Defending Champion Michael Soyza Bags Big on Day 1A
The 2019 PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Korea has had an exciting week leading up to the much anticipated ₩1,800,000 APPT Main Event, and a lot of that excitement has come from the 2018 APPT Korea Main Event champion Michael Soyza who just shipped the Super High Roller earlier today.
After taking down the Super High Roller, Soyza took a quick break to eat and immediately jumped into flight Day 1A of the main. It took him just a matter of hands before he found his first double up with big slick against his opponent's king queen. He seemed to have plenty of run good left in the tank as he was constantly adding chips to his stack throughout the day.
During the last round of the night, the Malaysian woke up with a gift from Evgeniy Khvan, when Soyza limp-raised aces and find a caller in Khvan. The flop came down jack-high, Soyza bet out, Khvan moved all in and Soyza called. Khvan tabled king-high with no draw and Soyza scoopde in the large pot at the end of the night, catapulting him near the top of the pack.
The first of two starting flights in the main would see a total of 222 slips sold, shattering last years total of 182 for the Day 1A. Only 59 of those slips found a bag by the end of the night and it was Takao Shimizu of Japan reigning as the end of day chipleader with 281,000.
Shimizu took down a pot earlier in the day on a three-way flop where he had a straight draw to split or two kings to scoop. The turn was one of the exact kings he needed, scooping a massive pot early in the day. He continued his aggressive play all the way to the end of the night, letting everyone know he was not afraid to gamble, and it worked out as he bagged the biggest of Day 1A.
Some other stacks on the larger side include Daisuke Ogita (231,000), Mengdian Peng (207,000), Tetsuro Tomita (198,000), Ken Okada (189,000), and Lok Kin Yeung (179,000).
There were plenty of notable players to take a shot at Day 1A but failed to find a bag and that list includes 2018 APPT Manila Main Event champion Wilson Lim, well-known Chinese pro Dong Guo, Tian Jin, German Kilian Loeffler, Online specialist Randy Lew, 2016 Asian Player of the Year Jack Wu, and Malaysia's Natalie Teh.
There is still one more flight that begins tomorrow at 6 p.m. and all remaining players to make it through on Day 1B will combine with today‘s survivors, returning on Saturday for Day 2 at 1 p.m. local time. Players will be returning on the second day with the blind level starting at level 14 and all levels will be 60-minutes in length. There will be a 10-minute break after every two levels of play and a dinner break may also be scheduled if required.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be bringing you full coverage of this event throughout the duration, so stay tuned for all the action that unfolds.