That's right, folks. The APPT is going back to Korea. March 7-11, the APPT will set up shop in the amazing Paradise Walkerhill Casino for a five-day poker festival capped off by a KRW 3,000,000 (US $2,600) buy-in main event.

If you need any excuse other than the great action, potential riches, and fun travel to go, just look at this bird's eye view of the venue. Not bad, eh?

The APPT fell in love with Seoul years ago and has been looking for a chance to get back there since 2008. That's the last time the APPT visited. Then, Yoshihiro Tasaka became the tour's first Japanese winner. Since that time poker has exploded all over Korea. The APPT is expecting a record field when it gets back to Seoul.

If you don't want to pay the whole price of getting there, PokerStars is already running satellites. You can make it into main event for pennies on the dollar.

For more information and the whole APPT Seoul schedule, head on over to APPT.com.

See you in Seoul!

Wind the clock back fourteen hours and Lew was one of fifteen players who returned to the PokerStars Macau Poker Room in the Grand Lisboa Hotel and Casino for the final day of play. Leading the way was India's Sangeeth Mohan, but Lew was always going to be one to watch in a field that also included experienced pros David Steicke, Jeff Rossiter and Dao Xing "Bobo" Chen.

Only nine would make the official APPT final table with Sparrow Cheung, Josh Barrett, Tsugunari Toma, Dao Xing Chen and Baton Fung were sent to the rail early in the day, before a defining hand of the day saw overnight chip leader Sangeeth Mohan bubble the final table in 10th place.

In a four-bet pot, Mohan flopped top set of queens against the Royal Flush draw of Kai Yat Fam, but Mohan couldn't hold as a third diamond on board delivered the flush to jump Fam into the chip lead as our final table was set.

Randy Lew entered the final table as the short stack and waited patiently for his moment to strike. Pocket queens seemed like the perfect moment but he walked his ladies straight into the pocket aces of David Steicke. Such is the nature of tournament poker that one bad beat can be the difference between victory and defeat, as Lew caught a third queen to crack Steicke's aces and he was eliminated in 9th place soon after.

Fabian Spielmann and Jeff Rossiter started to accumulate chips, with Rossiter's deceptively-played pocket aces jumping him up into the chip lead. He extended that advantage further when pocket eights paid dividends twice. First Rossiter dispatched Tan Tei Zheng and his pocket deuces in 8th place before winning a flip against Swede Daniel Nordstrom's ace-king to see him to the rail in 7th.

Kai Yat Fam was next to crack when he shoved the button with ace-four but Randy Lew called with pocket tens in the big blind. The tens were good to Lew as the board ran out [4h][jc][3d][9h][6c] to see Fam head to the cashier to collect 6th place prizemoney.

Lew was slowly moving up the leaderboard and after the dinner he kicked it into the next gear with an amazing hand that saw the end of Zuo Wang.

Wang was short-stacked and all in preflop with both Lew and Rossiter making the call. As expected, the two live players checked down a board of [7s][ac][9c][td][8d] until the river where Lew checked it to Rossiter who bet 700,000 into a dry side pot. Lew then check-raised an additional 1,000,000 with Rossiter making the call holding [jc][tc] for a straight. However Lew opened [qd][js] for the nut straight as Wang could only shake his head as his [9h][9s] had been run down.

Rossiter recovered with the elimination of Fabian Spielmann in 4th place when Rossiter's [ac][qc] improved to a flush to better Spielmann's [ks][ts] top pair hand. This brought us to three-handed play and one of the most intriguing combinations of players we've seen for some time on the APPT.

Jimmy Pan, Jeff Rossiter and Randy Lew were all young, highly talented, super aggressive players and it made for some fascinating play and psychology.

Pan was the short stack but fought hard to get himself back into the contest with some well-timed three-bets. Lew slipped back but found two doubles ups through Jeff Rossiter to stay alive. The first one saw Lew's [ac][7s] hold against Rossiter's [kd][qs] before a genuine coin flip saw Lew's [tc][ts] survive against Rossiter's [as][jh].

That left Rossiter on the brink and he couldn't recover as he made a final stand with [9s][th] but fell to the [ah][qc] of Jimmy Pan.

Randy Lew held a narrow lead as an entertaining heads-up contest got underway against Jimmy Pan.

Pan chipped away with preflop aggression, while Lew caught some handy cards, including a set of tens and a full house with [as][7s] to extend his advantage.

Jimmy Pan again reeled it back in and had a chance to win it all with [ad][9s] against Lew's pocket sixes but again the PokerStars Team Online player spiked a set to stay alive.

That left Pan reeling and despite some well-timed aggression, lady luck just wasn't on his side. The final hand came with the two committing their chips on a flop of [qh][ts][8s] with Lew flopping two pair with [qd][tc] to better the [kd][qs] of Pan. The [5d] turn and [jc] river couldn't connect as Randy Lew was crowned the APPT Macau champion!

Randy Lew now confirms his status as a member of PokerStars Team Online with a breakthrough major live victory to add to an impressive poker resume.

Final Table Payouts
1st Randy Lew (Canada) PokerStars Team Online $3,772,000
2nd Jimmy Pan (Macau) $2,367,000
3rd Jeff Rossiter (Australia) $1,306,000
4th Fabian Spielmann (Germany) PokerStars Qualifier $1,019,000
5th Zuo Wang (China) $809,000
6th Kai Yat Fam (Singapore) $653,000
7th Daniel Nordstrom (Sweden) $498,000
8th Tan Tai Zheng (Singapore) $373,000
9th David Steicke (Hong Kong) $263,300

Prizepool and Payout Information

Also today we saw confirmation that Hung-sheng "Shaq" Lin was successful in winning the Asia Player of the Year title. Lin held a massive points lead following his Macau Millions win and numerous final tables throughout the year, and despite not having a great APPT series, Lin was able to maintain his position as the #1 ranked player in Asia and will receive a PokerStars Macau sponsorship for next season. Congratulations!

Well, that's all she wrote from another hugely successful week in Macau. Many thanks to Danny McDonagh, Fred Leung and all of the PokerStars Macau staff for their tireless efforts, not only throughout this week but in the weeks leading up to what was another record-setting event. We look forward to the 2012 PokerStars Macau schedule and the Asia Championships of Poker next year.

Many thanks to my blogging buddy Brad "Otis" Willis for getting his feet wet in Asia, to Jenn Barr for her updates on the Japanese contingent, and to Ken and Long from Kenneth Lim Photography for their superb photography throughout the week.

This event marks the end of the year on the Australasian poker circuit as we take a short summer break before the Aussie Millions kicks off in January. We hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season and we look forward to you joining the PokerStars Blog team for even bigger and better events in 2012.

Good night from Macau!

Congratulations to Randy "nanonoko" Lew who displayed the maturity and composure of a veteran to navigate his way through a record APPT field and a super-stacked final table to capture the APPT Macau Main Event crown.

Despite having an online record that few can match, this is Lew's first major live title and one of the first major titles for PokerStars Team Online.

Lew takes home an impressive trophy and HK$3,772,000 in prize money. Congratulations Randy!

That wraps up our live coverage from the PokerStars Macau Poker Room in the Grand Lisboa Hotel and Casino, but we'll be back with a full wrap of today's action for you very shortly.

1:45am: Jimmy Pan eliminated in 2nd place; Randy Lew wins!

Jimmy Pan turned up the aggression following their previous big clash, and went on a relentless charge of three-betting that Randy Lew appeared to have little answer to. Pan built his stack up to around 5.5 million before the final hand of the tournament played out.

Pan opened the button to 400,000 and Lew flat-called from the big blind. The flop landed [qh][ts][8s] and Lew decided to lead out with a probing bet of 400,000. Pan again kept the pedal to the metal as he announced himself all in, but this time Lew snap-called!

Pan: [kd][qs]
Lew: [qd][tc]

Lew was dominated preflop but caught the perfect flop as his two pair left Pan needing to spike a king to stay alive. The [5d] turn and [jc] river missed Pan as Randy Lew was crowned the APPT Macau champion!

Jimmy Pan put up tremendous resistance throughout the final table and should be well satisfied with his HK$2,367,000 for 2nd place.

1:25am: Another set for Lew to reclaim lead

Jimmy Pan had his chance to win it all but the race has gone the way of Randy Lew as this epic heads-up battle continues.

Pan had been relentlessly three-betting and four-betting, once showing seven-deuce, and flashing the [2h] on another occasion. So when he three-bet to 1.05 million following the min-raise from Lew, it was no surprise to see the online phenom announce himself all in. However this time Pan had a legit hand as he made a quick call.

Lew: [6s][6d]
Pan: [ad][9s]

Pan was looking for an ace, and he found it, but it was backed up with a six on the [as][8c][6c] flop as Lew made a set to take a big advantage. It was all over when the [2c] fell on the turn as the meaningless [4d] landed on the river.

Lew doubles up to 13.5 million for a commanding advantage as Pan is down to around 3.5 million.

1:05am: Lew builds a boat

Randy Lew has evened things up again after making a full house and getting paid off.
Jimmy Pan opened with a raise to 400,000 and Lew made the call in the big blind to see a flop of [7h][5d][2s]. Both players checked and the turn brought the [7c]. Lew checked again and Pan bet 400,000. Lew made the call before leading for 800,000 on the [5s] river.

Pan threw his head back before announcing a call but Lew tabled [as][7s] for a full house, much to the dismay of Pan who flashed the [5c].

This evens it right up again with Pan down to 9 million and Lew a little over 8 million. Strap yourself in folks, this doesn't look like ending anytime soon!

12:55am: Level up, blinds 100,000-200,000, ante 20,000

12:45am: Pan swings it around

This one is not over just yet as Jimmy Pan has landed a big double up to swing things back around as he captures the lead in the APPT Macau Main Event.

Pan raised the button to 325,000 before Lew three-bet to 825,000. Back on Pan and he declared himself all in and Lew quickly called!

Pan: [ah][qc]
Lew: [9d][9c]

Media and fans swarmed around the table as the championship was one successful coin flip away from the PokerStars Team Online player. However it wasn't to be as the board fell [8h][jd][qs][5c][2c], pairing up Pan's queen for the double up.

Pan's stack was doubled to 10,200,000 with Lew back down to 7,000,000.

12:30am: Perfect tens for Lew

Randy Lew has now extended his chip lead to a 3-to-1 advantage after flopping a set against Jimmy Pan.

Lew opened the button to 325,000 and Pan called to see a flop of [th][7d][3s]. Pan check-called for another 325,000 as the [5c] hit the turn. Once again the action was check, bet, call as another 700,000 went into the middle from each player.

The river was the [qh] and Pan tapped the table for a third time to Lew who bet a sizable 1.5 million chips. Pan rocked back in his chair before verbalizing a call. He found himself reaching for chips moments later after Lew tabled [tc][ts] for a set of tens to scoop the big pot.

Lew is now up to 12.5 million with Pan down to around 4.65 million.

12:15am: Lew extends

Randy Lew raised the button to 325,000 before Jimmy Pan three-bet to 925,000 for the second big blind in a row. Instead of folding this time, Lew decided to make the call to see a flop of [6s][kd][6c].

Pan slid out a bet of 925,000 and Lew called as the [ks] put an interesting double-paired board out there. Pan checked and Lew offered a discounted price of 750,000. Pan came along and both players quickly tapped the table on the [8s] river.

Pan showed [ad][9h] but he was bettered by Lew's [9c][9c]. Lew gets up to 10,250,000 with Pan down to 7,000,000.

12:05am: We're heads up!

We're now heads up for the title with Randy Lew holding a narrow chip lead over Jimmy Pan.

Lew: 9,000,000
Pan: 8,250,000

12:00am: Jeff Rossiter eliminated in 3rd place

After than previous blow, Jeff Rossiter was on the short stack when he moved all in preflop with [9s][th] but Jimmy Pan made the call with [ah][qc].

The board was spread [kh][5s][as][6c][9d] to give Pan a pair of aces and inflict the rare taste of elimination upon the young Aussie as he departs in 3rd place for a pretty HK$1,306,000 in prize money.

11:55pm: Lew wins key coinflip to cripple Rossiter

In the end, it was probably always going to come down to a coinflip between these three talented players. The coin has been tossed in the air and fallen the way of Randy Lew.

Lew started with a raise to 320,000 from the button before Jeff Rossiter three-bet to 755,000 in the small blind. Lew came back with a four-bet to 1,320,000, Rossiter moved all in and Lew made the call!

Rossiter: [as][jh]
Lew: [tc][ts]

The board ran out [6d][8h][2c][ks][8d] to leave Lew's pair in front for a massive double up. Lew doubles up to over nine million in chips with Rossiter now crippled.

11:45pm: Double for nanonoko

Action folded to Randy "nanonoko" Lew in the small blind and he moved all in. It was around 2.2 million but Jeff Rossiter didn't wait for a count as he snap-called!

Lew: [ac][7s]
Rossiter: [kd][qs]

Lew was in front and it stayed that way on the board of [8d][ah][9c][js][2d]. Lew doubles to 4.5 million with Rossiter slipping down to 5.4 million.

11:40pm: Play resumes

The players are back with the blinds up to 80,000/160,000 with an ante of 20,000.

11:30pm: Ten-minute break

11:25pm: Pan turns up the heat

Jimmy Pan is starting to put the sword to his two better-known opponents as he's now closing in on the chip lead after a big clash with PokerStars Team Online player Randy "nanonoko" Lew.

Catching the action on the turn with the board reading [6h][2h][4h][6s], Pan led out with a bet of 345,000 from the big blind with Lew making the call on the button as the [kc] fell on the river. Pan reached deep and slid out a hefty 1.285 million into the middle.

Lew didn't take long to make the call but mucked when Pan tabled [jh][8h] for the flopped flush. Lew is now on the short stack with 3.3 million while Pan is now right in the hunt with 6.5 million.

11:10pm: Pan pulls the check-raise

Jimmy Pan just pulled off a nice check-raise in a very rare multi-way pot. Jeff Rossiter min-raised the button and both opponents called in the blinds to see a flop of [jc][2h][7c].

All three players checked and the [5d] hit the turn. Pan checked to Randy Lew who bet 340,000. Jeff Rossiter quickly called but Pan came back with a raise of an additional 1.1 million. Lew and Rossiter quickly released to give Pan a nice pot.

Pan is up to 4.9 million but still the short stack against Lew's 5.5 million and Rossiter's 7 million. It's proving to be a tight three-way battle with three very good, aggressive players with plenty of chips to play with. We could be here a while!

10:50pm: Pan rues the river

Jimmy Pan and Jeff Rossiter have been tangling in some preflop three-betting, but it is Randy Lew who just picked up a chunk of Pan's stack.

Lew has been the least active player of the threesome, but that didn't stop him defending from the big blind with a less than optimal [jh][3s] when Pan raised to 280,000.

The flop came [qd][8h][3c] and Pan fired 345,000. Lew made the call before both players checked the [7s] turn. The river was the [js] to give Lew two pair and he was happy to call the bet of 650,000 from Pan who cringed as he opened [qc][th] for just one pair.

Pan is down to 2.8 million with Lew barely putting a foot wrong as he moved up to six million.

10:25pm: Double for Pan

Jimmy Pan has had to battle with one of the short stack for most of this final table, but he has finally landed a big double up to now be a real threat in this extremely tough three-way dance.

Pan opened with a raise from the button before Jeff Rossiter moved all in from the big blind. Pan made the call with [as][kh] as Rossiter tabled live cards with his [qs][jc].

Rossiter flopped the lead when it landed [4c][jd][8d] but the [ah] turn was the saviour for Pan as he reclaimed the lead. The river was the [6h] and Pan doubles to around 4.4 million with Rossiter down to 7.2 million.

10:20pm: Fabian Spielmann eliminated in 4th place

Jeff Rossiter opened with a raise from the small blind of an additional 160,000 before Fabian Spielmann declared himself all in from the big blind. Rossiter made a quick call as the cards were flipped!

Spielmann: [ks][ts]
Rossiter: [ac][qc]

With over seven million chips in the middle, the flop fell [kc][jc][8h] to put Spielmann in front but Rossiter had flopped flush and straight draws to go with his ace. He didn't have to wait long as the [2c] hit the turn to complete his flush and seal the deal. The meaningless river was the [8d] to end the PokerStars Qualifier's run in 4th place for HK$1,019,000. Meanwhile Rossiter is now up to a mighty 9.5 million chips.

10:10pm: Level up, blinds 60,000-120,000, ante 10,000

The blinds are up to 60,000-120,000 with a 10,000 ante which should kick up the action!

That's the end of that level, and we'll be starting the new level on a new page.

9:50pm: Rossiter recovers

Jimmy Pan and Jeff Rossiter have tangled with the Aussie gaining the ascendency and regaining some lost momentum.

Pan raised the button to 200,000 before Rossiter three-bet an additional 280,000 from the big blind. Pan made the call and the flop landed [2s][ac][6h].

Rossiter led out with a continuation bet of 415,000 and Pan called to see the [4h] hit the turn. Rossiter checked and Pan fired a hefty 675,000 into the middle. Acting as quick as ever, Rossiter matched the bet as a massive pot had formed before the [8c] hit the river.
Rossiter checked and Pan thought for some time before tapping the table behind.

