Huang Tops Day 1 of the Red Dragon High Roller in Jeju; Soyza Among Big Stacks

Christian Zetzsche

Level 9 : 600/1,200, 1,200 ante

The 2019 PokerStars LIVE Asia Red Dragon Jeju festival is off to a great start as the second tournament of the festival at the Landing Casino on the island of Jeju in South Korea exceeded the expectations. A field of 140 entries for Day 1 of the ?5,000,000 High Roller (~$4,315) emerged, including 117 unique players and 23 re-entries. After nine levels of 40 minutes each, only 96 players bagged up for the night with a familiar name appearing near the top of the leader board.

Yiqing Huang earned the merit of Day 1 chip leader after a very late surge that boosted his stack to 194,000, and he is closely followed by Zhen Wang with 181,600. However, it is Michael Soyza that stands out as the big name with a big stack, claiming 172,700 chips to his name. Soyza had to fire a second bullet in order to finish in the top five and sent Chang He to the rail before firing three barrels against Yake Wu to become a contender for the lead in the final level.

Soyza has sweet memories from South Korea as he won the ?10,000,000 APPT Super High Roller and finished 20th in the ?1,800,000 Main Event during the last APPT festival on Korean soil in Incheon earlier this year. With two seven-figure scores in the Triton Poker festivals right here in Jeju and London on top of that, it was the most successful year on the poker circuit for Soyza and he may add yet another trophy to his collection in the days to come.

Other notables and big stacks that advanced to Day 2 were Jieming Xu (167,900), Ngoc Anh Cao (165,100), Joshua Zimmerman (159,000), Kazuhiko Yotsushika (125,800), Xixiang Luo (123,100), Guofeng Wang (107,100), Natalie Teh (106,200), Phachara Wongwichit (101,600), Lester Edoc (100,000), Ben Lai (98,500), and Lei Yu (97,200).

The High Roller kicked off nearly on time and three tables brought plenty of action right away. It didn't take long to attract plenty of notables of the Asian poker circuit such as reigning APPT Korea Main Event champion Sparrow Cheung, Pete Chen, Alex Lee, Chen An Lin, tas well as the WSOP bracelet winners Guoliang Wei and Calvin Lee.

Among the rather unexpected additions to the field were UK's Paul Newey and EPT11 Barcelona champion Andre Lettau. While Newey saw his aces cracked when he had dropped below 20 big blinds in the penultimate level of the day, Lettau bagged up a profit of a mere 300 chips to end Day 1 with 50,300.

Huahuan Feng became the first player with a six-digit stack and Carson Wong was responsible for one of the first eliminations of the Day when his kings held up against Fei Xiong, who mentioned in table chat he had called with ace-queen for a pair of queens and top kicker. Several dozen hopefuls would run out of chips in the next four hours such as Ben Lai, Kazuhiko Yotsushika, Yake Wu, Yang Zhang, Jamie Lee and Sparrow Cheung.

Yotsushika's second entry for the tournament almost ended in the very last hand of the night when he got it in with an open-ended straight and king-high flush draw. Huijie Zhou made the call with a pair of tens and Yotsushika rivered a flush to score a vital late double for an above-average stack.

For the first time ever, several tournaments of the festival will be streamed live on a security delay of 30 minutes on the Red Dragon Poker website with commentary in Mandarin. including Day 2 of the ?5,000,000 High Roller as of the first break.

All those that busted and other poker enthusiasts that wish to join the action still can do so for the first 40-minute level on Day 2, which gets underway at 1 p.m. local time. By then, the stunning poker room of the Landing Casino will also be filled further as Day 1a of the highly anticipated Red Dragon Main Event kicks off at the same time.

The PokerNews live reporting team will be providing updates of the ?5,000,000 High Roller from start-to-finish along with an intro and recap for the Main Event.

?5,000,000 High Roller Day 2 Seat Draw

Table	Seat	Player	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	2	Carson Wong	China	65,200	41
1	3	Heng Wang	China	73,200	46
1	4	Kannapong Thanarattrakul	Thailand	114,500	72
1	5	Zhanwei Du	China	40,600	25
1	6	Chang Shi	China	100,000	63
1	7	Xin Jin	China	32,800	21
1	8	Jieming Xu	China	167,900	105

2	1	Jiajun Liu	China	90,800	57
2	3	Jun Obara	Japan	59,600	37
2	4	Bin Wang	China	100,500	63
2	5	Xianglai Li	China	41,700	26
2	6	Huahuan Feng	China	64,800	41
2	7	Bin Sun	China	17,100	11
2	8	Dingxiang Ong	Singapore	73,500	46

