Phanlert Sukonthachartnant got all his chips in the middle before the flop against Boyuan Qu, who had him covered by a wide margin.
Sukonthachartnant:
Qu:
Qu had the preflop advantage with the better ace and Sukonthachartnant needed help in order to double up. The board ran out and Qu's hand was still best, so he took the pot.
The ₩4,350,000 High Roller at the inaugural PokerStars Festival Korea attracted 45 entries and generated a prize pool of ₩174,600,000, the approximate equivalent of just over $155,000. Twenty-three players bagged chips at the conclusion of play with China's Boyuan Qu at the head of the pack with 253,400. Team PokerStars Online Pro Randy Lew (203,700) was the only other player to bag a stack of over 200,000. Shinji Kashima (191,400), Elias Gutierrez (190,000), and Wei Hsiang Yeu (188,100) aren't far behind, having also spun up their 50,000-chip starting stacks quite nicely over the course of the 12 levels played today.
Several other familiar faces have advanced to Day 2, including Albert Paik (167,600), Sparrow Cheung (131,300), Alan Lau (51,800). Pete Chen, who has already made two final tables at PokerStars Festival Korea in preliminary events, also bagged chips with a stack of 43,100, and Takashi Ogura bagged the short stack with 26,400.
Unfortunately, not all of the fan favorites survived to the end of Day 1 play. PokerStars Team Pro Celina Lin, Phanlert Sukonthachartnant, and Keisuke Hikosaka had all been sent to the rail by the time play concluded.
Day 2 begins at noon local time on Friday and late registration will remain open until the end of level 14, so there's a whole lot of poker left to be played in this event. Check back here for updates from the PokerNews live reporting team on the action in the PokerStars Festival Korea High Roller and Main Event, which is also already underway.
and Qu's hand was still best, so he took the pot.
