With the flop showing Quentin Lae led out for 1,600 and was quickly raised by his opponent to 6,000. Lae gave the decision some thought and pushed his remaining 15,000 chips into the pot. His opponent called and showed for top two pair, but Lae held for straight and flush draw possibilities. The turn delivers the and Lae makes his flush. The on the river puts Lae to over 35,000 in chips.
Isabelle Mercier
Isabelle Mercier has not been able to get things going so far today and is bleeding chips pretty badly. She is currently down to around 5,000 in chips and will be desperately looking for a double up very soon!
After taking some early punches, Joe Hachem has just taken down a nice pot against Vinh Truong.
Truong limped from mid-position and Hachem raised to 1,200 from the small blind. Truong called and the two of them saw a flop of . Hachem fires out 1,600 and Truong makes the call.
Both players check the turn of before the river brings the . Hachem fires out a 5,200 chip bullet and Truong thinks for a moment before laying down his hand.
Hachem is now once again close to his original starting stack and has things moving in the right direction.
Gary Benson
Popular Australian poker professional Gary Benson has started to make his presence known on table 12. He has slowly accumulated a healthy stack of over 30,000 chips.
We have identical twins playing in the field today, Aaron and Derek Lerner. Aaron has taken the early lead in the battle of the twins with 22,000 chips while Derek, who was at one point over 26,000, has now slipped down to around 19,000 chips.
Michael Dunworth has been busy playing nearly every pot on table 17 with mixed results. After falling to less than 5,000 in chips he found a handy double up through PokerStars qualifier Guiliano Petrozziello.
Dunworth held and Petrozziello . With all the money in pre-flop the board presented an amazing to double up Dunworth to around 9,000 chips.