The cruel/great thing about poker, is that sometimes you can play perfectly, make excellent decisions and execute great moves...and still lose.
So Myung Sim knows that feeling right now after a rather brutal elimination from the tournament.
Catching the action on the flop of in a battle between Sim and Steve Sung who had a bet of 3,000 in front of him in the small blind. It appeared to be a check-raise as Sim quickly committed to the call in the cutoff.
The turn brought the and Sung silently slid his entire stack into the middle to put Sim to a decision for all of his chips.
Sim rocked back in his chair and was pained by the decision but eventually slid his last chips into the middle to make call.
Sim flipped for top pair which was good as Sung revealed for the bluff. Sung had outs, three of them in fact, and the on the river fell like a dagger through the heart of a dejected Sim. He hits the rail as Sung silently chips up to 40,000.
Unintentional reveals are always fun for all involved except for the parties that get victimized by them. Inwook Choi is freshly acquainted with that feeling. He watched a middle position player open to 1,200. That raise was called by Vivek Rajkumar on the button, prompting Choi to re-raise from the big blind to 4,300. The original raiser quickly folded by Rajkumar debated his course of action much, much longer. Finally, with a pained look on his face, Rajkumar folded.
The dealer pushed the pot to Choi. As Choi tossed his cards into the muck, they landed on a corner and flipped over, revealing ! Choi slapped his forehead and shook his head in disappointment, clearly not having intended to reveal his bluff to the table.
Teac Mang Tan couldn't figure out why the pot was being pushed his opponent. They were heads-up after a preflop raise and checked all the way to the river, , where Tan's opponent fired a bet of 2,500. Tan called with , a pair of sixes. He thought his opponent had shown down ace-high, but it turned out that Tan's opponent held for a Broadway straight.
The loss was only a small dent in Tan's massive 66,000-chip stack.
A young Japanese lady who gave us her name as Manami, has just found a near triple-up to get herself back in good shape.
We arrived at the table with the board reading . We're not sure how three players made it to this point, but with a bet of 5,000 in the middle, following by one player folding, Manami calmly slid her entire stack into the middle. It was only a few thousand more, and her her opponent made the call with for a flush. However Manami flipped for the nut flush to scoop a very nice pot.
Dominico Choi Sun Young is running out of time to get something started here in Macau. He's down to 4,600 after firing 1,800 at a flop of that his lone opponent, the big blind, checked. That opponent check-raised to 5,250 putting Young to a decision for the rest of his chips. That decision was to fold.
On a different table JC Tran was involved as the shortest stack in a three-way all in. He also had the worst hand, with his up against a slightly larger stack's and an even larger stack's . Yet it was Tran who took down the 12,000-chip main pot on a board of with a seven-high straight.
"Look at these guys, calling me with no pair," joked Tran. Then he added, "I was thinking the eight would also be a good card until I realized it would make the 10-high straight."
"Play good now," Johnny Chan told him. "Play good!"
Joel Dodds is an early bust-out in after-dinner play. With blinds at 250 and 500, a player opened all in from under the gun for about 30,000. Action passed to Dodds, who squeezed out pocket tens and called for his last 9,000. He was up against pocket nines, but a nine in the window on the flop spelled Dodds' doom. He never caught up and has hit the rail.