Tae Hoon Han Leads Final 11 Players Before Day 3 of 2019 PokerStars APPT Jeju Main Event
Day 2 of the 2019 PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour Jeju Main Event is in the books, after ten levels of play. After bagging their chips, there was only one player atop the leaderboard, and this was New Zealand's Tae Hoon Han with 2,600,000 in chips.
Han was dominating throughout the whole day, starting with the overall chip lead from Day 1a, and multiplying it more than ten times until the end of Day 2. It looked like he always had the best hand between his opponents, or he was getting them to fold when he need to. There were not many pots that he lost, and the biggest one he won was at the same time the biggest pot of the tournament.
Tae Hoon Han was holding ace-ten in an ace-ten-seven flop, while his opponent was Zongyan Jiang with ace-seven. All the chips went in the middle on the turn, and Han's two pair held until the river, for a 1.4 million chip-pot that sent him to the top of the counts.
The action of the day started with 97 players taking their seats and more than half of them would have to leave empty-handed, as 41 was about to get paid, according to the payout structure. The minimum payout was ?4,345,000 (~$3,765) and it was a lost flip that secured a payout for all remaining players. The unlucky player was Xiaofeng Jiang who saw his tens losing by his opponent's ace-king when a king hit the turn.
As it always happens in those kind of situations, when the bubble burst, a flurry of eliminations just started. In just ten minutes five players busted, and among them was 2019 PokerStars APPT National winner, Liang Song, in 37th place for the minimum payout.
Among the notables that eliminated in the money, and before the dinner break were 2010 WSOP bracelet winner and 2019 APPT Jeju High Roller 4th place finisher, Shawn Busse.
After the dinner break, 24 players returned to their seats, for the last three tables of the Main Event, and this is when Tae Hoon Han won the above described huge pot. One of the unlucky players was Japan's Yuhei Sanada who saw his jacks cracked by ace-jack when four spades appeared the board, and his opponent was holding the jack of spades.
This elimination left the field with two tables, and it was when Huidong Gu found a perfect spot to catapult his stack into a one spot before the top of the counts chip-stack. He picked up kings and went all in versus two opponents, with ace-king and eights, respectively. He was covering both and he managed to fade all unwanted cards on the board to reach 1.5 million chips.
The final eleven players will return tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. local time (GMT+9) to determine who will win the trophy here in Landing Casino of the Shinhwa World resort. The blinds will begin at Level 24: 15,000/30,000 with a big blind ante of 30,000, and each level will last 60 minutes. Play will go on tomorrow up until a champion is crowned, winning also the first prize of ?183,695,000 (~$159,100).
Final Day Seat Draw
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | Yang Zhang | China | 1,235,000 | 41 |
| 1 | 4 | Tae Hoon Han | New Zealand | 2,600,000 | 87 |
| 1 | 6 | Lijiang Liu | China | 785,000 | 26 |
| 1 | 8 | Duc Trung Vu | Vietnam | 1,350,000 | 45 |
| 1 | 9 | Zhang Mengyin | China | 235,000 | 8 |
| 3 | 2 | Huidong Gu | Macau | 1,730,000 | 57 |
| 3 | 3 | Ruihong Tao | China | 600,000 | 20 |
| 3 | 5 | Kairan Jin | China | 985,000 | 33 |
| 3 | 6 | Jiageng Zhang | China | 290,000 | 10 |
| 3 | 7 | Guodong Tian | China | 300,000 | 10 |
| 3 | 8 | Siyuan Wang | China | 790,000 | 26 |
The PokerNews live reporting team will be bringing you all the action during the remainder of this tournament, so stay tuned for the final day of the Main Event.