Rossiter opened [tc][td] and Pan threw back his head before tossing his cards into the muck. Rossiter is now back to 6.1 million with Pan dropping to 1.7 million.

9:40pm: Zuo Wang eliminated in 5th place

Zuo Wang moved all in preflop for his last 530,000 and both Randy Lew and Jeff Rossiter made the call in the blinds to attempt to knock out the short stack.

They tapped the table on the flop and turn, as the final board was spread [7s][ac][9c][td][8d]. This is where things got interesting.

As Wang was trying to show his cards to his friends on the rail, Lew checked for the third time over to Rossiter who quickly bet 700,000. Not so quick was Lew who took his sweet time before cutting out a raise of an additional 1,000,000! Suddenly the dry side pot was swimming with chips as Rossiter hastily called.

Lew tabled [qd][js] for the nut straight as Rossiter rolled his eyes and flashed [jc][tc] for a smaller straight. Meanwhile Wang opened [9h][9s] for a flopped set that was swallowed up cruelly to send him to the cashier to collect HK$809,000 for his 5th place finish.

9:35pm: Wang in the hot seat

If the action before the dinner break was slow, the post-dinner dessert has been a delight as the chips are flying!

Zuo Wang moved his chips in preflop with ace-ten and was racing against Jimmy Pan's pocket sixes. Unfortunately for Wang he couldn't connect with the board and was crippled.

However next hand he was able to double up his short stack after getting lucky with [7d][9c] against Randy Lew's [tc][9s] when the board ran out [ac][8d][kc][7s][9h]. Wang is back to about 550,000.

9:25pm: Play resumes

8:40pm: Dinner break

The players are taking a dinner break. Back at 9:20pm local time.

8:20pm: Chop, chop, pork chop

As the blinds jumped up, it's Jimmy Pan who has been aggressively moving his short stack all in to steal the valuable blinds and antes. However when he tried it for about the fourth time, Fabian Spielmann decided to make the call with [ad][jc]. The big clash produced an anti-climactic result as Pan showed [ah][jh] for the same hand.

The board ran out [js][7c][qd][4s][5s] to see the two chop it up.

8:15pm: Level up, blinds 50,000-100,000, ante 10,000

8:00pm: Kai Yat Fam eliminated in 6th place

The play passed around the table to Kai Yat Fam on the button who announced himself all in. It was almost 1.3 million but Randy Lew didn't wait for a count as he immediately called in the big blind.

Fam: [ah][4s]
Lew: [ts][tc]

Lew was firmly in front and it remained that way through the [4h][jc][3d][9h][6c] board. Fam takes HK$653,000 back home to Singapore as Lew is now up to 4.5 million chips.

7:45pm: Play resumes

The players are back in action with the dinner break probably another hour or so away, depending on how fast these players start to drop away. Here's the chip counts at the break:

Jeff Rossiter - 7,000,000
Randy Lew - 3,000,000
Fabian Spielmann - 2,650,000
Zuo Wang - 1,850,000
Kai Yat Fam - 1,300,000
Jimmy Pan - 1,200,000

7:35pm: Ten-minute break

7:30pm: Ace-high enough for Lew

On the final hand before the break, Kai Yat Fam opened to 160,000 and Randy Lew defended his big blind with a call.

The flop landed [5c][3c][9s] and Lew check-called for 155,000 before both players checked down the [5h] turn and [ts] river.

Lew opened first and he showed [ah][4h] for ace-high which was enough to get it done as Fam mucked. Lew is now in second chip place with close to three million in chips.

7:00pm: Daniel Nordstrom eliminated in 7th place

Jeff Rossiter is in total control of this final table after eliminating Daniel Nordstrom in a huge preflop clash. Rossiter opened to 160,000 before Nordstrom three-bet to 390,000. Rossiter instantly moved all in and Nordstrom called it off.

Rossiter: [8h][8s]
Nordstrom: [ac][kh]

It was a classic coinflip but Nordstrom must've been pretty happy to see the [2h][7h][th] flop as he added a flush draw to his overcards. However such is the way that Rossiter has been running that he comfortably avoided danger as the [5d] turn and [tc] river completed the board.

Rossiter is now up to 7 million in chips as Nordstrom picks up HK$498,000 for a fine tournament.

6:50pm: Level up, blinds 40,000-80,000, ante 5,000

6:45pm: Another double up

Daniel Nordstrom has doubled up to get himself back into contention on this final table. Fabian Spielmann opened with a raise to 125,000 before Nordstrom moved all in. Spielmann made the call and the cards were on their backs!

Spielmann: [as][4s]
Nordstrom: [ac][ts]

The board ran out [4c][6d][7s][5d][2c] to see Nordstrom spike the three-out four-ball to stay alive! He doubles to almost two million with Spielmann back under three million.

6:40pm: Fam survives

Finally a little action to report! Daniel Nordstrom opened with a raise to 125,000 from under the gun before Kai Yat Fam declared himself all in from the big blind. Nordstrom made the call.

Nordstrom: [tc][td]
Fam: [as][js]

The board ran out [7c][8c][6h][jh][8h] to pair up Fam's jack for the double up to around two million as Nordstrom slips to 860,000.

6:30pm: Slow and steady wins the race?

It's been slow going over the last half hour, with players taking a long time to act. It's our first time seeing Randy Lew live and it's surprising how someone who usually plays 24+ tables online can take so long to act over his decisions in the live environment. I guess it illustrates the importance of this title to him.

In a recent hand "nanonoko" picked up a nice pot without showdown. He raised under the gun to 120,000 and Jimmy Pan called as the flop landed [qh][2d][3d]. Pan check-called for 150,000 before both players checked the [3c] turn and [ac] river. Lew didn't need to worry about a showdown as Pan just tossed his cards straight into the muck. Lew is up to 2.4 million.

6:00pm: Here comes Randy!

Daniel Nordstrom and Randy Lew have gone to war, with the PokerStars Team Online member getting the better as he starts to look very threatening on this final table.

Nordstrom opened with a raise to 125,000 before Lew three-bet to 300,000 on the button. The blinds folded and Nordstrom called to see a flop of [qd][2d][js]. The action was check, check before Nordstrom bet 300,000 on the [6h] turn with Lew making the call before both players checked the [qh] river.

Nordstrom tabled [7c][7d] but it wasn't enough to get past Lew's [ah][jd].

Lew is up to 2.3 million with Nordstrom down to 2.2 million.

5:40pm: Tan Tai Zheng eliminated in 8th place

Tan Tai Zheng was our short stack and it didn't take long following the break for Zheng to move his last chips in preflop with [2h][2s] however the unstoppable Jeff Rossiter found [8s][8c] and made the call.

The board ran out [3d][5c][5d][td][9d] to give Rossiter the pot and eliminate Singaporean Zheng in 8th place for a HK$373,000 pay day.

Rossiter is now up to a commanding 5.2 million and is in charge of this final table.

5:35pm: Play resumes

The players are back following the break with Jeff Rossiter grabbing the chip lead after Fabian Spielmann lost the hand before the break to slip back into the pack.

The level has come to an end and the players are taking a break. We'll be back in ten minutes with coverage to continue on a new page.

5:20pm: Nordstrom finds a lucky lady

Daniel Nordstrom has doubled up through Fabian Spielmann after spiking a set on the river to the roars of the railbirds watching this final table.

With all the chips in preflop, Spielmann pushed with [as][2s]. Nordstrom held a monster [qs][qd] and made the call but fell behind on the [ac][ks][7s] flop.

The turn was the [jc] to give Nordstrom straight outs, but he connected smack-bang with the [qc] river. He doubles up to 2.7 million with Spielmann down to 3.7 million.

The chips just keep getting passed around the table as eight players still remain.

5:10pm: Rossiter roars

Jeff Rossiter has taken a massive pot from Kai Yat Fam to jump up towards the chip leaders as he eyes off his second major title this month.

Jimmy Pan opened with a preflop raise with Jeff Rossiter making the call in position. Fam came along in the big blind to see a flop of [ks][3d][4s].

Action checked to Rossiter who bet 225,000. Fam called as Pan got out of the way before the [jc] hit the turn. Fam check-called again, this time for 460,000 as the [ac] hit the river. Fam tapped the table again as Rossiter moved a hefty 855,000 into the middle. Fam thought for a few moments before matching the bet.

Rossiter confidently opened [as][ah] for a rivered set of aces which was too good as Fam tossed away his cards. Rossiter climbs to 4.1 million with Fam down to just 1.25 million.

4:50pm: David Steicke eliminated in 9th place

David Steicke is the first elimination of the day as he departs in 9th place. Following the devastating beat of the previous hand, Steicke waited two more hands before raising to 155,000, leaving himself just 5,000 behind. Daniel Nordstrom popped it to 300,000 to isolate and the table folded back to Steicke who tossed out his last chip.

Steicke: [4h][7d]
Nordstrom: [as][ad]

Well, Steicke was going to have to use all his powers to get out of this one, and there were a few murmurs in the crowd when the flop came down [5c][2d][3c] to give him hope with a straight draw. However the [9c] turn and [td] river completed the board to see him head to the cashier to collect HK$263,300 in prize money.

4:45pm: Lew doubles through Steicke

Randy Lew opened with a raise to 100,000 before David Steicke three-bet to 205,000. Action folded back around to Lew who moved all in for around 750,000 and Steicke instantly called!

Lew: [qs][qd]
Steicke: [ac][ad]

Lew was on his feet ready to exit but he was forced to sit back down after the board ran out [8c][4h][qh][6s][7s]. Lew spikes his two-outer to double to 1.7 million as Steicke could only grin through clenched teeth as he was left crippled.

4:30pm: A showdown without cards

Action has slowed over the last half hour with players taking a long time over their decisions.

Fabian Spielmann took down a three-bet pot with a bet on the turn on a board of [ac][6c][4h][ah] against Zuo Wang, before Wang got a few chips back when he took down a sizable pot with a turn bet against Jimmy Pan on a [kc][3c][td][4h] board.

We thought we had a rare showdown when Zheng Tai Tan clashed with Kai Yat Fam.

Fam raised to 100,000 from the cutoff, checked the flop and then called bets of 150,000 on the turn and 215,000 on the river on a board of [qs][7h][8s][kh][3d]. However Tan was caught in the cookie jar as he tossed his cards straight into the muck to concede the pot to Fam. Tan is now down to 900,000 as nine players still remain.

4:15pm: Update from the side even with Team Japan

Since Tsugunari Toma finished the main event in 13th place, there are no players from Japan on this side of the tournament area. In the $2500 bounty event, however, the big names have gathered and are looking for a piece of the final event of this APPT series. Just a quick glance around and we saw Seijiro Machi (winner of the $15,000 side event last night), Yu Kurita (4th in the same event), Azusa Maeda (2nd place in the WSOPE 6-handed event), Wooka Kim, mahjong pro Garthe Nelson, the popular Hirotoshi "Hirobow" Nakago and Manami "Tink" Hayamizu (cashed in the main event yesterday). We're looking for some big results from this talented group to report on as the day progresses. -- JB

4:00pm: Level up, blinds 25,000-50,000, ante 5,000

3:55pm: King-deuce does it for Nordstrom

Swede Daniel Nordstrom has just found a big double up to stay alive in the APPT Macau Main Event. He open-shoved the button for 610,000 and action folded to Zheng Tai Tan who asked for a count in the big blind before announcing a call.

Nordstrom sheepishly tabled [kh][2c] but was surprisingly in front as Tan had gambled with [qs][jc].

The flop of [jd][5c][kd] hit both players, but Tan couldn't improve further on the [8h] turn or [3d] river. Nordstrom doubles to 1.25 million with Tan now down to 1.5 million.

3:35pm: Pan and Tan collide

Jimmy Pan has just burnt a cool million chips in a battle of the blinds with Zheng Tai Tan.

Pan raised the small blind to 105,000 and Tan called to see a flop of [7c][3h][3c].

Pan led for 140,000 before Tan raised to 370,000. Pan came back with another raise to 665,000 in total to send Tan into the tank. After several minutes of thought, Tan announced himself all in which brought a quick fold from Pan.

Pan slips to 1.1 million with Tan now up to 2.3 million.

3:25pm: Spielmann soars

It only took three hands for us to see our first all-in clash and it was a beauty!

Fabian Spielmann opened with a raise to 85,000 which Zuo Wang called before chip leader Kai Yat Fam popped it another 200,000 from the small blind.

Action folded to Spielmann who announced a re-raise of another 320,000 to force Wang from the pot, but Fam wasn't going anywhere. He moved all in and Spielmann insta-called as five million chips were in the middle!

Spielmann: [kd][kh]
Fam: [ad][kc]

The board ran out [9d][3s][2d][5s][qs] to give Spielmann the massive double up to take the chip lead. Fam is down to 2.2 million.

3:15pm: Play resumes

The players have been introduced to the audience and the button has been drawn (seat 3). Nothing more is left than for APPT President Danny McDonagh to utter the words "Shuffle up and Deal!"

There has been a bit of a wind back as we'll play another 45 minutes at 20,000/40,000 with a 5,000 ante.

Final Table Lineup

Seat 1: Randy Lew (PokerStars Team Online) - 750,000
Seat 2: Jeff Rossiter - 1,725,000
Seat 3: Fabian Spielmann (PokerStars Qualifier) - 2,295,000
Seat 4: Zuo Wang - 2,180,000
Seat 5: David Steicke (PokerStars Player) - 965,000
Seat 6: Kai Yat Fam - 4,515,000
Seat 7: Daniel Nordstrom - 800,000
Seat 8: Jimmy Pan - 2,010,000
Seat 9: Zheng Tai Tan - 1,685,000

2:40pm: Sangeeth Mohan eliminated in 10th place

Our final table bubble has burst with India's Sangeeth Mohan the unfortunate one to miss out on an APPT final table berth. He was very unlucky too, after getting his last chips in the middle with the nuts.

It started with Mohan raising the button to 110,000 before Kai Yat Fam three-bet an additional 170,000 from the small blind. Fabian Spielmann tanked for several minutes before giving up his big blind, and perhaps it was a good thing, as Mohan four-bet another 330,000 on top.

Fam thought briefly before making the call as the flop landed [qd][td][4h]. Fam checked and with so much already in the middle, Mohan announced himself all in but Fam quickly called as the cards were on their backs!

Fam: [kd][jd]
Mohan: [qh][qc]

Wow! It was top set against a Royal Flush draw on the ultimate action flop. Mohan walked from the table and couldn't watch as the [2d] hit the turn to give Fam a flush and leave Mohan on the brink of elimination, needing to pair the board to stay alive.

It wasn't to be as the [as] landed to see Mohan finish in 10th place as Fam grabs a massive chip lead as our final table is set!

There will now be a short break while the players relocate to a dedicated final table area, take some photos and conduct media interviews before play is scheduled to recommence at 3:15pm local time.

2:30pm: Play resumes

We're back in action with the blinds up to 25,000/50,000/5,000 and one elimination away from our final table of nine.

2:20pm: Ten-minute break

With play slowing right down towards the end of that level, the players are now taking a much-needed ten-minute break.

1:45pm: Queen-ten is good enough

Zheng Tai Tan has found a big double up through David Steicke, although it wasn't quite your standard preflop race.

Tan opened the button to 105,000 before Steicke moved all in from the big blind. Tan quickly called and opened [qc][th] as Steicke was probably a little surprised to find his [kc][7c] was actually in front.

It didn't stay that way for long as the board was spread [3d][8s][ts][5c][6s] to pair up Tan for the double up to 1.7 million. Steicke slips to 990,000.

1:35pm: Baton Fung eliminated in 11th place

Baton Fung is next to his the rail as we're now one elimination away from our final table.

Zuo Wang opened with a raise from late position with ace-king before Fung moved all in for his last chips with pocket sevens. Wang made the call, spiked a king on the flop and that was all she wrote.

Wang is now up to a healthy two million in chips.

1:30pm: Great Wall of Steicke starts construction

Daniel Nordstrom opened with a raise to 84,000 from under the gun and David Steicke made the call in the big blind to see a flop of [2d][ad][2h].

Both players checked and the turn brought the [5h]. Steicke checked and Nordstrom bet 85,000. Steicke responded with a check-raise to 205,000 but Nordstrom made the call as the [jd] completed the board.

Steicke led out for another 205,000 and Nordstrom paid to see. Steicke revealed [8d][7d] for a rivered flush which was good to rake in the big pot. Steicke has started to build the infamous "Great Wall of Steicke" around the side of the table, with his wall currently standing at around a dozen towers in width as he's up to 1.6 million.

1:25pm: Fam flexes

Kai Yat Fam is starting to flex his muscle with a powerful four-bet in a battle of the blinds against Fabian Spielmann.

Fam opened to 100,000 before Spielmann three-bet another 160,000 on top. Fam came back with a four-bet of an additional 240,000 which was too much for Spielmann as he folded.

Fam proudly flashed [js][6s] on the table as he stretches his chip lead to 2.8 million.

