The Asian Poker Tour has opened its second Jeju festival of 2026 with the sort of schedule that makes packing light feel optimistic. APT Jeju began on September 25 at LES A Casino with 135 events across 13 days, including a KRW 2.2 billion guaranteed Main Event and enough mixed-game side action to keep even the most restless grinder occupied.
The headline tournament is the KRW 2.7 million Main Event, which starts on September 27 and runs through October 3. Its KRW 2.2 billion guarantee is roughly $1.5 million at current exchange rates, while five seats to November’s APT Championship Main Event in Taipei are also attached to the tournament.
Jeju has already had a very busy poker year. Poker Type covered Triton Jeju II beginning earlier this month, and the island has now swapped nosebleed short decks and six-figure buy-ins for a festival aimed at a much broader slice of the poker population.
APT Jeju Starts With 135 Events
The opening day gives a decent idea of what the APT is trying to do. The KRW 900,000 Korea National Cup begins with three starting flights and a KRW 200 million guarantee, but the schedule also includes Big O, fixed-limit triple draw, no-limit Omaha and several high roller, turbo and hyper-turbo events.
That variety continues throughout the festival. The official schedule includes heads-up poker, nine-game, Open Face Chinese, stud mixes, bomb pots, women’s events and some formats that require a little more explanation than simply writing “hold’em” on the structure sheet.
There is serious money available too. The KRW 15 million APT Super High Roller carries a KRW 500 million guarantee, while the KRW 5 million APT High Roller guarantees KRW 700 million. The KRW 3.7 million Zodiac Classic has another KRW 500 million guaranteed and the Mini Main Event puts KRW 300 million on the table.
Main Event Starts Sunday With KRW 2.2B Guaranteed
The Main Event is where the attendance numbers become particularly interesting. Flight A starts Sunday with 60-minute levels, followed by further starting flights on Monday and Tuesday before Day 2 begins on September 30. Registration remains open for one level on Day 2, and the champion is scheduled to be crowned on October 3.
The APT has good reason to be ambitious in South Korea. Its earlier Jeju stop in 2026 became the richest poker festival ever staged in the country, and the tour has spent the past few years repeatedly setting attendance and prize-pool records across Asia.
Jeju itself has also become one of the busiest high-level poker destinations on the calendar. The recent Triton festival ended with Nick Schulman’s $3.85 million Main Event win, while Nick Petrangelo collected $2.21 million in the Triton Anniversary Special. The APT operates at a very different price point, but it is arriving at a venue and destination that have spent September proving there is no shortage of poker traffic.
Taipei Seats Add Another Target
There is also a route from Jeju into the APT’s end-of-season Championship in Taipei. The 2026 APT Championship runs in November and its Main Event carries a $5 million guarantee, so the tour is using Jeju to feed players into the bigger finale rather than treating this as an isolated stop.
The top three finishers in the Jeju Main Event will earn Championship seats. Seats are also attached to several marquee side events, including the Super High Roller, High Roller, High Roller Ultra Stack, Superstar Challenge and Zodiac Classic, while two additional seats are due to be awarded through random draws involving players still alive on Days 3 and 4 of the Main Event.
That gives the festival a useful second storyline beyond raw prize money. A player can arrive for a KRW 900,000 National Cup or one of the smaller side events and end the trip with a route into a much larger tournament in Taipei.
Jeju Has Become a Serious Poker Stop
The interesting question over the next week is not whether the schedule can produce action. With 135 events in 13 days, that part has been taken care of rather aggressively. The question is whether the APT can beat the numbers from its first Jeju visit of 2026 and push the Korean live-poker record higher again.
For now, the first cards are already in the air at LES A Casino inside Jeju Shinhwa World. The Main Event does not begin until Sunday, but the National Cup and opening-day side events mean the latest attempt at another record festival is already underway.
