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Yiguang Xu Wins WPT Korea 2016

Outlasting a field of 160 entries, Yiguang Xu wins the Main Event at the World Poker Tour National Korea series.

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The World Poker Tour (WPT) is spreading its wings in the Asian region and its most recent outing was in Jeju, South Korea from 8-13 May. The almost one-week long schedule took place in the Paradise Casino at the Jeju Grand Hotel. The highlight event was of course the KRW 2,200,000 (INR 1.24 Lakh) Main Event which had 2 starting flights.

Day 1A

The opening day of the tournament saw many top names from the Asian poker world pony up the buy-in and take their seats. By the end of Day 1A, 68 was the final count of participants and only 24 of those survived to move to Day 2. Asian pros such as Raymond Wu, Bryan Huang, Sixiao Li, Jason Lo, Tetsuya Tsuchikawa, and Sparrow Cheung were some of the big names who were heavily involved in day 1A action.

A few of the above-mentioned names survived the first day and even took sizable chip stacks to day 2. At the end of two starting days, Bryan Huang was 51st in the chip counts, Sparrow Cheung is 46th, Tsuchikawa 25th, but it was Jason Lo and Sixiao Li who really stole the show. Both are members of Poker King Club’s team of pros, and they were 1st and 3rd in the chip counts. Lo led the way with 176,000, and is fresh off the back of winning the bounty tournament a couple of days prior.

Day 1B

The second starting day always had a tough task ahead to match the excitement of Day 1A, but with many more top pros taking to the felt today, it certainly did a good job. The total number of entries for day 1B grew to 92 giving us a final field size of 160 for the Main Event.

By the time late registration came to an end, the total prize pool had built up to KRW 310,400,000 (INR 1.78 Crore). Of the more notable names to participate in today’s action and surviving the day were: Sam Ng (160,600), Alex Lee (140,400) and Kai Paulsen (38,600). The chip leader at the end of day 1b was James Lee and he will be joining the big stacks from day 1a as the field merges. The top 3 finishers in this event would additionally win a free seat into the next Poker King Cup which will take place in the Philippines on 9th June.

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ALSO READ: Jun-Jul 2016 Cover Story – Numbers Game (Kunal Patni)

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Day 2

As we moved into Day 2 action, there was an exciting prospect in store for the fans, as two names who had been very successful in side events were vying for top spot on the chip counts. Jason Lo and Juicy Li were once more trying to outshine each other, and finished the day in 1st and 2nd on the leaderboard. Day 1b saw them joined by Sam Ng and High Roller champion Alex Lee, as both players built large stacks to take forward into day 2.

The action on Day 2 was perhaps not what the fans would have hoped for, as the bigger names were decimated in the field. By the time we had our final 9, the only familiar names were Phachara Wongwichit and Henrik Tollefsen. The final table was led by chipleader Xi Jie Sun who had a huge stack of 1.3 million chips going in. Eventual winner Yiguang Xu was in 3rd place with 611,000 chips. Xi Jie Sun couldn’t convert his large chiplead into a win but did well enough to run all the way up and finish in the runner up position.

It was Yiguang Xu day as he kept hitting his draws and managed to chase his cards successfully. The Chinese player who is from Shanghai only had a single live cash recorded to his name before this big win. Phachara Wongwichit managed 4th place which sees him continue his great start to the year and Henrik Tollefsen finished in 7th position.

Side Events

The side events during this festival were an interesting contrast to the Main Event, in that signed pros and big names featured heavily at the final table stage. In fact, PKC saw two of its players lift side event trophies during the week, and will undoubtedly view WPT Korea as a great success. The action kicked off with the KRW 550,000 (INR 31,000) Poker King Cup, where 118 entries were involved.

Sixiao ‘Juicy’ Li made the final table, but it was Terry Fan who took down the event, and pocketed the KRW 17,136,000 (INR 9.69 Lakh) prize money for 1st. The KRW 550,000 Bounty tournament saw Poker King Club team pro, Jason Lo overcoming a field of 50 runners to win the title, and KRW 8,314,000 (INR 4.69 Lakh) cash. 11 players put up KRW 6,600,000 ($5,670) for the High Roller and it went into headsup between Alex Lee versus Terry Fan with the former outlasting the latter denying Fan the title.

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(This piece was originally published in Gutshot Magazine Jun-Jul 2016 edition, and you can take a look at such pieces in our repository of all past editions by clicking here)

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