Karlsson Out-pipped to become Bubble Boy

Hand-for-hand lasted for just 15-minutes, but for some of the shorter stacks like Lin Zhou on less than 10 big blinds that must have felt like an eternity. Eventually though, there was an all-in and a call with the action starting with a 17,000 cutoff raise from Chuanshu Chen.

Action folded around to the field's sole Icelandic representative Adalsteinn Karlsson in the small blind and he stacked up his last 93,000 and pushed it over the betting line, with Chen tossing out a single yellow 1k calling chip immediately.

The pair had to wait for an excruciating 5-minutes for the hands to finish playing out on the other tables, with both trying to discretely figure out where they stood in the hand until finally, it was showtime:

Adalsteinn Karlsson,
Chuanshu Chen,

Karlsson looked crushed when Chen rolled over a bigger pair, even if it was just by a single pip, and the Icelander got to his feet as the dealer spread his fate across the felt.

The run out came down and Karlsson give his opponent a sportsman's handshake before shaking his head and heading for the rail. That guarantees all 63 remaining players an HKD $27,600 payday and the floodgates will almost certainly open now as all the short stacks that have been hanging on for dear life attempt to go big, or go bust.