Dongli Shen Wins WPT Seoul INSPIRE Championship for KRW 252M

The World Poker Tour‘s first visit to INSPIRE Entertainment Resort ended the way the chip counts had been hinting all weekend. China’s Dongli Shen took the overall lead after Friday’s Day 1B flight. On Monday, November 9, he closed out the inaugural WPT Seoul INSPIRE Championship by beating Japan’s Yosuke Sekiya heads-up, winning the trophy and KRW 252,378,000.

It wasn’t a straight-line march, though. Shen came to the final table with nearly double the stack of anyone else and watched the Japanese players battle each other for most of the day. Then he had to survive a heads-up match that swung back and forth, until his ten-nine of spades made a straight on the turn.

If you only follow results from a distance, the headline numbers deserve a second look. The winner’s cheque is about KRW 49 million less than the advertised first prize. Here’s why.

WPT Seoul 2026 INSPIRE Championship: Final Table Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize (KRW)	Prize (~USD)
1	Dongli Shen	China	252,378,000*	185,000
2	Yosuke Sekiya	Japan	246,238,000*	180,500
3	Jun Li	China	124,950,000	91,500
4	Tomoharu Hikino	Japan	92,310,000	67,600
5	Juhyun Lee	United States	68,720,000	50,300
6	Myagmardorj Batsukh	Mongolia	54,670,000	40,000
7	Andrew Tomoya Matahira	Japan	45,290,000	33,180
8	Hayato Nagasawa	Japan	36,700,000	26,800
9	Yumi Hanzawa	Japan	28,900,000	21,170

*Reflects a heads-up deal. USD figures are approximate. Nationalities follow the final results table. The chip count list from before the final table showed Jun Li under the United Kingdom and Juhyun Lee under South Korea.

The Deal: Why the Winner Didn’t Get KRW 301.8 Million

Going into the final day, the payout ladder had KRW 301,816,000 for first and KRW 196,800,000 for second. That left just over KRW 105 million riding on a single heads-up match, which is a big swing for any player.

So they did what most players do in that spot: they stopped the clock and made a deal. Here’s how the money moved.

Player	Ladder Prize	Deal Payout	Difference
Dongli Shen	301,816,000	252,378,000	−49,438,000
Yosuke Sekiya	196,800,000	246,238,000	+49,438,000
Total	498,616,000	498,616,000	—

The totals match to the won, so the deal simply redistributed the top two prizes. The split is almost even, with Shen only about KRW 6.1 million ahead. Reports didn’t publish the chip counts at the time of the deal. A split this close usually means the stacks were fairly level. Since the deal covered every won of the top two prizes, the only things left to play for were the trophy and the Las Vegas package.

Practical takeaway for players: a heads-up deal is about locking in a fair share of the money, not just the chips. With KRW 105 million between first and second, both players cut their risk sharply and still got to play for the title. If you ever face that spot, get the numbers from the tournament director before you agree to anything. Decide in advance how much the trophy is worth to you.

How Dongli Shen Built His Lead

Shen’s run started early. He bagged 1,236,000 chips on Day 1B, which moved him ahead of Day 1A leader Aleksandr Goloborodko (1,018,000). After Saturday’s two flights closed registration, three players had passed him: Singapore’s Andy Kok (1,563,000), American Robert Yamashita (1,548,000) and India’s Siddharth Pandey (1,252,000). That left Shen fourth overall going into Day 2.

Day 2 is where he took control. In one key hand, the Saturday leader Andy Kok tried a bluff with bottom pair, and Shen called with a Broadway straight to send Kok out in 19th. Shen finished the day with 13,300,000 chips. That was roughly a third of all the chips in play and almost double the next stack.

Final Table Starting Chip Counts (big blind 100,000)

Rank	Player	Chips	Big Blinds	Finished
1	Dongli Shen	13,300,000	133	1st
2	Jun Li	6,775,000	68	3rd
3	Yosuke Sekiya	4,975,000	50	2nd
4	Tomoharu Hikino	4,250,000	43	4th
5	Hayato Nagasawa	4,100,000	41	8th
6	Yumi Hanzawa	4,075,000	41	9th
7	Myagmardorj Batsukh	1,425,000	14	6th
8	Juhyun Lee	1,325,000	13	5th
9	Andrew Tomoya Matahira	600,000	6	7th

One thing stands out in that table. The three shortest stacks all outlasted Hayato Nagasawa and Yumi Hanzawa, who started with more than 40 big blinds each. That’s final-table poker in a nutshell: short stacks can fold and wait, while mid stacks often end up in the big confrontations.

Final Day: Key Hands and Eliminations

The final table was full of big pocket pairs. Pocket kings alone knocked out three players.