1:15pm: Dao Xing "Bobo" Chen eliminated in 12th place

Daniel Nordstrom opened with a raise from the button before Bobo Chen moved all in from the big blind. Nordstrom made the call with [kh][jd] and found himself with live cards against Chen's [ah][qd].

The flop landed [9h][tc][ks] to pair up Nordstrom but Chen had an overcard and a gutshot to stay alive. The turn was the [6s] and the river bricked the [7h] to eliminate Chen just short of his second APPT Macau final table as the Swede powers up the chip count leaderboard.

1:10pm: Tsugunari Toma eliminated in 13th place

Japan's last hope has been sent to the rail as Tsugunari Toma moved all in with his short stack holding [kh][6h] and Kai Yat Fam made the call with [ad][qd].

The board ran out [as][js][5c][8h][jd] to send Toma home in unlucky 13th place.

1:05pm: Level up, blinds 20,000-40,000, ante 4,000

12:50pm: King of Sweden

Swede Daniel Nordstrom is back in contention with a big double up at the expense of Bobo Chen.

Nordstrom opened with a raise to 60,000 from the button before Randy Lew three-bet to 150,000 in the small blind. Action was then with Chen who soaked up several minutes of valuable oxygen before declaring himself all in.

Nordstrom followed by moving his chips all in as Lew made a reluctant fold. We're guessing it was a good fold as Chen tabled [qd][qc] and Nordstrom showed [kd][ks].
The board fell [6c][9d][js][kc][4d] to give Nordstrom a set for a massive double up to 1.45 million. Chen slips back to just 300,000.

12:45pm: Josh Barrett eliminated in 14th place

Josh Barrett has been unable to find some luck when he needed it most as his tournament has come to an end in 14th place.

With action folded to Barrett in the small blind, he moved all in for a total of 439,000 with his nemesis Fabian Spielmann asking for a count before making the call in the big blind. Barrett showed [jd][jh] as Spielmann threw his head back in dismay as he opened [ac][3c].

The flop was huge for Spielmann as it arrived [9c][9d][7c] to give him additional outs to a flush, but he didn't need them as the [ad] found its way onto the turn. The river was the [kd] to see Barrett make a disappointed exit from the tournament. Spielmann is now up to 2.2 million.

12:40pm: Double for Baton

Jeff Rossiter started things off with a min-raise to 60,000 and action passed to Baton Fung in the small blind. After several minutes of thought, he moved all in for 274,000 in total. The big blind folded but Rossiter insta-called with [ac][tc] up against Fung's [jd][jc].
The board bricked [5s][kd][3c][2c][8d] to leave Fung's pair in front for the double up to 600,000.

"Why waste so much time?" sighed Rossiter as he slips to 1.2 million.

12:35pm: Sparrow Cheung eliminated in 15th place

Sparrow Cheung had been successfully pushing his short stack all in to pick up the blinds and antes on multiple occasions, but it felt like a matter of time before he ran into a big hand.

From middle position, Cheung moved all in preflop for around 360,000 with [6h][6s] but Jeff Rossiter woke up with [qh][qd] to make the call.

The board was spread [7s][2d][4s][2h][8c] to eliminate Cheung as our first casualty of the day. Meanwhile Rossiter continues his hot streak as he moves up to 1.6 million chips.

12:25pm: Just quads for nanonoko

Randy "nanonoko" Lew has just made quad aces but couldn't entice a river bet from his opponent Sangeeth Mohan.

From the big blind, Lew bet the flop of [6d][ad][ac] before checking the [7s] turn over to his opponent. Mohan slid out 175,000 and Lew called before tapping the table again on the [9s] river. Mohan wisely checked behind as Lew's [as][ah] were way out in front.

The online phenom is going to be dangerous if he picks up hands like this! Lew is up to 1.2 million with Mohan slipping to 2.1 million.

12:20pm: Spielmann slices Barrett

Josh Barrett and Fabian Spielmann have tangled in the first major pot of the day with the German getting the upper hand.

Barrett opened from early position to 65,000 before Spielmann three-bet to 155,000. Action folded back to Barrett who made the call.

The flop landed [kh][6d][9h] and Barrett check-called for 150,000 before leading for 200,000 on the repeat [ks] turn. Spielmann made the call and both players checked down the [5c] river.

Barrett opened [ah][qs] for ace-high but Spielmann showed [9d][8d] for a pair of nines to take the pot to the dismay of the Aussie. Barrett drops to 500,000 with Spielmann now up to 1.85 million.

12:10pm: It's go time!

The players have found their seats and unbagged their chips as Day 4 of the APPT Macau Main Event is back underway. We'll be playing another 55 minutes of Level 25 with the blinds at 15,000/30,000/3,000.

The cards are now in the air!

Here's Lynn Gilmartin's preview of the day ahead as she catches up with PokerStars Team Online player Randy Lew.

After a long day yesterday we've reached the final frontier as fifteen players return to the Grand Lisboa Hotel and Casino, and the PokerStars Macau Poker Room, for their shot at APPT fame and fortune.

The local players and fans love nothing more than getting a little hyped for a final table. They'll be three and four deep on the rail today, clinging onto every last flop, turn and river. We hope to be able to bring all of that atmosphere into your lounge room today!

Table 6
Seat 1: Daniel Nordstrom (Sweden) - 786,000
Seat 2: Randy Lew (Canada) (PokerStars Team Online) - 845,000
Seat 3: Daoxing Chen (China) - 672,000
Seat 4: Sangeeth Mohan (India) - 2,423,000
Seat 5: Zheng Tai Tan (Singapore) - 985,000
Seat 6: Jimmy Pan (Netherlands) - 1,586,000
Seat 7: David Steicke (Hong Kong) (PokerStars Player) - 886,000
Seat 8: Kai Yat Fam (Singapore) - 2,358,000

Table 15
Seat 1: Zuo Wang (China) - 1,511,000
Seat 2: Tsugunari Toma (Japan) - 635,000
Seat 3: Baton Fung (Hong Kong) - 338,000
Seat 4: Sparrow Cheung (Hong Kong) - 238,000
Seat 5: Josh Barrett (Australia) (PokerStars Qualifier) - 1,013,000
Seat 7: Fabian Spielmann (Germany) (PokerStars Qualifier) - 1,425,000
Seat 8: Jeffrey Rossiter (Australia) - 1,173,000

Can PokerStars Team Online member Randy "nanonoko" Lew capture his first major live title? Will David Steicke confirm his place as one of Australasia's best players? Will overnight chip leader Sangeeth Mohan become the toast of India? Or will a new champion emerge from the pack? The action kicks off at 12:10pm local time. Stay tuned!

For 26 players, their three days in Macau will come with a few regrets. Instead of enjoying the local scenery, trying some nice restaurants or bungee jumping off the Macau tower, they were stuck inside a casino playing a silly game of cards, that has ultimately resulted in a lot of frustration and zero profit. Among those who missed the cash today were Team PokerStars Pro Nacho Barbero, New Zealand's Jackson Zheng, Scotsman Gordon Huntly and finally the day one chip leader in Shih Chieh Su who lost a race with [jh][js] against [as][kc] to burst the bubble.

Once the money was reached, players were able to open up their games a little, safe in the knowledge that they had HK$46,700 safely locked up.

Julian Powell (69th), Haifeng Xue (65th), Devan Tang (64th) and Andrew Scott (61st) were among the first to visit the cashier, before they were joined by one of the headline acts of the APPT Macau Main Event.

Johnny Chan cut an epic figure in the PokerStars Macau Poker Room as the ten-time WSOP champion mixed it up with the locals, but eventually it was champion Australasian jockey Shane Dye who ended Chan's run when he turned a straight. Chan collected HK$46,700 for 60th place.

Terrence Chan (56th) soon followed as Darren Judges (54th), Manami Hayamizu (48th) and Tetsuya Tsuchikawa (44th) enjoyed the pay jump.

One of the big stories of the day was the fall from grace of overnight chip leader Nathaniel Seet. Entering the day with a five-times average chip stack, not much went right for Seet from the get-go, before he barrelled off on a four-heart board but couldn't get a fold from pocket aces to depart in 38th place.

The defending champ Victorino Torres fell in 36th, losing the last longer bet with brother Vincent, before another APPT champion in Grant Levy ended his rollercoaster ride in 25th place. Levy, who was a short stack for much of the day, soared into the millonaire's club with a rush before then falling just as fast, as his final stand came when his [qd][8d] failed to improve against Sparrow Cheung's pocket jacks.

With 24 players left it was time for a dinner break, which effectively froze up the action upon their return. Perhaps dinner discussion revolved around the HK$3,772,000 first place prize? The eliminations were few and far between, but eventually the rising blinds and antes would catch up.

David Man made a move from the big blind which backfired to be eliminated in 24th, as Vincent Torres' battle with his short stack came to a close in 22nd place.

As play ticked over towards the 14th hour of the day, it was announced that play would be stopped at the final 16 which had the interesting effect of a rush of bustouts including a double KO to end the evening.

Shane Dye pushed his short stack with [as][5c] from the button but ran into the giant-killing Sangeeth Mohan who insta-called with [ks][kh] in the big blind, improving to a full house when the board was spread.

At the same time, Victor Wei had committed his chips preflop with [ad][jc] but ran into the dominant [ah][kc] of Jimmy Pan. Wei couldn't overcome the disadvantage and he split 16th place prizemoney with Dye as our long day was brought to a close.

Fifteen remain with Mohan sneaking into the chip lead ahead of Singapore's Kai Yat Fan. Jeff Rossiter, David Steicke, Josh Barrett, Bobo Chen and PokerStars Team Online's Randy "nanonoko" Lew are all still in contention in what should be an enthralling day on the felt tomorrow.

Here's how they will lineup tomorrow:

Table 6
Seat 1: Daniel Nordstrom (Sweden) - 786,000
Seat 2: Randy Lew (Canada) (PokerStars Team Online) - 845,000
Seat 3: Daoxing Chen (China) - 672,000
Seat 4: Sangeeth Mohan (India) - 2,423,000
Seat 5: Zheng Tai Tan (Singapore) - 985,000
Seat 6: Jimmy Pan (Netherlands) - 1,586,000
Seat 7: David Steicke (Hong Kong) (PokerStars Player) - 886,000
Seat 8: Kai Yat Fam (Singapore) - 2,358,000

Table 15
Seat 1: Zuo Wang (China) - 1,511,000
Seat 2: Tsugunari Toma (Japan) - 635,000
Seat 3: Baton Fung (Hong Kong) - 338,000
Seat 4: Sparrow Cheung (Hong Kong) - 238,000
Seat 5: Josh Barrett (Australia) (PokerStars Qualifier) - 1,013,000
Seat 7: Fabian Spiedelmann (Germany) (PokerStars Qualifier) - 1,425,000
Seat 8: Jeffrey Rossiter (Australia) - 1,173,000

Prizepool and Payout Information

Play will recommence at 12:10pm tomorrow (GMT+8) where another lengthy day is expected in order to crown Asia's newest poker champion. Make sure you join us then!

All photos Kenneth Lim Photography

1:10am: Bang, bang! Our day is done!
Simultaneous eliminations on two tables has seen both Shane Dye and Victor Wei eliminated as it has been announced that our extended day has now been brought to a close with 15 players remaining.

First it was Dye who fell when he shoved the button for around 260,000 holding [as][5c] but Sangeeth Mohan woke up with [ks][kh] in the big blind and snap called.

The board fell [9c][3s][kd][ts][3c] to give Mohan a full house to end the mighty run of Dye.
He was soon joined on the rail by Victor Wei who, on the other table, found his last chips in preflop with [ad][jc] against the dominant [ah][kc] of Jimmy Pan.

The flop of [kh][th][js] had something for everyone, but Wei couldn't find an out on the [td] turn or [2h] river. He heads to the cashier as the remaining 15 players are relieved to finally make it through the day to bag up their chips! --HC

1:02am: Sparrow's wings clipped
Sparrow Cheung came in for a raise on the button and got a call from Tsugunari Toma in the small blind. Toma check-raised all-in for around 330,000. Chueng snap-called with aces. Toma held [4c][4s]. He had six outs and popped one of the, the [6c] right on the turn. Cheung couldn't pull the chop on the river and he's in a bad shape. --BW

1:00am: Side event news
Over in the side events, 2011 MPCC main event final tablist and winner of the charity event in the same series, Seijiro Machi, was busy winning the $15,000 NLH event. With three players left he was the short stack but came from behind to win the whole thing, declaring the entire way that he could feel the win. --JB

12:50am: Steicke magic
David Steicke has managed to hit a three-outer to stay alive when he got his last 458,000 into the middle preflop with [as][8d] and found himself dominated by the [ad][qs] of Victor Wei.

No problem when you're David Steicke as he connected with the [jd][5s][8s][9h][6s] board to double up. Steicke now has 950,000 as Wei is down to 540,000. --HC

12:40am: Double for Dye
From under the gun, Josh Barrett raised it up to 52,000 and action folded around to Shane Dye in the big blind who quickly announced himself all in. It was a total of 172,000 which Barrett quickly called.

Dye opened [js][jd] as again Barrett found himself chasing an ace with his [as][8d]. It didn't arrive as the board ran out [5d][8s][7s][3d][kc] to double Dye to 360,000. Barrett is back to 750,000. --HC

12:45pm: Blinds up
Blinds are now 15,000-30,000-3,000. --BW

12:25am: Hui runs into a monster
Xia Hui is next to go after he moved all in for around 250,000 from the button with [ah][8s] but Fabian Spiedelmann woke up with [qh][qs] in the big blind and made the call.
The board was spread [ts][qd][3s][js][7d] to improve Spiedelmann to a set and eliminate Hui. Spiedelmann is up to a comfortable 1.7 million. --HC

12:30am: Fung doubles
Baton Fung has been sitting tight this evening, waiting for his spot to strike, and he just found it in a hand against Josh Barrett.

Barrett opened from under the gun to 50,000 and play folded around to Fung who moved all in for 244,000 from the big blind. Barrett made the call with [ah][6h] as Fung showed [qs][qh].

Barrett flopped a pair but it was the wrong one as the board landed [8s][6d][jd][5h][qc]. Fung doubles to 520,000 with Barrett slipping to 850,000. --HC

12:13am: Wenfei Huang eliminated
Down to his last 300,000, Wenfei Huang open shoved and ran directly into Kai Yat Fam's [as][ks]. Huang couldn't catch up and is headed for the cage. --BW

12:00am: Woe for Wu
Bo Wu is the next to visit the cashier as 20 players remain in the APPT Macau Main Event as we enter our 13th hour of the day.

Wu's final chips went in on the turn on a board of [kd][3d][3h][4d]. He held [ad][ks] for top pair with the nut flush draw but Sangeeth Mohan was already there as he made the call with [qd][jd] for the flush.

The river was the [2h] and Mohan clapped his hands with delight to move up into the two million chip club as Wu departs. --HC

11:50pm: Barrett straightens Bobo
Bobo Chen opened with a raise to 55,000 from middle position with Josh Barrett defending his big blind with a call to see a heads-up flop of [jd][ts][ad].

Both players checked and the [qs] hit the turn. Barrett led out with a bet of 90,000 and Chen made the call before both players checked the [9s] river.

Barrett opened [kc][js] for a straight as Chen tossed his [ac][qh] into the muck. Chen slips to 500,000 with Barrett looking strong with 1.45 million. --HC

11:45pm: Sparrow gets out of the danger zone
Sparrow Cheung has been pushing his short stack relentlessly over the past hour or so, but was yet to find a customer until Tsugunari Toma finally looked him up with [9h][9c]. Incredibly, Toma's timing was terrible as Cheung tabled a monster [ac][as].

It was all but over on the [5s][ah][5c] flop as Cheung flopped a full house before the [2c] turn and [kd] river completed the board.

Toma is now down to 170,000 with Cheung now finally out of the danger zone with a stack of 600,000. --HC

11:28pm: Nightly notables
A few words below on the big stories from the day (with a cameo from the cleaning staff around 2:20).

11:20pm: Wu on the rise
Bo Wu has found a double up of his short stack at the expense of PokerStars Team Online member Randy Lew.

Wu shoved his last 170,000 from middle position with Lew thinking for a while before making the call in the big blind with an above average [kd][th]. He trailed but tabled live cards against Wu's [ah][qh].

With Lew on his feet, the dealer spread a [8s][ad][2h][9d][9c] board to double Wu up to 360,000 with Lew dropping down to 520,000. --HC

11:15pm: Double Bo, Double Up
For those who appreciate a man who takes a good long while to make a decision, you're going to like this. Bobo Chen just managed to take a very, very long time to get his pocket queens all-in blind versus blind versus Zheng Tai Tan. Tan's [kd][ts] was no good then or on the river. Chen now has 680,000. --BW

10:50pm: Esti bestie
Zou "Esti" Wang just found his huckleberry. After an early position raise to 53,000, Wang made it 133,000 to play. A couple of folds and it was on Jimmy Pan who announced he was all-in. The original raiser folded, but Wang snapped with [ac][as]. Bad, bad news for Pan who could only reveal [ad][kh].

Now, take note here....this was no small pot. Esti Wang was all in for 850,000 and Pan had him covered. Needless to say, that 1.7 million now sitting in front of Wang is probably enough that we'll be seeing this jacket at the final table.

