031). His larger score arrived at the High Rollers, topping the 45 player field for KRW 27,577,000 (USD 24,701). APT regular Stephen Nathan also cashed at this event taking home KRW 4,160,000 (USD 3,726) for his 7th place run.
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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