Jun Obara Leads the Final 21 in 2019 PokerStars Korea APPT Super High Roller
The first day of the ₩10,000,000 APPT Super High Roller ($8,767) has now come to an end, and it's Jun Obara (lead photo) finding himself in the driver's seat, bagging the chip lead with an impressive 1,465,000 in chips.
Obara sat around average for most of the day; it wasn't until right after the last break of the day that he started to spin up a stack. He took his first leap forward against Wayne Zhang's big slick when he rivered a flush to take down the pot and secure a full double through Zhang.
He continued to climb during the last three levels of play, opening up and taking down a lot of hands preflop. Obara soon after found himself in a pot with aces against Norihiro Otani's pocket queens and Xiaqing Ji with king-eight suited. He lost to Ji's flush, but took down the side pot, bumping him over the million-mark for the first time.
The day began with just eight players. When the first break came around, though, there were almost thirty signed up. By the end of the nine levels of registration, a total of 65 entry slips were sold, with 54 of those entries being unique and eleven reentries. This generated a prize pool of ₩611,585,000 ($537,210), with nine in the money. A min-cash will be pulling in ₩17,736,000 ($15,608) and the eventual winner will be taking home ₩178,890,000 ($157,423.)
APPT Super High Roller Payouts
| Place | Prize (in KRW) | Prize (in USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ₩178,890,000 | $157,423 |
| 2 | ₩128,432,000 | $113,020 |
| 3 | ₩83,480,000 | $73,462 |
| 4 | ₩62,992,000 | $55,433 |
| 5 | ₩48,925,000 | $43,054 |
| 6 | ₩37,920,000 | $33,370 |
| 7 | ₩29,970,000 | $26,374 |
| 8 | ₩23,240,000 | $20,451 |
| 9 | ₩17,736,000 | $15,608 |
Team PokerStars Pro Celina Lin managed to spin up a stack during the latter half of the day after struggling to get much going earlier. She was as low as 92,500 before finding a much needed double through Wai Kiat Lee with her pocket threes against ace-king. She continued to run up a stack after that double and starts the second day in fourth place on the leaderboard.
Some other well-known pros to advance include Randy Lew (775,000), Michael Soyza (635,000), Sparrow Cheung (470,000), and World Series of Poker bracelet winner Calvin Lee (320,000.)
Day 2 will start at 1:00 p.m. local time in the Paradise City Resort & Casino poker room. The PokerNews live reporting team will be bringing all the coverage for this and every other tournament during the 2019 PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour Korea.
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