The 2019 PokerStars LIVE Asia Red Dragon Jeju festival takes place from November 9th to 15th, 2019, and the highly anticipated Main Event is running from November 10th to 13th, 2019 at the Landing Casino on Jeju Island in South Korea.
It is the second time that the Red Dragon takes place in Jeju under the new brand name as it used to be the flagship tournament of the Macau Poker Cup since it's inception back in 2008.
Besides the Main Event, there will plenty of High Roller action and the second-most expensive tournament of the schedule comes with a buy-in of ₩5,000,000, which equals approximately $4,315. Poker enthusiasts from near and far are expected to join the action for the two-day event.
The ₩5,000,000 High Roller features levels of 40 minutes throughout with a 30-second shot clock from start-to-finish. Day 1 will play a total of nine levels and unlimited re-entries are available throughout the registration period at the end of level 10 on Day 2. All participants receive 50,000 in chips ad the starting blinds will be 100-200 with a big blind ante of 200.
Stay tuned to find out who will take a shot at the PokerStars spadie trophy that will be up for grabs in this event. PokerNews will be on the floor to provide all the action from start to finish.
Huahuan Feng has chipped up nicely just before the blinds went up and appears to be among the early chip leaders. Feng won a bigger pot when his bet of 12,000 on the river was called by the player in the small blind. Feng turned over for a flush and then lost a small pot to the same player soon after.
Feng proceeded to win a four-way pot in which a raise to 500 was called two ways including Feng in the small blind. Chang Shi in the big blind min-raised to 1,000 and picked up three callers. Feng was among two players to check-call a bet of 1,000 on the flop and the only on to check-call 2,000 by Shi on the turn.
After the river, Feng check-called a bet of 5,000 and was good with as Shi only held for a pair of nines.
A big pot was brewing in the final hand before the break as the completed board showed . Ka Shing "Carson" Wong bet 20,100 once Fei Xiong had checked to him and Xiong moved all in for 21,400 when his shot clock was about to run out.
Wong made the call and tabled for kings up, Xiong mucked and said in table chat he had ace-queen.
Huahuan Feng opened the action with a raise to 1,500 and was called by Kazuhiko Yotsushika, Thanisorn Saelor in the small blind three-bet to 5,300 and was called only by Yotsushika.
On the flop, Saelor continued for 5,000 and picked up a call before a second barrel for 7,500 on the turn was called once more. Saelor then check-called a bet of 8,500 and mucked when Yotsushika turned over for a full house as the winning hand.
Four-ways to the flop, the action checked to the hijack and his bet of 3,000 was called two ways by the button and Ben Lai in the small blind. Guofeng Wang in the big blind check-raised to 10,000 and the hijack was the only caller.
Wang bet the turn for 22,000 to earn a call and jammed the rivee for 15,900. The hijack called and was left with 700 chips when Wang turned over for a straight as he mucked the cards, then busted one hand later.
Chen An Lin defended his big blind against a button raise by Huijie Zhou and check-raised the flop to 6,500, which Zhou called. Lin then jammed the turn and Zhou quickly came along.
Chen An Lin:
Huijie Zhou:
The river was the meaningless as Lin was already drawing dead with his top pair.
After the heads-up turn of , Kazuhiko Yotsushika was all in for 42,200 and Huijie Zhou eventually made the call as a small rail had gathered around the table in the final hand of the night.
Kazuhiko Yotsushika:
Huijie Zhou:
Zhou was ahead with his pair of tens but Yotsushika had plenty of outs with the open-ender and flush draw. Sure enough the hit on the river to let Yotsushika double and send Zhou into a world of pain.
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.