Day 1A of the APT Macau Main Event started with 103 hopeful players, including well-known pros such as Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Liz Lieu, Todd Brunson and David Saab. With the midnight hour now upon us, Day 1A has ended. Just 23 players remain. All of the big names were eliminated along the way.
Carter Gill had an excellent day, racing out to an early chip lead and then continuing to amass chips for almost the whole day. Late in the day he ceded the title of "Chip Leader" to Guray Turkay, but Gill remains in excellent position to make a serious run on Day 2.
The players are bagging and tagging their chips now. Once that process is complete, updated chip counts will be posted. In the meantime, each of the 23 survivors well get a well-earned day of rest tomorrow as the rest of the field steps into action for Day 1B. Be sure to join us at 12 noon local time as we provide continuing live updates.
A great day for Carter Gill has continued right up to the very end. He raised to 2,500 from middle position. Action folded to Mark Greenwood in the big blind, who reraised all in for a total of about 5,000.
"Oh, you caught me," sighed Gill. "I was just trying to steal the short stack's blind." But perhaps feeling priced in, Gill called and turned over . But because today is clearly his day, he was ahead of Greenwood's . The board ranout to make both players two pair, aces and fives. But Gill's queen kicker carried the day and won him the pot. Greenwood was eliminated.
Xuan Tien Nguyen raised it up to 2,800 from under the gun and found two callers before the action was with Yevgeniy Timoshenko in the small blind who popped it up to 9,000 to go. The big blind folded and the action was back on Nguyen. He announced a reraise all in for 34,000 in total.
The two callers stepped aside and Timoshenko thought for a moment before saying "Nice hand" and tossing his cards into the muck. Nguyen is now up to 47,000 chips.
Wing Cheong Chong limped in from middle position, with Yvo Molin and Yevgeniy Timoshenko coming along for the ride in the blinds.
They took a flop of and Timoshenko led out from the big blind with a bet of 2,000. Both opponents made the call.
The turn was the and Timoshenko fired 4,000. Chong folded but Molin thought for a few moments before folding the nut flush draw with face up to the surprise of his opponents! Timoshenko is relentlessly pounding on his opponents as we near the end of the day and now sits with 60,000 chips.
Krzysztof Klorek made it through the whole day only to be eliminated in the final level. He got all in preflop holding ace-queen but ran into the pocket queens of Adam Grunwald. Grunwald won the hand when the board ran out ten-high. He now has 71,000 in chips.
Fortune is shining on Aditya Agarwal. Agarwal raised all in to12,000 from the small blind after an early position player raised and Moritz Schmejkal called. The original raiser folded to Agarwal's reraise, but Schmejkal elected to make the call holding . Agarwal had , which held up when the board ran out
There was a small round of applause for Johnny Chan following his recent elimination from the tournament. He moved all in for 7,000 holding and was called by Carter Gill from the big blind holding . Chan lost the hand when Gill turned the to make a pair of kings and Chan couldn't find any of the remaining aces on the river.
On a flop of Wing Cheong Chong led out with a bet of 7,000 into an already healthy pot before Yvo Molin announced he was all in. It was an additional 20,200 to Chong to make the call and he went into the tank for the tournament defining decision.
After some friendly banter and several minutes of thought Chong eventually gave up his holding and Molin took it down to jump to around 40,000 with Chong back to around 25,000.