10:15pm: Steady stackin' for Sangeeth Mohan
Sangeeth Mohan, the big man from India, has claimed another victim. We joined the hand on the turn when Mohan had bet 125,000 at a [4c][jh][6d][3h] board. Yang Sun made the call, and they saw a [5d] on the river. Mohan instantly announced, "All in." Sun took little time before announcing his call. Mohan triumphantly tabled his [ad][jc], sure it was good...and it was. Sun's hand went in the muck, and he headed for the cage. --BW

10:08pm: Bobo in trouble
Michal Karolak has found a big double up as Bobo Chen is now on the ropes in the APPT Macau Main Event.

We picked it up on a flop of [js][2s][8d] with Karolak betting 70,000 on the button before Chen check-raised to 170,000 in the big blind. Karolak moved all in for a little more with Chen quick to call with [ks][8s] for a pair and flush draw. However he found himself trailing as Karloak caught a very nice flop with his [jd][2h].

The turn was the [4h] and the river the [ad] to see Karolak double to 650,000 with Chen down to around 140,000.

He managed a double up a few hands later, but he's still less than half the average. --HC

10:00pm: Oh Man!
Sometimes getting sucked into a hand from the big blind can result in disaster as David Man just found out the hard way.

Four players paid 35,000 each to see a flop of [3d][qs][9h] and action checked to Wenfei Huang who bet 86,000 on the button. The small blind folded but Man decided to make a move as he check-raised all in for an additional 227,000.

Play folded back to Huang who thought for a few moments before making the call with [qd][jh] for top pair as Man was going to need help with his adventurous [9s][2c].
The turn was the [js] to leave Man with just a nine to avoid elimination but it wasn't to be on the [7c] river. Man is out with Huang now up to one million chips. --HC

9:53pm: Blinds up
Blinds are now 10,000-20,000-2,000.

9:52pm: Blind vs blind, bad for Dye
Play folded around to Shane Dye in the small blind. He looked over to see Vincent Torres only had 213,000 left in his stack. Dye moved all-in and got snap-called. Easy to see why. Torres had pocket kings. Dye had every reason to move in. His pocket sevens are usually not bad there. Torres flopped a king and Dye was drawing dead by the turn. --BW

9:38pm: Back in action
Players are back from their quick dinner and siting down for a long-haul night. Twenty-four players remain. Play is scheduled to continue until we reach the final table. That may have to be changed at some point, but that's the plan right now. --BW

8:37pm: Dinnertime

Players are now on a one-hour dinner break. --BW

8:35: Zheng Tai Tan doubles through Bobo
Zheng Tai Tan is on the comeback trail. At once down to 100,000, he's rebounded and is now up close to 900,000. The most recent big one came at Daoxing "Bobo" Chen's expense with Tan's kings holding up against Chen's [ac][7s]. --BW

8:20pm: Losing some grunt
Grant Levy's rollercoaster ride has come to a screeching halt. After losing a chunk of change with pocket sixes against pocket jacks, Levy open-shoved for around 200,000 with [qd][8d] but Sparrow Cheung made the call with [jh][jc].

The board ran out [7h][6c][2h][js][kc] to give Cheung the pot to move up to 450,000 as Levy's quest for a second APPT title has fallen short in 25th place.

With that elimination, the players are now forming the final three tables. --HC

8:10pm: Rossiter recovers
After losing a big hand to Josh Barrett in a battle of the blinds a few moments earlier, Jeff Rossiter has been able to recover some chips in a preflop betting war with "Esti".

Esti opened with a raise from the cutoff before Rossiter three-bet from the small blind to 88,000. Esti came back with a four-bet to 188,000 but Rossiter instantly moved all in for another 450,000 on top.

Esti deliberated for some time but eventually released as Rossiter moves back up to 900,000. --HC

8:17pm: Bini busto
Gianpaulo Bini just got his 375,000 stack in the middle with [9s][9c] against Sangeeth Mohan's [qh][qs]. The queens held with ease, Bini went bust, and Mohan moved up around a million in chips.

8:06pm: Daniel Francis eliminated
After Randy Lew's big double up earlier, he'd managed to lose back about 200,000in an unlucky hand. He's almost made up for that now after busting Daniel Francis. It was all-in pre-flop with Francis' pocket sevens getting in behind Lew's eights. The eights held, Francis is gone, and Lew is back near 800,000. --BW

7:58pm: Levy runs into a boat
Grant Levy's rush is officially over as he just ran into a monster hand held by Fabian Spiedelmann.

We only saw the action on the river as the board read [kd][ah][2h][ac][3c]. Spiedelmann bet out 140,000 and Levy made the call.

Spiedelmann tabled [kh][ks] for a full house as Levy flashed his [as][jc] with a wry smile. Levy slipped to 750,000 with Spiedelmann up to 900,000. --HC

7:55pm: Blinds up
The remaining 27 players are now playing 8,000-16,000-2,000 blinds. --BW

7:50pm: Right place, right time for Vincent Torres
Vincent Torres has landed a big double up after finding pocket aces at the right time. Action started with a raise to 38,000 from Tsugunari Toma on the button before China's Hui Xia three-bet to 85,000 from the small blind.

Torres was sitting there quietly in the big blind with [as][ah] and he sold the act as he tried to entice his foes with an all-in bet of just 92,000 more. Toma escaped but Xia was priced in as he made a crying call with [ad][9h].

The board ran out [5d][jh][2h][4h][qh] to give Torres the nut flush for a double to 400,000. Xia sits with 320,000. --HC

7:48pm: Lew's heater continues
PokerStars Team Online's Randy Lew has moved over the 800,000-chip mark just now after ning on the good end of an aces versus kings match-up. The action was so heavy on a [6c][qc][2h] flop that Lew took more than five minutes to get all of his chips in. When he finally did, he was able to exhale. His [ah][as] was all good against [ks][kc].

"I thought he might have flopped a set," said Lew by way of explanation for the delay.

Lew's stack now puts him well above average with four tables remaining. --BW

7:30pm: Levy plays the rush
Grant Levy is wielding a commanding chip stack after playing the rush to eliminate Percy Yung from the Main Event.

In a limped pot, Yung bet 35,000 from the button on a flop of [td][2d][qh] with Levy the lone caller in the small blind. The turn brought the [3h] and Levy checked to Yung who announced herself all in for around 200,000. It was a bet that was about twice the size of the pot and it confused Levy who went into the tank.

After several minutes of thought he made the call with [qc][jh] and it was a good call as Yung tabled [qs][8c]. The [jc] on the river sealed the deal as Yung departed to leave Levy with a stack of one million chips.--HC

7:40pm: Dye gets a little help
"I got lucky," admitted Shane Dye after Josh Barrett recalled to us of the details of the hand where the two clashed.

Dye opened with a raise to 28,000 and Barrett defended his big blind to see a [k][j][5] flop. Barrett checked and Dye bet 30,000. Barrett check-raised all in and Dye made the call for his tournament life with ace-jack but was trailing the king-eight of Barrett.

That all changed when Dye spiked another jack on the turn for the double up to 500,000, leaving Barrett ruing his misfortune as he slips to 330,000.--HC

7:24pm: Lance Richard Lee Yuen eliminated
Lance Richard Lee Yuen had been working a short stack most of the day, but his work has finally come to an end. Fabian Spiedelmann's [js][jc] held up against Yuen's [ah][qc] all-in pre-flop for Yuen's 140,000 stack.

"Pleasure playing with you," Yuen said. --BW

7:00pm: Levy finds magic on the river
Grant Levy has just collected a nice pot after spiking a perfectly deceptive river. With a limp in front of him, Levy raised to 38,000 and the limper came along to see a flop of [ts][4c][3s].

Both players checked and the turn brought the [7c]. Levy's opponent led out for 50,000 and Levy called to see the [9h] land on the river. It didn't appear too dangerous but Levy seemed to like it as he bet 119,000 when the action checked to him.

His opponent leant back in his chair before matching the bet, only to muck when Levy tabled [js][8s] for the nut straight. After being down to just ten big blinds a little earlier in the day, the 2007 APPT Sydney champion is now up to 550,000. --HC

7:09pm: Ward out
Thomas Ward's run has come to an end after he pushed his last 100,000 or so chips from the cutoff with [js][tc] however he ran into the [qc][qs] of a player who gave us his name as "Esti" (even though we can't find that name in our player list).

The board ran out [ts][4c][3s][7c][9h] to eliminate Ward as the mysterious Esti climbs to 750,000 chips.--HC

7:00pm: Lew stays alive
Randy "nanonoko" Lew has been grinding, and grinding, and grinding all day long. It's finally paid off. He just managed to nearly double up with pocket tens against [ah][tc]. Lew is now up to around 450,000. That's still short of average, but takes him out of the danger zone. --BW

6:45pm: Misclick costs Torres
We've lost the defending champion as Jordan Westmorland has sent Victorino Torres to the cashier.

It was a battle of the blinds that dragged Torres into the pot as Westmorland attempted to raise to 25,000 from the small blind but his single chip was ruled a call. Torres tapped the table in the big blind and then called three streets on the [5d][qs][ah][as][3s] board. The final call was for his tournament life but he discovered his [qd][6s] wasn't enough to get past Westmorland's [ad][th]. --BW

6:37pm: Back to play
The 36 remaining players are back in action at 6,000-12,000-1,000 blinds and antes. --BW

6:31pm: Celina!
Celina Lin may not be in the main event anymore (she's moved on to the Ladies Event), but that's no reason to not see her in moving pictures, right? --BW

6:30pm: Break time
Players are on a ten-minute break. --BW

6:25pm: Barrett blasts a double
Just prior to the break Josh Barrett has found a useful double up. With a couple of limpers in front of his, Barrett squeezed all in for 193,000 in total. The big blind woke up with pocket jacks and made the call as the limpers got out of the way.

Barrett tabled [as][qs] and would need to connect to stay alive and he did so on the [2h][3d][td][qc][kh] board as he blasts his way to 500,000 chips. --HC

6:15pm: Rossiter trips Dye
It seems that every time we walk past the table of Jeff Rossiter, he's pulling in another massive pot. Soon, we're going to have to start charging him for our "run good" services.

This time we caught Rossiter in the middle of a hand against champion jockey Shane Dye. The board read [9c][7h][7s][td] when Dye check-called for 61,000 from the big blind before he tapped the table again on the [5s] river. Rossiter tossed out a bet of 166,000 to send Dye into the tank. He cut down calling chips and looked at the 300,000 he had behind and decided it was enough to play with to make the call.

"You haven't got a seven have you?" queried Dye.

The answer was affirmative as Rossiter opened [as][7d] for trips to collect the mammoth pot as Dye threw his cards into the muck in dismay. Rossiter is now up to 1.1 million which puts him as the second biggest stack in the room, narrowly trailing Victor Wei. --HC

5:58pm: One for Poland
In a battle of the blind Poland's Michal Karolak opened with a raise to 40,000 before Daniel Francis moved all in from the big blind. Karolak made the call with [qh][qd] and the race was on against Francis' [ah][kd].

Unfortunately for Francis, the race was not a long one as the [9d][qs][3c] flop delivered Karolak a set to leave Francis needing a miracle. There was none on the [6h] turn and [2s] river. Karolak's stack of 229,000 was doubled as Francis slips to 450,000. --HC

5:50pm: Seet open
Nataniel Seet will be a little disappointed with his 38th place finish after starting today with such a commanding chip lead. However things just didn't go to plan for the Singapore young gun today as his tournament is now over.

Seet was crippled after raising all in on a board of [kh][kc][4h][8h][jh]. Seet didn't have a heart on the four-flush board, or even a big pair, but his bluff wasn't enough to get a fold out of his opponent holding [as][ad].

Seet was left with pocket change and eliminated moments later.--HC

5:34pm: Park stymied, Steicke-d
We entered the hand at the critical stage with the board reading [tc][td][5c][9d]. David Steicke cut out 84,000 in chips, formed it all into one stack, and put it in front of him. Danny Park, the man who started the day second in chips, quickly announced, "All-in." Steicke snap-called to see Park's [jh][jd]. Steicke had him crushed with [qd][ts]. The river was the [7c], and Steicke raked a pot with more than 700,000. Park, meanwhile, was left with around 330,000. --BW

5:30pm: Bobo looking for another final table
Once of the most surreal experiences I've ever had in tournament poker was watching Daoxing Chen, otherwise known as "Bobo", on the final table of the 2009 APPT Macau Main Event.

Bobo was all theatre that day as he soaked up every ounce of attention with his posing, posturing and multitude of rather annoying antics that caused the final table to run about three hours longer than it should've. Bobo finished third that day and since then we've regularly seen him at virtually every Macau series where he's proven himself to be a rather likable character with a unique style that proves very effective.

Bobo is making another deep run here in the APPT Macau after eliminating a short-stacked opponent who pushed with [ah][4c]. Bobo slammed his chips onto the felt and proudly tabled his [ad][as] which held on the [6h][jc][2c][3s][kd] board. Bobo moves up to 700,000.

Also up with the chip leaders is Kiwi Daniel Francis who just let us know that he collected most of his chips with a big call down holding just king-high. Francis has been flying under the radar most of this tournament but his 700,000 chips are now starting to get a little attention.--HC

5:10pm: Upping the ante
Up go the antes, up go the blinds, off go the purple 500 chips. It's now 5,000-10,000-500. --BW

5:08pm: Steicke feeling flushed
Easy come, easy go for David Steicke as he's slipped back to the pack following a clash with Victor Wei where both players flopped a flush. Unfortunately for Steicke he came off second best.

We picked up the action on a flop of [ts][2s][5s] with Steicke betting 31,500 in position. Wei check-raised an additional 64,000 as a third player got out of the way, but Steicke called to see the [5h] hit the turn.

Wei checked again and Steicke bet out a hefty 200,000. Wei went into the tank for a long time before declaring himself all in with his second check-raise of the hand. It was an additional 278,500 to Steicke who quickly declared a call.

Wei tabled [as][7s] for the nut flush as Steicke found his [qs][9s] drawing completely dead. The river was the [3h] as Wei finds a massive double up to 1.25 million as Steicke drops to 500,000.--HC

5:50pm: Uhde finally succumbs
After starting the day with not much more than the Day 1 starting stack, Andreas Uhde has finally given up the ghost. He got ace-king all-in against Wenfei Huang's pocket fours and couldn't win the race. Uhde is out in 46th place. --BW

5:00pm: Top pair-no kicker no good
Manami Hayamizu finished the tournament in 48th place after losing a kicker-race with jack-nine, good for top pair, but not much else. --JB

4:49pm: One rich tournament series
If you're curious how big this APPT Macau series has been, here are a few numbers:

After 12 events, the series has hosted 2,224 players and racked up $23,293,512 HKD in prize money. We still have three events to go: 100K High Roller, $1,500 Ladies Event, and the $2,500 KO Bounty. --BW

4:42pm: Back in action
The players are back in their seats for more action. Settle in, we're here for a long night. Staying with us, at least for now, is Randy "nanonoko" Lew from PokerStars Team Online, the only remaining horse from the Big Red Spade stables. --BW

Live updates form APPT Macau brought to you by Heath "TassieDevil" Chick and Brad Willis (with occasional and very welcome updates from our Japanese blogger Jenn Barr).

--BW

4:15pm: Unlucky treys for Tomita
"Unlucky hand," said Tetsuro Tomita with a smile after being eliminated from the tournament in rather devastating fashion.

The unlucky hand in question was pocket threes as Tomita will be having nightmares tonight about the treys.

First he flopped a full house on a flop of [qc][3s][qh]. That sounds good, but when the money went in on the river following the [ac] turn and [2c] river, his opponent Lance Yuen tabled [ah][qd] for a bigger full house.

Brutal.

As Yuen was stacking up his 480,000 chips, Tomita was all in the very next hand for his last 15,000 or so chips with the pocket threes once again. A few callers saw Tomita beaten at showdown as he was sent to the rail. --HC

4:28pm: Another Chan bites the dust
Terrence Chan supposed earlier that he was going to be a good candidate for the money bubble. Instead, he managed to make it into the money. Alas, he didn't get a great deal further. He's gone in 56th place. He decided to go take a rest and return later for the High Roller, aka "my last tournament of a lousy 2011." --BW

4:22pm: APOY update
If you've been keeping up with the Asia Player of the Year race, here's a quick update.

Current leader Shaq Lin has not picked up any more points in the past couple of days. Meanwhile Raiden Kan, the man finished sixth in the 3,000 yesterday to draw within 852 points of Lin. Now, he still has a chance. He told us, "The High Rollers will make it or break it."

That race may be tight, but Kan isn't the only one who can catch Lin. Aaron Lin is still in Day 2 of the 15K event where a first place finish would earn him 1,440 points, enough to take the first spot. Also, if he manages to make the final table, it will be his eleventh of the year, a single-season record. He currently shares the 10 final table record with China's Alex Chieng.--BW

4:13pm: Winners updates
The fine people in the cage here at the PokerStars Macau poker room have started providing us with the list of prize winners today. We'll be updating it periodically on our APPT Macau payouts page.

4:01pm: Barrett enjoys a discount
Josh Barrett opened with a raise to 13,000 from middle position before Thomas Ward three-bet to 27,500 on the button. Action folded back around to Barrett who made the call to see the flop land [8h][9d][7d].

Both players checked and the [kc] hit the turn. Barrett led out with a bet of 27,000 and Ward made the call in position as the [5d] was a dangerous looking river card.

Barrett checked it over to Ward who gave a discount price as he bet just 23,500. Barrett quickly verbalized a call as his [ac][9s] was good with Ward tabling [qs][jd] for just queen-high. Ward drops to 480,000 with Barrett starting to find some momentum with a stack of 275,000. --HC

3:57pm: Rossiter rockets past Scott
Jeff Rossiter is flying high after eliminating fellow Aussie Andrew Scott. Rossiter recalled to us that he held aces against Scott's queens and the rest was history.
Scott is out as Rossiter moves up to 700,000 chips.--BW

3:51pm: Hero vs. hero ends Chan's ouster
Local poker hero Johnny Chan has been eliminated by Australian horse racing hero Shane Dye. Dye turned a straight on the WSOP champion with [tc][8c] on a [jc][9d][6c][7d] board. --BW

3:40pm: No more Tang
Devon Tang is out, at the hand of Manami "Tink" Hayamizu. Tink raised, prompting Tang to shove all-in.. Tink called with her A-Ko and hit an A on the flop emphasizing her lead while Tang missed. A queen came on the turn but the two on the river was no help, and the former MPCC champion took the rail. Hayamizu is up to about 350,000. --JB

3:20pm: Steicke sets up massive chip lead
David Steicke is now the first man to enter the millionaire's club after an enormous hand has just gone down on table one to see our field reduced to the final eight tables.

Three players including David Steicke saw a flop of [2c][8c][ac] where the preflop aggressor led for 62,000. Steicke came back with a min-raise to 64,000 before the player in the big blind check-raised over both of them with a big raise all in! The first player made a reluctant fold as Steicke deliberated.

It was around 300,000 in total and after a few minutes of thought, the flushy flop didn't deter him enough to fold his [2d][2s] as he made a big call. His opponent showed [kc][5h] for just the bare nut flush draw which missed on the [js] turn and [kh] river.
With that incredible pot, Steicke is now a commanding chip leader with 1.1 million. --HC

3:08pm: Day 1a chip leader bubbles
Shih Chieh Su, the day 1a chip leader, just bubbled main event. After bluffing off a big part of his stack moments ago, Su got it all in with [jh][js] against Ligong Wei's [as][kc]. Wei flopped two kings, Su couldn't find a jack, and the remaining 70 players in the event are now in the money. --BW

3:03pm: Su bluffing wrong guy
Day 1a chip leader Shih Chieh Su just made a huge bluff against the wrong guy. When the board went runner-runner jacks, Su thought it would be a good idea to commit most of his chips on a bluff. David Man called him down with pocket queens. Su is now in jeopardy of being the bubble boy. --BW

3:00pm: Not hand for hand...yet
With 72 players remaining and two off the money, Tournament Director Danny McDonagh is avoiding a hand-for-hand slowdown as much as possible. He just announced that any player caught stalling will have decision time personally restricted. That's happy news for Terrence Chan who abhors people who stall on the bubble. He said via Twitter, "I verbally abuse the stallers even when the stalling benefits me. I'm an equal opportunity jerk." --BW

2:50pm: Nightmare cooler for Kim
Fabio Kim's run in the APPT Macau Main Event has come to an abrupt halt at the hands of Thomas Ward in a massive preflop clash.

With a raise to 12,000 and a call in front of him, Kim raised to 40,000 from the cutoff. Action was then with Ward who re-raised to 91,500. The play folded back to Kim who announced himself all in but Ward calmly made the call with [ac][ah] as Kim's [qh][qc] was in a world of pain.

The board ran out [8s][ks][7h][3d][2c] and after a count down of chips, Ward narrowly had Kim covered to send him to a disappointing exit just two players from the money. Meanwhile Ward is now up to a very healthy 550,000 chips. --HC

2:43pm: Steicke outraces Finstein
American Michael Finstein opened for 12,000 and got a three-bet from David Steicke. Finstein wasted no time in moving his short-ish stack all-in. Steicke made the call with two red sevens, up against Finstein's [ad][qs]. The board ran out [kh][4c][8h][4d][9h] and Finstein was gone just short of the money. --BW

2:35pm: Tsuchikawa takes a hit
Tetsuya Tsuchikawa just lost a chunk of his stack when his 2-pair was outdrawn by his opponents middle pair (hitting the A kicker on the river). His opponent doubled up and Tsuchikawa remains short at the same table as poker legend Johnny Chan and World Gaming Magazine president, Andrew Scott. --JB

2:30pm: Level up
The players are now back for 3,000-6,000-500 blinds. --BW

2:20pm: Break time
Players are now on a ten-minute break. --BW

2:15pm: Steicke stumbles but still leads
Just before the break David Steicke has lost a small pot. Holding [jh][jc], he called a short-stacked player's push for 54,000 but ran into [qs][qc]. The board ran out [kd][ac][ks][9s][qh] to give his opponent a full house for the double up.

Steicke slips to 600,000 but is still likely to be close to the chip lead with Dan Park, Nathaniel Seet and Fabian Spiedelmann all close to that mark. --HC

2:11pm: Bubble approacheth
With 77 players remaining, we're just seven eliminations from the money. Expect a slowdown in 3...2...1...-BW

2:01pm: Su slow but same
Terrence Chan, still a little stung after losing that big pot earlier to Danny Park, just open-shoved for 85,500 and got an immediate call from Shi Chieu Su. David Man thought a good long while before folding from the blinds. Chan immediately flipped up [ad][ks]. Su looked depressed. He looked as if he were a beaten man. He looked as if he was embarrassed to turn up his cards. He took so long to table his hand, other players were reaching for his cards. Finally he turned up...[ah][kh]. Chan handled it well, requested some black cards, got none, dodged Su's flopped freeroll, and then took his chips back with a smile. --BW

1:50pm: Huntly becomes the hunted
It was a cooler flop that did the damage as Scotland's Gordon Huntly has been unfortunately derailed in the APPT Macau Main Event.

We arrived to see [as][8s][ac] on board and a bet of 25,000 in front of Huntly. His opponent was Korean Fabio Kim who check-raised to 100,000. Huntly didn't waste too much time in moving all in as Kim instantly called and slammed [8c][8d] down on the table for a full house. Huntly rolled his eyes as his [ad][td] had shrunk before his eyes.
The [ks] hit the turn to give Huntly a couple more outs but the [5d] left him to make a devastating exit from the PokerStars Macau Poker Room.

Meanwhile Kim, who is one of the original PokerStars Macau cash game players, is now up to 380,000 chips. --HC

1:55pm: Zheng sunk
Kiwi Jackson Zheng has been sent to the rail after moving his last 80,000 chips all in preflop from under the gun with ace-nine but he ran into an opponent's pocket tens.
A king-high board couldn't save Zheng as he narrowly misses cashing in three consecutive APPT events.--HC

1:39pm: No more Nacho
After losing that big flip earlier, Team PokerStars Pro Jose "Nacho" Barbero couldn't find the cards to mount a recovery effort. He's gone, as are his hopes of his first major win in Asia. --BW

1:30pm: Chan looks ill
Terrence Chan looks ill. Green even. Though he didn't say it aloud, it's clear he can't quite believe what he just saw.

I arrived at the table toward the end of had already been an active pot. On the board were the following five cards: [6c][6s][td][2d][2c]. It appeared Chan had offered 38,000 at the river and Danny Park had made it 50,000 more. This all occurred less than 15 minutes after Park had three-bet Chan from the blinds and folded to Chan's all-in. At the time, Park had said, "Big laydown."

Now the decision was on Chan.

"Maybe it's my turn to make a big laydown to you," Chan said.

But it was clear the story didn't make sense to Chan. He whipped off his hat and looked at the board.

"So polarized!" Chan exclaimed. "I don't see how you would flat with a six in your hand," presumably talking about whatever previous action had brought them to that point.

"I'm looking at four sixes or tens full," Chan said.

But neither of those hands fit. It just didn't make sense. So, Chan tossed out the extra chips and looked to Park who rolled over [ah][2h].

Chan didn't say a word. He seemed to replay the hand in his head for a few seconds before silently pushing his cards to the muck. He's still alive, but lost what appeared to be around 140,000 on that hand. Park, meanwhile, is making a run for the chip lead. --BW

1:28pm: Nacho rides the rollercoaster
Seeing Jose 'Nacho' Barbero for the first time in this APPT Macau Main Event, I've quickly discovered he's an entertaining player to watch. Perhaps it's the style of Latin America - it's great to watch but the heart palpitations must shorten one's lifespan to actually play it.

We just discovered Barbero's once-mighty empire had been decimated after losing a preflop race with pocket jacks against Sangeeth Mohan's ace-king.
Barbero was left with just 19,200 which he committed soon after with [jh][jd] as Fabian Spiedelmann made the call with [td][tc].

The flop was scary for Barbero as it arrived [qc][2c][kc] to give Spiedelmann a flush draw but the [5s] turn and [as] river were safe to see Barbero more than double to around 60,000 to once again find a pulse in this tournament. --BW

1:16pm: No backing down for Chan
Terrence Chan came in for a raise to 12,000 and got a call from Shih Chieh Su. Play folded back to Danny Park in the blinds. Park had started the day second in chips and the lead on his table. He made it 32,000 total. Chan thought for a moment before moving all in for another 99,600. Su folded quickly, but Park thought a bit longer. Finally, he folded with, "Nice hand." Park thought for another moment as he watched his cards slide into the muck. He pointed at what had once been worth 32,000 in chips to him. "Big laydown," he said. --BW

1:00pm: Level up
Players are now on 2,500-5,000-500 blinds. --BW

12:45pm: Chan takes a hit
Andrew Scott has just taken a slice from the stack of the great Johnny Chan. We arrived with the board already spread [7c][ah][8s][8d][5s] and Scott leading for 30,000 from the big blind. Sitting under the gun, Chan snap-called the bet, but mucked when Scott tabled [ad][8h] for a full house.

Scott moves up to 225,000 with Chan slipping back to 170,000.-- HC

12:53pm: Nanonoko starts the day
As we got started today, Randy "nanonoko" Lew had a chat with our Lynn Gilmartin.--BW

12:45pm: Big stacks find some luck
We didn't catch all of the action but we saw Renat Lyapin angrily bounce his chips onto the felt after copping a bad beat against Germany's Fabian Spiedelmann.

The chips were in preflop with Lyapin holding ace-queen and looking good for a big double up against Spiedelmann's king-queen, but another king on the flop was enough for Spiedelmann to take it down. He's up to 600,000.

Another big stack to jump out of the gates is Hong Kong-based Aussie David Steicke. He got his chips in with pocket aces against an opponent's pocket eights and things looked grim when a third snowman hit the flop. However such is the power of Steicke, that he made a running flush to take it down and move up to a cool half million in chips. --HC

12:30pm: The champ starts well
The defending champion Victorino Torres is heading for another deep run in the APPT Macau Main Event after the elimination of Israel's Alon Simka.

Torres opened the action with a sizable raise to 14,800 from early position before Simka moved all in for an additional 48,500. Torres thought briefly before making the call with [tc][td] to find himself racing with Simka's [ac][qs].

Torres was looking to avoid the ace or queen but didn't have to worry when the flop landed [9h][ts][2h] to give him a set. Torres then filled up on the [9c] turn as the meaningless [js] hit the river. Simka is an early casualty as Torres moves up to 330,000. --HC

12:20pm: Table 15 needs a diet
If there is a table to watch today, it's the one numbered 15. Three of the top ten chip stacks are there. Danny Park, Wenfei Huang, and Ligong Wei all have seats around the baize. They're joined by Terrence Chan and Day 1a chip leader Shih Chieh Su. If that table doesn't break any time soon under its own weight or by TD's order, it may just collapse. --BW

12:12pm: Play underway
As the final few stragglers make their way to their seats, it's time to shuffle and deal.

12:00pm: Day 3 set to begin
The remaining 96 players of the APPT Macau main event are sitting down to unbag their chips. Nathaniel Seet leads them all right now with a chip stach worth around five times the average stack.

This is looking to be an exceptionally long day. Make a pot a coffee and stick with us as we head toward the money bubble and way beyond. --BW

Live updates form APPT Macau brought to you by Heath "TassieDevil" Chick and Brad Willis (with occasional and very welcome updates from our Japanese blogger Jenn Barr).

Play resumes at 12:10pm local time in what is expected to be a long day of play.

The table and seat draw for Day 3 is listed below.

Table Seat Player Chips

1 1 Michael Finstein 151300
1 2 Frederik de Linde Farrington 125200
1 3 David Steicke 372400
1 4 Randy Lew 145000
1 5 Josh Barrett 164500
1 6 Fu Leong Cheong 191600
1 7 Wei-Bo Ye 249800
1 8 Jackson Zheng 75000
2 1 Chin Hao Hsu 63800
2 2 Michal Karolak 73300
2 3 Bo Wu 205600
2 4 Steven Tegnelia 98000
2 5 Hui Xia 293600
2 6 Othonas Katakis 52900
2 7 Chi Chen 173200
2 8 Tetsuro Tomita 257100
3 1 Kai Yat Fam 228300
3 2 Fabio Kim 161000
3 3 Anh Son Hoang 146400
3 4 Jose 'Nacho' Barbero 257400
3 5 Haifeng Xue 287400
3 6 Joey Masangcay 93800
3 7 Sparrow Cheung 260700
3 8 Haifeng Xue 69600
6 1 Tommi Etelapera 97500
6 2 Yakov Artemovich Onuchin 142200
6 3 Johannes Haase 126500
6 4 Zheng Tai Tan 231300
6 5 Clifford Bruce 248100
6 6 Yue Xu 144600
6 7 Xiao Ming Liang 132300
6 8 Tsugunari Toma 282300
6 9 Kelvin Lau 152900
7 1 Sangeeth Mohan 213200
7 2 David Hrdlicka 333600
7 3 Nanqing Xue 80600
7 4 Gianpaulo Bini 134800
7 5 Lance Richard Lee Yuen 299500
7 6 Renat Lyapin 214300
7 7 Fabian Spiedelmann 389500
7 8 Pui Suen Percy Yung 170400
7 9 Tommy Wong 101800
8 1 Baton Fung 50700
8 2 Vincent Torres 62700
8 3 Thomas Ward 239000
8 4 Darren Paul Judges 181100
8 5 Scott Calcagno 197800
8 6 Weiming Lam 152800
8 7 Roel Pijpers 83100
8 8 Daniel Chua 69900
8 9 Gordon Huntly 126200
12 1 Dimitrios Nanos 65700
12 2 Hans Daniel Nordstrom 191600
12 3 Victorino Torres 296600
12 4 Alon Simka 69500
12 5 Claudia Yum 79000
12 6 Dennis Zezyulin 76000
12 7 Yury Kerzhapkin 79700
12 8 Yang Sun 269400
12 9 Hoi Ting Lee 257100
15 1 Jie Gao 69000
15 2 Terrence Chan 166000
15 3 Chieh Su Shih 179300
15 4 Wenfei Huang 436300
15 5 Andreas Uhde 45000
15 6 Amit Varma 116700
15 7 David Kai-Kwong Man 272000
15 8 Danny Park 478100
15 9 Ligong Wei 312600
16 1 Naoki Takiguchi 87400
16 2 Grant Levy 144600
16 3 Julian Powell 53400
16 4 Konstantinos Nanos 25800
16 5 Manami Hayamizu 182700
16 6 Daniel Francis 298900
16 7 Devan Tang 170600
16 8 Zuo Wang 166900
16 9 Hyunbong Jang 108400
20 1 Antonios Triantafyllakis 84700
20 2 Daoxing Chen 125500
20 3 Nathaniel Seet 774500
20 4 Jian Yang 72700
20 5 Jimmy Pan 239600
20 6 Hing Yaung Chow 90000
20 7 Viacheslav Poskonin 58000
20 8 Peng Ren 235800
20 9 Ying Zhao 197200
21 1 Johnny Chan 244400
21 2 Jeffrey Rossiter 292500
21 3 Wing Kwok Tang 262700
21 4 Alexandre Perreault 93000
21 5 Shane Dye 193400
21 6 Tetsuya Tsuchikawa 62600
21 7 Aditya Agarwal 94700
21 8 Jordan Westmorland 95800
21 9 Andrew Scott 156000

It is just the latest in a series of big stories to hit APPT Macau. On Day 1a, it was Phil Ivey's return to tournament poker. That story evaporated late today when Ivey departed short of the money. On Day 1b, it was the record field and Johnny Chan. That record field of 575 has been whittled down by 80%, but Chan remains with 244,400. Today, the story was all Seet and his roughshod run over the field. Quiet, unassuming and full of smiles, Seet amassed a pile tonight that has no near rival.

Though those big stories have stolen the headlines over three days of play, there are others. Team PokerStars Pro Jose "Nacho" Barbero continued his quest today to add an APPT notch on his bedpost. His high-water mark on the day had him looking at 370,000 in front of him. He ended with 257,400, well better than average and more than enough to work with on Day 3. Joining him under the flag of the big Red Spade is Team Online's Randy Lew. Accostomed to playing 24 tables at a time, Lew kept his focus today and finished Day 2 with an average stack.

The remaining players were treated to an earlier than expected Friday night. It gives them the chance to head out for some fun before bedding down for the night. That could well mean a long day on Saturday.

No matter how long Day 3 is, one thing is guaranteed: seventy players will find themselves in the money before we hit dinnertime tomorrow. After that, it's the scrape and brawl for the nine-handed final table.

After that, all we can do is get some rest and prepare for a long day on Saturday. Until then, goodnight from Macau.

All photos Kenneth Lim Photography

7:53pm: Playing coming to a close
Players are taking one more hand and then will bag up for the night. --BW

7:45pm: Patience rewarded for Levy
Grant Levy has had a frustrating day in the PokerStars Macau Poker Room. According to Levy it started earlier in the day when he flopped a set of tens against pocket threes, only to get run down by a backdoor flush.

However things may have turned around for the 2007 APPT Sydney champion after waiting patiently for his moment to double up.

Levy opened the action with a raise and was met with a three-bet by a player on the button. Levy moved all in for roughly another 40,000 to put his opponent to an apparent tough decision. He sighed and tossed out calling chips with [ac][js] but Levy had the goods with his [ah][ad].

The board ran out [4h][8h][6c][5h][4s] to give Levy the pot worth 120,000 to see him back in good shape.--BW

7:34pm: Getting closer to the money
We're getting close to the 100-player mark, which means we're only a few tables of eliminations off the money bubble. That will not happen tonight. With play scheduled to stop at 8pm, we'll still have quite a few more than 70 runners left at the end of the night. So, plan your bubble-watch accordingly. --BW

7:30pm: Blinds up
With about half an hour left to play in the day, the players are moving up to 2,000-4,000-400. --BW

7:18pm: A champion's defense
Victorino Torres is the defending champion of APPT Macau. He's still alive, but it's not been an easy day. Check out his interview below. --BW

7:10pm: Ivey's done
His return to tournament poker startled us all. His advance to to Day 2 was no surprise. But now, Phil Ivey's day is done. After bleeding down to just a few big blinds, the three-bet all-in with [kc][9h]. Up against [ad][jc], Ivey couldn't catch up. He was gone from the tournament room before his lost chips had been stacked. --BW

6:53pm: Park punishes Kanaan
Korean Dan Park has narrowed in on the chip lead of Nathaniel Seet after a monster hand that resulted in the elimination of ANZPT Sydney champion Michael Kanaan.
It started with Park opening to 6,000 from the cutoff. Kanaan was in the small blind and he three-bet to 16,000 as Park called in position to see a [5c][4h][kc] flop.

Kanaan led out with a continuation bet of 19,000 and Park made the call as the [4s] hit the turn. Kanaan checked and Park bet 32,100. Kanaan leant back in his chair before casually waving his hand to declare himself all in. After a count down of chips it was another 47,000 to Park who thought for a few moments before announcing a call.
Kanaan wasn't pleased, as he stood from his chair, knowing that he was in a world of hurt with his [ad][qd] for just ace-high, although he wouldn't have been too thrilled to see that Park went with a marginal [ks][6d] top pair in such a big pot.

The river landed the [jd] and Kanaan was sent crashing to the rail as Park jumps to 450,000 chips. --HC

6:45pm: Yung outflopped
We're not exactly sure of the preflop action, but the smile of Percy Yung has been turned upside down after her opponent got a little creative and it paid off.
There was already around 50,000 in the pot after some heavy preflop action when the flop fell [qs][8c][8h]. Action checked to Yung who bet 25,000. Her opponent took an eternity and Yung even called the clock before he matched the bet as the [4c] hit the turn.

Both players checked and the river brought the [2h]. Again it was check, check to a showdown. Yung looked reluctant to show as her opponent opened [qd][4d]. Not exactly a premium hand, but enough to take it down as a visibly frustrated Yung tossed her cards into the muck. She slips to 100,000. --HC

6:30pm: Huang gone
We just caught Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang on his way out the door. When asked about his departure, he gave us a verbal version of a Twitter denouement.

"Three-bet queen-jack. Out," he said. --BW

6:20pm: Wu hanging on
Team PokerStars Pro Raymond Wu has been quietly working his stack throughout the afternoon. Moments ago, a four-bet all-in earned him an extra 15,000 to move him over the 100,000 mark. --BW

6:05pm: 25k here, 25k there
Watching Nacho Barbero is, in fact, a fulltime job. He can take his stack from nothing to 370,000 in a matter of an hour. The reverse of that can also be true. Right now, the swings aren't as big, but he's on his way back down the ladder for the moment. His most recent stumble was an [ac][9c] vs [ah][jd] confrontation all-in pre-flop for a little more than 30,000. He couldn't fund a way to win it and he's back down to around 130,000. --BW

5:50pm: Couple more hours
Tournament director Danny McDonagh has just announced we'll be playing until 8pm and then breaking for the night.

The remaining players are back in their seats and in action at 1,500-3,000-300 blinds. --BW

Live updates form APPT Macau brought to you by Heath "TassieDevil" Chick and Brad Willis (with occasional and very welcome updates from our Japanese blogger Jenn Barr).

5:10pm: The big stacks start to emerge
With Nathaniel Seet and David Steicke currently running away with the tournament chip lead, a couple of other big stacks are starting to emerge.

Champion jockey Shane Dye is currently up to 250,000 in a rare appearance on the poker felt. Dye does have a previous APPT cash to his credit at Sydney back in 2008 and a number of big online scores on PokerStars to his credit, however he has taken a break from the game for a few years due to work commitments.

So does this event mean a comeback to poker for Dye?

"Nah, it's just a once-off mate!" laughed Dye.

Another healthy stack is Josh Barrett, who despite waking this morning with the dreaded Macau poker room flu, has built his stack up to around 225,000.
Barrett recalled to us that a large portion of his wealth came when he called a three-bet against two players and flopped a set of deuces on an eight-high flop. Barrett put in a check-raise but his opponent was able to escape as he laid down his pocket jacks. --HC

5:22pm: Lew on the rise
Team Online's Randy Lew looked in jeopardy of an early day 2 elimination, but in the last hour he's grinded his way up to close to 200,000. It may not be the 24 tables at a time he's used to playing, but the Lew magic is still in effect. --BW

5:10pm: Ivey going nowhere
Other than moving across the room earlier today, Phil Ivey can get nothing going today. He's stuck around 40,000 right now. It appeared a few moments ago as if Ivey was ready to play for it all. After facing a raise to 4,800, he made it 12,000 out of the small blind. His opponent had him covered and moved all-in. Ivey didn't take long to fold. With fewer than 20 big blinds in his stack right now, it probably won't be too long before that small blind three bet means a bit more. --BW

4:50pm: Willcocks cracked
As anyone who followed our coverage of the APPT Queenstown event would know, the New Zealanders like to breed highly-talented, hyper-aggressive poker players. Phil Willcocks is one of those Kiwis who can play any two cards at any time, but this time it was a premium hand that saw him come unstuck.

Arriving to a flop of [qc][9h][2s], Willcocks' continuation bet of 5,500 was called as the [js] hit the turn. Action checked to Willcocks who bet again for 9,000 but his opponent responded with a check-raise all in. Willcocks tossed in his last 30,000 or so chips with [ac][ad] and found himself still in front against [qh][kh]. That is, until the [ts] hit the river to give his opponent a straight to eliminate Willcocks from the Main Event. --HC

4:49pm: Double for Dodds
Joel Dodds had to nurse a short stack for most of day one, but he's now got some chips to work with on day two after a fortunate double up.
With a raise to 5,500 and a call in front of him, Dodds decided to move all in for 54,900 with [as][ks]. Only problem was that the original raiser held pocket kings and made the call.

With Dodds' tournament on the line, the board ran out [9h][th][ah][8c][2d] to spike an ace from space for Dodds to double up to 115,000.--HC

4:47pm: And back down for Nacho
If this keeps up, we may need to assign a fultime reporter to Nacho Barbero. Seconds after reporting his rise to 370,000, he's back down to around 230,000. The details of the hand are unclear (and the way Nacho is steaming right now, I'm not going to bother him to ask), but 130,000 or so of his chips are now somewhere else after he couldn't beat [ac][js] on a [tc][jc][2s][4c][2d] board. "What could I have that he could beat?" Barbero was muttering.

"I'm going to need to change my underwear now," said Lance Richard Lee Yuen, aka the man with Nacho's chips. --BW

4:40pm: Kravchenko cut
We've recently lost one of our Team PokerStars Pros as Alex Kravchenko has been eliminated. After a strong start, Kravchenko was unable to get too much else going as his stack started to dwindle. He lost a bunch of chips against Phil Willcocks' straight, before sticking his last 7,000 into the middle with [a][2]. An opponent in the big blind made the call with [j][4] and flopped trip fours to eliminate the Russian from the tournament. --HC

4:35pm: Level up
Players are now in Level 12 and playing 1,200-2,400-200 blinds. --BW

4:30pm: Barbero crests 200k
Team PokerStars Pro Jose Nacho Barbero seems intent on putting an APPT notch on his bedpost. In the past hour, he's rode a heater all the way north of the 200,000 mark

After sniffing out the bluff from David Allan (now departed) earlier, Barbero continues to abuse his table. Just now, he three-bet out of the small blind to 13,000, got the call, continued on a [th][6h][tc] board and took down another pot. He's now sitting around 230,000. Wait...check that...make it 370,000. My, oh, my, Nacho. --BW

4:20pm: A double for the Moose
Raemin Alexander just let us know about his recent double up which saw him jump out of the danger zone. Alexander opened with a raise, which was three-bet and cold-called by two opponents before Alexander moved all in for around 40,000 with his ace-king. One opponent folded but the second made the call with pocket jacks, but fell behind when Alexander spiked a king on the flop.

Better known as "Jake The Moose" for his moose card protector, Alexander is now up to 100,000. --HC

4:00pm: Dinh is done
2007 APPT Macau champion Dinh Le won't be adding a second title to his resume in this event as his tournament is over. After Haifeng Xue opened to 5,100, Le shoved for around 25,000 from the small blind with Xue making a quick call with [7h][7s]. Le opened [ad][js] and was racing for his tournament, however the [ks][8h][7d][Th][5h] board smacked Xue with a set to leave Le on the rails.

Meanwhile Xue, who is currently ranked fourth in the Asia Player of the Year, is looking good to grab some more valuable POTY points in this event as he moves up to 190,000. --HC

4:08pm: Nacho: Bluff-caller
Nacho Barbero opened in early positon and got a call from David Allan. On a flop of [9s][kh][7c], Barbero led for 4,500. Allan made the call. Barbero backed off on the [jd] flop and let Allan take the lead for 10,300. Barbero didn't take long to make the call. The [2s] hit the river, and once again Barbero checked. Allan cut out 21,900 and put it out.

Barbero was not pleased. He gestured at the cards. He ran his hand through his hair. He gestured at Allan. He cut out the call and left it by his remaining chips. He counted his remaining chips. Nearly three minutes passed before he picked up the call and dropped it in front of his cards.

Allan looked at his own cards, muttered, "Nice hand," and pushed his cards face-down in the muck.

Barbero tabled [ks][qd] and said, "I'm not beating anything but a bluff. Only a bluff."--BW

4:00pm: Frank The Bank busto
Frank Bianco has enjoyed his time here in Macau, but his run in the Main Event has come to an end. It was a multi-way limped pot that did the damage with Bianco check-raising all in from the small blind on a flop of [4c][7d][2d]. David Steicke had taken a stab for 5,100 on the flop but it was the player in the big blind that Bianco needed to worry about as he flat called the 26,100 shove.

Steicke deliberated for some time but made a reluctant fold as Bianco found his [5h][4d] in trouble against his opponent's [7h][7c].

The turn was the [2s] and river the [kd] to leave Bianco busto. --HC

3:55pm: Sub-200
We're now down to 198 players. --BW

3:40pm: Back to action
Everybody is back in their seats for 1,000-2,000-200 blinds. --BW

3:30pm: Break time
Players are on break a ten-minute break. --BW

3:17pm: Huang back in the hunt
It's been a wild ride today for Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang. After losing his overnight big stack early in the day, Huang has now found a nice double up to get back into the six-figure club.

We arrived in the aftermath to see Huang's stack of 47,900 being match by his opponent. The board read [7s][9s][th][8h][kh] and we assume that Huang's [ac][ks] had caught a handy river to get past his opponent, who was likely to have gone with a sizable pair in a preflop clash.

Huang is now up to 100,000.--HC

3:07pm: Ivey on the move (but only literally)
For the entire afternoon to this point, Phil Ivey has been in a place far away from the spotlight. Situated the the farthest table out from the media, Ivey has been quietly working a short-ish stack. He's not made much progress on the leaderboard, but he is on the move. His table has finally broken. He just racked up and moved to the middle of the room. --BW

3:00pm: Ichinose in behind, out
Kosei Ichinose just got it in with ace-nine versus ace-ten. His opponent had A ten hit the flop. Though Ichinose managed to pick up a straight draw, he couldn't get there and the Supernova was out soon thereafter. --JB

2:48pm: Some change for Chong
Malaysia's Victor Chong has found a handy double up when his [ks][kd] survived an all-in clash with an opponent's [8s][8d].

The chips were in preflop with Chong on his feet, hands together and praying for his hand to hold as the board ran out [jh][5s][qc][9s][jc].

Chong, who finished second in the October Macau Poker, is now up to 60,000. --HC

2:38pm: The cull
There is a still a long way to go today, but we've already lost around 70 players since we started a couple of hours ago. If only we could keep up that pace, we'd have a champion in time to hit the bar tonight. That, in case you're keeping score, won't be happening. --BW

2:30pm: Level up
We're on to level 10 with 800-1,600-200 blinds.

2:18pm: Fun match-ups
In what is already an action-packed tournament, we have a few tables that require some closer attention. Nearest us is a table with Jose "Nacho" Barbero. Two seats to his left is Is Ozzy Sheikh. A few tables away sits Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenjo and former APPT Macau champ Dinh Le. Nearby sits one of our chip leaders, Tsugunari Toma across from 2011 WSOP bracelet winner Joe Ebanks. --BW

2:07pm: Under suspicion
Danny McDonagh has a way of being completely threatening in the most non-threatening way imaginable. The APPT President just announced over the PA system that he has two players under suspicion for marking cards. He told the assembled crowd that if it happens again, the offending players would be DQ'd. He closed with a smile and the words, "Let's assume it's happened by accident." It was the friendliest warning of potential execution I've ever heard. --BW

2:00pm: In the hot Seet
We have a new chip leader with Singapore cash game extraordinaire Nathaniel Seet landing an enormous pot to storm to the top of the charts.
We don't have a lot of info on how the hand developed to this point, but when two deep stacks tangle in a levelling war in a button versus big blind battle, anything can happen! We arrived with already well over 60,000 chips in the middle with the flop reading [kd][2s][3c].

Andrei Taranu was first to act and he moved all in to try and take it down but Seet beat him into the pot as he opened [kh][ks] for the nuts. Seet probably felt in good shape, but Taranu surprisingly opened one of the worst hands Seet could see as his [5d][4d] had plenty of outs to win it.

The turn was the [th] and river bricked the [2c] to see Taranu sent crashing to the rail as Seet move up to 225,000 in chips. --HC

1:50pm: Barrett picked off
Josh Barrett opened with a raise to 2,800 from under the gun and picked up two callers to see a [jd][7h][5c] flop. The big blind checked it to Barrett who bet 3,400. Haifeng Xue popped it to 8,400 on the button which forced the big blind out of the way but Barrett made the call as the [qh] hit the turn.
Both players checked and the river landed the [9h]. Barrett led out with a bet of 10,000 but Xue was quick to call with [ad][jc] which was too good for Barrett's [6h][6c]. Barrett slips to 55,000 with Xue up to 70,000. --HC

1:36pm: Annnnnnd, we're back
All the tables are now in play. We're back in action with the full remaining field. --BW

1:35pm: Where's Nacho?
We're not saying Jose Barbero looks like a particular character who stands out ina crowd of people today, but you could be forgiven for wishing his shirt was red in this video below with Lynn Gilmartin. --BW

1:25pm: No love for Lovett
Jacky Wang opened with a raise to 2,600 before Brian Lovett three-bet to 7,700. Action then folded to Joaquin Torres in late position who cold-four bet to 17,700 to get Wang out of the way. However Lovett wasn't going anywhere as he moved all in for an additional 20,500.
We were expecting a quick call, but Lovett thought for a long time before eventually tossing out calling chips.
Lovett showed [js][jh] and the race was on against Torres' [as][kd]. Despite another player saying that he folded ace-king, the board ran out [kc][4s][qs][8h][td] to pair up Torres and eliminate Lovett from the Main Event. Torres is up to 100,000.

