Space is somewhat limited in the 6th floor ballroom of the Hyatt Hotel, where this tournament is taking place. Tables started out ten-handed as a result, but as players are eliminated, we're moving to nine-handed play.
As mentioned previously, Table 2 is definitely a table to watch. Andrew Scott is at one end of the table; Wally "the Dream" Sombero is at the other end of the table. Sandwiched in between them are Rodney Davidson and James Broom.
There hasn't been a tremendous amount of action yet on the table -- we've seen Scott and Sombero both win a few pots with uncontested flop bets. Don't expect that to last very long.
One of the more active stacks in this event belongs to Franco Mabanta. Mabanta is co-founder of the Filipino Poker Tour and has worked hard to see the tour reach the success that it enjoys today. He's been mixing it up in most pots and currently sits with 15,000 chips.
Bryan Huang started off the day on the right foot, quickly chipping up to more than 15,000 chips. All of that work came undone when he got all in preflop with pocket jacks against an opponent's pocket aces. The board ran out to knock Huang's stack back to approximately 8,500.
David Lee has been struggling to get things moving today, but just collected a nice pot on a board of . Lee, who recently finished 3rd at the PokerNews Cup Main Event in Melbourne, tabled for two pair which was good against his opponent's .
"Man I had to work hard for that!" exclaimed Lee as he built his stack back up to about 11,000 chips.
We caught the action on the river in a hand between Australian Rodney Davidson and PokerStars qualifier Tommy Henstein. The board read where Henstein asked for a count of Davidson's stack.
4,125 was the amount in front of Davidson as Henstein fired out 1,600 into the pot. Immediately Davidson slid all of his chips into the middle sending Henstein into the tank.
"I can beat ace-jack" quipped Henstein which received little reaction from Davidson.
"Does that mean you've got 2-3?" joked Andrew Scott from seat ten as Henstein deliberated. He eventually decided to make the call and tabled for an overpair. It was a good call as Davidson shook his head and could only muster up .
Davidson makes an early exit as Henstein now sits comfortably with about 18,000 chips.