Place	Player	Losing Hand	Eliminated By
9th	Yumi Hanzawa	Ace-eight (flopped trips)	Tomoharu Hikino: pocket sixes, full house on the turn, quads on the river
8th	Hayato Nagasawa	Ace-four	Jun Li: pocket kings
7th	Andrew Tomoya Matahira	Pocket sevens	Tomoharu Hikino: pocket kings
6th	Myagmardorj Batsukh	Ace-queen	Yosuke Sekiya: pocket kings
5th	Juhyun Lee	King-four suited	Dongli Shen: ace-nine suited
4th	Tomoharu Hikino	—	Jun Li: jack-deuce suited (made a flush)
3rd	Jun Li	—	Yosuke Sekiya: ace-king (king on the flop)
2nd	Yosuke Sekiya	Ace-seven	Dongli Shen: ten-nine of spades (turned straight)

Hanzawa’s exit was the cruellest of the day. She flopped trips with ace-eight and was well ahead until Hikino’s pocket sixes filled up on the turn. The river then gave Hikino four of a kind.

The bigger story was Sekiya’s climb. He started the day third in chips, picked off Batsukh with pocket kings, and then knocked out Jun Li, the second-biggest stack, to reach heads-up. That run put him in a strong enough position to negotiate a near-equal deal.

The Heads-Up Battle

Heads-up didn’t go Shen’s way at first. Sekiya pushed him around, and at one point Shen needed some luck. His ace-six was behind Sekiya’s king-queen until an ace landed on the turn and doubled him up. A little later, Shen hit an open-ended straight draw against Sekiya’s top pair.

The final hand was simple. Sekiya moved all in with A♦7♠ and Shen called with T♠9♠. The board ran J♦ K♦ 5♠ Q♠ 9♦. The queen on the turn gave Shen a king-high straight, and the first WPT Seoul title was his.

By the Numbers: What the Results Tell Us

• Guarantee crushed: the KRW 1.56 billion prize pool was 156% of the KRW 1 billion guarantee, so there was no overlay for the house.
• Return to players: 1,033 entries at KRW 1,750,000 come to about KRW 1.81 billion in total buy-ins. The prize pool is roughly 86% of that, so about 14% went to rake and fees. That’s fairly typical for Asian festival main events at this price point.
• Winner’s ROI: Shen’s payout is about 144 times his buy-in and around 16% of the prize pool.
• Paid places: 128 of 1,033 entries cashed, about 12.4% of the field. The minimum cash was KRW 3,280,000, just under double the buy-in.
• Japan dominated the final nine: five of the nine finalists were from Japan, which fits how strongly Japanese players have travelled to Korean events in 2026.
• Career-best score: before this week, CardPlayer’s database listed Shen with nine recorded cashes and about USD 43,000 in earnings. WPT’s own results also list a Freezeout win for him at the WPT Korea festival in December 2024, worth KRW 13.97 million. This one result is several times larger than everything he had recorded before.

How WPT Seoul Compares With Other Korean Main Events

Event	Entries	Prize Pool (KRW)	Winner	Winner’s Prize (KRW)
WPT Seoul INSPIRE Championship (Nov 2026)	1,033	1.56B	Dongli Shen (CHN)	252.4M (deal)
APT Incheon Main Event (Aug 2026)	1,393	3.01B	—	—
WPT Korea Championship, Jeju (Nov 2024)	667	1.68B GTD	Chenxiang Miao (CHN)	300M
WPT Korea Main Event, Jeju (Mar 2024)	1,065	≈2.6B*	Mate Hanusi (HUN)	434.9M

*Converted from a reported prize pool of almost USD 2 million. Buy-ins differ between these events, so the prize pools can’t be compared directly. The APT Incheon row is there to compare field sizes only.

The WPT Seoul field was nearly as big as the record WPT Korea Main Event from March 2024, even though this was the tour’s first festival at a brand-new venue. The prize pool is smaller mainly because the buy-in was lower. For a debut event at INSPIRE’s newly opened YY Poker Club, 1,033 entries is a strong opening number. It suggests the Incheon area can support WPT events alongside the Asian Poker Tour’s stop at nearby Paradise City.

Elsewhere at WPT Seoul 2026

The 11-day festival ran from October 30 to November 9, with 78 events on the schedule. A few other notable results:

• High Roller: Russia’s Nikita Ustiuzhanin won KRW 84,254,000 (~USD 61,700) on the final day.
• Super High Roller: Bayar Saran took the title for about KRW 96 million.
• Championship Warm Up: Japan’s Ryoichi Katsumata won KRW 42,000,000 after a heads-up deal in a 353-entry field.

What’s Next for WPT Seoul and Dongli Shen

Shen’s next big date is in Las Vegas. His title came with a USD 10,400 package to the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas, the tour’s season-ending festival in December. That gives him a shot at one of the biggest fields in tournament poker.

As for the event itself, WPT’s Angelica Hael told Somuchpoker during the festival that WPT Seoul will return to INSPIRE. Dates for 2027 haven’t been announced yet. If you’re in Asia and planning your next trip, the next major stop on the regional calendar is the APT Championship in Taipei (November 12–29).

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