Jonathan Depa Leads as 25 Cashers Advance from Day 3
On Thursday, the 2013 PokerStars.net Asia-Pacific Poker Tour Macau Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) HK$100,000 Main Event continued with Day 3 action at the PokerStars LIVE at the City of Dreams. Just 72 of the original 203 players returned for six 90-minute levels of play, during which time the money was reached at the top 25. While all of the remaining players are guaranteed a minimum HKD $198,000 payday, Jonathan Depa and his stack of 662,000 are best positioned to make a run at the HKD $4,752,000 first-place prize.
Throughout the day, 47 players would hit the rail empty handed. One of the first to go was Michael Tureniec, who fell in Level 10 (600/1,200/100). It happened when Yuanji Dai opened for 2,600 from early position only to have Tureniec three-bet to 5,800 from middle position. Action folded back to Dai, he called, and the flop came down 
. Dai was first to act and checked, which inspired Tureniec to bet 4,400. Dai then sprung to life with a check-raise to 10,400, and Tureniec moved all in for 20,500 total. Dai called and discovered he was in dire straits.
Tureniec: 
Dai: 
The 
turn was of no consequence, and all Tureniec needed to do was dodge a seven on the river to stay alive. "Seven," Dai requested, and right on cue the dealer burned and put out the 
.
"Wow," another player at the table said. Tureniec's face dropped a bit, but he remained silent. He slowly took off his sunglasses, packed them up, and then took his leave.
While Tureniec was clearly miserable, he soon had company on the rail. Billy “The Croc” Argyros, Yujung Choi, Anson Yan Shing Tsang, Jack Salter, Dennis Huntly, Mervin Chan, David Ewing, and Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov all fell over the next few hours.
Katchalov was just one of three Team PokerStars Pros returning for Day 3, but he ended up being the first to go after two bad experiences with pocket kings.
Ran pretty sour today, first lost KK to JT then KK to JJ to bust...both on the river :(. Time to regroup then High roller in couple daysFollow @EugeneKatchalov
From there, Akira Ohyama, Andy Chan, Ioannis Apostolidis, Liang Shi, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, and Yang Xi.
The last hand of the day also saw the money bubble burst, but if you want to read more about that you’ll have to click here.
While dozens of players fell, some familiar names are still in contention for the title. They include PokerStars Team Online’s Randy Lew and Naoya Kihara; Day 2 chip leader Kevin Schulz; World Series of Poker bracelet winner and APPT Seoul champ Aaron Lim; and European Poker Tour Season 9 Player of the Year Jan Bendik.
The final 25 players will look to play down to the final table of nine on Friday. Action will get underway at 3 p.m. local time, so join the PokerNews Live Reporting team then for all the live updates from PokerStars LIVE at the City of Dreams. Until then, check out Sarah Grant's special Halloween video from Macau. It’s spooky scary: