Down to the last 165,000 in chips, Czar Ian Marcos pushed all-in from an early position. David Erquiaga called blind out of the big blind.
Czar Ian Marcos: A♥9♥
David Erquiaga: Q♠2♦
The K♣Q♦8♦ flop gave Erquiaga a pair of queens, which held on the 7♥ turn as well as the 8♠ turn, eliminating Marcos in 11th place for PHP412,000 ($7,444)
Edwin Dela Cruz opened the action with a raise to 80,000 with the 6♠6♣ and Kok Weng Beh only called with K♦K♣ in the cutoff, all other players folded.
The 9♦6♦3♥ flop improved Dela Cruz to a set and he opted to check. Dela Cuz checked again and Beh then bet 200,000 for Dela Cruz to check-raise to 500,000.
Without much hesitation, Beh jammed for around 1,400,000 and Dela Cruz snap-called.
Two outs were left for Beh but the 9♠ river was not to them as the Malaysian High Roller regular was eliminated in 10th place on the final table bubble.
Over on the outer table, David Erquiaga three-bet to 255,000 out of the small blind. Valeriy Pak as the initial raiser then four-bet jammed and Erquiaga glanced over to the live stream set.
"Is it nine left already?" he inquired and once that was confirmed, Erquiaga folded to conclude the action for today.
Full chip counts and a recap of today's action are to follow.
The stage is set for the grand finale of the 2023 Poker Dream Manila live poker series in the Grand Wing Casino at Newport City in Metro Manila, right across the international airport of the international airport in the capital of the Philippines. Out of a 499-entry strong field, only nine players from six different countries remain in contention to claim the biggest slice of the PHP 28,751,382 ($519,578) prize pool after they navigated their way through an action-packed Day 2 in the PHP66,000 Main Event.
Three local card sharks are aiming to keep the title and trophy on home soil and Edwin Dela Cruz sits atop the leaderboard by some margin, as he accumulated an impressive stack of 4,325,000. David "Dave Spade" Erquiaga, one of the hottest-running players in Asia in the last few years, advanced with 1,335,000 while veteran Terry Gonzaga made it through with 1,180,000 which puts them both in the middle of the pack.
Norway's Tor Welo is second in chips with 2,080,000 and the always dangerous William Teoh has 1,470,000 at his disposal. Day 1b chip leader Ryan McAllister, Valeriy Pak, and the two Italians Alessandro Taranto as well as Nicola Montalbano round up the final table line-up.
Final Table Seat Draw
Seat
Player
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Nicola Montalbano
Italy
640,000
16
2
David Erquiaga
Philippines
1,335,000
33
3
Tor Welo
Norway
2,080,000
52
4
Edwin Dela Cruz
Philippines
4,325,000
108
5
William Teoh
Malaysia
1,470,000
37
6
Terry Gonzaga
Philippines
1,180,000
30
7
Alessandro Taranto
Italy
1,690,000
42
8
Ryan McAllister
United States
1,165,000
29
9
Valeriy Pak
Belarus
1,090,000
27
There are 35:03 minutes left in Level 25 at blinds of 20,000/40,000 with a big blind ante of 40,000, which makes for an average of 41 big blinds and a potentially long night ahead to crown a winner.
The final casualty of the evening was Malaysia's High Roller regular Kok Weng Beh, who triumphed in back-to-back Side Events during the festival already. His pocket kings were outflopped by Dela Cruz and Beh couldn't get away from it anymore on a nine-high turn to end the proceedings for Day 2, vaulting Dela Cruz into a comfortable lead for the nine-handed final table.
Among the 76 Day 1 survivors across three starting days were also the likes of Jose Drilon, Linh Ran Nguyen, Lijun Zhang, Jason Magbanua, Ngoc Anh Cao, Hal Rotholz, Junnie Pamplona, and Richard Sheils to name all but a few.
The conclusion of the fourth-ever Poker Dream Main Event in history will be streamed on a security delay of 30 minutes with cards-up coverage and commentary available on the Poker Dream Facebook page. All finalists will be back in their seats at 1 p.m. local time on Sunday, May 7, 2023, and the PokerNews live reporting team will be back then to provide all the key hands according to the delay until a champion has been determined.
