We caught the action on the turn on a board reading with Danish player Henrik Hvidberg betting enough from the small blind to put John Phan to a decision for his tournament life in the big blind.
Phan was short-stacked with only around 3,000 behind and with the pot already inflated, he decided to make the call.
Hvidberg was the first to reveal for an overpair however Phan had outs with for a pair and flush draw.
Needing to hit on the river to survive, Phan watched as the bricked to send the pot to Hvidberg and end the tournament for one of the feature players in John Phan.
Casey Kastle was short on chips. He picked up at the right time; when one of his opponents had . The chips went in preflop and were pushed to Casey when the board ran out jack-high. Kastle now has about 6,000.
Dan Alspach's chip stack continues to grow, but even he has to wave the white flag of surrender sometimes. In a four-way limped pot, he bet 750 when the flop came . Only the player in the small blind called. That player then led out for 1,500 on the turn, a bet Alspach quickly called. The river fell and again the small blind bet 1,500.
"Alright, alright, alright," said Alspach as he mucked his hand. "Top-top no good."
Lee Nelson has just taken a hit after paying off an opponent for 2,200 on the river on a board of . He soon discovered that his opponent wasn't going anywhere as he tabled for a flopped top two pair that developed into the nut flush.
"Nice hand" was all Nelson could muster as he tossed his cards into the muck to slip back to 6,500 chips.
After his earlier bad beat, Yasuhiro Waki has been very busy with his short stack with some aggressive all in plays. So it was understandable that his all in re-steal from the big blind was called by the player on the button with pocket sixes. Waki held and the race was on.
The board landed in Waki's favour as it ran out giving him two pair and a nice double up to about 12,000 chips.
Sarah Lee has been eliminated from the tournament. She moved all in on the turn holding an open-ended straight draw and was called by Dimitrios Pappis, who tabled top pair. Top pair was good enough to win the pot when the board bricked out. Lee reported to the rail, and Pappis reported to the top of the chip counts with about 36,000.
It's game over for J.J. Liu. In a five-way limped pot and a flop of , Liu opened the flop action with a bet of 800. She was immediately raised by Phil Lau to 2,500, a raise that folded all other players in the hand. Liu called, then moved in on the turn for the rest of her stack, 4,375 in total. Lau quickly called and table an open-ended straight flush draw, . Liu showed for top pair and a gutshot draw, taking away one of Lau's heart outs and killing a few of his straight outs. That didn't matter; the river came to make a straight for Lau and bounce Liu from the tournament.
The official numbers are in. We had 136 entrants today for Day 1b, and when combined with the 149 players from yesterday, have created a total of 285 entrants for the 2008 APPT Manila Main Event. This figure exceeds the 255 entrants from last year to further confirm the growth of poker in the Asian regions.
The players have produced a prize pool of PHP $26,790,000 (approx. US$542,856) with the top 32 players set to go home with a profit. One lucky player will outlast all others to collect the trophy and a first place prize of PHP $8,037,000 (approx. US$162,856).
Disaster has struck Yasuhiro Waki at Table 11. He got all in on a flop of holding unimproved ace-queen against James Obst's unimproved king-queen. Obst promptly spiked a king on the turn; Waki couldn't complete the re-suckout on the river. That hand made Obst one of the chip leaders of the tournament with 32,000 and crippled Waki to just 1,800.