WPT’s Asia Swing finished in style yesterday, with Japan’s Tadashi Takei taking the WPT Korea Main Event title and bringing the four-day tournament to a close. It was not the only exciting tournament finale to have taken place in Korea lately though, as several side events have also wrapped up too. Here is the latest from Incheon.
KRW1,650,000 WPT Korea Main Event – Winner: Tadashi Takei
This spectacular crown jewel in the Korean stop of the Asia Swing commanded a KRW1,650,000 (US$1,380) buy in and attracted 350 runners. This helped expand the prize pool to KRW509,250,000 (US$425,896) with 44 participants going on to cash the event. The final table was awash with cash, with the eventual winner picking up over KRW100,000.
The two day 1 starting flights brought in crowds of 116 and 234 respectively, with just 89 survivors carrying chips forward to the second day.
Day 1a’s Huidong Gu led the way with 365,600 chips as the competitors pulled up their chairs for the second day, with Yuanjun Lu following closely with 351,000. By the end of the day, the field had been culled to a final table of just 9, but Macau’s Gu had sailed through the carnage to carry the second largest stack of 1,595,000 into the final table. China’s Chengjie Ji led the way with 2,645,000, with Japan’s Tadashi Takei holding 3rd spot with 1,410,000.
In a painful reversal of fortune, Gu found himself crashing out of the final table in 9th place after just 24 minutes when he four-bet shoved 
against an apparent squeeze by chipleader Ji, who quickly called with 
. It took a further four hours to get the action four-handed, with Ji’s dominant chiplead having slipped to a mediocre one. His slide continued until a failed bluff dropped him to 4BB, and he hit the rail minutes later. From that point, Takei’s surge was unstoppable, as he eliminated Kuang Hung Lee in 3rd to get heads up with a near 3 to 1 chiplead over China’s Xin Liu.
The two traded pots with Liu recovering to almost level the match. But shortly after, Takei regained control before catching a fortunate turned straight to lock up the win.
The final payouts for the WPT Korea Main Event are as follows:
1st – Tadashi Takei (Japan) – ₩108,170,000 (US$90,582)
2nd – Xin Liu (China) – ₩75,770,000
3rd – Kuang Hung Lee (Taiwan) – ₩48,710,000
4th – Chengjie Ji (China) – ₩31,540,000
5th – Roman Ro (Russia) – ₩24,310,000
6th – Xing Biao Zhu (China) – ₩20,120,000
7th – Zongxin Liu (China) – ₩16,880,000
8th – Dmitri Kovalevskii (Russia) – ₩13,830,000
9th – Huidong Gu (Macau) – ₩10,820,000
Kuang Hung Lee‘s 3rd place was enough to secure victory in the Asia Swing leaderboard, giving him a total of 120 points. His 7th place in the WPT Vietnam Superstack gave him 40 points to go with the 80 he collects for his WPT Korea result.
Here are the final standings:
1st – Kuang Hung Lee – 120 points (wins the tiebreak through total cashes)
2nd – Takahashi Takeshi – 120 points
3rd – Hamish Crawshaw – 100 points
Other events
Event 8 – ₩350,000 (US$293) Party Night Turbo Freezeout
Entries: 84
Prize Pool: ₩25,666,200 (US$21,466)
Winner: Chengbei Li – ₩8,280,000 (US$6,925)
Event 9 – Megastack Freezeout
Entries: N/A
Prize Pool: ₩83,284,200 (US$69,656)
Winner: Junheng Situ – ₩20,195,000 (US$16,890) *Deal made
Event 10 – WPT Korea High Roller
Entries: N/A
Prize Pool: ₩289,137,600 (US$240,888)
Winner: Kyungmin Lee – ₩93,250,000 (US$77,689)
Event 11 – ₩500,000 (US$418) PLO
Entries: 27
Prize Pool: ₩11,785,500 (US$9,857)
Winner: Takata Oba – ₩5,300,000 (US$4,433)
Event 12 – ₩500K (US$419) Grand Finale
Entries: 115
Prize Pool: ₩50,197,500 (US$42,046)
Winner: Higuchi Kota – ₩14,810,000 (US$12,405)
Event 13 – ₩5,000,000 (US$4,166) Turbo High Roller
Entries: 17
Prize Pool: ₩79,152,000 (US$65,944)
Winner: Yuan Yilu – ₩39,572,000 (US$32,968)
The World Poker Tour returns to India next month for WPT India, which will be held October 18th thru the 21st at the Deltin Royale Casino in Goa, India.
Article by Craig Bradshaw
