Defeats 1,718-Entry Largest Korean Tournament Field of All Time to Claim APT Championship Main Event Seat

APT JEJU CLASSIC 2026 SCHEDULE | OFFICIAL RESULTS | LIVE REPORTING | PLAYER LISTS | IMAGES | WINNERS

JEJU, SOUTH KOREA, February 7, 2026 – Running at the tournament tables of tables of LES A Casino — located at the luxurious Jeju Shinhwa World resort and hosted in partnership with Landing Entertainment Korea — the largest international poker tournament ever to play out in Korea has crowned a champion.

It was Canada’s William Li who etched his name into the annals of Korean poker history, battling back from a 3-to-1 chip deficit against Japan’s Shintaro Sato to claim his maiden live tournament title on the APT’s biggest stage.

Li overcame the record-breaking 1,718-entry APT Jeju Classic 2026 Main Event field — the largest poker tournament ever operated in the country overtaking the previous record 1,693-entry APT Jeju 2025 Main Event — to tame the award-winning 24K Gold Lion APT Main Event Trophy and claim the lion’s share of the KRW 3,414,009,600 (~USD 2,370,840) prize pool – the fifth-richest APT Main Event prize pool of all time, and second richest the tour has ever generated in Korea.

The Canadian recreational player earned a career best KRW 579,649,600 (~USD 402,535) top prize for his victory — more than ten times his previous career best, shooting him up over 1,700 places on the Canada All-Time Money List to just outside of the top 300. Li however, won’t be letting the money go to his head.

“Poker isn’t my profession. I’m not a professional player. It’s just my biggest hobby. I have my own career, so this money won’t dramatically change my life,” Li stated calmly in his post-match interview.

“To me, it’s more like a reward or feedback for the effort I’ve put into this hobby. It encourages me to keep going. Before this, I played many tournaments and lost a lot of money, but I always saw it as paying for something I love. So this win feels like a return on that passion.”

In addition to Li, both runner-up Sato and third place finalist Mihai Tabac received an APT Championship (APTC) Main Event seat for the tour’s largest-ever USD 5M GTD tournament running November 13-29, 2026, in Taipei, Taiwan.

William Li was one of three finalists to win an APTC Main Event seat

With all nine finalists guaranteed a payout of at least KRW 42,910,000 (~USD 29,800) it wasn't just Li who cashed for the largest result of his poker career.

Of the eight other finalists, Japan’s Sato, and Arita Naohiro, China’s Lei Zhang, and Zu You Wang, and Romania’s Tabac all cashed for career-best scores.

APT JEJU CLASSIC MAIN EVENT FINAL TABLE RESULTS

*Plus an APT Championship Main Event Seat valued at KRW 14M (USD 10,000) For APT Jeju Classic 2026 Main Event Player Profiles please CLICK HERE

For all APT Jeju Classic 2026 Main Event Results please CLICK HERE

A Fast-Paced Finale

While the final table was a fast-paced affair and was wrapped up in just 92 hands spanning four and a half 60-minute levels, Li started off the final table action slowly with start-of-day chip leader Sato claiming first blood by eliminating the short-stacked Yuefeng Pan in ninth.

Tabac then took over the chip lead briefly, before APT Taipei 2025 Super High Roller champion Quang Minh Nguyen sent China’s Haohui Ma to the rail in eighth place and then doubled through Wang to edge into pole position.

Arita Naohiro became the next casualty; despite doubling up at Wang’s expense the Japanese player subsequently ran ace-jack into the ace-king of Zhang to exit in seventh.

While Nguyen was one of the more dangerous players remaining, his dreams of becoming the first player in the APT New Era to claim two Mega Lion trophies went up in smoke against Sato who won two huge hands against the Vietnamese player, hitting running cards to make a straight in the second to end Nguyen’s Main Event run in sixth.

Nguyen and Sato share a sporting handshake following the Vietnamese players’ elimination

Following the first break five became four, with Wang unable to recover from his earlier setbacks. The Chinese player hit the rail in fifth place after running ace-four into the pocket eights of Li.

That gave Li a new lease of life, and while he was still the shortest stack at the start of four-handed play it gave him a bit more breathing room to ease some of the pressure.

Li’s Climb to the Summit

The pivotal hand that saw Li begin his climb to the summit occurred ten hands after Wang’s departure, with the Canadian player moving all-in pre-flop from the big blind following a Tabac small blind open.

Li’s ace-nine outpipped Tabac’s ace-eight suited, and while the Romanian player paired his eight on the flop, a nine on the river granted him a double up and moved him up to second in the chip counts behind Sato.

