Iona Finkenrath opened the action with a raise and received a three-bet by short stack Jiaxiu Wang from one seat over. The German opted to shove with the and got called by the Chinese with pocket tens. A comeback story was stopped by an ace on the flop right away and the two-outer for Wang didn't come anymore.
Fubo Fu Bang Huang made it 35,000 and both Ashley Tay and Jessie Leonarez called in the blinds.
The flop fell and Tay led for 100,000. Leonarez folded, but Huang pushed all in. Tay snap called with and was ahead with top pair versus Huang's open ended . The turn also gave Huang a flush draw and while the river made Tay two pair, it completed Huang's straight to double him up.
A hand later, Tay got his short stack in with versus Terry Gonzaga's and doubled through on a run out leaving both of them relatively short.
Terry Fan opened the action with a raise to 35,000 and Nicandro Filart moved forward his stack worth 187,000. Romit Advani in the cutoff asked for a count and gave it some thought before electing to fold. The action folded around to Fan and he snap-called, following by a sigh when he spotted the cards of his opponent:
Filart:
Fan:
The flop immediately provided help for the big stack and Filart had six outs after the turn in order to stay in the tournament. However, the river was a brick and Fan apologized before Filart headed to the payout desk.
Aaron Lim opened to 35,000 and called the shove of Ying Chua in the small blind for 255,000 with ace-king. Chua was behind with the but managed to double through thanks to a board of .
At the very same time, Frederick Hernandez finally arrived as well and took his seat.
Frederick Hernandez is one of four remaining local heroes that made it through to the final day, however he is the only contender for the title not showing up in time. Xiao Tian Yang took advantage of that and just four-bet shoved from the button while Hernandez' small blind was free money.
?Seung Soo Jeon had made a three-bet out of the small blind but ended up flashing the and mucking.
The final day of the 2015 PokerStars.net APPT Season 9 Manila Main Event will kick off inside the City of Dreams Grand Ballroom at 14:00 local time today with just 23 players still in the hunt for the title and ?6,016,250 first-place prize.
The tournament drew 585 entries this year, smashing the record for a major tournament in the Philippines with a ?25,535,250 prizepool and a champion will be crowned later today.
Leading the field is German Iona Finkenrath who grabbed the overnight lead Saturday in Manila, bagging 1,084,000 chips.
Poker King Club President and Asian high-stakes legend Winfred Yu, Korean Seung Soo Jeon, who finished 44th in this event last year, 2013 World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific bracelet winner Aaron Lim and 2015 WSOP $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em fifth-place finisher Terry Fan are also among those still in with a shot.
Play will resume with the start of Level 21 and blinds at 8,000/16,000 with a 2,000 ante.
All eyes are on Manila today and some exciting poker action is expected as the 2015 PokerStars.net APPT Season 9 Manila Main Event title will be decided and the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand for it all from beginning to end.