The all-ins all survived during the early going here on Day 4 of the Asia Championship of Poker Main Event — apart from James McCarty, that is, the first player to cash when he went out in 22nd place. The rest of Level 17 saw still more pushes happening, with three more eliminations in rapid succession.
First it was Suengsoo Jeon of Korea knocked out after flopping top pair of aces versus Tom Alner, then committing on the turn only to discover Alner had flopped a set of jacks. A river card later Jeon was out in 21st for $173,000 (HKD).
Then the last remaining woman in the Main Event, Japan’s Yuri Ishida, was eliminated in 20th after pushing her last chips in on a ten-high flop with A♦ J♣ versus Ying Kit Chan’s K♦ K♣ and failing to catch up. Like Jeon, Ishida earned $173,000 (HKD).
Finally Malaysia’s Raiden Kan, who suffered several double-ups against him by short-stacks during the early going today, had become short enough to find it needful to commit his chips with Aâ™ 3â™ and was hopeful of improving against Xing Zhou’s 10♣ 10â™ .
The flop brought the A♥ for Kan, but also the 10♥ for Zhou, and when Kan failed to catch up they were suddenly down to 18.
Tough times for Kan today, although he did last until a pay jump, earning $216,000 (HKD) for finishing 19th.
The remaining players have reassembled around the last two nine-handed tables, with Michael Kanaan still the leader as Level 17 comes to a close.
Meanwhile Event #16, the $250,000 (HKD) “High Rollers” event has gotten underway, with about two tables’ worth of players having sat down over there as well.
Among the recognizable faces over there are Tom Marchese, Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov, ACOP Warm-Up Champion Jeff Rossiter, Steve O’Dwyer, Paul Newey, Masa Kagawa, Daniel Nielson, and Phil Ivey.
The schedule for the High Rollers event calls for just four one-hour levels today, with late registration lasting until the start of Level 5 tomorrow (2:30 p.m.). The schedule was planned in part to allow for players to see the UFC fight here in Macau tonight, the subject of a lot of table talk in all of the tournaments this afternoon.
Meanwhile, the ACOP Main Event fight continues.
Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.
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