Home137 runners piled in the APT Korea Incheon Championships 2018 at Paradise City for the last starting flight of the Main Event. After the scheduled eight rounds, 84 players held on to their chips with USA’s Kyung Min Lee bagging up the lead of 143,700. Kyung is off to a great start at the series having already cashed once for his third place finish at the PLO Hi Event.
Running just as strong as the leader was Japan’s Manami Hayamizu. Hayamizu was one of a handful of women in the field today. She bagged up the second largest stack of 125,100. Kyung and Hayamizu were the only two players to stack up in the six-digit range.
Manami Hayamizu
Also in the field was the current APT Player of the Series race leader, Aleksandr Cherepov. He made it through the day with 61,600 in chips.
Aleksandr Cherepov
Other notables advancing to Day 2 were Iori Yogo, Masaki Fujitani, Yuri Ishida, Head Hunter winner Simon Cho, and WSOP bracelet winner Kevin Song. Although Song flies under the USA flag, many view him as the godfather of poker in Korea.
Kevin Song and APT General Manager Lloyd Fontillas
Day 1B Chip Counts (top 25)
| Kyung Min Lee | United States | 143,700 |
| Manami Hayamizu | Japan | 125,100 |
| Anthony Mak | Hong Kong | 96,900 |
| Yukiko Ogasawara | Japan | 88,800 |
| Tsuyoshi Muranaka | Japan | 84,200 |
| Shohei Aoyama | Japan | 80,200 |
| Ziegler Oliver | France | 78,600 |
| Shota Shimozaki | Japan | 77,700 |
| Shitoh Ryuichi | Japan | 72,800 |
| Natsumi Takaura | Japan | 69,200 |
| Kan Igor | Russia | 68,300 |
| Rui Kojima | Japan | 68,000 |
| Naoki Morita | Japan | 67,900 |
| Masato Shimizu | Japan | 65,200 |
| Hilary Hin Cheung | Hong Kong | 61,600 |
| Aleksandr Cherepov | Russia | 61,600 |
| Mark Wong Tze Yi | Singapore | 61,000 |
| Akihro Shimizu | Japan | 58,400 |
| Takashi Miyamoto | Japan | 56,500 |
| Iori Yogo | Japan | 55,000 |
| Akihiro Ueda | Japan | 53,600 |
| Norihiko Ogawa | Japan | 53,100 |
| Shigeho Yoshioka | Japan | 51,900 |
| Saika Sho | Japan | 50,100 |
| Jacky Wong | Hong Kong | 48,100 |
For chips counts and seat draw, click Day 2 Qualifiers or head to the APT Facebook page.
Day 1B survivors advance to Day 2 on Sunday, August 12 at 1pm. Registration remains open for one more round and will close at the start of Level 10.
Day 1A recap
Toshimasa Sakato crushes the NLH Single Day
Returning to the felt after bagging up one of the largest stacks at Main Event Day 1A, Japan’s Toshimasa Sakato went on rule the NLH Single Day event. He earned his first APT title and the ₩5,423,000 first prize.
Toshimasa Sakato, NLH Single Day winner
With the main pulling in a huge field, the NLH Single Day didn’t do too bad on the sidelines. A total of 67 entrants signed up for a decent prize pool of ₩19,497,000.
As the bubble round approached with 16 remaining and only 12 seeing a cut, Sakato didn’t have much to worry about. He had nearly a third of the chips in play. Players that attempted to shave down Sakato’s stack only dropped further or met the rail.
Toshimasa Sakato
Such was the case with Pak Valeriy. At the crucial bubble round with several short stacks hanging on by a nail, second biggest stack Valeriy ran into a few walls, two of them against Sakato. On his first loss, action saw Valeriy raise preflop then call Sakato’s three-bet to see a flop land 5♠ 5♦ Q♠. He then called Sakato’s flop bet and the turn came K♥. Sakato shoved and Valeriy folded.
Rintaro Kagawa (standing) – Pak Valeriy (beside dealer)
The next loss saw him double up Rintaro Kagawa with K♦ K♥ staying ahead of A♠ J♦. With 10bbs left, Valeriy was all in with 9-9 and fell as the bubble to Sakato’s A-A.
With the money flowing, the short stacks quickly dropped out while Sakato went on a scooping spree. By the time it reached heads up, Sakato had 80% of the chips in play against Fan Wei. It only took a few hands to complete his mission, railing Wei with K♥ 9♣ over A♥ 3♦ with the final board spreading K♦ 10♥ 9♦ 10♦ 4♥.
Congratulations to Toshimasa Sakato for his first-ever APT event victory!
Payouts
Prizepool: ₩19,497,000 – Buyin: ₩330,000
1st Toshimasa Sakato – Japan – ₩5,423,000
2nd Fan Wei – Hong Kong – ₩3,614,000
3rd Rintaro Kagawa – Japan – ₩2,524,000
4th Poshdari Mikubo – Japan – ₩1,837,000
5th Takahiro Abe – Japan – ₩1,388,000
6th Edward Yam Chun Ho – Hong Kong – ₩1,085,000
7th Kenji Hamamoto – Japan – ₩874,000
8th Roberto Lasalle – USA – ₩723,000
9th Roman Shcherbakov – Russia – ₩612,000
10th Gao Heng Yuan – Canada – ₩523,000
11th Yoshikazu Nakai – Japan – ₩447,000
12th Corey Alllen Boteler – USA – ₩447,000
APT Player of the Series update
The APT Player of the Series race is on! You can view the standings via this link. The leaderboard only reflects the first three side events.
Results for APT Korea Incheon Championships