Aussie Aaron Lim managed to take down this event last year for KRW 121,700,000 ($111,088) and he's back to defend his title today.
Lim's has had a great last couple of years and his biggest result came in the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event when he finished third for €417,499. In total Lim has more than $1.4 million in live tournament earnings and he looks to add some more here in Seoul.
Up until now Pokerstars Team Online Naoya Kihara has been a bit quiet. We happened to catch him in two hands back to back.
We didn't see the first hand but saw that Kihara was stacking some chips. He didn't waste time getting involved again. It started when an early position player raised to 700 and Kihara, in the cutoff, was the only player to call. The early position player bet 900 on the flop and Kihara called. Both players checked the turn. When it was checked to him on the river, Kihara bet 1,300 prompting his opponent to fold.
We barely caught a hand in which John Hashem lost a big chunk, but luckily enough for him he's still sitting on quite a big stack during the third level of play.
The board read when Hashem was faced with a shove worth 16,500 into a 20,000-chip pot from the player on his immediate left, Eric Lee. After about a minute Hashem let go of his hand and with his table mates his discussed that Lee must've had a pair of tens for a full house.
Hashem still has around 31,000 left and that's well above the 20,000 starting stack.
The next stop on the PokerStars.net Asia-Pacific Poker Tour is right around the corner.
On Wednesday, April 2, the Season 8 schedule for APPT Macau was announced. The festival will take place May 14-25, 2014, and be held at PokerStars LIVE Macau at the City of Dreams.
The schedule is highlighted by three events: the HK$5,000 APPT Macau Warm-Up, the HK$25,000 Main Event, and the HK$100,000 High Roller. The Warm-Up will take place May 17-18 and boast an HK$1,000,000 guarantee. The Main Event will run May 21-25, and the High Roller will run May 24-25.
Bernard Geom just left the Paradise Casino Walkerhill tournament room thinking he was knocked out.
After limping with two jacks and three-betting after the player to his left, Teraoka Shinichiroh, had raised, all the money went in when Geom's opponent moved all in.
The pot created was worth around 38,000 chips and Shinichiroh's pocket queens held up. It did not take the dealer long to find out that Geom had 800 chips left to play with, but he was already out the door.
APPT President Danny McDonagh made an announcement in an attempt to get Geom back in action, but to no avail.
"He'll be blinded out in two rounds," Canadian PokerStars Qualifier John Hashem said.
"So he'll last longer than some of us," Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang jokingly added.
The action folded around to Aaron Lim, who raised to 600 from the cutoff. The button folded and Tanja Vujanic from the small blind reraised to 1,600. The big blind folded and it was back to Lim.
After pondering for a few minutes, Lim made it 2,900 to go. Vujanic reraised enough to put Lim all in and he snap called.
Vujanic:
Lim:
The board ran out giving a short-stacked Lim a much needed double up.
Day 1a of the APPT Seoul Main Event kicked off a little differently for our friends at the PokerStarsBlog as they ran into Robert De Niro on the way here. Not the real De Niro, but a giant billboard at least. They did, however, catch up with APPT President Danny McDonagh, who spoke about how many players he thought the event would attract this year.
While our attention is mainly focussed on the Main Event here this week in Seoul there is also lots of other stuff going on in the poker room. Besides side events there are also cash games going on and we just spotted this nice shot of a chip stack in a 5,000/10,000 KRW ($5/$10) cash game.
As of right now there's a 2,500/5,000 KRW ($2/$5) and a 5,000/10,000 KRW ($5/$10) game going, but there's a list for 20,000/40,000 KRW ($20/$40) and earlier this week there's already been a 50,000/100,000 KRW ($50/$100) game.
We came to the action with a 700 bet in front of Team Pokerstars Pro Celina Lin and a board on the table. An early position player then raised to 6,000 which seemed to puzzle Lin but she ended up making the call.
A river came, prompting her opponent to lead for 3,100. This sent Lin into the tank, asking the player if he spoke Chinese. He just waved his hands and shook his head. She kept trying to get some information from the player but to no avail. After a solid 2 minutes, Lin looked hesitant but ended up making the call, tabling after her opponent showed , for the win.