Takahisa Watanabe

After 9 hours of poker flight A of the KRW 175,000,000 Guaranteed Kickoff Event has come to an end. The chip leader at the end of the flight is Japan's Takahisa Watanabe. A total of 151 entries were made and 22 players made it to Day (ITM).

Watanabe was right from the get-go, one of the chip leaders of the tournament. His aggressive style paid off on multiple occasions and even after APT Taipei Mystery Bounty winner Kiwanont Sukhum won a big pot of Watanabe the Japanese kept raking in pots. In the end, Watanabe will bring back. 720,000 chips to Day 2 tomorrow.

The number two in the chip counts is Kun-Han Lee from Taiwan. Lee is a 3-time APT side event winner and is looking to bring home the biggest APT trophy in his career tomorrow. The Taiwanese pro will bagged 393,000 in chips. In the third position of the leaderboard, we find the already previously mentioned Kiwanont Sukhum. The Thai won a huge flip with ace-king versus pocket tens and not much later boated up versus Watanabe, who folded when Sukhum moved all-in for 135,000 after Watanabe already led out 100,000.

Other notable players that made it to Day 2 are Japan's Shogo Kimura (307,000), Malaysia's Tai Fung Wong (141,000), and Singapore's Bao Qiang Ho (52,000).

The full survivors list can be found on the "Survivors" page in this live report.

This live report was brought to you by Life of Poker.

Join us tomorrow for Day 2 of the APT Kickoff from 12:15pm local time as we play down to a champion.

Min Sung Lee is our bubble boy after he got crippled to less than one big blind and afterward waited till he was blind all-in from the big blind.

The hand that crippled the Korean

Lee raised to 80,000 from the Hijack, leaving himself only 6,000 behind. The action was folded to Jung Hwan Shin from Australia in the small blind, who made the call. The big blind went out of the way, and Lee and Shin saw a 6 5 8 .

Both players checked their option and did as well on the 4 turn. The K on the river might see some action? No, both players checked and to the surprise of the rest of the table Shin tabled A K , while Lee showed K Q .

This meant Lee was down to 6,000 chips and was now sitting UTG. Lee hoped someone would bust on the other two tables and therefore folded from UTG, but no one did which meant he was blind all-in from the big blind in the next hand.

Last hand of the day

In the last hand of the day Jung Hwan Shin limped for 8,000, Hon Leung Ip and Xuefeng Huang followed this example. All three players checked all three streets on a board of 6 6 8 5 9 . Showdown:

Huang: 4 4 .

Ip: K Q .

Shin: A 7

Shin rivered a straight and Lee didn't see his hand yet and decided to reveal his hand slowly. The Q meant no dice for Lee who needed a seven to split the main pot. His other card was the 8 which means all the other remaining 22 players are in the money and made it to day 2.

We lost Tian Gu from the Kickoff Event 1A when he pushed his last 3,000 into the middle. The Chinese has been waiting for a spot to push in for quite a while.

Zhanghui Yu from the small blind called the 6,000, and the big blind Jung Hwan Shin checked his option. Both players checked the A 5 9 flop, but the K got bet by Shin from the big blind. Yu went out of the way, and we had a showdown:

Shin: K 7 .

Gu: 3 3 .

Gu was down to two outs as only a three would save him. The T meant we lost Gu. We are now on the bubble!

The action started when Cheuk Him Tsang opened from the Hijack to 15,000 and the CO Kozo Yamada made the call. From the big blind Koichi Saeki made it 45,000, and both Tsang and Yamada tagged along.

The flop brought 7 5 8 and Saeki used 2 timebanks before he led out 60,000. Tsang made the quick fold, but Yamada thought about if for a while. He used two timebanks to overthink what his countrymen was doing before eventually giving up.

Saeki picked up this pot non-showdown and is now the number two in chips.

We are down to 24 players in the Kickoff Event Flight 1A.

This means two players will walk away without making it in the money.

We are down to 38 players in the Kickoff Event Flight 1A, with 22 players making it to Day 2. The players will take less risk now that they are in reach of making it into the money.

The APT Taipei Mystery Bounty Event winner, Kiwanont Sukhum is our new chip leader at the Flight 1A. He moved into the chip lead after two massive pots.

On the first hand, he pushed all-in preflop with T T and received a call from Tian Gu's A K . The board ran out perfectly for the friendly Thai 4 5 T 6 7 . With this double-up Sukhum went to 198,000, while Gu was left with only 35,000.

While we were typing down this hand Sukhum walked by to go to the toilet and he told us he just got moved to a new table. In his first hand at the new table he picked up ace-ten and called a 3-bet preflop the flop came king-ten and he check-called one street. The turn gave an ace and he again check-called a bet now worth 35,000.

Both players now saw another ace come off on the river. A full house for Sukhum that saw to his surprise his opponent bet 100,000 into him. The Thai went all-in for 135,000 and saw his opponent fold. Sukhum is the chip leader now with 370,000!

We arrived at table 4 when we saw there was a big pot brewing between Shogo Kimura and Guang Guo Piao. The board already read 7 6 A Q 8 when Piao moved all-in for 43,000 into a 69,000 pot. Kimura was now deep in the tank.

The Japanese covered his Chinese opponent, which made all the difference in the call for Kimura. A call followed and Piao was only able to show 8 9 for pocket nines while Kimura showed A J for top pair.

Piao hits the rail while Kimura is one of the chip leaders.

Preflop the pot already ballooned to 43,000 between Tian Gu and Xuefeng Huang, and once the J 3 5 Gu immediately moved all-in for 41,500. Huang made the quick call but shook his head when he saw Gu showed him Q Q . Huang was far behind with his 7 7 and needed a runner-runner or one of the two seven to come out.

The 3 on the turn and 6 were not it for Huang that doubled up Gu to an above average stack.