Linh Tran was in the cutoff, Takayuki Iwamoto was in the hijack, and each player put 43,000 chips in the middle before the flop.
The flop fell and Linh checked. Iwamoto bet 25,000 and Tran check-raised to 60,000. Iwamoto went into the tank and used one time bank chip before he ultimately folded and Tran took the chips.
With about 22,000 chips already in the pot on a flop of , Boyuan Qu checked to his lone opponent, Elias Gutierrez, and he bet 6,000. Qu called.
The turn brought the and both players checked.
The river was the and Qu bet 27,000. After some consideration, Gutierrez called, and Qu flipped over for a turned small flush. Gutierrez mucked and Qu took the chips to further extend his sizeable lead.
With about 40,000 chips already in the middle on a flop of , Albert Paik checked from the big blind, Daniel Demicki bet 14,000 from middle position, and Takayuki Iwamoto raised to 31,000 from the button. Paik folded and Demicki jammed, putting Iwamoto to a decision for the remainder of his stack. After some thought, Iwamoto folded and Demicki took the pot to put his stack over the 300,000-chip mark.
Xingbiao Zhu, who entered early on Day 2, has seen a notable spin-up in his stack over the past few minutes.
In the first hand, Randy Lew raised preflop, Zhu shoved, and Wei Hsiang Yeu reshoved out of the big blind. Lew called to put him at risk and all three players tabled their hands:
Lew:
Zhu:
Yeu:
Zhu, who had the smallest of the three stacks, was ahead preflop but needed to win a race against Lew and fade a five against Yeu in order to double up. The board ran out giving Zhu a set and Lew top pair, top kicker, so Zhu scooped the main pot to triple up and Lew took the side pot to send Yeu to the rail.
In the very next hand, Zhu and Alan Lau got all the chips in preflop with Zhu holding and Lau holding . Although Lau had the preflop advantage when the board was complete Zhu had made trip queens and took the pot to eliminate Lau.