Wang Qiang Becomes Main Event Bubble Boy

Richard Yong opened the action with a raise to 200,000 from middle postion not long after play restarted but folded to a Chan Wai Leong cutoff shove. Then there was a great deal of pre-flop chip flexing with no significant pots played until there were fireworks 20 minutes into level 18.

Peter Chan’s stack had dwindled to a little 820,000 when he moved all-in from under-the-gun and the action folded around to Manig Loeser in the small blind.

The German player had been pretty active at the final table up until this point, hoovering up any chips not nailed down and decided to isolate Chan by moving all-in from the small blind action was on Wang Qiang, who sat back in his chair and shot Loeser a look.

Qiang had close to 1-million in chips and had a decision to make, tanking for several minutes before he decided to roll the dice and moved all-in to create a huge three-way pot and the cards were turned over.

Peter Chan:
Wang Qiang:
Manig Loeser:

While Qiang had Chan covered, he was trailing to both Chan and Loeser and the German had both of them covered easily.

The rainbow flop missed all three players and the turn did not help anyone. Things were looking distinctly dicey for Qiang and were getting rosier by the minute for Chan and the river saw the Hong Kong player shoot up out of his seat with excitement.

Qiang was also on his feet, but for a very different reason, his Main Event was now over and he headed for the rail empty handed while his chips were divvied up between Chan and Loeser.

With the bubble now burst the clock was paused with 30-minutes remaining of the level while the eight remaining players congratulated each other on making at least HK$1,712,000 (~$219,256). Play will resume at 1pm CET on Thursday 20 July and there will be a full end of day wrap and chip counts to follow so watch this space.