Jeffrey Hong completed his button and Christopher Abela opted to check.
The flop came , Abela check-shoved with the bigger stack after Hong bet 1,000. Hong contemplated for a while and then made the call for the 12,400 he had behind.
Jeffrey Hong;
Christopher Abela:
They both had a flush draw with Hong the better of it with the higher diamond card but Abela had also flopped a pair of fives.
The turn was the which didn't change things and neither did the . First game goes to Abela and they both agreed to take a 10-minute break before resuming play.
Timothy Rutherford raised to 1,600 from the button and Qi Hu shoved. Rutherford asked for a count and the dealer confirmed Hu had 21,600, so more than Rutherford. He took some time to contemplate and then made the call for the 18,400 he had behind.
Timothy Rutherford:
Qi Hu:
The board ran out for Hu to hold with the pair of sevens to claim the first game to his name before they both agreed to go for a short break.
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At noon local time, Day 2 which is the final day of Event #17: $3,125 Heads-Up resumes play at the Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa with 8 players out of 58 entries returning to the felt to battle each other in four heads-up matches. All those entries created a total prize pool of $168,780 with the winner taking home the first-place prize of $67,512 while all eight are already guaranteed at least $8,439.
Who will follow in Phil Hellmuth’s footsteps? The following quarter-finals are to take place so these are the players still in with a short at that wonderful first-place prize:
Arian Stolt vs Matthew Emmel
Christopher Abela vs Jeffrey Hong
David Forbes vs Sandeep Pulusani
Timothy Rutherford vs Qi Hu
Level duration will remain at 15 minutes with an increase to 30 minutes once the final has been reached. Players start with 20,000 in chips for each heads-up match and need to win two out of three games to advance to the next round.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be there from the start until the trophy can be handed over to the champion so sit tight while the updates can be found right here from the Borgata Winter Poker Open.