We reach the end of the third and final day one flight here at the 2008 APPT Main Event in Macau. Today was the largest flight we've seen with a huge field of 229 players filling the poker room here at the Grand Waldo Hotel and Casino.
There were plenty of big name players in the field although JC Tran, Tony Hachem, Shawn Buchanan, John Phan, Hevad Khan, Jozef Berec and Steve Sung will all have to make the trip to Korea for the next APPT event as their hopes for APPT glory ended during today's action.
Amongst the 86 survivors today, Joe Hachem, JJ Liu and Isabelle Mercier have all made it through but will enter day two with short stacks, while Terrence Chan, David Chiu, Emad Tahtouh, Lee Nelson and Men "The Master" Nguyen will all be in good shape tomorrow.
Ireland's Mark Walsh emerged late in the day to take a likely chip lead from today's flight with close to 100,000 chips when the bags were tagged. We'll have the updated chip counts for you of all the survivors shortly.
Today's players will join the 45 from Day 1a and the 77 from Day 1b, as the final 208 players all come together for the first time to play another seven levels tomorrow. Play will recommence at 1:30 p.m. local time tomorrow and we look forward to your company at PokerNews.com for our live coverage from the tournament floor. See you then!
At the very end of the day, Shaun Deeb has been eliminated. He opened the pot with a raise from the button. Bill Copeland, sitting in the small blind, reraised to 3,800. Action folded back to Deeb, who shoved all in for a total of about 25,000. Copeland went into the tank to ponder his decision before calling. He had Deeb covered.
Deeb:
Copeland:
"Nice slowroll," said Deeb when he saw Copeland's hand. He added that he hoped to suck out on Copeland, but it wasn't to be when the board came . Deeb is out, and Copeland goes to Day 2 with about 53,000 chips.
Preflop, Sherif Derias opened with a raise to 2,000 and the player in the big blind made the call.
The flop came down ace-high with two spades and the big blind checked to Derias who fired 4,000. The big blind then moved all in and Derias made the call.
Derias held the lead with his for top pair but the big blind flipped for the flush draw. Another spade fell on the turn to complete the flush and send Derias to the exit.
The tournament clock has been paused with fifteen minutes remaining. Dealers have been instructed to deal five more hands at each table, as was also done on Day 1a and Day 1b. At the conclusion of those five hands at all tables, we will be done for the day.
Van Nguyen took a heads-up flop against only the big blind. When it came down , the fireworks started. Eventually all the chips were in the middle, with Nguyen tabling for trip jacks and the big blind tabling for the nut flush draw. The turn and river were both spades, the and the , allowing Nguyen to drag the pot and send her opponent to the rail. She now has about 37,000 in chips.
We didn't see the preflop betting, but it was a battle of the blinds between the small blind and Emad Tahtouh in the big blind. All the chips went in the middle, with the small blind's pocket sevens having a slight edge over Tahtouh's ace-queen. The flop brought a king and two queens to make trips for Tahtouth, and his opponent could not find the needed seven by the time the river card was dealt. With that pot, Tahtouth doubled up to about 28,000.
Lee Nelson made a standard raise from the button, before the big blind popped it up another 2,000. Nelson thought for a few moments before making it an additional 4,000 to go. The big blind then put in the 5-bet by moving all in for another 15,575.
Nelson went into the tank and thought for a long time before letting his hand go and maintaining his stack at around 27,000.