HomeDay 3 has come and gone and the final 8 has been decided!
Huy Pham (Vietnam) – 1,218,000
Eric Sia (Phiippines) – 1,158,000
Linh Tran (Canada) – 1,031,000
Chow Mun Fei (Malaysia) – 613,000
Tetsuya Tsuchikawa (Japan) – 548,000
Michael Mariakis {Australia) – 543,000
John Tech (Philippines) – 384,000
Azusa Maeda (Japan) – 287,000
Congratulations to the Final Eight players! We’ll be back tomorrow at 130pm for the final showdown.
Blind vs. blind action in what would be our last hand for Day 3.
Everyone folded the action to small blind Tetsuya Tsuchikawa (Japan) and big blind Bede Conelly (Australian).
The Japanese considered his options for a while before declaring all-in… The Australian snap-called!
Tsuhikawa: 5♣ 5♦
Conelly: 7♦ 7♣
Conelly, who according to him was working on 15-20 blinds all Day 3 long, had a chance to double up to something more manageable.
The poker gods had other plans though. Right on the flop 3♠ 5♠ 9♦, Tsuchikawa hit his set and Conelly needed one of the probable two sevens in the deck. No seven on the turn 8♠ and none on the river 10♦ as well.
Conelly bids goodbye settling for PHP 284,000.
Chip counts for the final eight in a few!
Hyunshik Yun couldn’t get initial raiser Huy Pham (one of the chip leaders) out of the hand even after he three-bet all in for a total of 168K.
Yun: A♣ Q♣
Pham: K♣ J♥
With the board landing 4♣ Q♠ 10♠, Yun increased his lead with top pair, but Pham had an open-ended draw. On the turn of 2♠, Yun kept his lead, but with the river of 9♥, Pham connected with his straight and burned Yun out of the event. Yun earns PHP284,000 for his finish.
Eric Sia just picked up two decent pots back-to-back causing a bit of a stir at at the table. In the first hand, Sia min-raised to 40K and found himself two callers in Linh Tran and Huy Pham. At the flop of A♣ 9♠ 8♣, action was checked to Sia who slid out a 60K bet and won the pot after Tran and Pham folded. Sia showed his A♠ A♦ hole cards.
On the very next hand Sia raised to 40K again and found a caller in Azusa Maeda on the big blind. At the flop of 2♣ 3♠ 6♥, Maeda checked to Sia who bet 50K, and Maeda called. At the turn of 4♦, both checked to see a free river of K♠. Maeda changed gears and decided to lead out for 65K. Sia called and won the hand with A♦ K♥ top pair versus Maeda’s Q♠ 4♠.
Sia is the chip leader with 1.2M chips.
From the hi-jack, Hyunshik Yun shoved 160,000 or so and found no callers. Bede Conelly also did the same from an early position forcing all to fold. It’s been pretty much the story at this point of the tournament: short stacks moving all-in but no callers so far.
From the utg seat, Keith Seah moved all in with his 210K stack and Tetsuya Tsuchikawa did the same with his 246K chips. Big blind player Michael Mariakis with a monster stack tanked for a bit but finally folded while showing his A-Q off suit which brought the hand to a showdown between Seah and Tsuchikawa.
Seah: 3♣ 3♦
Tsuchikawa: 8♣ 8♥
With the board running 7♠ K♦ 10♥ 2♦ 9♣, Seah was railed in 11th place. He collects PHP219,000 for his finish.
With not much left in his stack, Tsuji Yasuyuki moved all in on top of Azusa Maeda’s min raise and was quickly called for a showdown.
Yasuyuki: K♦ 5♦
Maeda: 8♠ 8♦
The board offered no help to Yasuyuki as it ran A♠ 6♦ J♣ 6♥ A♥ and with that, he was eliminated in 12th place. He picks up PHP219,000 for his run at the Main Event.
It was a bad time for Ishihara Kodai to steal the blinds and antes.
With jack-nine, the Japanese shoved but the small blind, Linh Tran with A♠ J♠ made the snap call as big blind Jojo Tech got out of the way.
The flop A♣ 6♣ 6♦ wasn’t exactly what Kodai was praying for the Japanese was eliminated by the turn 5♣.
Good job, good effort for Kodai. Better one for Tran who climbs to over 570,000 after this win.