Lee and Gerard Close Out the Action With Big Hands

The last two hands of Day 1A both proved to be exciting ones, with Toh Soon Lee and Edwin Gerard both finding big hands to rail an opponent each.

In the first, it was Lee and a short-stacked player who got all the chips in pre-flop, Lee's leading his opponent's speculative and staying in front the whole way on the runout to bag up 77,400 and send the short stack crashing out, right at the close.

In the second, a sizable three-way pot developed between chip leader Edwin Gerard, Zong Ping Yang, and another short-stacked player. It was Gerard the man driving the action with a middle position open to 4,500, with Yang making the call in the cutoff, and the short-stack making the call from the big blind to take the action three-way to a flop of .

Following a check from the player in the big blind, Gerard fired out a 4,500 continuation bet and was called twice to bring the trio to the turn. This saw Gerard slow down and check it over to Yang, who reached for chips and made it 11,000 to go. The player in the big blind made the call, leaving himself 19,500 behind and Gerard had a decision to make.

After quite some time in the think tank, by which time the rest of the table not in the hand had bagged up, Gerard made the call, swelling the pot to a sizable 60,800.

The river was the bringing in four to a flush. The big blind jammed in the rest of his stack, Gerard made a quick call, Yang bowed out and the cards were turned over.

The at-risk player in the big blind rolled over for a pair of eights that had improved to a ten-high flush, but that was not enough to best Gerard's nut flush and the US player scooped a sizable pot to end the day's play and climb to 267,900, giving him a sizable lead to bring back on Day 2 on Sunday, August 18.