The drama having died down a touch following the sequence of eliminations that brought us to heads-up play, Xing Zhou (China) and Ying Kit Chan (Hong Kong) settled in for a period of relative calm, trading small pots and avoiding any major skirmishes for the first several minutes of their duel.
Zhou — enjoying about an 8-to-1 chip advantage to start heads-up play — would lean on Chan, even putting him to the test once with an all-in raise that Chan resisted calling. But the pair continued in relative quiet, perhaps made more conspicuous seeming by the rail having thinned a bit since the elimination of Michael Kanaan in third.
Chan added a bit to his stack as they went, then finally some drama arose when Zhou opened for 45,000 from the button, Chan reraised all in for 915,000, and Zhou called. It was Aâ™ 10♦ for Chan, and he’d need some help versus the A♥ J♦ of Zhou.
The flop brought such help, coming 8♦ 8â™ 10♥ and eliciting a small roar from Chan’s supporters. The cheer was louder following the 10â™ turn that sealed the hand for Chan.
Suddenly Zhou’s chip edge had shrunk about to 2-to-1. They played on to the end of Level 24 and the dinner break, at which point Chan had chipped up a little further to 1,917,000 to Zhou’s 3,607,000.
It could well be the final chapter of the ACOP Main Event story will be lasting a little longer than the ones leading up to it.
It has been a long tournament already. Looking back through our catalogue of photos from all five days, we’ve found one of Ying Kit Chan — a.k.a. “Andy” — from Day 1 of the Main Event, snapped at a moment of apparent peace (and/or boredom). We just had to share…
The players are taking a little extra time — 55 minutes — for dinner, or perhaps even to rest their eyes a bit. Back then for the sure-to-be-exciting conclusion of the ACOP Main Event.
Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.
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