Huidong Gu captures the inaugural APPT Jeju Main Event; Yang Zhang runner-up
The inaugural Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Jeju crowned its first Main Event champion with Macau’s Huidong Gu overcoming the 362 field atJeju Shinhwa World– Landing Casino. This was Gu’s first-ever major title; he pocketed KR₩ 183,695,000 (~US$ 159,000), the largest live score of his career.
In a brief interview with APPT, Gu expressed,
“I was going to just warm-up in Korea for the World Series Main event — I’ve already bought a ticket… Basically I just feel lucky to have won this title.”
Huidong Gu on a roll
The victory was nothing short of glorious for Huidong Gu who is clearly on a roll this year. Gu improved on his 7th place APPT Korea Incheon Main Event finish last April. He is now looking at 7 total cashes for the year. One more deep run and he will have surpassed his most number of cashes back in 2015. Late last month, Gu won the APT Korea Seoul KR₩ 3,200,000 High Roller event. He climbed over US$ 500K in live earnings.
Main Event rundown
The inaugural Jeju Main Event ran from June 24 to 27. Over the course of three starting heats, 362 entered at KR₩ 2,500,000 (~US$ 2,100) each to smash the KR₩ 500M guarantee. At Day 2, APPT Main Event decorated champion, New Zealand’s Tae Hoon Han led in the 97 hungry pack. Only 41 were ensured a piece of the KR₩ 790,065,000 (~US$ 682,900) prize pool. Day 2 wrapped up with 11 players remaining; Han continued to dominate while Huidong Gu trailed second. Returning to Asia from the 2019 WSOP, decorated APPT Main Event champion, Chinese pro Yang Zhang was also in the lineup in fourth position.
On the final day, the quick fall of Lijiang Liu (10th) and Guodong Tian (11th) formed the final table of nine. From there, it was the Yang Zhang show sending four players to the chopping block – Kairan Jin (8th), Tae Hoon Han (7th), Siyuan Wang (5th), and Ruihong Tao (3rd). Han’s downfall was a brutal one. His run for a second APPT Main Event title ended on a failed bluff. As for Gu, he too helped trim the field. He eliminated Jiageng Zhang (9th) and the lone Vietnamese at the table, Duc Trung Vu (6th). Fourth place finisher Zhang Mengyin fell at the hands of Tao.
At heads up, Yang held the chip lead and as the more seasoned player, he was favored to win. However it was not to be. Once Gu overtook, Yang was unable to recover and had to settle for runner-up.
Final table payouts
1st Huidong Gu – Macau – KR₩ 183,695,000
2nd Yang Zhang – China – KR₩ 16,535.000
3rd Ruihong Tao – China – KR₩ 73,081,000
4th Zhang Mengyin – China – KR₩ 57,280,000
5th Siyuan Wang – China – KR₩ 41,478,000
6th Duc Trung Vu – Vietnam – KR₩ 33,578,000
7th Tae Hoon Han – New Zealand – KR₩ 26,467,000
8th Kairan Jin – China – KR₩ 22,517,000
9th Jiageng Zhang – China – KR₩ 18,567,000
Among the pros in the money but outside of the final table were: Quan Zhou (17th), WSOP bracelet winner Shawn Busse (29th), and Liang Song (37th).
Article by Tricia David
