Yaxi Zhu Leads Final 24; Sunny Jung Looks for Title Defense
On Thursday, the final 62 players returned to the felt for Day 3 of the PokerStars.net APPT Season 8 Asia Championship of Poker. After six full levels of play, just 24 players remain. Leading the field heading into Day 4 and the only player with over one million in chips is Yaxi Zhu, who bagged an impressive 1.019 million to end the day.
Zhu consistently thrived throughout the day, but truly hit her rush in the final level. A large confrontation that allowed her to soar into the chip lead occurred with just 30 minutes left in the day. During this hand, Zhu opened with a raise and found calls from Vladimir Troyanovskiy on the button and Mike "Timex" McDonald in the small blind. The trio took a 
flop and action checked to Zhu who continued out for 18,000. Troyanovskiy folded and McDonald stuck around to see the 
on fourth street. McDonald checked, Zhu continued her aggression for 39,000, and McDonald came over the top with a check-raise to 110,000. Zhu called and the 
finished off the board. McDonald moved all in for approximately 240,000 and was instantly called by Zhu who rolled over 
for the nut straight. McDonald's 
was pulled into the muck and Zhu soared to the chip lead.
Zhu, of course, was not the only player to thrive on Day 3. Konstantin Pogodin is close behind with 901,000 in chips. Rounding out the top three is Meng Dian Peng who put 834,000 in the bag.
Reigning ACOP champion Sunny Jung will also return for Day 4, bagging 822,000 in chips which is good for fourth place overall. Jung pocketed HK$4,352,000 for his victory just one year ago and is now a mere 23 eliminations away from a bigger payday and a title defense. Other notable players to survive the day include Joseph Cheong (527,000), Raiden Kan (405,000), Terrence Chan (365,000), start-of-day chip leader Sorel Mizzi (362,000), 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event champion Dimitar Danchev (361,000), Ami Barer (252,000), PokerStars Team Pro Celina Lin (91,000), and Byron Kaverman (73,000).
The day began with each returning player hoping to be among the top 31 players and score a guaranteed cash of at least $HK202,000. Unfortunately for exactly half of the returning field, that was not the case. Players like PokerStars Team Pro Raymond Wu, Jack Salter, Connor Drinan, Scott Davies, Dan Smith, Buyanjargal Bold, Billy Argyros, and Daniel Colman all saw an unfortunate end to their day before the money was reached.
The money bubble burst when EPT 10 Barcelona High Roller champion Thomas Muehloecker fell at the hands of Zuo 'ST' Wang. Muehloecker found himself all in holding 
against Wang's 
. A runout that read 
ensured that the bubble would burst and Muehloecker would be the last player to leave the tournament empty handed.
Players will return on Friday at 3 p.m. to play down to an official final table. Be sure to check back in with PokerNews as we provide all of the updates from the tournament floor.