Shenming Yin Tops 36 Players Remaining After Day 2; Szymon Wysocki and Calvin Lee In Contention
The biggest live poker tournament in South Korea is one step closer to crowning the 30th champion of a Red Dragon Main Event and 36 hopefuls out of a field of 869 entries remain in contention for the 2019 PokerStars LIVE Asia Red Dragon Jeju ₩2,500,000 Main Event at the Jeju Shinhwa World - Landing Casino.
All have their eyes set on the unique trophy and a big portion of the ₩1,896,592,500 (~$1,626,470) prize pool, and the guaranteed payday thus far is ₩ 8,345,000 ($7,177). It is also already certain that a new champion will be crowned as all three of the field's remaining former champions missed out on the money.
After the bubble burst, Shenming Yin became the second player to claim more than a million in chips and he quickly established a lead from there on out that he would not surrender for the remainder of the night. Ultimately, Yin bagged up 2,785,000 and is well ahead of his next followers. Hanze Wang entered the day second in chips and ended up in the very same position with a stack of 1,970,000 while Szymon Wysocki, the only remaining European in the field, sits in third place with 1,505,000.
Another five players have more than one million in chips at their disposal including Single-Day High Roller champion Ben Lai (1,270,000) and Yuanjun Lu (1,115,000). Other notables still in contention for Day 3 are Calvin Lee (855,000), Day 1b chip leader Canlin Chen (585,000), Hayato Kitajima (305,000) and Xixiang Luo (160,000).
There are 44:43 minutes remaining at blinds of 10,000-20,000 with a big blind ante of 20,000 and due to the sheer field size, an additional tournament day was added to play down to the nine-handed final table as the goal for the following day.
Top 10 Chip Counts After Day 2
| Place | Player | Country/Region | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shenming Yin | China | 2,785,000 | 139 |
| 2 | Hanze Wang | China | 1,970,000 | 99 |
| 3 | Szymon Wysocki | Poland | 1,505,000 | 75 |
| 4 | Dapeng Wang | China | 1,280,000 | 64 |
| 5 | Ben Lai | Hong Kong | 1,270,000 | 64 |
| 6 | Bi Haisheng | China | 1,155,000 | 58 |
| 7 | Yuanjun Lu | China | 1,115,000 | 56 |
| 8 | Yifu Zhai | China | 1,030,000 | 52 |
| 9 | Fei Xiong | China | 975,000 | 49 |
| 10 | Xin He | China | 960,000 | 48 |
All Three Former Champions Miss Out on the Money
The early stages of the day can only be described as madness. Three-way all-in showdowns were quite common and almost one-third of the 302 Day 1 survivors departed in the first two hours of play. Among the very first players to bust was Kenichi Takarabe. In a three-way all-in that also featured former champ Dengfeng Yu, Takarabe had the best of it with queens versus nines and fives but a nine on the turn sealed his fate.
Many other notables ran out of chips much earlier than they had hoped for such as Kelvin Beattie, Victor Chong, Pete Chen, Yake Wu, Phachara Wongwichit, Alex Lee, Natalie Teh and Jun Obara. The latter got it in with aces versus kings in a three-bet pot and a king on the river ended all dreams for Obara.
Andre Lettau was all in with kings against kings, which ends in a split pot the vast majority of times. But fate would have it that Szymon Wysocki had the king of clubs and hit a flush. Wysocki was also responsible for the next high-profile elimination as he sent Alvin Yifan Zheng to the rail with ace-king suited versus king-queen suited.
Not far off the paid places, Tetsuya Enoki had a big flip with queens against ace-king. He even flopped a set against Tianyuan Tang but fell behind on the turn when Tang improved to a straight. With the money bubble rapidly approaching, one player that nobody expected to see missing out on a payday was Dengfeng Yu. The second-ever Red Dragon champion was the joint chip leader two spots away from the money, yet the circumstances changed in dramatic fashion.
In a hand selection that would make Doyle Brunson proud, Yu made top pair with ten-deuce and tried to get Hanze Wang off a turned eight-high straight with seven-five suited. Wang had the flush draw on top and scored the first million chip pot of the day. Yu still had an above-average stack after that major setback and got it in preflop with nines against the queens of Hideyoshi Tanaka. Nothing changed on a nine-high board and both had the exact same stack to burst the bubble.
Yin Rises to the Top after the Bubble
The second player to hit at least one million in chips was Shenming Yin when his ace-king remained ahead of the ace-ten suited of Huidong Gu thanks to a fourth club on the river. Yin scored another big pot when he won a flip with queens versus ace-king for 52 big blinds against Jianbiao Zhong.
Dongsheng Peng, James Won Lee, Huijie Zhou and Sparrow Cheung were just some of the notables to bust in a rapid stage of all-in showdowns. Yin picked up further vital pots and knocked out several shorter stacks to further cement his status as the runaway chip leader.
Towards the end of the night, the pace slowed down somewhat and familiar faces such as Robert Schiffbauer, Daniel Lee and Paul Newey headed to the rail. Szymon Wysocki had dropped back into the middle of the pack but a coin flip with ace-king versus nines went in his favor thanks to a king on the flop. In the final level, Jamie Lee flopped a pair and flush draw but Xin He called his shove on the river with pocket jacks for a straight.
Once the final 36 players were reached, the chips were bagged up and all hopefuls will return after a good night's sleep to take their seats at 1 p.m. local time. The penultimate day will be streamed live on the Red Dragon Poker website with hole cards displayed on a 30-minute delay, all PokerNews updates will be published according to the delay.
Concurrently with the flagship event of the festival in Jeju, two other events will provide plenty of action on Wednesday, November 13th, 2019.
Day 2 of Event #9 KRW NLH Knockout will see 17 players out a 221-entry strong field continue to battle for the ₩148,733,000 (~US$127,805) prize pool. The eventual winner takes home ₩36,440,000 (~US$31,310) and WSOP bracelet winner Mike Takayama sits second in chips, Chen An Lin also remains in contention.
The ₩1,500,000 Baby Dragon features two starting days at 1 p.m. (30-minute levels) and 8 p.m. (20-minute levels) local time, and both flights will play down to the top 12%.
just before the blinds went up and Lee defended the 
in the big blind. On a flop of 
, Lee check-called a bet of 40,000 and led the 
turn for 55,000, which He called. On the 
river, Lee moved all in and He snap-called with the straight.
flop and the 
river kept him in the running. He would be the only European player still in contention moments later as Paul Newey lost the race against his short stack on the feature table.
turn and the 
river brought no help to Zhang whileLai continued his rise on the leader board.
flop was bad news for Gu but he spiked a miracle 
on the turn. Ultimately it was not meant to be as the 
river came a blank. Both players took out their smartphones to grab a picture of what happened and Enoki then headed to the rail.
and that spelled the end for Zheng's hopes to become a two-time champion.
