Jeju Red Dragon 2018: Sumit Sapra Among 141 Main Event Day 1A Survivors, Ye Wang Wins Single Day High Roller

We are now entering the business end of the 2018 PokerStars LIVE Asia Jeju Red Dragon with only four more days left for the series to conclude. The magnum opus of the series is indubitably the ₩2.2M Red Dragon Main Event. Slated to be held across two starting flights, the event opened with Day 1A which attracted 376 entries.

Almost nine months ago, in February, Alvan Zheng bested a 1,122-strong entry field to win the largest freeze-out tournament hosted in the Asia Pacific region, i.e. the HK$15,000 Red Dragon Main Event at the PokerStars Macau Poker Cup 28. On its Korean debut, the Jeju Red Dragon Main Event may well overshadow its predecessor’s attendance record.

The Indian contingent has been a noticeable presence in the series thus far and expectedly turned up for Day 1A of the Main Event. Besides the regulars who have participated in previous events, namely Kalyan Chakravarthy, Young Gun Abhinav Iyer, Adda52 Team pro Kunal Patni, MadOverPoker pro Zarvan Tumboli and Sumit Sapra, poker veteran Raghav Bansal was also seen in the mix.

Sapra (87,000) was the only Indian challenger to carry a bag through to Day 2. The man from New Delhi has been in peak form lately. He started the year by becoming the first Indian to win the coveted Platinum Pass back in April at APPT Korea. Sapra won a flipout tournament against Team PokerStars Pro Randy Lew to win a $30,000 package to the PokerStars Players NL Hold’em Championship (PSPC) to be held in the Bahamas in January.

Meanwhile, Hao Qi Xie (218,600) captured the chip lead on Day 1A and will be leading the 141 hopefuls to Day 2 where they will meet the survivors from the second starting flight, Day 1B.

Running alongside the Main Event was the ₩15M Single Day High Roller that pulled in 60 entries to the field. Eventually, China’s Ye Wang triumphed over the field, defeating Malaysia’s Michael Soyza heads-up to earn a payout of ₩253,800,000, and his career-first PokerStars LIVE title.

₩2.2M Red Dragon Main Event – Day 1A

The much-anticipated and immensely popular ₩2.2M Red Dragon Main Event is finally underway and on its very first outing in Jeju, the signature event attracted 376 entries.

The Indian contingent had a strong showing on the opening flight of the Main Event. Apart from the usual suspects – Kalyan Chakravarthy, Young Gun Abhinav Iyer, Adda52 Team pro Kunal Patni, MadOverPoker pro Zarvan Tumboli and the first Indian to post a score at the series, Sumit Sapra, the new addition included seasoned pro Raghav Bansal.

Bansal found success early when he won a pot against fellow countryman Tumboli and Victor Chong, during level 2. Bansal’s stack increased to 26,700, while Tumboli came down to 15,100 from a starting stack of 20,000.

Six levels later, with the board open Bansal turned over , prompting Yi Shi to muck his hand as Bansal`s count climbed to a healthy 45,500. But Bansal’s run did not last till the end of the day. His ran into an opponent’s which brought about Bansal’s elimination.

Kunal Patni was one of the early birds to start Day 1A and had accumulated a stack of 14,000 by level 4. But he too busted out before the day came to an end. The other unfortunates from Team India to hit the rail were Kalyan Chakravarthy, Abhinav Iyer and Zarvan Tumboli.

Other notable eliminations included Hong Kong’s Andy Ying Kit Chan, China’s Hao Chen and Taiwan’s Pete Chen.

Sumit Sapra continued his excellent performance from the Megastack event to Day 1A of the Main Event. During level 10, he had 31,000 in chips which swelled to 87,000 by the end of the day.

China’s Hao Qi Xie (218,600) emerged as the chip leader, with Chun Kong Kwok (128,800) and Qiang Xu (126,100) coming in at a distant second and third spots respectively. Xie will lead the 141 Day 1A survivors to Day 2 which will take place on December 7.

Top 10 Chip Counts At The End of Day 1A

1. Hao Qi Xie – 218,600

2. Chun Kong Kwok – 128,800

3. Qiang Xu – 126,100

4. Zejin Shen – 122,500

5. Shenghao Wu – 120,500

6. Victor Chong – 115,800

7. Ziming Chen – 114,300

8. Jiang Wang – 110,000

9. Tianyuan Tang – 104,500

10. Lin Guo – 102,400

₩15M Single Day High Roller

While the Main Event kept the action going, another Red Dragon event drew in a good number of entries and saw intense action. The ₩15M Single Day High Roller attracted 60 entries that included 40 unique entries.

With turbo-paced play, the event crowned a winner in Ye Wang from China. Wang defeated Malaysian bigwig Michael Soyza in the heads-up play to claim his biggest live score of ₩253,800,000, in addition to the trophy.

For Soyza who had come into the final table with the largest stack, it was his second High Roller final table score at the ongoing series and he banked ₩183,580,000 for his runner-up finish.

The ₩15,000,000 buy-in took the prize pool to ₩846,000,000 and eight players booked a profit.

Team PokerStars pro Celina Lin made a deep run in the event and cruised into the final 16, but fell short of the final table. Swedish player Mikael Andersson, China’s Shan Huang and Albert Paik from USA also came up short of the money.

China’s Wei Hsiang Yeu was eliminated in 10^th place.

Final Table Recap

While the final table had nine contenders resuming action, only eight of them were to make it in the money. Minutes into the action, a three-way all in saw the double elimination of Kuisong Wu and Xuming Qi and at the hands of Wang who then leveled up with Soyza in chips. In the hand, Wu held and Qi against Wang’s . While Wu, who was the shorter of the two players at the start of the hand, departed empty-handed in ninth place, Qi collected the eighth-place min-cash..

After the elimination of Kok Weng Beh in sixth place, Nan Hong and Choon Tong Siow fell in quick succession. Xixiang Luo found his stack depleted and joined the rail in third place.

The heads-up between Michael Soyza and Wang saw the latter take over the lead and soon he relegated Soyza to second place, claiming the trophy and his maiden PokerStars LIVE title.

Final Table Results (KRW)

1. Ye Wang – ₩253,800,000

2. Michael Soyza – ₩183,580,000

3. Xixiang Luo – ₩118,440,000

4. Choon Tong Siow – ₩89,680,000

5. Nan Hong – ₩69,370,000

6. Kok Weng Beh – ₩54,140,000

7. Guo Feng Wang – ₩43,150,000

8. Xuming Qi – ₩33,840,000

Content & Images courtesy – PokerStars LIVE Asia

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