APPT Korea | Japanese team swept 16 out of 29 titles, while Chinese players have already won 4 titles.

The 2026 PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Korea is currently underway at Paradise Hotel & Resort in Incheon. The series, which began on September 3rd, will run until September 14th. Of the 29 completed tournaments announced as of September 11th, Japanese players have already secured 16 titles, representing more than half of the events and making them the most dominant national team in the entire tournament so far.

Chinese players have also shown consistent performance, accumulating four titles to date. With the most important tournaments of the series still not all decided, the national champion rankings in the second half of APPT Korea remain subject to further changes.

With 29 matches completed, Japanese players have secured a remarkable 16 titles.

As of the time of PokerNews's statistics, this year's APPT Korea has concluded:

29 matches

The Japanese athlete won:

16 championships

The proportion exceeds half.

Chinese athletes have already achieved:

4 championships

This also made East Asian players the main focus of the first half of this series.

APPT Korea's current champion distribution focus

Since core competitions such as the Main Event are still in progress, the current data is only a preliminary result.

Tomohiro Kawada wins the opening tournament, his second career live prize money win.

The first major game of the series is:

KRW 600,000 NLH Paradise City Kickoff

The competition attracted:

171 people

Ultimately, the Japanese player won:

Tomohiro Kawada

Win the championship.

Kawada defeated Canadian player Dong Yan in a one-on-one match, achieving the following:

$11,051

It's worth noting that this is only Kawada's second time winning a live tournament prize in his career.

For a player with limited on-site tournament experience, winning the APPT opening tournament with 171 participants is one of the most representative breakthrough stories in the early stages of the series.

Shion Sakamoto takes down 246 Mystery Bounty

Another important victory for the Japanese army came from:

KRW 900,000 NLH Mystery Bounty

This match attracted:

246 people

It is also one of the projects with the largest number of participants that has been completed so far.

Ultimately:

Shion Sakamoto

Successfully won the championship, and gained the following:

$21,378

This prize money is also one of the more outstanding champion results announced so far.

Several Japanese athletes won their first career titles.

The Japanese team's advantage in this year's APPT Korea does not come solely from a few professional players.

Many champions even won their first live championship title in Incheon.

They included:

Takahiro Ichikawa

He is here：

KRW 450,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Double Stack

Defeating a field of 17 participants yielded the following results:

$2,069

Although the prize money wasn't huge, this was Ichikawa's first live poker championship.

For the series, this also reflects that the Japanese participating group is not only large in number, but also has players who have won the championship in different formats such as NLH, PLO and fastball.

Japanese champions compete in NLH, PLO, and High Roller.

To date, Japanese athletes have won titles in events with various competition formats.

include:

• Tomohiro Kawada：Paradise City Kickoff

• Toshiro Kurihara：Warm-up High Roller

• Shion Sakamoto: Mystery Bounty

• Ruka Yamauchi: Turbo

• Hiroyuki Noda：Pot-Limit Omaha

• Tatsuo Kureishi: Deepstack Turbo

• Naoki Maeyama: 6-Handed High Roller Turbo

• Shota Morikawa: Hyper Turbo

• Hayate Utsumi：Single Day High Roller

• Shunichi Shirakami: Megastack Turbo

• Takahiro Ichikawa: PLO Double Stack

• Nagano Takahiro: Shot Clock

• Ko Okubo: Super Knockout Super Hyper

• Kenji Arai：Mystery Bounty High Roller

• Yoichi Hayashi：6-Handed

• Junichi Onimaru:SuperStack Turbo

From regular NLH to High Roller, and then to PLO and Turbo, Japanese players have won championships in different competition formats.

Kaiwen Wei wins the Mini High Roller, giving the American team two titles.

Besides Japan and China, American athletes also won two titles at APPT Korea.

Kaiwen Wei won:

KRW 1,800,000 Mini High Roller

The event includes:

30 people participated

Wei's final takeaway:

$13,410

He had accumulated more than:

$840,000

The on-site tournament prize money is awarded to one of the more experienced players among the early winners of this series.

Seunghyun Michael Nam wins Knockout High Roller

Another American champion is:

Seunghyun Michael Nam

He won:

KRW 3,500,000 Knockout High Roller

The prize money for the champion is:

$11,927

Nam's career live tournament winnings have exceeded:

$1.3 million

Furthermore, he has already made it into the money three times in this Incheon Series, demonstrating a remarkably consistent performance.

Chinese athletes won multiple PLO events.

The Chinese team has accumulated 4 championships so far, with many of the victories coming from Pot-Limit Omaha events.

The list of champions released by PokerNews includes:

Xiongwei Huang

Winning the KRW 450,000 PLO Double Board Bomb Pot Turbo grants:

$2,493

Weidong Guo

Winning the KRW 350,000 PLO Hyper Turbo, rewards include:

$2,599

LI XIAO YU

Xixiang Luo

Winning the KRW 700,000 PLO Double Board Bomb Pot championship, and receiving:

$3,390

Chinese athletes performed particularly well in the PLO and Bomb Pot events at this year's APPT Korea.

APPT Korea's current key champions

Mystery Bounty, with its 246 players, is currently one of the focal points of major tournaments.

Based on the number of participants who have already completed the event, KRW 900,000 Mystery Bounty has:

246 people

It is one of the largest events in the first half of the season.

also:

20/15/10 Multi Flight Challenge

It also attracted 148 participants, with Selim Oulmekki ultimately winning the championship and taking home $10,491.

The opening match had 171 participants.

However, the key events that truly determine the overall scale and highest prize money of the series are still to come, so the current champion and prize money rankings are not yet finalized.

The Japanese team has a clear advantage, but the real tournament results are yet to be revealed.

As of September 11, the Japanese athlete's 16 titles were already quite outstanding.

It is particularly noteworthy that these 16 championships are not concentrated in a few formats, but rather span High Roller, Mystery Bounty, Turbo, Shot Clock, PLO, and the traditional NLH.

This all-around performance is the main reason why the Japanese team is currently leading the championship standings by a large margin.

Chinese athletes followed closely with four titles, and were particularly active in several PLO events.

However, this year's APPT Korea will continue until September 14, and the most important tournament in the series is still waiting to be decided.

With the main event and later high-stakes tournaments entering their final stages, whether the Japanese team's current lead in the number of titles can be maintained until the end of the series will be a key focus of observation in the final few days of the competition.

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