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Dong-Bin Han Is First Korean Poker Player to Win an APPT Title

The APPT Cebu Main Event is now over and for the first time ever a Korean has won an APPT title. Dong-Bin Han managed to outlast the final table and win the title plus the grand prize money. The tournament was the biggest tournament in the history of the Philippines with a total of 319 players. It took five days to complete the tournament which is quite long considering the size of the event.

The final table was filled with no-name poker players for the most part. There weren’t really that many known players in the tournament to begin with. The first player to be knocked off of the final table was Alexandr Tikholiz. Alexandr walked away from the tournament with a little over $10K on a $2K investment which is pretty decent. The only two players that were going to make in the six figures were first and second place.

Dong-Bin Han and David Hilton were the two players that ended up playing heads-up against each other for the title. When the heads-up battle started the two players were about even in chips. Dong-Bin Han was playing a very aggressive style which cost him a bit early in the heads-up battle. He managed to overcome the short stack though and beat Hilton for the title. It defiantly wasn’t an easy battle to win for the champion, but with his aggressive playing style he squeaked out a victory.

With the title Dong-Bin Han became the first Korean born player to win an APPT title. There is no doubt that there has been an increase in Korean players at many of the tournaments in Asia. The following is how the final table ended up finishing up.

Dong-Bin Han - $148,200
David Hilton - $101,800
Sim Somyung - $58,000
Kevin Clark - $40,728
Terry Fan - $29,000
Mark Pagsuyuin - $23,000
Nick Pronk - $17,500
Phillip Willcocks - $14,000
Alexandr Tikholiz - $10,500

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