January 31-February 1
Big blinds in Ren Lin's stack when he started his three-handed comeback in the APT Super High Roller.
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1ST
Ren Lin
$275,220
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2ND
Ryuta Nakai
$185,960
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3RD
Quang Dinh Do
$120,875
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4TH
Khoa Anh Ngo
$100,090
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5TH
Guoliang Wei
$80,730
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6TH
Ryan Plant
$63,670
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7TH
Yosuke Miki
$48,680
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8TH
Kento Nasu
$36,645
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9TH
Paulius Plausinaitis
$27,350
For 20 years the Asian Poker Tour has been on the rise as the most exciting and prestigious tour in Asia, with record-breaking fields year after year in some of the world's most breath-taking cities.
The APT 20-Year Anniversary is a celebration of that journey, with another slate of largest-ever fields and mega guarantees on tap for 2026. This year's story starts in Jeju, South Korea, where the APT Jeju Classic 2026 is in full force through February 8 in the LES A Casino at the world-beating Jeju Shinhwa World resort.
The 10-day festival features 99 different events, with everything from high rollers to women's events and a host of mixed games for every poker player. Guarantees add up to nearly $3.5 million, and a big chunk of it comes from a Main Event that offers a minimum $1.5 million prize pool.
APT's opening weekend in Jeju picked up the momentum where 2025 left off with big turnouts for marquee events like the APT National Cup and the Mystery Bounty Hunter, and a record-breaking APT Super High Roller. The APT Super High Roller is the start of the signature Mega Lion trophy events at the Jeju Classic, drawing the first million-dollar prize pool of the festival with a $10,400 buy-in and an added seat for the season-ending Asian Poker Tour Championship Main Event. A field of 115 players turned out, stacking up $1,103,800 in prizes, and 17 of them would grab a piece of it before Ren Lin claimed the $275,220 lion's share.
Lin bounces back from two big blinds
The supersized high-stakes field included 75 unique players and it added up to the largest Korean-based APT Super High Roller. A host of big stars sat down, like five-time WSOP champ John Juanda, Superstar Challenge winner Calvin Lee, all-time APT money winner Joseph Cheong, and former APT Main Event champs Punnat Punsri and Rene von Reden.
In the end, Lee, Juanda, and and Lin survived to sit among the 23 remaining players on Day 2, but it was Lin who stole the show. With only three players left, Lin was down to just two big blinds after a dominant chip lead went to dust against Quang Dinh Do and Ryuta Nakai. An epic heater ensued, with doubles and shoves that led to a climactic showdown where Lin flopped the world for the chip lead.
It started when Nakai raised and Lin shoved. Nakai snap-called and the cards couldn't flip over fast enough. Lin had (of course) 
and Nakai had 
, and it looked like curtains until the 
flop put Lin in the driver's seat. A 
appeared on the turn to make the set into quads and Lin had the top stack.
Lin soon closed out the deal in a heads-up match with Nakai that only lasted four hands, booking a $275K win, a Mega Lion trophy, and a ticket to the APTC Main Event later this year.
Huang battles back for National Cup
Elsewhere at the 2026 APT Jeju Classic, the APT National Cup kicked off a schedule of Silver Lion events with a 690-entry field that awarded $65,855 to its winner, Junyu Huang. The champ was among the 97 players who returned for Day 2, mounting a clever comeback to secure victory. Huang entered heads-up play with a 3-to-1 chip deficit against Zu You Wang, but the fortunes flipped right away to deliver his first-ever APT victory.
Meanwhile, Chao Tang won the first women's event of the series, which drew 57 players to the beginning of a women's tournament schedule that features an event every day.
Dozens of events pack the APT Jeju Classic schedule for the next week, but a lot of the excitement now shifts to the APT Main Event, where four opening flights will pack players in for a chase at the $1.5 million guarantee. The first flight is already in the books, with 421 entries so far. That's a big increase over the first flight of last year's APT Jeju Main, which drew 390 entries.
The opening flight yielded 145 players for Day 2 on February 4, and three more flights will add more throughout the week. Also on tap for February 2 is the Women's Bounty Hunter event and Day 1 of the Superstar Challenge, a marquee event with another seat to the APT Championship in Taipei waiting for the winner.
For more APT Jeju Classic 2026 action, check out their livestreams on APT TV.
Images courtesy of the Asian Poker Tour.
