William Li enjoyed a whirlwind trip to Jeju, South Korea, culminating in a victory in the APT Jeju Classic main event. Li’s win, worth $394,162, was notable for a number of different reasons.
Li, who is from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, multiplied his career-best live result by more than 10 times. It was a record that Li had set merely days prior to this victory, finishing in third place in a prelim event at the festival for $38,651. That score had already well outperformed his previous best cash of $9,325.
After hoisting the APT‘s signature gold lion trophy for winning the main event, Li celebrated the distance he’d traveled to find victory.
“This trophy represents a lot to me,” Li said. “Over the past two years, I’ve played many tournaments. There were happy moments and frustrating ones, ups and downs along the way.”
Beyond Li’s personal accomplishments, the APT also set a significant record. The 1,718 entrants in the $1,595 buy-in 2026 APT Jeju Classic main event set a new record for the largest live tournament field ever in South Korea. This broke the tour’s own record, set in October 2025, when the APT Jeju main event drew 1,693 entries.
Li’s victory came with 1,080 Card Player Player of the Year points, a considerable single-event tally in the season-long race presented by CoinPoker. He now sits in seventh place in the overall POY standings.
Li negotiated five long days of poker to reach the APT promised land. He was one of the biggest stacks to bag on day 1A of the APT Jeju Classic main event, but a rough second day of the tournament saw Li bag fewer chips than he started the day with. Li continued to survive and advance, though, all the way to a final table.
A Champion’s Path
Among the final nine, Li started right in the middle of the pack with 20 big blinds and a dream. There were four Chinese players in the mix, two Japanese players, including chip leader Shintaro Sato, a Canadian (Li), a Romanian, and a Vietnamese player. Sato ran the show for the first half of the final table, accumulating almost half the chips in play by the time the field was reduced to five. Li finally started to make his move by eliminating Zu Wang in fifth place ($88,937). Pocket eights held off Wang’s A♣4♥ to narrow the field to four.
Li’s remarkable run to a championship nearly crumbled during four-handed play. He got his chips in good with A♣9♠ against Christian Tabac Mihai’s A♠8♠, but an eight on the flop flipped the script. Things swung back in Li’s favor with a nine on the river, though, earning him a crucial double-up. Interestingly enough, a massive preflop fold of pocket queens cost Li a considerable pot, as Sato’s pocket jacks instead beat Zhang Lei’s pocket tens, bouncing Lei in fourth place ($111,629).
That decision created a butterfly effect that still saw Li ascend to the championship. Sato picked off Mihai in third, when his shove with Q♠3♣ overcame Mihai’s A♥K♦ with a Q♥ on the flop.
Li started at a disadvantage of more than 3:1 when heads-up play began. But a double on the very first hand of the match, followed by a hero call, set Li up to win. On the final hand, with just a few chips in play, Li’s ace-high held strong to give him the victory. As part of his prize, Li also claimed a seat in the APT Championship main event in November,
2026 APT Jeju Classic Main Event Results
| Place | Player | Payout | Points |
| 1 | William Li | $394,162 | 1,080 |
| 2 | Shintaro Sato | $220,272 | 900 |
| 3 | Cristian Tabac Mihai | $154,034 | 720 |
| 4 | Zhang Lei | $111,629 | 540 |
| 5 | Zu Wang | $88,937 | 450 |
| 6 | Quang Nguyen | $70,761 | 360 |
| 7 | Naohiro Arita | $54,074 | 270 |
| 8 | Haohui Ma | $38,162 | 180 |
| 9 | Yuefeng Pan | $29,179 | 90 |
Elsewhere In Jeju
This festival featured nearly 100 events over the course of ten days. Ren Lin, pushing aside the controversy that hung around his neck following a cheating scandal, won his third and fourth live trophies of 2026 at this stop, making him an early POY frontrunner.
Five-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner John Juanda was among the many trophy winners of the festival, taking down event 63, a single-day turbo high roller.
Siyu Ji
Among the biggest winners beyond Li, Siyu Ji of China emerged victorious in the ‘Zodiac Classic’. The $2,500 buy-in event drew 426 entries, and netted Ji a career-best $172,027. Her win also came with 1,080 Player of the Year points.
Guang Zhou also won himself a trophy in Jeju. Zhou defeated Triton player and fellow Chinese pro Yuzhu Wang heads-up to secure a $165,400 payday. In outlasting a field of 312 entrants in the $3,120 buy-in tournament, Zhou banked 720 POY points.
Rudy Edenata secured $158,800 and 612 points as the winner of the APT mini main event during the final days of the series.
