A huge three-way pre-flop all in confrontation has not long played out over on Victor Chong’s table and the Malaysian player had a front row seat as he was one of the protagonists.
It was Nevan Cheng who was the beneficiary of all the action, and the instigator, making it 1,100 to go from under-the-gun. Action folded around to a player on the button who went from DEFCON 4 to DEFCON 1 immediately and launched his whole 20,000-plus stack into the center of the table.
Victor Chong checked his cards in the small blind and launched missiles of his own, re-shoving to isolate. Cheng made a speedy call and the hands were turned over.
Nevan Cheng:
Button:
Victor Chong:
While Cheng was the at-risk player and was covered by both opponents, his gun was loaded with silver bullets, much more effective than missiles in a poker game and the runout was a good one for aces. Cheng stacked up to 35,500, the button busted and Chong took a bit of hit but is still in decent shape with a stack of 24,000.
Justin Chan’s first attempt at building a big stack has not worked out for him and we arrived in time to see the Hong Kong player vacating his seat. Mr. Chan was kind enough to tell us the tale of his demise, and what a tale of woe it was.
Surprisingly it was not Zhao Yanchao who busted Chan, though the Chinese player was involved in the proceedings. According to Chan it was China’s Kun Huang who lit the fuse with an early position raise to 1,100 and Chan made the call with pocket queens from the hi-jack.
Zhao got frisky from the button and re-raised to 3,300 and Huang moved all-in for 15,750. Chan had him covered, but only by around 300 chips and made the call and Zhao flashed both players the before throwing his hand into the muck.
It was a classic race, Chan’s pocket queens up against Huang’s ace-king, but unfortunately for Chan it was one he fell behind in immediately with a king in the window. Chan is out and Huang has 33,500 to play with.
Dajia Chen did not recover from folding out that big pot to Victor Chong earlier and the Malaysian player has just finished what he began earlier.
Chen was down to his last 5,500 and got this in pre-flop with and Chong looked him up with . Unfortunately for Chen the flop came down ace-high and that was that. Chen headed for the rail while Chong stacked up to around 28,000.
We caught Justin Chan and his nemesis Zhao Yanchao embroiled in another pot together, though this time they had some company with Luo Xixiang coming along as well.
It was Chan who was the initial aggressor, making it 700 to go from the hi-jack, Zhao decided to make the call from the button and Xixiang made the call from the big blind to take play three-way to a flop of .
While two’s company, three’s a crowd and after the action was checked to Chan he decided to thin the field with a continuation bet of 1,000.
Zhao evidently had plans for the hand and re-raised to 2,200 making Xixiang realize he wanted nothing to do with it and he folded out with Chan tossing in the extras to take play heads-up to the turn.
There would be no more cards dealt. Chan checked the action over to Zhao and the Chinese player fired out a bet of 4,100 which was enough to get Chan to lay it down.
Shi Jinqiang is enjoying the rub of the green presently as we arrived in time to see him scoop a big pot. This came at the expense of Calvin Yeung and stacks were being counted down as we arrived.
With the community cards spread and over 13,000 in bets, blinds and antes in the middle already Yeung had pulled the trigger on the river for close to 15,000 and been looked up by Jinqiang.
Unfortunately for Yeung however, bluff with did not work out the way he wanted (guess he should have asked Cheng Dong) and Jinqiang had looked him up with the pretty looking , which was good for a 38,000 pot and Yueng dropped down to 5,300.
Yeung padded this out a little the next hand after a Soo Joo Kim open to 700, with Yeung coming over the top for 2,200. Though the Korean didn’t look as though he liked it Kim eventually let it go and Yeung got a small rebate to climb to 6,450.
We had a chance to get a quick look at how some of the field is stacking up during the break at it appears the early frontrunner is Yu Zhou who has a little over 30,000 with some of the other notables as follows: