We've found our first elimination of the final table. Short-stacked Alexandr Tikholiz open-shoved from the button. After Phillip Willcocks passed in the small blind, Dong-bin Han called from the big blind.
Tikholiz:
Han:
Han was pumped to see that he was in the lead. A flop of gave a minor sweat, however, as it raised the specter of a chopped pot with a board pair. The gave Tikholiz a few more chop outs. The board did pair on the river, but it was the . Each player made trip aces, but Han's kicker played.
David Hilton limped up from the small blind and Terry Fan checked his option in the big blind. The flop came . Hilton checked, and Fan bet the minimum - 16,000. Hitlon called.
The hit the turn and both players checked. The river was the . Hilton led out 50,000 and Fan folded.
This final table is starting to shape up like the Pacquiao-Cotto fight: heavy action in the early-going, and then a more measured pace after that. We had some fireworks on the first few hands but since then it's been largely a raise-it-and-take-it affair.
Nick Pronk made a preflop raise from under the gun to 50,000. Terry Fan three-bet to 110,000 from the cutoff. Action folded to Pronk, who responded by four-betting all in.
The dealer counted off his stack and told Fan that he would need to call an additional 443,000. Fan squeezed his cards once again, before going back into the tank. Eventually he flicked them into the muck.
Sim Somyung continues to fire shells with the chip lead in the early-going at this final table. He opened a pot to 40,000 and was called by the player on the button, Terry Fan. Somyung checked the over to Fan and folded to a single bet of 72,000.
David Hilton was in the small blind and called a preflop raise to 50,000 from chip leader Sim Somyung. Hilton check-called 70,000 on a flop of , then another 185,000 on the turn. Somyung finally shut down on the river, with both players checking th action. Hilton showed for a pair of aces and took down the pot.