Action is under way here on Day 3 of the APPT Seoul Main Event and already we've seen plenty of carnage as the players seem prepared to move chips around.

Of course, by this stage of the tournament a lot of that action is preflop. The blinds are big so a standard open-raise suddenly becomes a target for a short stack to attack by moving all in over the top to grab those valuable chips.

If there's a call, it's often a 50-50 race, but quite regularly you'll get the situation of the "dominated ace" - that is, where both players have an ace, but one player's kicker is higher. This is quite advantageous for the guy with the "good ace", but that doesn't mean that luck will always go his way as we've seen on multiple occasions already today.

Chris Lee was first to head to the cashier on Day 3 holding a dominating ace when his [ah][5s] couldn't hang on for even a split pot aganist Jose Severino's [ad][2d]. The board ran out [jd][ts][qs][qd][6d] to give Severino a backdoor flush and the first scalp of the day.

Michael Guzzardi's ace-king managed to survive Jhana Hale's ace-queen, but not before a little heart flutter with a queen on the flop, followed by a king on the turn. Next hand it was, Tom Alner's turn to double up, but he did it the hard way when his ace-queen caught a miracle straight to better Takuya Kikuchi's ace-king on a [jc][js][7h][kd][ts] board.

Kikuchi was crippled and eliminated moments later, before Elton Tsang became our third victim of the dominated ace today. Following a raise and call, Tsang moved all in with his [ah][2d] but overnight chip leader Daisuke Endo made the call with [as][ts]. Tsang couldn't pull anything out of the bag as he was to the rail in 14th place.

Will the domination continue? Endo has extended his chip lead to over 900,000 as 13 player remain in contention for the APPT Seoul Main Event title.

The sun is shining in Seoul this morning as we prepare for Day 3 - the final day - of the 2012 PokerStars.net APPT Seoul Main Event. It's winter so the temperatures are a little brisk, but all things considered it's a fine day to mint a hundred millionaire.

That's what we're aiming to do. By the end of the night, one of the 16 players still standing in this Main Event is going to win KRW 194,000,000. The man in the pole position is Japanese national Daisuke Endo, whose pocket aces held up in a three-way all-in late in the day yesterday against ace-jack and pocket tens to bag the overnight chip lead with 650,000.

Fifteen other players are chasing Endo, including 2012 Aussie Million Main Event runner-up Kenneth Wong (527,000), American Vincent Rubianes (505,000), and Day 1 chip leader Jhana Hale (487,000). Lurking at the back of the pack are, among others, Michael Guzzardi (203,000) and Elton Tsang (192,000).

As we did the last time we were in Seoul four years ago, we'll be playing from our final two tables all the way to the winner tonight. It has the makings of a long day - three to four hours just to get to a final table and then however long it takes from there for one player to accumulate all the chips.

The last couple of days have been a pleasant mix of poker and fun. We've had a few nights to get out on the town, a few nights to search for (and fail to find) Korean BBQ, and a few nights to re-connect with old friends made from years of traveling the circuit.

Today, however, it's all business. We're spending the long haul in the Paradise Walkerhill Casino until someone raises the winner's trophy over his head. By that point, the sun is likely to long have set. But someone will be beaming on the tournament floor.

We returned to the Paradise Walkerhill Casino in Seoul, South Korea, this morning along with 109 of Asia's finest poker players as Day 2 of the APPT Seoul Main Event took centre stage. We knew we were in for a long day - and we don't really like those.

Seoul is a such a vibrant city, and fascinating to explore by day or by night. So while the players were (hopefully) tucked up quietly in bed to recharge their batteries last night, we took advantage of a few spare hours to check out the town. We were hoping to find Korean BBQ on the menu, but instead we found an interesting dish called Gamjatang which was spoon-fed to us by drunk Korean businessmen. It's not as sinister as it sounds as Dave Behr explained.

Our quest for cheap electronics also missed the mark but the chance to see one of Seoul's most impressive market places at Dongdaemun was worth the expensive cab fare home.

