Hand 11: Sangkyoun Kim; hand 12: ElkY; hand 13: Ivan Tan

Just caught a very quick word from Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein, who’s just flown in from the US after spending Thanksgiving with his family. Barry will join the world-class field for the $15,000 buy-in event, which starts tomorrow. We’ll also be covering that event on the PokerStars Blog.

Hand 14: Dinh Le

Button: Patry (seat 7) – Hachem raises to 32,000, Dinh Le requests a count before adding a further 90,000. Play is folded back to Joe, who shows an ace and folds.

Hand 15: Dinh Le

Button: Kim (seat 8) – Tam raises 35,000 from early position and gets a call from Dinh Le. It’s folded to Randall in the big blind, who calls. Tam checks in the dark, Dinh Le pushes all-in for his huge stack of 700,000-plus. Both players fold and Dinh Le increases his lead.

Hand 16: Bertrand Grospellier

Button: Tan (seat 9) – ElkY raises to 40,000 and gets no interest.

Hand 17: William Tam

Button: Randall (seat 1) – Joe Hachem limps from early position, Lieu completes the small blind but Tam raises an extra 58,000 from the big blind to scoop the chips.

Hand 18: Sangkyoun Kim

Button: Lieu (seat 2) – Dinh Le makes it 47,000 total, Sangkyoun Kim pushes all-in and Dinh Le calls. It’s pocket fives for the Korean against Dinh Le’s Ah Jc. The flop comes Qs 9d 5d, the turn is Kc, and the river an agonising 9c. Sangkyoun Kim couldn’t watch the river land, and was clearly relieved Dinh Le didn’t make his straight – he doubles through to about 500,000.

Players are taking a short five-minute break and when we return, blinds will be up to 8000/16,000 with a 2000 ante.