NAGAWORLD Kickoff ($500)

After suffering two bad runouts, Christian Cloutier takes a stand with A♥ J♣ only to run inot Anh Tuan Ho's A♠ Q♦ . The board ends his title bid after it completed 8♠ 8♥ 6♣ Q♥ 3♣ .

Christian Cloutier has T♥ T♠ and raises to 32,000. Big blind Van Xuan Nguyen calls with J♥ 7♠ and both see a flop 5♠ 6♥ 7♦ . Nguyen checks, Cloutier shoves, Nguyen tank-calls.

Looking bleak for Nguyen with the turn 4♣ but luck finds the river with J♦ showing up and Nguyen celebrates his nth double up as Cloutier gets rivered again.

Anh Tuan Ho opened from utg with A♥ J♦ and big blind Christian Cloutier defended his chips with J♥ 7♠ . When the flop fanned out 6♦ 7♦ J♠ , Cloutier trapped with two pair, Anh c-bet his top pair for 27,000, then Cloutier sprung into a shove. Despite being well covered, Anh called his 322,000 stack and saw the bad news.

No change came on the turn 8♣ but when the river landed A♦ , Anh celebrated his luck as Cloutier paid up.

Gavin Flynn was passing by the media table and we got a short story on how he plunged into 19th place. He lost a chunk of chips in a missed flush draw then jammed with Jack-Four with 20 bigs and was surprised to be called by Cloutier with Ace-Seven. The ace held to bring the field down to 18 players.

Jinlin Shi added several big blinds to his ammunition by starting off the hand with a 12,000 raise that's called by Christian Cloutier and Cheuk Wai Wong. The three-way quickly ended on the flop A♣ 4♦ 7♠ with Shin's 28,000 bet uncalled.

Chen is ahead and only needs to dodge one overcard. With the board running 7♠ T♣ 2♥ A♠ 6♥ , he does just that for a double up.

Table 7 was expected to be an action-heavy felt and sure enough, the starting hand already saw a big pot that opened with a 12,000 raise from David Koy. Several spots down at cutoff, Dinh Van Tien (DVT) and small blind Christian Cloutier called.

Three-way to the flop 2♠ K♣ 4♣ , brought another 14,000 from Koy, DVT raised is up to 36,000, Cloutier got out of the hand while Koy paid to see the turn T♣ . Checked to DVT, he fired 41,000 and it was enough to claim the pot.