1:20pm: Wang enjoys the Ivey experience a little longer
Young Aussie Jacky Wang would be forgiven for feeling a little overawed sitting with Phil Ivey to his direct right, but that hasn't stopped him from finding a much-needed double up.

Wang raised the button to 2,600 before Anson Wong moved all in from the small blind. Wang quickly called off his last chips with [ad][th] to find himself racing with Wong's pocket nines. Wang had to sweat until the river as the board ran out [5d][4s][7s][qs][tc] to pair his ten for the double up to 45,000.

12:55pm: Toma to the top
Japanese player Tsugunari Toma has shot into the chip lead as the second flight of Day 2 starters gets underway.

As recalled to us, Toma took down a sizable pot with ace-king, before eliminating another opponent soon after to see his overnight stack almost double to 200,000 and good for the chip lead. --HC

12:53pm: Break for some
Now that everybody has a seat, the players who started the day in their seats will be taking a short break so the other players can catch up. If it seems a bit confusing in print, it's not as bad as it seems. Tables 1-25 will be back with us shortly. --BW

12:47pm: Huang hurting
It hasn't been a good session for Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang. After entering today as one of the big stacks of the field, Huang has seen his stack slashed in half.
As recalled to us, in a hand that was four-bet preflop, Huang made the call with ace-king when his opponent shoved on the flop of [ad][th][4s]. Huang's opponent showed jack-ten for middle pair, but incredibly found a way to win on the [4h] turn and [tc] river. Huang slips to 80,000. --HC

12:45pm: Now fully underway
With a startling lack of drama or difficulty, it appears Danny McDonagh and his staff have managed to slip everybody in to their tables. The overflow crowd is now just part of the steady stream. Now, to tear through this field. Somehow, between now and Sunday morning, we have to reduce 300 players to nine. It's by no means impossible, but it's going to take some work. --BW

12:30pm: Crafty Kravchenko
Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko entered today with a below-average chip stack and in need of some early success. He just found it in a hand with 2007 APPT Macau champ Dinh Le.

We picked up the action on a flop of [3h][5d][7h]. Le fired out 4,600 and Kravchenko called to bring the [as] on the turn. Le released a second barrel worth 6,500 to send Kravchenko deep into the tank. He eventually made the call, to leave himself just 16,000 more chips behind.

The river was the [kh] and Le checked to Kravchenko who bet 10,000 into the middle, with just 6,000 more behind. Le gave a smile and quickly folded as Kravchenko's strong move saw him climb up to 50,000. Le sits with 60,000. --HC

12:27pm: Sleep in?
Looking around the field and there are a number of bags still sitting unopened on the tables with players yet to show up. Perhaps they've decided to grab an extra 40 minutes rest, rather than worry about 20 minutes of play, which perhaps is not a bad idea given the unique situation.

We thought that Mr. Ivey and Mr. Chan might've decided to do the same thing as we couldn't spot them in the room, until we realised they're in the overflow flight scheduled to start at 12:30pm. --HC

12:25pm: Mixed results for early monsters
Already we're seeing some big hands tabled in the first few hands of the day. Bobo Chen picked up with [ad][as] and three-bet to 7,000 following an open from Tim English to 2,500. However after some thought English escaped unscathed.
Moments later and Victor Chen found [kd][kc] and three-bet to 7,000 after Michael Clinton started things off with a raise to 2,900. Clinton decided to see a flop and liked the [3c][ah][6s] board enough to lead for 11,000. Chen sighed at the dealer for putting an ace out there and open-folded his kings.--HC

12:10pm: Day 2 underway
The dealers at the first 25 tables are shuffling and dealing. Everybody else should be seated in the next 20 minutes. In Danny McDonagh's words, "Let's go." --B

11:23am: Day 2 set to begin
Day 1a starred Phil Ivey. Day 1b starred Johnny Chan and a record breaking APPT field. Now, Day 2 is upon us. Ivey is back Chan is back. More than 300 other players are back, too. Each of the story lines will resume within the next hour. It will begin what is expected to be a long day of 75-minute levels.

Due to the nearly overwhelming crowd that showed up yesterday, today will see a rare staggered start. The first 25 tables will sit down at 12:10 to begin. They will play for twenty minutes and then take a break to give the remaining six tables some room to take their seats. It's hoped that kind of start will make room for everybody to sit down.

As we begin, Shi Chieh Su has the chip lead with more than 170,000 in his stack. He's being pushed today by several other big stacks.

Stick with us as we get ready to kick off live coverage at 12:10pm. --BW

Live updates form APPT Macau brought to you by Heath "TassieDevil" Chick and Brad Willis (with occasional and very welcome updates from our Japanese blogger Jenn Barr).

The cash games have always been big, but now the tournaments are even bigger.

Today was Day 1b of the PokerStars.net APPT Macau Main Event and after 269 entrants yesterday, there were high hopes that we'd push the 500-player barrier for this event. Well, that barrier wasn't just passed but it was smashed as another 306 took to the felt to produce a total field of 575 for the HK$30,000 Main Event.

It's an enormous result and sets a new attendance record for the APPT, bettering the previous best of 561 set at the APPT Sydney Grand Final back in 2007. Players have come from a total of 54 countries across six continents to be a part of this event.

To further illustrate the global reach of this event was the quality of the field that took part.

Today's field was highlighted by the presence of ten-time WSOP bracelet winner and poker legend Johnny Chan, previous APPT Macau champions Dinh Le, Eddy Sabat and Victorino Torres, as well as Team PokerStars Pros Bryan Huang, Celina Lin, Vivian Im, Max Lykov and two-time LAPT champion Jose "Nacho" Barbero.

Most of those notables had a solid day on the felt, with Lin, Sabat and Lykov the only casualties towards the end of the day. Lin lost a key flip with ace-queen against pocket nines, while Sabat similarly couldn't connect with ace-king against an opponent's pocket queens.

While the pace of play was a little reserved on Day 1a, things motored along more quickly on Day 1b as just 149 survived the day.

The talking point at the day's end wasn't with the chip lead of Chinese Taipei's Jun Sha, but instead the verbal spat that followed a devastating blow to 2009 APPT Sydney champion Aaron Benton. After having his pocket aces cracked by Andrew Ong's flush draw, the two exchanged some not-so-friendly words that led to Ong having to take a walk to cool down. Such is the nature of poker, that one bad beat can be the difference between fortune and failure, as Benton was eliminated soon after as Ong ended the day as one of the big stacks.

If you're not a fan of words, and prefer to see what happens when you mix a Gilmartin with a McDonagh in front of the camera, then check out this wrap video of the Nightly Notables:

Top Ten Chip Counts (end of day 1)
Chieh Su Shih - 171,800
Jun Sha - 169,400 (PokerStars Macau Qualifier)
Daniel Francis - 154,100 (Poker Stars Player)
Bryan Huang - 154,100 (Team PokerStars Asia)
Carlos Chang - 147,900 (PokerStars Player)
Andrew Ong - 145,900
Daniel Chua - 145,900
Fabian Spiedelmann - 142,800 (PokerStars Qualifier)
Erdenebold Begzjav 142,400 (PokerStars Macau Qualifier)
Zheng Tai Tan - 141,000

Day 2 Seating Draw

Day 1b Updates - Levels 1-4

Day 1b Updates - Levels 5-8

With 304 players still alive tomorrow for Day 2 we have an interesting scenario with a staggered start time. Tables 1-25 scheduled for a 12:10pm start and Tables 26-31 starting at 12:30pm. By the time each "flight" plays twenty minutes we should be in a position where all remaining players will be able to squeeze into the PokerStars Macau Poker Room at the same time.

It should be another exciting day as we play another eight levels or so to try to start to put a dent into the mass of humanity that is our APPT Macau Main Event field. We look forward to your company once again!

APPT President Danny McDonagh requests that all players seated at tables 1-25 arrive for a 12:10pm start. All players tables 26-31 should arrive in time for a 12:30 start. Players on tables 1-25 will take an approximate 20 minute break at 12.30pm.

Table Seat Player Chip Count

1 1 Jie Gao 58100
1 2 Kosei Ichinose 54000
1 3 Michael Clinton 36600
1 4 Songyu Hu 59100
1 5 Victor Chen 41700
1 6 Naoki Takiguchi 96900
1 7 Michael Kanaan 55900
1 8 Vincent Torres 38000
1 9 Pardo Ufano Jorge 20100
1 10 Alexandre Perreault 45800

2 1 Kyle Cheong 26800
2 2 Weiming Lam 22000
2 3 Yves Sy 34000
2 4 Johan Hirvonen 92100
2 5 Fu Leong Cheong 64500
2 6 Apoorva Goel 94800
2 7 Peter Kleudgen 19000
2 8 Steven Tegnelia 178500
2 9 Nanqing Xue 30200
2 10 Zheng Tai Tan 141000

3 1 Conrad Coetzer 22900
3 2 Kyungsik Jung 32300
3 3 Hun Wei Lee 56200
3 4 Sixiao Li 27900
3 5 Habib Rahal 26800
3 6 Kalle Folke Stark 93700
3 7 Tobias Huber 47800
3 8 Chao Li 41800
3 9 Andrew Ong 145900
3 10 Baton Fung 50600

4 1 Jason Lee 13300
4 2 Arza Pino Raul 57200
4 3 Wei-Bo Ye 78100
4 4 Hoi Ting Lee 62400
4 5 Klaus Pautrot 61600
4 6 Chun Kong Ken Heung 87600
4 7 Joel Dodds 43900
4 8 Renat Lyapin 122200
4 9 Gregory Familton 63100
4 10 Randy Lew 53200

5 1 Selim Oulmekki 16400
5 2 James Hunter 19600
5 3 Kok Weng Beh 28800
5 4 Alvin Wei-xiang Cheam 31100
5 5 Gijsbert Verheijen 25700
5 6 Yasuaki Nayama 56400
5 7 Jun Sha 169400
5 8 Erdenebold Begzjav 142400
5 9 Jing Zhang 10300
5 10 Kaue Vinicius de Souza 46100

6 1 Raymond Wu 65800
6 2 Antonios Triantafyllakis 45900
6 3 Timothy English 40400
6 4 Daniel Francis 154100
6 5 Akihiko Ishihara 13100
6 6 Emmanuel Rodrigues 35000
6 7 Daoxing Chen 80500
6 8 Tommi Etelapera 56500
6 9 Lester Edoc 26900
6 10 Jung Wei Huang 107500

7 1 Daniel Chua 145900
7 2 Kenny Shih 28900
7 3 Gordon Huntly 97100
7 4 Perry Michael 36700
7 5 Hyunbong Jang 57300
7 6 Allen Lu 23100
7 7 Shinichi Mayuzumi 21800
7 8 Pui Suen Percy Yung 97000
7 9 Mark Griffiths 19200
7 10 Ildefonso Martinez 36100

8 1 Amit Varma 123000
8 2 Gustav Kock 70400
8 3 Wen Hui 85800
8 4 David Hrdlicka 105600
8 5 Yury Gorbachenko 31300
8 6 Andreas Uhde 20600
8 7 Ligong Wei 111400
8 8 Ying Zhao 25200
8 9 David Kai-Kwong Man 63800
8 10 Yuki Ko 57300

9 1 Pang-Yen Yang 45300
9 2 Jolmer Meelis 66300
9 3 Raymond Chow 16200
9 4 Maxime Benoit 18000
9 5 Nicholas Womack 16200
9 6 Yue Xu 52500
9 7 Dorde Jovanovic 17900
9 8 Frank Bianco 33400
9 9 Danny Park 73800
9 10 Alan Bertenshaw 24600

10 1 Chee Kian Chan 12100
10 2 Hui Xia 23600
10 3 Zuo Wang 80700
10 4 David Felton 17600
10 5 Viacheslav Poskonin 59600
10 6 Anson Tsang 41400
10 7 Stefan Fransson 25300
10 8 Antoine Amourette 35700
10 9 Gilbert Diaz 23600
10 10 Wenlong Jin 27700

11 1 Kim Wooka 59300
11 2 Konstantin Pogodin 52200
11 3 Dimitrios Nanos 47900
11 4 Young Phan 17000
11 5 Tommy Wong 42600
11 6 Sergey Popyuk 25800
11 7 Chun Jung Chen 45100
11 8 Tom Dellas 25000
11 9 Benjamin Mclean 46500
11 10 Kate Zhang 28400

12 1 Alex Kravchenko 34400
12 2 Haifeng Xue 53200
12 3 Frederik de Linde Farrington 58200
12 4 Hans Daniel Nordstrom 24800
12 5 Josh Barrett 70800
12 6 Dinh Le 64800
12 7 Hugh Findlay 24700
12 8 Will Cheong 55900
12 9 Phillip Willcocks 73300
12 10 Munkhbayar Nyamsuren 68900

13 1 Joseph Ebanks 62800
13 2 Dominykas Karmazinas 60200
13 3 Mark Defaria 37600
13 4 Tsugunari Toma 116700
13 5 Jaimie Faux 47800
13 6 Michael Mckevith 63200
13 7 Kelvin Wong 90400
13 8 Wai Kwan Yuen 26200
13 9 Peng Ren 62500
13 10 Zandro Carmona 41300

14 1 Kitty Kuo 90100
14 2 Michael Finstein 97900
14 3 Czardy Rivera 60000
14 4 Tetsuro Tomita 41600
14 5 Bryan Huang 154100
14 6 Uwe Brockhoff 15600
14 7 Reagan Leman 69800
14 8 Jimmy Pan 32300
14 9 Zhi Hong Ma 97300
14 10 Aditya Agarwal 29000

15 1 Jian Yang 29400
15 2 Tommi Krankka 28100
15 3 David Allan 25700
15 4 Jesus Sabater 14000
15 5 Dennis Foo 21700
15 6 Xiang Pan 61100
15 7 Hing Yaung Chow 67000
15 8 Jose Barbero 108300
15 9 Lance Richard Lee Yuen 110800
15 10 Ozzy Sheikh 72900

16 1 Roger Spets 60600
16 2 Dennis Zezyulin 126900
16 3 Jackson Zheng 97300
16 4 Jishui Hao 33300
16 5 Darren Paul Judges 62500
16 6 Michal Karolak 20300
16 7 Wai Kin Wong 31600
16 8 Yosuke Isobe 39200
16 9 Mansour Khorramshahi 58600
16 10 Devan Tang 109800

17 1 Clifford Bruce 48700
17 2 Matthew Chan 93200
17 3 Alexey Filippov 95700
17 4 Thomas Corr 70300
17 5 Hong Choi Wai 18400
17 6 Zhongyin Jiang 32600
17 7 Robert Hallworth 40300
17 8 Claudia Yum 33800
17 9 Aidan Tam 78700
17 10 Kent Hunter 17900

18 1 Hon Ming Kim Lee 20100
18 2 Vadim Belov 112300
18 3 Evangelia Triantafyllakis 32500
18 4 Alexander Strozhanov 44400
18 5 Jamil Ogunmakinwa 66700
18 6 John Webb 41000
18 7 Jonathon Prested 38700
18 8 Vivian Im 58800
18 9 Andreas Leledakis 28300
18 10 Terry Fan 116700

19 1 Grant Levy 111200
19 2 Christopher Michael Soyza 24000
19 3 Sunil Uddaraju 19900
19 4 Yang Liu 44700
19 5 Sparrow Cheung 112600
19 6 Manish Boyat 30400
19 7 Thomas Ward 133600
19 8 Huy Pham 63200
19 9 Patrick de Koster 13900
19 10 Jun Wah Yap 21800

20 1 Huifang Ma 39100
20 2 Stephen Leonard 11900
20 3 Yi Zhang 17600
20 4 Chi Chen 88600
20 5 Othonas Katakis 88900
20 6 Xiao Ming Liang 62000
20 7 Andre Bouchard 15800
20 8 Johannes Haase 115700
20 9 Joey Masangcay 45000
20 10 Jorn Walthaus 68700

21 1 Chih Fang 13900
21 2 Tony Burke 21100
21 3 Alon Simka 30200
21 4 Yukina Masaki 17400
21 5 Rohit Bhalla 69400
21 6 Richard Hu 6500
21 7 In Sun Bernard Geoum 74500
21 8 Chin Hao Hsu 51300
21 9 Jordan Westmorland 75800
21 10 Rui Bao 16200

22 1 Kelvin Lau 113700
22 2 John Corr 12400
22 3 Victorino Torres 47000
22 4 John Gallagher 23000
22 5 Michael Cua 24300
22 6 Dominique Chauliac 25600
22 7 Fabian Spiedelmann 142800
22 8 Raemin Alexander 34200
22 9 Gianpaulo Bini 98800
22 10 Marin Yum 26800

23 1 Wing Kwok Tang 69800
23 2 Anh Son Hoang 26600
23 3 Wee Yee Tan 123200
23 4 Cho Fai Nicholas Wong 129000
23 5 Hon cheong Lee 28900
23 6 Eric Liu 25400
23 7 Mishel Anunu 16200
23 8 Robert Bow Chow 118900
23 9 David Steicke 69500
23 10 Ramandeep Singh Gujral 54200

