After slowly grinding his way back up the leaderboard, Joe Hachem has just taken another hit on table six. After raising to 1,100 with , he was pot committed to call the push from a short-stacked player who held pocket sixes.
The board of brought no love for Hachem and he is now down to around 24,000 in chips.
Unfortunately we don't have the details of the hand, but Anthony Taylor has just become the first player of the tournament to be lucky enough to land a Royal Flush out on table 18!
In his welcome speech to the field this morning, Joe Hachem jokingly asked his opponents to fold whenever he bet. However he has now changed his tune as he looks to accumulate some chips.
With the board reading Hachem leads out on the river with a 5,000 chip bet and pleads for his opponent to call. After some thought, the player decides to let it go and Hachem collects another pot.
All the action came on the turn with the board reading and both Gary Benson and his opponent holding straights. His opponent held , however his Benson's had him in the lead with a larger straight. The on the river jumps Benson up to over 60,000 in chips.
Well known Australian poker professional Emad Tahtouh is starting to accumulate a healthy chip stack. He has been busily stealing and re-stealing blinds and antes and has a mountain of green and black chips in front of him in his 45,000 chip stack.
Between the two of them, twin brothers Aaron and Derek Lerner from Montreal, Quebec have been playing poker for just over ten years. They cashed a combined five times at this summer's WSOP and have very impressive online results. Both Aaron and Derek are playing in today's Day 1 flight and are doing quite well. PokerNews' own Paul Khoury was able to have a quick word with them during the break.
Click here to access the interview, along with all other videos from the APPT Grand Final Main Event.
With the board showing Aleks Lackovic bets 1,500 into the pot holding a set of eights. Emad Tahtouh makes a raise to 4,500 with for a double gutshot straight draw, before another opponent comes over the top of both players with an all-in raise of 14,500 with for top pair plus flush and straight draws. Aleks makes the call, and Tahtouh slams his cards into the muck in frustration.
The river is and the set of eights of Lackovic hold up to take down the large pot as Tahtouh lets outs a shriek in the knowledge that he would've hit his straight.
Chris Koo has just made an amazing laydown to save himself from certain elimination.
On a dangerous looking board of , Koo made a value bet of 3500 with for a queen-high flush.
His opponent then popped it up to 10,000 and Koo went into the think tank. After several minutes of deep deliberation Koo folded his hand face up to the disbelief of the entire table. However Koo knew to trust his read, as his opponent flashed for the nut flush!
After calling a raise pre-flop, Gary Lent checked his set of tens on the flop of to his opponent who led out into the pot. Lent then check-rasied all in and was called by his opponent who held for top pair, top kicker. The turn and river blanked and Lent doubles up to 41,000 chips.