It was an overly eventful day within the PokerStars LIVE room inside the City of Dreams here in Manila. The APPT Main Event saw a mass of players leave, a bubble occur, all PokerStars Team Pros bust before the cash and 39 happy souls make it through to the penultimate day tomorrow.

Lee came from nowhere to tie for the lead within the last level

Eight levels were played today with Alex Lee and (amazingly) Seongsu Kong both bagging up 673,000 to share the lead. The chip lead changed several times throughout the day. Jen-Yen Chien entered the day as clear chip leader with 100,000 greater than anyone else but Ang Li came storming past him and surged away from the sphere himself. He took a large pot off the busy Patty Pei Yu Lai before handing greater than half his stack to Kong over the process two very big hands. One a flip and one where we didn't get to look his hand. Gab Yong Kim took over and maintained it for many of the remainder of the day, before being pipped on the death by Lee and Kong. Other notables to make Day 3 were Sam Razavi, Alex Lau and Markus Garberg.

Kong tied for first

Kim fell back within the last level

The bubble was reached near the top of level 15 and burst just into level 16, and what a dramatic hand it was. It occurred at the sixth hand of hand for play and involved Thomas Larsen and Ying Lin Chua. The latter opened from the cutoff with A♠8♠ after which called after the previous three-bet all-in for just over 11 big blind with A♣A♦. The board was read out slowly by floor person Jane so the entire poker site could absorb the ambience of the bad beat that was about to occur. You see, it ran 8♦7♣5♣T♣8♥. That's right ladies and gentlemen, the great old river one-outer. At the bubble!

Larsen (right) bubbling

Kings gave to Huang, then took away

So, what happened to all those representing the red spade? We already told you that none of them made the money, but Bryan Huang got extremely close - just two off actually. He looked safe to cash after doubling with pocket kings, but then he bumped into kings himself (with queens) to search out a cruel way of leaving the sector. Kosei Ichinose came back short and was the primary to head. He was followed by Yaxi Zhu and Chen-An Lin who ran A-K into Kong's queens and couldn't hit.

Lin didn't last up to he would've liked

The plan for tomorrow is to minimize to a last table of nine players, however long that can take. We're expecting it to be quicker than today though, and identical to today, proceedings will kick off at 2pm local time. So make certain join Team PokerStars Blog back here then where an exhilarating day on poker is anticipated.

To atone for the entire day's action, click here, and to peer who finished where within the money, click here. Goodnight from Manila!

PokerStars Blog reporting team in Manila: Brad Kain and Marc Convey. Photos by Kenneth Lim Photography.

The APPT Manila festival at PokerStars LIVE on the City of Dreams runs until Monday, August 8. Full details can be found at the official APPT website or via the PokerStars Manila page.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Asia Pacific Poker Tour]