Guangling Chen won the Dragon's Gate High Roller at Jeju Poker Festival 2026 for KRW 42,130,000 (~USD 31,390), just a month after playing his first live tournament.

The Red Dragon Classic Championship closed its starting flights at LES A Casino with 668 entries, smashing its guarantee, while Bien Mai took the NL Hold'em Ultra Stack.

The Red Dragon Poker Tour's KRW 2,500,000 Red Dragon Classic now has a KRW 1,442,880,000 (~USD 1,075,170) prize pool, around KRW 243,000,000 more than the guarantee, with 138 players returning for Day 2 today.

The KRW 5,000,000 Dragon's Gate High Roller drew 24 entries for a KRW 103,680,000 (~USD 77,260) prize pool, with four places paid.

Zhi Ye burst the bubble when he called off his chips with a king-high bluff against Abhijith Cheruku's turned full house, and Michel Molenaar went out in 4th when Cheruku caught an ace on the river.

Joseph Cheong was left with very little after his ace-queen ran into Chen's pocket aces, but he tripled up twice to get back to 570,000 before Cheruku's trip threes ended his run in 3rd.

Chen started heads-up with 2,600,000 against Cheruku's 4,600,000 and took the lead with a rivered straight, leaving Cheruku with three big blinds.

Cheruku doubled three times in a row, but Chen's ace-nine paired an ace on the final hand to win the title. Cheruku collected KRW 28,100,000 (~USD 20,940) as runner-up.

Chen, from Chongqing, has been playing poker for just over a year, and this was only his second series playing tournaments after coming to Jeju for the APT in October.

"Initially, I just played home cash games with friends. I came just to have some fun, but then I won two APT side events. I felt, maybe I'm pretty well-suited for this game. So when I went back, I studied it a bit, and then came over to compete in this festival."

Day 1C drew 237 entries and Day 1D another 137, taking the Red Dragon Classic to 668 entries. Jing Su led the 47 survivors of Day 1C with 563,000, much of it coming when his pocket kings got paid off by Haonan Tian's queens, ahead of Khanh Duy Ta on 518,000.

Shiina Okamoto made a big call with second pair to pick off a river bluff and bag 166,000, while Aaron Lim, Aaron Gao and Thi My Phuong Nguyen all bagged over 300,000.

Yipeng Yang topped the 36 players through from Day 1D with 257,000, and Ryoya Enomoto and Kai-Hung Hu are also through.

Baby Dragon champion Ranno Sootla, Fabian Gumz and Seunghyun Nam were among those who missed out, while Bowen Yi still leads overall after Day 1A.

The KRW 1,000,000 NL Hold'em Ultra Stack drew 71 entries for a KRW 59,981,000 (~USD 44,700) prize pool. Jieming Xu lasted only two hands of his first entry when Pengyu Lin's nut flush draw got there, but he re-entered and went on to finish 7th.

Appreciation Event finalist Jakub Gaj made trips to crack Jiajin Hao's pocket aces, though he fell short of the money.

Bien Mai, who is also through to Day 2 of the Red Dragon Classic, won the title when his king-queen outkicked Kento Nasu's queen-ten on the final hand. Nasu took KRW 11,230,000 (~USD 8,370) as runner-up, and Kaiwen Wei finished 4th.

Li Ta Hsu won the NL 6 Card Archie Single Draw for his third title of the festival, and Kuen Shing So took the NL Hold'em Super Hyper Turbo hours after finishing 3rd in the Ultra Stack.

Yutao Zheng, who led the KPC Jeju Cup final table before finishing 7th, won the NL Hold'em Hyper Turbo, and Yue Sun took the Lady Dragon after a heads-up deal.

The Red Dragon Classic plays Day 2 from 12:00, the JPF 3rd Anniversary Event opens with two flights, and the KRW 8,000,000 Red Dragon Prestige High Roller begins at 15:00. Follow the full schedule on the Jeju Poker Festival 2026 page.

Follow Somuchpoker on Facebook and Instagram for updates throughout the festival.

Images and data courtesy of RDPT and KPC.

Source: SOMUCHPOKER
Original article: SoMuchPoker