Super Cup Seoul 2024: Mind Sports Meet Poker With Nearly USD 2M in Prize Pools

Live poker in South East Asia has gained a lot of popularity throughout the last few years and attendance numbers have skyrocketed since the widespread restrictions of the global pandemic vanished. Several countries are still dealing with other regulatory hurdles, but the trend is certainly showing an upward trajectory.

One of the affected countries in the region is South Korea, which doesn’t allow it’s citizens to gamble in all but one local casino. International poker tournaments have seen a handful of South Koreans participate thanks to their dual citizenship status while the vast majority of the players involved in the last few years have been foreigners with a heavy focus on China.

Super Cup Seoul

However, poker competitions that take place in other venues such as hotels or event centers do not fall under the same scrutiny and can allow players to join the action under certain restrictions. One such event coming up in just a few days is the Super Cup Seoul from November 11 to 17, 2024, which aims to combine four mind games during one festival with approximately $2 million in prize money up for grabs.

Super Cup Events

On November 11, Super Cup Chess will run as of noon local time with KRW 3.5 Million in prize money. The second and third day of the series will feature the strategy board game Janggi with KRW 10.7 Million in prize money up for grabs. Another such game is Baduk, which is also Go Game in the Western World and Japan. This strategic board game originated in ancient China and will take the center stage on November 14 and 15 with KRW 56.4 Million in prizes to be distributed.

Super Cup Poker

The largest piece of the pie will, however, be up for grabs in the Hold’em Poker competitions throughout the seven days at the COEX Convention & Exhibition Center in Seoul. Located near the upscale Gangnam district with plenty of night clubs, luxurious skyscrapers and vast shopping malls, the venue is easy to reach via metro line two.

A total of 18 tournaments are scheduled with 2.7 Billion Korean Won (~USD 1,946,108) in guaranteed prize pools spread among them. More than one third of it will be up for grabs in the Main Event, which runs from November 11 to 17.

The marquee tournament has a guarantee of 1 Billion Korean Won (~USD 719,507) and includes four starting days, all of which play down to the money with the top 15% spots paid. All survivors return for Day 2 on November 16 before a winner is then crowned in the grand finale on the final day of the series.

Other large guarantees are reserved for the Super High Roller (480 Million KRW), High Roller (320 Million KRW) and several other Side Events. The schedule also includes a Team Event and the Isabelle Ladies Event, the latter of which bears the name of the hosting Isabelle Group. Participants from more than 30 different countries are expected to join for this mind sport and poker festival in Seoul according to the organizers.

Isabelle Group

The Isabelle Group is the only domestic playing card manufacturer in South Korea and distributes a wide range of other casino products as well. This includes RFID systems that can for example be used during major live-streamed poker events. Furthermore, the cooperation aims to transform the gained content into sports marketing material.

They have established partnerships with several leading brands inside the poker industry such as the Ace Poker League (APL), GPI Asia, the Asian Poker Tour (APT), Korean Series of Poker (KSOP), KKPoker, Triton Poker, the World Poker Tour, Japan Open Poker Tour (JOPT), Poker Dream, and The Hendon Mob to name just a few of them.