Championships Event Final 8 players formed with Hideki Izutsu back on top

The APT Korea Incheon Championships 2018 concluded Day 3 of the Championships Event at Paradise City with Japan’s Hideki Izutsu claiming the chip lead for the second day in a row. Izutsu entered with the largest stack, and despite a slight dip in chips, he climbed right back up to bag 2,363,000.

Hideki Izutsu – Japan – 2,363,000

To close out Day 3, Izutsu eliminated Hoshi Yuya in 9th place with A K over A J to form the Final 8 players. You can read up on all the Day 3 action in the Live Updates page. 

From left to right: Tae Hoon Han, Naoki Morita, Hung Sheng Lin, Hiroyuki Yoshimura, Hideki Izutsu, Jaepil You, Bae Hyun Kyu, Tamon Nakamura

Final 8 by chip rank 

Hideki Izutsu – 2,363,000

Tamon Nakamura – Japan – 2,094,000

Jaepil You – USA – 1,039,000

Naoki Morita – Japan – 655,000

Hung Sheng Lin – Taiwan – 529,000

Hiroyuki Yoshimura – Japan – 369,000

Bae Hyun Kyu – Canada – 242,000

Tae Hoon Han – New Zealand – 114,000

Some facts about the Final 8 players:

  • Chip leader Hideki Izutsu emerged into the live tournament circuit only this year and has already captured two victories, both of them in May right here in Incheon. 
  • Tamon Nakamura is having a good run in 2018 with 12 cashes earned since April. His first cash was at APT Philippines Monster Stack event finishing 5th out of 109 entries. He followed that up with a victory here in Incheon two weeks later. 
  • In Day 3, Jaepil You eliminated the most number of players. He eliminated 5 out of the 16 that fell. 
  • Naoki Morita is a consistent player at the APT featured events. He finished 15th at this festival’s Main Event; he finished 10th last year at the same event.
  • Out of the Final 8 players, only Hung Sheng Lin is decorated with an APT championship title having won the APT Macau Main Event earlier this year. He was also the APT Player of Year – Regional – for China in 2016. 
  • Hiroyuki Yoshimura finished second at the APT Philippines 2018 Main Event in April
  • Hyun Kyu Bae finished 4th at the APT Korea Seoul 2018 Main Event 
  • Tae Hoon Han is highly decorated with achievements most of them earned in Korea. However, he has yet to win an APT championship title. His closest was 14th place at the Main Event in 2017. 

The Final 8 players will race to the title and the ₩49,770,000 first prize on Sunday, August 19. Cards in the air at 130pm. Average stack is 925,000 with 7,400,000 chips in play. Blinds pick up at 12K-24K ante 24K. You can keep track of the action via our live updates. 

Final 8 prize pool-payout

Brief Day 3 recap

Day 3 resumed with 24 players back at the tables. Hideki Izutsu was the only player with a million to play with that even after his A A was cracked by Hiroyuki Yoshimura on the first hand with 5 5 getting lucky, he was still the overwhelming big stack around the room. 

Down to two tables, Izutsu continued to gobble up chips climbing to 1.6M – equivalent to 21% of the chips in play – with 18 players still in the field. Like yesterday’s bubble round, he played nearly every hand at his table, grinding down some of the short stacks until they were given the boot by other players. To form the unofficial final table, short stacked Aleksei Sei fell in 11th place. 

At ten remaining, Izutsu lost his lead for the first time, though momentarily. Tamon Nakamura charged up the ranks winning multiple big pots to reach 2.2M. On two of those hands, he exposed Tae Hoon Han’s bottom pair semi-bluff and Hoshi Yuya’s missed straight draw bluff. This sent Han’s stack plummeting, which dropped further in a cooler against Yuya. 

After the fall of Kei Kiyohara in 10th place, Izutsu regained the lead winning a pot against Hung Sheng Lin with A-Q top pair over Lin’s 8-8. To end Day 3, he eliminated Hoshi Yuya in 9th place to fully secure the top spot in the Final 8.

You can view the payouts in the Event Results page.