The 28-year old Michael Soyza from Malaysia has won the APPT Main Event Korea. He bested the largest-ever Main Event field of 449 entries and of course a tough final table. Soyza moved into the heads up round against Japan’s Mitsuhiro Shiga and eventually went on to win the title for the top prize ₩158,700,000 (US$148,629) and the $30,000 PokerStars Players Championship Platinum Pass.
Final Table
The final day had the strong lineup battling it for the title. There were several well-known players, including Taehoon Han, who finished 12th in this event. The first key elimination from the final table came in the form of Eric Wasylenko whose Ace King lost to Huang’s pocket Aces. Yuki Ko went out in 8th place. Randy Lew took 5th place and Bryan Huang went out in 3rd place. Huang went head-to-head against Soyza several times before the 3-handed play and took the chip lead in between. However, he met his end at the hands of Shiga with pocket Aces beating pocket Tens.
The heads-up began with Soyza on a chip deficit. However, he quickly leveled it up with Shiga. On the last hand of the tournament, he secured himself a trip to the Bahamas with his Ks-Kd dusting Shiga’s Js-8c open-ended straight draw that was missed on the river 9h.
“I tried to play solid, not make any mistakes,” Soyza said. “I got a pretty good table draw in the beginning, but it got worse on the final table with Bryan on my left and Eric [Wasylenko] as well. They’re both good players so it would’ve helped to have them on my right.”
“But you know, just run good, catch some cards, make some full houses and, BOOM, shipped!” said Soyza just after his win.
Final Table Payouts (KRW):
1st Michael Soyza – Malaysia – ₩158,700,000
2nd Mitsuhiro Shiga – Japan – ₩99,468,600
3rd Bryan Huang – Singapore – ₩61,380,000
4th Tomita Ryo – Japan – ₩46,570,000
5th Randy Lew – USA – ₩33,870,000
6th Toru Wakamatsu – Japan – ₩26,810,000
7th Kojiro Mizukami – Japan – ₩21,170,000
8th Yuki Ko – Korea – ₩17,640,000
9th Eric Wasylenko – Canada – ₩14,110,000
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