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Il Wong Yoo, right, is congratulated by the APT's Jeff Mann
Korean player Il Wong Yoo recently won the Asian Poker King Tournament at the StarWorld Hotel in Macau, netting himself a payday of HK $284,200.
The tournament was the first ever for the Poker King Club at the StarWorld Casino. A total of 174 players signed up to play in the event, exceeding the HK $750,000 guaranteed prize pool and bringing the total prize money to HK $870,000.
The Asian Poker Tour was also at the event in a consultational and advisory capacity. The tournament director was Lloyd Fontillas, who was brought over from the APT to help run the tournament.
As a special bonus for his great win, Wong was also awarded a Corum Royal Flush Automatic Special Edition 2006 watch by the Poker King Club.
Heading into the final table of the tournament, Wong was the chip leader with 434,000 in chips. He continued to build on that, eliminating a few players before finding himself heads-up with fellow Korean Soo Bum Kim.
It didn’t get any easier after that, though. Despite the rash of quick eliminations that downsized the final table to two, Wong and Kim played a brilliant heads-up match that lasted for more than two hours. Both players were betting and even calling constantly, even with hands like queen-high, jack-high, and even nine-high.
Early on in heads-up play, it was Kim doing all the damage. He used constant aggression and good cards to wear down his opponent’s stack. However, Wong finally decided to take a stand and starting playing back until he eventually reclaimed the chip lead when he slow-played aces all the way to the river and won a pot of more than 400,000 chips.
In the end, after a lot of heavy betting on the flop and turn by Wong, he went all-in on a board of: eight of spades, five of clubs, two of clubs, queen of clubs, and king of clubs. Kim called but Wong immediately showed the ace of clubs and jack of hearts for the nut flush, giving him the title.