A player in middle position raised to 325 and David Steicke called from the next seat. Joseph Cheong called from the small blind, the player in the big blind called, and the flop fell .
All four checked and did the same when the fell on the turn. The river completed the board and action checked to the original raiser who bet 600. Only Cheong called and upon seeing from his oppponent, Cheong tabled to take down the pot with a flush.
Nayoa Kihara, who is a member of PokerStars Team Online, is thriving early in the first level of play today. Kihara may represent PokerStars on the virtual felt, but he also has had very impressive live earnings as of late. Kihara won his first World Series of Poker bracelet in the summer of 2012 when he took down Event 34: $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha - Six-Handed by defeating Chris DeMaci heads up. Just a few weeks ago Kihara made a deep run in the 2013 L.A. Poker Classic by finishing just shy of the final table in ninth place. He pocketed $96,780 for that run.
When we came to Kihara's table, we found him in a three-way pot with two unknown opponents. The board read and Kihara checked. The next player to act fired 600 and the third player folded. Action was back on Kihara and he tossed out a call.
The board completed with the on the river and the action went check-check.
"Ace-high," announced Kihara's opponent as he tabled . Kihara rolled over for a pair of fives and was able to scoop up the pot. He's currently trending upward early on in the day with a stack of about 27,000.
Picking up the action on a board, Joseph Cheong's bet of 900 is called by an opponent. The hit the river and Cheong bet 2,200. After a few moments in the tank, his opponent called.
Welcome to PokerNews' coverage of the 2013 PokerStars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour. The Paradise Walkerhill Casino is host to Season 7's kickoff in beautiful Seoul, South Korea. Last season the event drew 268 players and in the end, Andrew Kim outlasted the field for a ₩145,000,000 (KRW) payday.
Team PokerStars Pros Celina Lin, Raymond Wu, and Bryan Huang are expected to play. Others that have made the trip to Seoul include Sam Grafton, Joseph Cheong, Xuan Liu, and David Steicke.
Play is set to kickoff at noon local time, about half an hour from now, so be sure to keep it here throughout the day as the quest to crown a champion begins!