WPT Korea Championship Event Day 1C Recap

March 30, 2024, Jeju island, South Korea, – The WPT Korea Championship Event reached a milestone by amassing a field of 1,065 entries by the end of the Championship Event Day 1C, one of the biggest fields South Korea has ever seen in their poker history.   The total prize pool now stands at KRW 2,603,286,000 (~US$1.9 million) with KRW 434,936,000 (~US$320,000) going to first place, plus a prestigious WPT Trophy and the much coveted WPT Championship Ring.  

Top 3 chip leaders are all from China – Lin Yan (836,000 chips), Hai Pan (616,000 chips), and Renji Mao (545,000 chips).  Defending champion Yin Tao, who’s hoping for a back to back win is still in the tournament with 165,000 chips with last year’s runner up Valeriy Pak from Uzbekistan is still in the running with 222,000 in chips.  Veteran poker players Phil Ivey, Stephen O’ Dwyer and  WSOP 2022 Champion Espen Jorstad all qualified for Day2 as well.  

Other events were also held today with 2 WPT Side Event Rings being given away.  Kojiro Doi from Japan and Maxwell Curtis from the United States both got a WPT Silver Champion Ring by winning NLH Deepstack and Pot Limit Omaha, respectively.  Apart from the ring, Doi received a cash prize of KRW24,485,000 (~US$18,000) while Curtis earned KRW 9,900,000 (~US$7,000) for his efforts.

Other winners include No Limit 2-7 Single Draw winner Quan Zhou who received KRW 4,851,000.00 (~US$3,600) and Hyper Turbo NLH champion Shi Qizheng who won KRW 11,103,000 (~US$8,200) in cash.

The Championship Ring Event Day 2 will be streamed tomorrow, March 31, 2024 at 12:00pm (GMT +9) in WPT Korea’s official Youtube channel (@wpt_korea).