 Asia's first ever PokerStars Festival Main Event champion has emerged in the Paradise City, Incheon as Korea-born Taehoon Han outlasted 285-player field to take down the PokerStars Festival Korea Main Event. Han took home KRW 83,130,000 (nearly $75,000) along with the title and a trophy.
The inaugural PokerStars Festival Korea ran from July 14-24, 2017, offering a 34-tournament schedule with a variety of buy-ins. Over 1,800 entries to the tournaments and more than KRW 1,100,000,000 in prize money has been awarded during the Festival.
The Main Event champion Han took the largest prize awarded across the 11-day festival. "Good money, good result, that's good enough for me," he said. Today's payday was by far the biggest in the 26-year-old's live tournament career. "This is my first big tournament cash. It feels unreal," he said.
The 26-year-old is no stranger to the game, however. He started playing on PokerStars around six years ago. He considered himself professional when pursuing glory in the virtual realm, but Han switched to live cash games a couple of years ago. "I was a professional poker player I guess, but I don't want to be," he laughed.
While he was born here in South Korea, Han's family moved to New Zealand about 15 years ago. Han himself currently spends his time back in Seoul.
Han brought the third biggest stack to the final table and it took him less than six hours to conquer it. His last obstacle was arguably the toughest as Han faced off with Japanese-Korean high stakes cash game regular Yuki Ko.
When Han reached heads-up, he had a slightly bigger stack. Ko and Han discussed a potential deal right away, but they never came to an agreement.
Han immediately extended his chip lead, and while Ko bounced back to have a brief stint in the chip lead, Han pushed him back down again when he forced a fold from Ko, five-betting preflop. Han wouldn't relinquish his lead thereafter, constantly wounding Ko's stack.
The last hand saw Ko move all in with jack-ten of hearts and Han called with queen-jack. A ten appeared in the window but a queen followed on the flop. Ko couldn't improve his hand on the following streets.
Ko scooped KRW 55,280,000 for his runner-up finish, wrapping up his campaign with a great result after busting five entries in the High Roller last week. Known as a pot-limit omaha specialist, Ko has been dominating through the better part of the tournament, leaving PokerStars Festival Korea as one of the main heroes.
Third place finisher Weikuo Hsiao was dispatched by Han, who peeled pocket tens in the big blind after Hsiao had shoved his short stack from the button. His king-deuce was no match to Han's pair and Hsiao left the table with the biggest notch of his career, claiming KRW 40,430,000.
Mitsuru Sano fell to Han as well, in a rather cruel fashion that saw him bust in fourth place. Sano was all in on the turn with a top pair and top kicker against Han's open-ended straight draw. An ace on the river gave Sano two pair but also fitted one of Han's seven outs for a straight, leaving Sano with the KRW 32,635,000 prize.
Recreational poker player, professional drummer Harunobu Kojima departed in fifth place. Kojima was hanging around with a short stack until he ran with ace-jack into Yuki Ko's sevens. Kojima couldn't catch up on the board, exiting with a KRW 25,600,000 payday.
Scott Janik emerged as the Day 1c chip leader and he returned for the final day second in chips. However, his amazing run was halted when he three-bet shoved with ace-queen suited, only to look into Yuki Ko's ace-king. Janik, who serves in the U.S. Army here in South Korea, found no help from the dealer and walked away in sixth place, pocketing KRW 19,400,000.
Seoul's own Jwahyoung Kim was eliminated in seventh place, taking KRW 14,220,000. Kim four-bet all in with ace-ten but Mitsuru Sano held ace-king and his hand remained best through to the river.
Day 1a chip leader, Russian player Dmitrii Kovalevskii came back for the final day with the shortest stack and his appearance was only brief. Kovalevskii took a bad beat, losing with ace-seven against Scott Janik's ace-six. Janik spiked a six on the river to knock Kovalevskii out in eighth place. Kovalevskii, who hails from Vladivostok, took home KRW 10,450,000.
The KRW 414,675,000 prize pool was split by the top 39 finishers. Notable players among those who made it to the money included Xingbiao Zhu (9th for KRW 8,670,000), Sparrow Cheung (12th for KRW 6,350,000), Justin Chan (14th for KRW 5,720,000), Ivan Leow (17th for KRW 5,100,000), Jack Wu (20th for KRW 4,480,000), Oleg Shalaumov (21st for KRW 4,060,000), Albert Paik (24th for KRW 3,640,000), Alan Lau (29th for KRW 3,240,000), Linh Tran (30th for KRW 3,240,000) and Takashi Ogura (32nd for KRW 2,860,000).
Team PokerStars Pro Celina Lin and Team PokerStars Online Randy "nanonoko" Lew both competed in the Main Event.
The inaugural PokerStars Festival Korea Main Event attracted players from 25 countries. Nearly a half of the field comprised of players from Japan (44% or 86 runners) while the USA came second with 21 participants (11%) and China third with 14 players (7%).
PokerStars Festival Korea Main Event final table results:
1th - Taewoon Han, New Zealand, KRW 83,130,000
2th - Yuki Ko, South Korea, KRW 55,280,000
3th - Weikuo Hsiao, Taiwan, KRW 40,430,000
4th - Mitsuru Sano, Japan, KRW 32,635,000
5th - Harunobu Kojima, Japan, KRW 25,600,000
6th - Scott Janik, USA, KRW 19,400,000
7th - Jwahyoung Kim, Korea, KRW 14,220,000
8th - Dmitrii Kovalevskii, Russia, KRW 10,450,000
|
Asia's first ever PokerStars Festival Main Event champion has emerged in the Paradise City, Incheon as Korea-born Taehoon Han outlasted 285-player field to take down the PokerStars Festival Korea Main Event. Han took home KRW 83,130,000 (nearly $75,000) along with the title and a trophy.