24 1 Vladimir Kochelaevskiy 67300
24 2 Benjamin Gilholme 23500
24 3 Shane Dye 102100
24 4 Vaclav Pexa 15100
24 5 Terrence Chan 80400
24 6 Mickey Pederson 12700
24 7 Roel Pijpers 63700
24 8 Takashi Ogura 24200
24 9 Haifeng Xue 48400
24 10 John Zendrick Tech 42000

25 1 Konstantin Puchkov 20200
25 2 Sangeeth Mohan 101500
25 3 Karsten Nielsen 72800
25 4 Victor Chong 34100
25 5 Jeffrey Rossiter 104900
25 6 Craig Cockburn 44500
25 7 Scott Calcagno 81600
25 8 Marius Le Roux 51900
25 9 Wenyao Bao 59800
26 1 Benjamin Jenkins 46400

26 2 Tatiana Barausova 26900
26 3 Yury Kerzhapkin 88700
26 4 Sheng Liu 54400
26 5 Wei Zhu 68000
26 6 Sungling Li 79000
26 7 Mikhail Mazunin 26700
26 8 Johnny Chan 77600
26 9 Jose Severino 54900

27 1 Yang Sun 32300
27 2 Thomas Nielsen 26200
27 3 Andrew Scott 41200
27 4 Yakov Artemovich Onuchin 69700
27 5 Oleksandr Sharapov 95500
27 6 Marko Neumann 133100
27 7 Philipp Svetlovsky 54200
27 8 Julian Powell 89100
27 9 Yu Cheng Rong 51800

28 1 Carlos Chang 147900
28 2 Kai Yat Fam 87600
28 3 Ojiri Yasuhiro 116100
28 4 Samuel Paisley 34700
28 5 Fabio Kim 40200
28 6 Sheng Chang 16300
28 7 Antonio Di Salvio 22400
28 8 Shachaf Atzitz 16600
28 9 Moshe Angert 55100

29 1 Glen Hammers 14600
29 2 Phil Ivey 51100
29 3 Jacky Wang 22000
29 4 Anson Gong Wah Wong 41800
29 5 Brian Lovett 50200
29 6 Andrey Kajgorodtsev 71800
29 7 Joaquin Torres 65500
29 8 Wendy Monosky 50400
29 9 Bo Wu 97200

30 1 Erich Stadler 37900
30 2 Jong Chul Ji 39900
30 3 Chen Lu 28800
30 4 Nathaniel Seet 124500
30 5 Konstantinos Nanos 56500
30 6 Andrei Taranu 99900
30 7 Chieh Su Shih 171800
30 8 Paul Foltyn 83500
30 9 Winfred Ka Wing Yu 51100
30 10 Suzuki Takura DNR

31 1 Konstantin Tolokno 14800
31 2 Hossein Shabannezhad 14900
31 3 Reddy Sumanth 17700
31 4 Wenfei Huang 76300
31 5 Tetsuya Tsuchikawa 61400
31 6 Philip Parsons 31200
31 7 Kunal Jain 29700
31 8 Manami Hayamizu 70600
31 9 Sunny Jung 47000

8:55pm: Johnny still the master
Steve Bouya limped in from middle position before Joe Ebanks made it 2,500 to go. Action was then with Johnny Chan in the small blind and he made it 10,500 to go. Back with Bouya and he shoved for another 13,400 on top which forced Ebanks to fold, but after a pause for a count, Chan made the call and tabled [as][kc]. Bouya held a dominated [ad][qd] and was in trouble.

The board ran out [3s][jc][kh][7s][qc] to give the pot to Chan to end the tournament for Bouya. Chan will bag up over 70,000 to be in good shape entering Day 2.--HC

8:50pm:: Sabat succumbs
Eddy Sabat won't be the first two-time APPT champ, at least for now, after losing a big flip in the final minutes of the day.

Sabat recalled to us that he shoved for 34,000 holding [ad][kh] over the top of a short-stacked, all-in player. However a big stack behind him made the call with [qc][qh] as the short stack was in trouble with [ks][qs].

The board bricked out [t][t][5][6][2] to send Sabat to the exit.--HC

8:45pm: Benton cops beat and a verbal spray
Another massive eruption has unfolded in the poker room as the orange jackets are earning their money in the PokerStars Macau Poker Room this week.
This time it was 2009 APPT Sydney champ Aaron Benton in the thick of it after copping a bad beat and then pushing his opponent Andrew Ong to the point where he simply snapped.

First it was the bad beat. As recalled to us, Benton three-bet preflop and then raised Ong's bet on the flop of [tc][8d][3d]. Ong deliberated for some time before moving all in for a little more with Benton making the call with pocket aces. Ong showed [ad][9d] for a flush draw which connected on the [2d] turn.

Ong jumped from his seat and roared with delight as the [7h] hit the river. The celebrations obviously irritated Benton who told him to settle down and stop carrying on as the 120,000-chip pot was pushed his way, to leave Benton with just 6,000 in change.
While that was a story in itself, the real story came in the aftermath of the hand.
Benton commented on multiple occasions about what a terrible play it was and said that he would've rather his chips gone to someone who would use them to actually win the tournament.

Benton continued to commentate on the hand and stood to convey the story to his friends on the rail. After several minutes of commentary, Ong had seen enough!

"Shut your mouth!" shouted Ong out of nowhere. "Shut your f#&%ing mouth! You copped a bad beat, take it like a man and shut your f#&%ing mouth!"

Wow! Security ran in and floor staff instructed both players to settle down. Benton remained calm while copping the verbal spray, but Ong decided he needed to take a good, long walk to cool off. A self-imposed penalty perhaps?

A dramatic way to end the day!--HC

8:10pm: Lykov bounced in brutal fashion
You could boil coffee on Max Lykov's forehead right now--if you could catch him. He's probably already halfway back to Russia by now. It started like this:

Up against a foe with whom he'd already had words earlier, Lykov called a raise in the big blind with [5h][6h]. What kind of flop was he looking for? [3c][4c][2d] isn't bad. He check-raised the 3,500 bet to 8,800. His opponent didn't think long before making the call. On the [7s] turn, Lykov led for 8,800. Again came the call.

The dealer put out the [3h] on the river. Lykov took about ten seconds before putting his remaining chips, more than 20,000, out in front of him.

Snap-call.

Why? The [4d][4h] boated up on the river.

Lykov did not stick around to shake hands. --BW

8:06pm: And Lin goes down
Just after staying alive, Celina Lin has fallen. Her pocket kings lost all-in pre-flop against ace king. In her words: "Rivered." --BW

8:00pm: Lin stays alive
After losing a coinflip with ace-queen against pocket nines, PokerStars Team Pro Celina Lin was down to her last 2,900 in chips and in desperate trouble. However a few moments later, a much-needed triple up sees her up to around 10,000, and with a pulse once again with ten big blinds.

Following a raise to 2,200, Lin moved all in for 2,900. Victorino Torres made the call as did the original raiser before the two live players checked down the board of [4s][2d][jc][3s][kh].

Lin was up against [ad][td] and pocket sixes, but Lin's [jd][qh] caught the only pair on board for the triple up.

"Thanks very much boys!" giggled Lin as she gets back to 10,000 chips.--HC

7:40pm: Last level of the night'
With one hour left to play tonight, we'll finish off with 500-1,000-100 blinds. --BW

7:28pm: Wave that flag
We may be in Asia, but the most represented nation at APPT Macau: Australia. Here's a breakdown of the top ten most represented countries in this year's main event.

7:25pm: Max wants a muck
It wasn't much of a hand but there was a little controversy, and we love nothing more than a little controversy.

It started with a raise to 2,100 from a player in early position. Team PokerStars Pro Max Lykov three-bet to 5,600 before the player in the big blind moved all in for just 3,875 in total. With the extra chips in the pot, the original raiser made the call.
With two live players still in the hand, there was plenty of tension despite no betting action, as each player took their sweet time in checking the action back and forth on a board of [6c][tc][4c][5d][8c].

"Flush," said the short-stacked player as he opened [2c][2s]. This is where things got messy. The EP-player went to muck his cards, forgetting about the small side pot that was up for grabs. When it was pointed out, he retrieved them from a few inches in front of himself and opened [ah][9s].

"That's a muck!" exclaimed Lykov and after some debate the floor was called. An animated Lykov pleaded his case but ultimately his opponent's cards were ruled live and the pot pushed in his direction when Lykov couldn't better ace-high. He slips to 40,000.--HC

7:20pm: If interestinger were a word
If the non-word "interestinger" needed to start a marketing effort for true word-hood, it could start by putting up a picture of Nacho Barbero's table. It's been one heck of a sight all day long with more notables than any other felt in the room. In just the last few minutes it got...say it with me...interestinger. Why? Well, one Mr. Chan...Johnny Chan...took a seat at the table. This is a table that is unlikely to break in the next hour and seventeen minutes. There are tons of chips on it. Indeed. Interestinger. --BW

7:12pm: Lo on the up
A short-stacked Jordon Lo has found a double up at the expense of Eddy Sabat. Luckily for the 2008 APPT Macau champion, it wasn't a huge blow as Lo was all in for just his last 7,375 with [ad][4s]. Sabat made the call with [9c][9h] but Lo hit his overcard when the board ran out [qs][qd][as][8d][3c].

"I put him on a four," chuckled Sabat as he drops to 35,000 with Lo getting himself to 16,000.--HC

7:04pm: He wouldn't be Nacho...
...if he weren't working on the chip lead. Moments ago we saw him raking yet another substantial pot, this one apparently the product of a couple of aces (again). An approximate count puts him near 120,000 in chips. If that's not the chip lead at this hour, it's gotta be close to it. It comes as little surprise, in any case. He's Nacho, after all. --BW

6:50pm: NSFW
So...there was a party. You've come to expect that from PokerStars and the APPT. And there is video. You've come to expect that from the PokerStars Blog. All that said...well, this just isn't safe to watch at work unless you feel like explaining how...oh...just wait until you get home and then watch this. --BW

6:49pm: Blinds up The players are back in their seats for the last two levels of the day. They'll now be playing 400-800-50 blinds.

6:45pm: No hats!
If you were looking for PSM regular and highly vocal player Hirotoshi "Hirobo" Nakabo this event and his signature sparkly poker hat, you might have missed him. That is because he has just adopted a no-hat policy. Apparently he posted some good results recently without the hat and the only event this series that he brought the hat back, he busted out in the first round.

It seemed to be working at first when he took the first hour of the tournament off before sitting down to A-A. At last check, however, he was on life-support, claiming to be the "cheap" leader. --JB

6:40: Break time
Players are on a ten-minute break. --BW

6:35pm: Arce eliminates another
Neil Arce has sent another one to the rail as the players start to drop away approaching the end of the sixth level of the day.

Holding [ad][kc], Arce would need some help to get past a short stack's [kd][ks] and that's exactly what arrived as the board ran out [5d][3d][qd][qc][td] to give Arce the nut flush. He's now up to a commanding 85,000 chips. --HC

6:25pm: Im tames Flynn
Kelly Flynn has made his final stand and unfortunately for him, his timing was pretty bad.
The action started with Joe Ebanks who raised to 1,300 from under the gun. He picked up one caller before Flynn popped it up to 3,500 in late position. Play then folded around to Team PokerStars Pro Vivian Im who cold four-bet to 7,700. Ebanks and the caller were quick to escape but Flynn committed his last chips. Im made the call and showed [ac][ad] as Flynn's [jc][js] were in trouble.

The board ran out [9d][2h][2c][ah][9h] to give Im a full house for a little extra salt in the wound as Flynn hit the rail. Im is now up to 70,000 in chips and looking good to reach Day 2.

Other recent casualties include Jackie Glazier and "Mr. Macau" Charles Chua.--HC

6:11pm: APOY update
Now that the final numbers coming together, we're getting a better picture of how the Asia Player of the Year race is shaping up.

As we've reported before, Shaq Lin has 6,028 points and a firm hold on the top spot. He was eliminated early on Day 1b, and as such will be earning no further points in the main event. Raiden Kan, the man currently in second place, has 4,936. However, he was also eliminated already.

The tournament staff reports that the top two finishers of the main event will earn 3,297 and 2,748 points respectively. If we're doing the math correctly, that leaves three people who could conceivably catch Shaq Lin. We know for a fact Haifeng Xue has advanced to Day 2. Should he place first or second in the main event, he would overtake Lin.

We're unsure as of this moment whether Aaron Lin or Charles Lam still have chips. If so, Lin could take the first spot with a first or second place finish. Lam would have to win the main event.

That's all a very long way of saying, Shaq Lin could probably feel pretty comfortable with his hold on APOY right now, but there's still a chance it could be snatched away from him on Sunday. --BW

5:55pm: Prizes announced
The people with the calculators have just released the final prizes numbers. The top 70 runners in the main event will walk away with at least HKD $46,700. First place will earn $3,772,000. --BW

5:42pm: Confusion leads to Barbero double
Having heard a lot about the success of Team PokerStars Pro Jose "Nacho" Barbero on the Latin American Poker Tour, this is the first opportunity that we've had to see his talents here in Asia in the flesh. And after seeing the following hand play out, we can now understand why Barbero has had such great success - poker is easy when your opponents throw their chips at you!

Barbero has just found a double up in rather strange circumstances in a clash with the hyper-aggressive Kelly Flynn.

Flynn started things off with a raise to 1,100 before Barbero three-bet to 3,000. Action folded back around to Flynn who instantly tossed out a re-raise to 11,100. As is customary here in Macau, the dealer pulled in the called bet amounts to leave 8,100 in front of Flynn. If you're not used to the dealers pulling in chips, then it can become a little confusing to figure out raise amounts. So when Barbero tossed out 14,000 into the middle there were a few raised eyebrows.

"Pretty sure you have to make it 16,200 as a minimum raise," explained tablemate Jeff Rossiter, but Barbero was still a little unsure. The floor was called and Barbero was required to add another 2,200 to the middle as a min-raise of another 8,100 on top.
Flynn quickly matched the bet and the flop was dealt [kd][4c][5c]. With so much in the middle, it was no surprise to see Flynn move all in at the pot but Barbero was just as quick to call as he tabled [as][ad]. Flynn opened [7s][6s] which was probably not the hand anyone expected to see, and not a great hand for Barbero as Flynn had plenty of outs. However the [ac] turn and [ks] were not them as Barbero doubled to 70,000, leaving Flynn crippled to just 5,300 in change. --HC

5:31pm: Level up
Players are now up to 300-600-50 blinds.--BW

5:28pm: Chan crests 80,000
Terrence Chan has spent the entire day in the back corner of the room with a cast of characters fit for a poker movie (our personal favorite was one Chan dubbed "Rain Delay" for his inability to make anything resembling a quick decision. For his patience, Chan has been rewarded. He just reported via his Twitter account, "Over 80k, crying 5-bet shoved AK vs an amateur. He had JJ and I won." --BW

5:26pm Team PokerStars Pro update
As we get ready to enter the sixth level of the day, here's a look at how the Team PokerStars Pros are faring at this hour. -BBW

5:11pm: That's not going to work
Emi Hibuse sat in the small blind looking at a flop of [4d][kc][kh]. She check-called a bet there, and then again on the [6s] turn. When the [7d] fell on the river, Hibuse seemed to wake up, and led at it for less than half the pot. Her opponent seemed flustered, but couldn't fold his [kd][qc]. Hibuse knew she wasn't good even before looking across the table. Her [ts][tc] went in the muck. Though it put a dent her stack, Hibuse is still alive with around 20,000. --BW

5:00pm: Action for Arce
Neil Arce has recovered from his earlier frustrations and now sits well placed after raking in a nice pot with a bit of a big blind special.

[kh][7c] is not normally a great hand, but when we arrived on the turn with the board reading [jh][kc][5d][7s], Arce was happy to put in the check-raise over two opponents holding two pair. Yvo Molin had bet 1,200 which Victorino Torres called before Arce made it 4,200 to play. Molin folded but Torres called to see the [kd] hit the river. Arce improved to a full house and bet out 8,000. Torres made the call but mucked when he saw the bad news. Arce is now up to 60,000 chips. --HC

4:50pm: Hot or not
Manami Hayamizu and Nick Wong are among the big stacks in the room at the moment, with both up around 95,000 in chips as we enter the fifth level of the day. Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang has also chipped up nicely to sit with around 60,000.
At the other end of the scale Julius Colman, Brendon Rubie and Joseph Cheong have all gone missing, presumed busto.

4:41pm: Macau champions
We've already mentioned Eddy Sabat and Victorino Torres in today's field. Both of them are looking to repeat as APPT Macau champions. Now seems as good a time as any to take a look back at how all the former APPT Macau champions fared over the years.

4:30pm: Back to work
With four levels left to play in Day 1b, everyone is headed back to their seats to work with 200-400-50 blinds. There will be one more break in a couple of hours, but after that, it will be time to grind until the bitter end.

While we're waiting, here's a picture of a villian from an 1980s action movie Team PokerStars Pro Max Lykov.

Live updates form APPT Macau brought to you by Heath "TassieDevil" Chick and Brad Willis (with occasional and very welcome updates from our Japanese blogger Jenn Barr).