Eventhough we couldn't find his name in our player sheet, we had to believe when he provided his name as Jackal Lee after a three-way all-in clash saw Lee more than double up.
All the chips were in preflop with Emanuel Seal covering, and calling the all in from the big blind.
Seal:
Lee:
Opponent:
The board fell and Lee avoids any problems to more than double up to around 85,000.
Seal took the flesh wound but the next blow was fatal as he ran his pocket jacks into Richard En's pocket queens on a nine-high board and was also sent to the rail.
Joshua Ang made the last preflop action in a hand against Sida Yuen. The two had gone back and forth in a series of raises, with the deep-stacked Yuen ultimately moving all in. Ang called all in for 89,100.
It was a battle of big pairs. Yuen's were behind Ang's . To make matters worse for Yuen, Ang flopped the joint, . That left Yuen looking for running kings or running queens. He got neither and fell to 123,000 in the counts after paying off Ang.
Unfortunately we missed Joe Hachem's bustout, but his former tablemate James Potter was generous enough to share the gory details:
Dbinder Singh opened the pot with a raise to 6,000. Hachem then shipped it all in for about 25,000 holding pocket queens. Action then made its way around the table to Terry Fan who moved in over the top of Hachem's bet for a total of 35,000. Original raiser Singh folded, prompting a classic heads-up showdown - Hachem's queens vs. Fan's Big Slick.
Fan took the lead spiking a king on the flop and never looked back, sending the elder Hachem to the rail.
From the penthouse to the outhouse goes Sida Yuen. Yuen, in the top five in chip counts as recently as fifteen minutes ago, has been eliminated from the tournament. He tangled with Dermot Blain, creating a preflop pot of about 40,000 chips.
On a flop of , Blain was forced to act first. He led into Yuen for 45,000 chips. Yuen's response was to move all in for 98,800. Yuen had that amount covered and after double-checking how much it was back to him, he called.
Blain:
Yuen:
Upon seeing Yuen's hand, Blain was very pained. He had to dodge a double-digit draw two separate times. The first time was the turn, which fell the , no help to Yuen. The second time was the river -- a beautiful that gave Blain the full house and the pot.
Dragging that pot increased Blain's count to 260,000 chips and put him in the top five, an honor formerly held by the now-busto Yuen.
Jonathan 'xMONSTERxDONGx' Karamalikis opened the action with a raise to 7,500 from early position and found two callers.
The flop was and after a check from the big blind, Karamalikis made it 12,500 to play and the action was with Mike Collins. He quickly announced a raise to 30,000. The big blind folded and Karamalikis quickly moved all in for around 80,000 in total. Collins snap-called.
Collins:
Karamalikis:
It was set versus open-ended straight draw as Karamalikis found his overcards were no good when the turn and river fell. After a count of chips Collins had him covered to send the "Dong" crashing out of the tournament. Meanwhile Collins is up over 200,000 chips.
Following a raise by Wing Cheong Chong, Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier moved his short-stack all in and Chong made the call.
Chong:
Grospellier:
The flop of saw Chong remain in the lead with his pair and superior flush draw, while Grospellier still had outs to any King, Queen or Jack.
When the turn repeated the seven that was on the board, Grospellier was only left with the four Queens in the deck.
Unfortunately for Team PokerStars, Grospellier would see another repeat on the river to see him exit to the rail as Chong's full house sees him climb to 93,000 in chips.