The winner of event #34, Naoya Kihara took his nation's first ever WSOP Gold Bracelet last night when he won the Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha event and won $512,029 in prize money.
The 30 year old Japanease player made his WSOP debut in last year's WSOP where he managed to get in the money by finishing 653rd in event #58 which gave him $19,359. The former school teacher turned poker pro is mostly [...] Read more » 2012 WSOP Event #34: First Japanease Player to Win A Gold Bracelet at the WSOP
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 4827
Having so much more north americans than foreigners in the event and still be able to go against all odds, Naoya Kihara sure must be happy and proud of what he just did. He says he wants to become a poker ambassador, but adding this victory to his already good curriculum, i think he already is one!
Joined: May '08
Location: Lithuania
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 10090
the tide is coming- japanese, chinese and the rest of the east are getting richer and richer (this doesn't go with japan- they are doing good a long time) - more and more players can afford themselves playing at higher limits, so naturally if more are playing more will be winning, that's the reality
Joined: Dec '11
Location: Latvia
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 25
It is surprising how few there are japanease poker players taking into consideration how many vietnamese and half-vietnamese players there is.. And also considering the stereotype that most asians are great at math and calculations! Tournaments should be full with japanease poker players!
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 4827
Posted by Plexo: Well this only confirm how poker is growing around the world. Asian player tend to play good poker, so it is not surprising, at least for me. I would like to see now some guy/girl from my country winning a WSOP bracelet, specially if it is the Main event ahahah
My guess is that we just don’t see this happening more often nowadays because there are still few Asian players investing on entering WSOP. When this starts to happen, things will get more difficult to north-americans, and more interesting in the tables.
Tournaments should be full with japanease 
