Day 1E is on it’s last 3 hands, as announced by the tournament director a few minutes ago. We witnessed a hand on table 24 that ran emotions through the roof for Shahar Ohaion and Zhiming Bao. Both players were all-in preflop with pocket pairs.

Shahar Ohaion:

Zhiming Bao:

The last player to fold said he’d just folded tens when the flop came out: .

As the players waited, the turn came and made Shahar Ohaion smile and he sat back down.

Lady luck proved once again that she’s the boss, when a came out on the river.

Heads were nodding and ironic smiles were seen all around the table with global understanding between the players; that’s poker.

Shahar Ohaion heads for the rail as the remaining 52 players out of 396 entries receive the welcome bags, to store their chips for Day 2.

Players in Day 1E of the Colossus have just returned from their final break of the day and play will now continue uninterrupted for two levels, and everyone left at the end will qualify for Day 2 and bag their chips to bring back into action on Day 2. There are still 68 players left and that should drop a little bit before the end of the flight, but there are a lot of healthy stacks and not too many really short stacks left in play, so that could put the brakes on a little bit.

The current chip leader is a newcomer to the leaderboard, Mark Allott, but he’s followed by guys like Matthew Wilkins (who has been installed among the leaders for most of the day), Eric Leblond, and Carl Martel – players with plenty of experience and patience.

Play in Day 1E continues in level 12. The final break of the day is coming in about 10 minutes, and we’ll get a good look at the chip leaders going into the final stint at that time. Currently, there are 78 players remaining but the pace of play has slowed substantially as players begin to look forward to perhaps reaching the end of things for the night.

Here are a few photos taken during level 12.