Taiwan’s Yu Hsiang Huang topped Day 2 of the largest poker tournament ever to play out in Korea

APT JEJU 2025 SCHEDULE | OFFICIAL RESULTS | PLAYER LISTS | IMAGES | WINNERS

JEJU, SOUTH KOREA, October 1, 2025 – On Wednesday, the Asian Poker Tour officially set the Korea all-time record for field size – with the APT Jeju 2025 Main Event drawing 1,693 (905 unique) entries.

LES A Casino—located at the luxurious Jeju Shinhwa World resort—has solidified its position as Korea’s home of poker. Hosted in partnership with Landing Entertainment Korea, the KRW 2.6M (~USD 1,860) Main Event is officially the largest international poker tournament ever to play out in the country.

This means the APT currently holds three international records for tournament entries in a country/region, with the other two being the APT Taipei 2025 Main Event, and the APT Hanoi Billions 2023 Main Event.

The 516 survivors from the four live flights returned for Day 2 at 11:15am local time (KST) with a further 195 entries joining the action, swelling the prize pool to a massive KRW 3,761,155,200 (~USD 2,686,540).

This makes it the richest Main Event the APT has ever run in Korea, and the third richest APT Main Event of all time.

The top 247 places will make the money, and in addition to an APT Championship Main Event seat valued at KRW 14 million (USD 10,000) for the top three places, the eventual champion will walk away with a hefty KRW 649,835,200 (~USD 464,170) top prize – the largest the tour has ever awarded in the country, and the third-largest APT Main Event prize ever awarded.

A minimum cash will earn KRW 4,020,000 (~USD 2,870), with Adalsteinn Karlsson the first player to earn this having fought his way through to Day 3 OnLive via Natural8.

Being as Karlsson also bagged up a live Day 2 stack of 501,000, the Icelandic player’s smallest stack was taken out of play, meaning Karlsson is already guaranteed to make a payday of at least KRW 8,040,000 (~USD 5,740), but has a shot at a great deal more come Day 3.

Iceland’s Adalsteinn became the first player in the Main Event to min-cash

For Main Event Prize Pool & Payouts please CLICK HERE

It was Maxim Sorokin returning in pole position with the start-of-day chip lead, and while the Russian player is still in contention after bagging up a stack of 509,000, it was Taiwan’s Yu Hsiang Huang the man to bag the largest Day 2 stack of 869,000.

The Day 2 action concluded ten-minutes into the eighth 60-minute level played (level 18), with Natural8 Ambassador Kitty Kuo exiting on the money bubble when her pocket nines lost a race to Chinese bracelet winner Peng Zhou’s king-queen after the two got all the chips in pre-flop.

While Kuo lost the race and became the last player in the field to depart empty-handed, she did draw a ticket to the KRW 850,000 (~USD 600) Event #89: Ultra Stack as a consolation prize, so it was not all doom and gloom.

Natural8 Ambassador Kitty Kuo exits on the money bubble

With that timely flip, Zhou narrowly missed out on making a top ten stack, bagging up 676,000 with which to make his run at the title come Day 3.

China’s Jieming Xu ( 867,000), and Cypriot Andreas Christodoulou (812,000) rounded out the top three, with APT Manila 2024 Super High Roller champion William Teoh of Malaysia also bagging a top ten stack, as well as Cypriot bracelet winner Georgios Skarparis:

DAY 2 TOP TEN STACKS

For Main Event Day 2 Player List please CLICK HERE

For Main Event Day 2 Survivors please CLICK HERE

For Main Event Day 3 Draw please CLICK HERE

However, it will be OnLive Natural8 Day 3 qualifier Jianfeng Sun returning in the driving seat, coming in with the start-of-day chip lead and a stack of 1,013,000 with the Chinese player the only one returning with a seven-figure stack.

Other notables who remain in contention for the life-changing top prize money on offer include two-time APT Main Event finalist Abraham Ceesvin (595,000), APT Taipei Poker Classic High Roller champion Martin Sedlak (450,000), APT Incheon 2023 High Roller champion Thanisorn Saelor (350,000), APT Super High Roller champion Mingcong Chen (244,000), and Natural8 Ambassadors Yu-Chung “Nevan” Chang (94,000), and Hui Wei Lin (63,000).

Punnat Punsri is one of several former APT Main Event champions still in contention

With defending champion Xixing Luo bowing out midway through the day, other former APT Main Event champions still in the running include OnLive qualifier and APT Phu Quoc Main Event 2024 champion Jinlong Hu (731,000), APT Taipei Poker Classic 2024 Main Event champion Rene Von Reden (573,000), and APT Taipei 2023 Main Event champion Punnat Punsri (186,000).

All tournament information can be found on the Main Event Day 2 tournament page.

You can read about how everything played out via the APT Blog, and watch the action as it happened via the Main Event Day 2 Live Stream on the official APT YouTube channel.

Day 3 gets underway at 11:15am (KST) on Thursday, October 2 where the 246 survivors will attempt to make deep runs and earn a spot in the penultimate Day 4 so join us then as we see who earns their place in the APT history annals.