HomeIt was a head-chopping day at the CHAMPIONSHIP EVENT race with Day 2 seeing many players fall out of the running. This event is the second highlight tournament of APT Korea Incheon 2019 running since August 9 at Paradise City Casino.
Day 2 kicked off with 104 qualifiers back in action from the starting day heats that drew 188 entries. They were led in by Sun Wei Xiong with the largest stack. With registration open for one last hour, another 31 forked out the KRW 1,980,000 buy-in to bring the total number of entries to 219. This pretty much blew away the advertised guarantee for a richer prize pool worth KRW 382,374,000 (~USD 314,700).
Officially, this event amassed the biggest prize pool of the series thus far, easily surpassing the Main Event pot. While a champion won’t be crowned for another two days, it is best to note what players are fighting for…. the KRW 95,082,000 (~USD 78,300) first place purse, the APT Championships Event Trophy, and the APT Championship Ring.
Championships Event Day 2 recap
At Day 2, after a scheduled 8 rounds running sixty minutes each, the field trimmed down to the final 34 players. That meant the money was not reached with only 22 due to profit. Bagging up the largest stack was an APT regular, New Zealand’s Tae Hoon Han with 963,000 equivalent to 120 times Day 3’s opening big blind.
Tae Hoon Han racked up quite a big lead against the chasing pack. His closest challenger was Japan’s Yuki Hirata with 800,000. This was another great performance by Hirata who entered Day 2 as second chip leader. He will enter Day 3 with exactly 100 times the opening big blind. The next player down the rung was very far from the leader. Canada’s Louis Bilodeau with 550,000 in chips. Chip counts below (by rank).
| Rank | Name | Country | Chips |
| 1 | Tae Hoon Han | New Zealand | 963,000 |
| 2 | Yuki Hirata | Japan | 800,000 |
| 3 | Louis Bilodeau | Japan | 550,000 |
| 4 | Kiichi Ogura | Japan | 531,000 |
| 5 | Naoki Matsumoto (SB) | Japan | 507,000 |
| 6 | Zhu Jingxuan (BB) | China | 481,000 |
| 7 | Graeme Siow | Singapore | 480,000 |
| 8 | Law Chi Wai | Hong Kong | 449,000 |
| 9 | Chi Chung Ho | Hong Kong | 430,000 |
| 10 | Li Weun Ngai Vincent (BB) | Hong Kong | 429,000 |
| 11 | Chen Dong | China | 383,000 |
| 12 | Jwahyoung Kim | Korea | 349,000 |
| 13 | Tsang Dicky Siu Hang | Hong Kong | 343,000 |
| 14 | Du Ming Tsai (SB) | Taiwan | 308,000 |
| 15 | Hiroyuki Noda (DB) | Japan | 303,000 |
| 16 | Go Saito (SB) | Japan | 301,000 |
| 17 | Chang, Shaotong (DB) | China | 286,000 |
| 18 | Hirokazu Kamishiro | Japan | 284,000 |
| 19 | Li Cheng Bei | China | 263,000 |
| 20 | Kosaku Akashi | Japan | 259,000 |
| 21 | Liu Feng | China | 242,000 |
| 22 | Tou Ta-Wei (SB) | Taiwan | 227,000 |
| 23 | Tian Hao (DB) | China | 222,000 |
| 24 | Chan Tsun Ming | Hong Kong | 194,000 |
| 25 | Tatsuya Hirose (BB) | Japan | 194,000 |
| 26 | Shotashi Mizu (BB) | Japan | 188,000 |
| 27 | Wu Po Yi | Taiwan | 146,000 |
| 28 | Koichi Haruta | Japan | 146,000 |
| 29 | Shinryo Nonin | Japan | 126,000 |
| 30 | Su Fang | China | 119,000 |
| 31 | Ando Mototsugu | Japan | 118,000 |
| 32 | Masaki Fujitani | Japan | 105,000 |
| 33 | Daijiro Tomoto (DB) | Japan | 101,000 |
| 34 | Lita Hsu | Taiwan | 83,000 |
The brutal Day 2 action saw the fall of many big threats: Tetsuya Tsuchikawa, Guo Dong, Hung Sheng Lin, Iori Yogo, Wilson Lim, Alex Lee, Ray Chiu, Jae Kyung Sim, Pete Yen Han Chen, Andy Li, Yuri Ishida, and the day’s entering chip leader Sun Wei Xiong.
The only players left gunning for a second APT major title are Go Saito, Chen Dong and Tsang Dicky Siu Hang. Day 2 qualifiers move on to Day 3 taking place on Monday, August 12 at 1pm. They will battle to reach the money and a seat to the final 8.
Championships Event Day 3 info
Total entries: 219
Buy-in: KRW 1,980,000
Prize pool: KRW 382,374,000 (~USD 314,700)
ITM: 22
Players remaining: 34
Total chips in play: 10,910,000
Average stack: 320,900
Opening blinds: 4000 – 8000 ante 8000