3	1	Na Wei	China	35,700	22
3	2	Yang Zhang	China	48,200	30
3	4	Jamie Lee	United States	39,000	24
3	5	Joshua Zimmerman	United States	159,000	99
3	6	Kairan Jin	China	122,600	77
3	7	Lei Yu	China	97,200	61
3	8	Hao Tian	China	54,900	34

4	1	Phachara Wongwichit	Thailand	101,600	64
4	2	Bawoo Yun	United States	130,200	81
4	3	Yan Rao	China	10,600	7
4	5	Kosumosu Yamanaka	Japan	38,500	24
4	6	Bo Jin	China	76,700	48
4	7	Nan Zhao	China	28,700	18
4	8	Nan Hong	China	85,000	53

5	1	Lijiang Liu	China	34,400	22
5	2	Zedao Ma	China	51,300	32
5	3	Mengdian Peng	China	71,400	45
5	4	Xinglong Huang	China	28,900	18
5	6	Calvin Lee	United States	65,500	41
5	7	Zhiqiang Qian	China	67,400	42
5	8	Cangsheng Ni	China	42,500	27

6	1	Huu Dung Nguyen	Vietnam	123,500	77
6	2	Ang Li	China	23,400	15
6	3	Zhiao He	China	84,000	53
6	4	Yake Wu	China	24,100	15
6	5	Yiqing Huang	China	194,000	121
6	7	Yao Bai	China	139,100	87
6	8	Thanh Binh Nguyen	Vietnam	31,700	20

7	1	Tung Chun Yung	China	95,700	60
7	2	Yuan Yilu	China	110,100	69
7	3	Natalie Teh	Malaysia	106,200	66
7	4	Derek Ip	China	59,400	37
7	5	Guofeng Wang	China	107,100	67
7	6	Ben Lai	China	98,500	62
7	8	Ye Yuan	China	60,000	38

8	1	Lester Edoc	Philippines	100,000	63
8	2	Pete Chen	Taiwan	28,900	18
8	3	Ting Yi Tsai	Taiwan	23,100	14
8	4	Tamon Nakamura	Japan	23,800	15
8	5	Chunqing Wang	China	35,100	22
8	6	Jiahuan He	China	51,100	32
8	7	Feng Chen	China	122,600	77

9	1	Andre Lettau	Germany	50,300	31
9	2	Fei Xiong	China	27,800	17
9	3	Sparrow Cheung	China	42,500	27
9	4	Dong Chen	China	74,800	47
9	5	Chang He	China	87,500	55
9	6	Liuheng Dai	China	83,000	52
9	8	Liang Chen	China	60,000	38

10	1	Kai Kang	China	59,000	37
10	2	Zhiyong Long	China	81,600	51
10	3	Hengren Tu	China	88,200	55
10	4	Xiaqing Ji	China	66,100	41
10	5	Yunsheng Sun	China	67,600	42
10	7	Mike Takayama	Philippines	94,000	59
10	8	Leshi Shao	China	64,000	40

11	1	Zhen Wang	China	181,400	113
11	2	Weiwen Zheng	China	47,000	29
11	3	Alex Lee	Singapore	67,300	42
11	4	Huidong Gu	Macau	73,400	46
11	6	Tao Fan	China	77,000	48
11	7	Xixiang Luo	China	123,100	77
11	8	Bing Zhou	China	21,800	14

12	1	Chi Chung Ho	United Kingdom	85,100	53
12	2	Chang Tan	China	77,300	48
12	3	Bo Xu	China	27,900	17
12	5	Jiayu Ruan	China	81,900	51
12	6	Duc Trung Vu	Vietnam	18,800	12
12	7	Guoliang Wei	China	36,800	23
12	8	Jin Su	China	151,600	95

13	2	Ngoc Tai Hoang	Vietnam	64,900	41
13	4	Kazuhiko Yotsushika	Japan	125,800	79
13	5	Michael Soyza	Malaysia	172,700	108
13	6	Takashi Ogura	Japan	102,200	64
13	7	Huijie Zhou	China	21,300	13
13	8	Ngoc Anh Cao	Vietnam	165,100	103

14	1	Zejin Shen	China	8,200	5
14	3	Quan Zhou	China	35,800	22
14	4	Xiaohang Ni	China	68,000	43
14	5	Victor Chong	Malaysia	51,700	32
14	7	Ruihong Tao	China	51,400	32
14	8	Yu Nozaki	Japan	89,900	56