Flush with chips, Li pulled off a big bluff against Tabac to pad out his stack further and leave the latter short, although he did claw some chips back at Li’s expense a few hands later.

Lei Zhang then ran pocket tens into the pocket jacks of Sato to exit in fourth place on the 78th hand played, taking the action three-handed.

Two orbits later, the short-stacked Tabac found ace-king and got all the chips in pre-flop against a rampant Sato; unfortunately for Tabac a queen-high runout put paid to his title hopes and he hit the rail in third place.

Heads-Up

Despite coming into the final table with the chip lead, eliminating four of the other finalists on his road to a head-up confrontation with Li and bringing a 3-to-1 lead into the match, Sato had to settle for second place.

Li earned a double up on the first hand of the match, hitting two pair on an all-heart flop and leading out after Sato checked his option. The Japanese player went for the check-raise shove with top pair, with Li making a speedy call and holding to bring the stacks within eight big blinds.

“In the first hand of heads-up, I made a standard limp with 9-4, I hit two pair. After playing against my opponent for two days, I had some reads on him — he tends to make a lot of unpredictable all-ins.”

“On that board, when he shoved, I didn’t think I was behind many hands, so it felt like an easy call. That hand became a very important turning point. After winning it, our stacks were almost even, with him just slightly ahead,” Li confided in his post-match interview.

The duo then claimed two hands apiece before an ill-timed bluff from Sato left the Japanese player on life support after Li tanked-called with a straight on a paired board.

“The second hand was actually pretty uncomfortable. With my straight draw on that board, I was behind a lot of his calling range. If he called two barrels and then shoved the river, I would lose to higher straights and all the full houses.“

“He [Sato] was the type of player who could shove with a lot of air, but he could also definitely have strong hands. Still, heads-up, with the combo I had, I didn’t feel like I could fold much. Even though he covered me, I had to go with my hand.”

It was all over the next hand, with Sato getting his last big blind in with king-six and Li looking him up with ace-two, which held firm after both players missed the run out.

“Overall, I think the experience was very good. The APT dealers are professionally trained, the equipment is solid, and the floor staff and referees are all very professional. The tournament structure is also excellent. In my opinion, within Asia, APT is probably one of the best-run series,” said Li when asked about his Main Event experience."

“I want to thank my family for supporting this hobby of mine,” he concluded, before heading off into the snowy Jeju twilight to celebrate his maiden major title win.

You can read all about the Final Table action in more detail in the APT Main Event Final Day Blog or view it as it happened via the Main Event Final Table Live Stream on the official APT YouTube channel.

All tournament information can be found on the Main Event – Final Day tournament page.

Main Event by the Numbers

For Main Event Breakdown by Country/Region please CLICK HERE with a graphic available HERE.

The tour’s largest-ever Korean-based Main Event drew a sizable 1,718 entries comprised of 850 unique players from 37 different countries and regions from across the globe.

China made up the highest proportion of the field with 880 entries representing fifty-one percent (51.2%) of the total field.

The only other country with over ten percent representation was Japan, with 233 entries representing over thirteen percent (13.6%) of the total field.

All other country and region participation was below ten percent, with Hong Kong the only other region to provide a three-figure entry number with 106 entries making up six percent (6.2%) of the field.

Taiwan was the fourth best represented region with 83 entries making up close to five percent (4.8%) of the total field. Vietnam rounded out the top five with 68 entries making up four percent (4%) of the field.

Thailand was the only other country with over three percent (3.7%) representation with 63 entries.

The remainder of countries in the top ten all provided two percent or less of the total field, with the USA (2.2%), Singapore (2%), Russia (1.9%), and Australia providing 37, 35, 33, and 24 entries respectively.

The other 27 countries provided a combined total representation of the remaining nine percent (9.1%) of the field, which you can view in more detail by clicking on the Main Event breakdown link above.

APT Jeju Main Event Growth by Year

For APT Jeju Main Event Growth by Year Graphic please CLICK HERE

The APT Jeju Classic 2026 Main Event is the largest international poker tournament ever to be played in Korea, and the third-largest APT Main Event of all-time.

It is the second richest poker tournament the tour has ever operated in the country, over ten times larger and nineteen times richer than the inaugural APT Jeju 2013 Main Event, which drew 166 entries and generated a KRW 174,858,388 (USD 160,520) prize pool.

The New Era of the Asian Poker Tour (APT) continues to showcase the tours’ unprecedented growth with the APT Jeju Classic 2026 Main Event seeing a 1.5 percent increase in entries over the APT Jeju 2025, and an impressive 58 percent increase in entries over the APT Jeju 2024.