HomeAfter a short three hours of competition at APT Korea Seoul 2019 – CHAMPIONSHIPS EVENT – Day 3 wrapped up with the Final 8 players formed. Navigating his way to the top of the pack once again was Japan’s Shoma Ishikawa (seat 5). Ishikawa bagged up a stack of 1,692,000.
Final 8 by chip count
Shoma Ishikawa – Japan 1,692,000 – Seat 5
Masaki Fujitani – Japan – 1,238,000 – Seat 6
Punnat Punsri – Thailand – 997,000 – Seat 8
Andrew An – USA – 943,000 – Seat 3
Kaixiang Ye – China – 556,000 – Seat 2
Daniel H. Lee – USA – 421,000 – Seat 1
Daniyar Aubakirov – Kazakhstan – 240,000 – Seat 7
Peng Meng Dian – China 138,000 – Seat 4
Coming final day, expect a hungry pack with none of the finalists having championed a major APT event. Among them, Japan’s Masaki Fujitani got the furthest. He finished 5th at the APT Korea Seoul Main Event last year. Masaki had a great Day 3 bringing his stack from 20 bbs to just below the leader Ishikawa with 1,238,000. Ishikawa and Masaki were the only two players to close the day with over a million in chips.
In third position is Punnat Punsri with 997,000 in chips. Punsri likes to play the big stakes and has been successful with a handful of cashes at other festivals. This will be his first cash at an APT major event.
Like Masaki, fourth ranked Andrew An is another player with a deep run at an APT featured event. Back in 2017, An finished 17th at the Main Event in Macau. He enters the final day with 943,000.
Others to watch for are USA’s Daniel H. Lee with 421,000 in chips and China’s Kaixiang Ye with 556,000 in chips. For the former Lee, he has a long list of achievements that date back since 2009. Lately, he has been running well at High Rollers events. Last year, he finished 2nd at the APT Super High Rollers in Incheon. In 2013, he placed 10th at the APT Jeju Main Event.
As for the latter Kaixiang, despite not ever having cashed at the APT, his few career payouts include a 2nd place finish out of 963 runners at a huge event in China which earned him nearly USD 100k.
The bottom two players, Kazakhstan’s Daniyar Avbakikov (240,000) and China’s Peng Meng Dian (138,000) may come in with the shortest stacks but they have been running very strong at the series. Avbakikov won the series Super High Rollers event and Peng was the overall chip leader entering this event’s Day 2.
The Championships Event got underway on June 5 at Grand Walkerhill Paradise Casino and is set to conclude on Sunday, June 9 with the very first crowning of a player in this event in Seoul. 124 coughed up the KRW 1,980,0000 buy-in for a guarantee smashing prize pool of KRW 216,486,000. What the Final 8 players will be fighting for coming tomorrow is the KRW 60,430,000 (~USD 51,000) first prize, the APT Championship Trophy, and APT Championship Ring.
Final 8 race to the title
Date: Sunday, June 9, 2019
Game time: 130pm local time
Opening blinds: 8000-16000 ante 16000 (Level 20)
Total chips in play: 6,222,700
Average stack: 777,837
Final 8 payouts
1st KRW 60,430,000
2nd KRW 40,268,000
3rd KRW 28,006,000
4th KRW 20,228,000
5th KRW 15,128,000
6th KRW 11,675,000
7th KRW 9,271,000
8th KRW 7,554,000
Day 3 rundown
Today, 18 players returned from Day 2 with only the top 13 guaranteed a payout. Chip leader Ishikawa delivered the bubble sending out fellow countryman Zentaro Nakayashiki out on a set over top pair.
ITM 9th – 13th
9th Kengo Sakurai – Japan – KRW 6,295,000
10th Horio Shoichi – Japan – KRW 5,246,000
11th Suh Seong Hyun – Japan – KRW 4,371,000
12th Pengyu Lin – China – KRW 4,371,000
13th Kotake Yusuke – Japan – KRW 3,643,000