HomeOpening day of the APT Korea Championships 2018 at Paradise City in Incheon concluded with both events getting ample mileage at the felt. The NLH Welcome Event kicked things off followed by the first-ever CoinPoker Super High Rollers in the evening. We’ve got recaps for you below on both of those events.
CoinPoker Super High Rollers recap
The CoinPoker Super High Rollers event got underway with six players ready to go around 8pm. This marked the first-ever SHR event held by the APT in Korea. With the buy-in set at ₩16,000,000, and two players opting to add-on, it produced a juicy pot worth ₩124,160,000 which is all earmarked for the eventual winner.
Due to its late start, the event paused at 1am for an overnight break. Only five players remained. Game resumes at 3pm on Thursday, August 9.
Chung Yuan Yu – Taiwan – 1,215,000 (chip leader)
Calvin Lee – USA – 980,000
Masato Yokosawa – Japan – 678,000
Winfred Yu – Hong Kong – 371,000
Daniel Lee – USA – 256,000
The only player to bust out today was Germany’s Kilian Loffler falling to chip leader Chung.
Kilian Loffler
NLH Welcome Event recap
The NLH Welcome Event opened the series with 46 entrants looking to bag that bragging rights first title. Several notable players in attendance were Iori Yogo, Tetsuya Tsuchikawa, and Roman Shcherbakov though all of them dropped out well before the money round.
One player lasting much longer was Nayoung Kim (APT Daegu 2016 Main Event champion) however she fell in the unfortunate bubble position.
Nayoung Kim
With Nayoung’s fall, the event closed for the night with 8 players remaining. Bagging up the largest stack was Sungha Kim with 166,500.
Sungha Kim
Kim had a roller coaster ride to the top. He went from big stack, to short stack, to mid stack, until he landed two timely boosts to earn him the chip lead. At ten-handed, Kim doubled up with A♠ Q♠ nut flush over a player’s 9♠ 8♠ lower flush on a board of 9♣ 9♥ 2♠ 6♠ 5♠. Kim raise-shoved on the river and got the call.
Kim’s second double up was against Aleksei Kan who at the time was the chip leader. Preflop action saw Kan call Kim’s three-bet raise. The flop ran A♥ Q♥ 9♦. Kan checked, Kim shoved with Q♣ Q♦ set, and Kan snap-called with A♠ K♠ top pair. The next two cards were blanks to award Kim the win and the chip lead.
Aleksei Kan
As for Kan, he had an impressive run throughout the day before he was chunked down by Kim. At two tables remaining, Kan had only 12 bbs left when he railed short-stacked Roman Shcherbakov. From there, he proceeded to win numerous small pots then took the chip lead after eliminating a player with A♣ 10♣ over K♣ K♦ on a board of 2♠ J♣ 9♣ A♥ 8♣ with the all ins seen at the flop.
Kan railed another player late in the game with aces over kings just before he lost a large majority of his chips and the leadership to Kim. Kan bagged up 50,000.
The Welcome Event resumes at 1pm on Thursday, August 9. The final 8 players are each guaranteed a minimum of ₩554,000 but all eyes will be on the title and the ₩4,154,000 first prize. Blinds are rolling back to 800-1600 ante 1600.
Tomorrow’s events: August 9, 2018
13:00: Head Hunter (₩100,000 Bounty) – buyin ₩440,000
17:00: Ante Up for Charity – buyin ₩300,000
18:00: Main Event Satellite – buyin ₩120,000