APT Jeju Opens With 12 APT Championship Seats on the Line
Main Event finishers, lucky-draw recipients and winners of seven designated events can earn $10,000 Taipei entries.
APT Jeju opened Friday at LES A Casino in Jeju Shinhwa World with 12 $10,000 seats to the APT Championship Main Event available across the 13-day festival. The series runs through Oct. 7 and centers on a KRW 2.7 million (about $2,000) Main Event carrying a KRW 2.2 billion (about $1.6 million) guarantee.
As reported earlier today, the Jeju stop is the fourth festival in the Asian Poker Tour’s 20th-anniversary season, with a broad schedule and the Main Event as its centerpiece.
The Main Event begins Sept. 27, with four starting flights running through Sept. 29. Survivors then return for Days 2 through 5 from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3.
Three of the APT Championship seats go to the top three Main Event finishers. Two more will be awarded by lucky draw among players still in contention on Days 3 and 4, adding a potential route to Taipei for players who have not necessarily reached the final table.
The other seven seats are attached to selected festival tournaments: the APT Super High Roller, APT High Roller, Superstar Challenge, Zodiac Classic, High Roller–Ultra Stack, another High Roller event and the Mini Main Event. The APT Championship Main Event is scheduled for Taipei from Nov. 13-29 with a $5 million guarantee.
There is a small discrepancy in how the overall schedule is counted. PokerOrg and The Hendon Mob describe 135 events, while the APT’s schedule announcement calls it 136 trophy events plus three satellites. The official event listing itself runs through Event #135. The APT’s schedule announcement and The Hendon Mob put total guaranteed prize pools above KRW 5.2 billion.
Beyond no-limit hold’em, the schedule includes PLO, stud, triple draw, OFC, Double Board Bomb Pots, single draw, dealer’s choice and ROSET. It also has 11 women’s events, while buy-ins range from about $150 to $27,000 and cash-game blinds from about $4/$8 to $40/$80.
The stop returns to a place where the tour’s Korean footprint has grown sharply. APT’s first recorded Jeju series was held at Royal Palace Casino in 2013, when its Main Event drew 166 entries. The earlier APT Jeju visit this year drew 1,718 entries and was described as South Korea’s largest international live poker tournament.
APT Jeju continues through Oct. 7 before the seat winners and qualifiers head toward the APT Championship in Taipei in November.