With us back behind the blogging desk today, we learned that poker is a universal language. It doesn't matter what nationality, a bad beat story in the language of poker can be easily translated. Japanese cult hero Hirotoshi Nakabo was the man we caught suffering when his pocket aces were cracked by a humble gutshot straight draw, but he was just one of many eliminations throughout the day.

The eliminations and bad beats continued as the likes of Ben McLean, Jacky Wang, Julian Hasse, Andrew Scott, Casey Kastle, Sparrow Cheung and our last remaining Team PokerStars Pro in Celina Lin were all sent packing. Lin's final stand saw her commit with ace-king but her opponent's pocket kings held true.

The players were thankful for the opportunity to get plenty of game time as APPT President Danny McDonagh explained to us the improved structure for players on day two. A little more play is always going to mean a long day, which took its toll on the number of people on the rail. With the local Koreans unable to come into the casino to watch, and most of the visiting players enjoying the cash game and side event action, the rail was a little thinner than usual, but that just meant McDonagh and his team were kept on their toes. Cash games absorbed tournament tables before the Pot Limit Omaha side event saw the casino floor operating to its capacity with every table popping on a busy Saturday night at the Paradise Walkerhill Casino.

As the players approached the money, we kept an eye on the tankers and stallers while also recalling some of the more memorable bubble hands that we've seen. Perhaps an article that Team PokerStars Pro Angel Guillen would rather not revisit.

We were keeping a close eye on Daren Yoon to ensure that he didn't land a bubble three-peat, and an unwanted new nickname, but he survived, as the luck of the Irish went against Barry O'Callaghan to see him become the unfortunate bubble boy.

The final 24 players took a dinner break before returning for another three hours to get us down to our final 16. Aussie Millions runner up Kenneth Wong was among them, as his remarkable "run good" continued. Wong spiked a two-outer river set to stay alive, and then late in the day won a huge coin flip with [ac][kh] collecting a river king to better the pocket tens of Fakher Alizai. Unfortunately Aussie Millions champ Oliver Speidel had busted earlier in the day to deny us a rare double.

When Fakher Alizai's ace-king failed to improve against Jhana Hale's pocket jacks, he headed to the cashier in 17th place as our final sixteen were set in stone. The end of day counts and redraw for Day 3 will be posted in the live updates section shortly.

Daisuke Endo will be the end-of-day chip leader with 650,000, thanks largely to a three-way all in where his pocket aces held for a virtual triple up. Ken Wong (527,000) and Vincent Rubianes (505,000) round out the top three stacks, while day one chip leader Jhana Hale, Elton Tsang and Michael Guzzardi are also still in contention.

Play recommences at 12:15pm tomorrow so it's time for some shut eye. Good night from Seoul!

The APPT has been a bit of a victim of its own success here on Day 2 in Seoul. The record turnout for Korea - 268 players paying KRW 3,000,000 each makes this tournament the richest ever in Korea - has created some logistical problems for APPT President Danny McDonagh to work around.

Problem the first: with 109 players returning to start the day, there was no space for cash games. And there has certainly been demand. Several players are walking zombies after not being able to leave good games the last few nights. So as Main Event tables broke throughout the day, cash game tables were added, one at a time.

That Main Event - cash game table balance meant that tonight's side event, the KRW 1,100,000 PLO tournament, had to be pushed back from 6pm to 9pm. And given the utter zaniness that has characterized the PLO cash games, it was no surprise that the PLO side event was heavily attended.

As the PLO event was starting, the Main Event had been playing for eight levels without a dinner break. The APPT is unusual among the PokerStars.net-sponsored land-based poker tours in that the days typically are eight levels long. Here in Seoul, the standard eight levels did not produce a remaining field of 16 players, the number targeted by McDonagh to close up shop for the night and head on to Day 3.

He therefore took the unusual step of having the 24 players still in the tournament bag up their chips before sending them on a 90-minute dinner break. This allowed McDonagh maximum table mobility for the PLO side event while ensuring the integrity of the stacks in the Main Event.

Those Main Event players are back from dinner now, with the plan to play two more levels. That will hopefully take us to the Sweet 16 and the end of Day 2. As we crest the 11 o'clock hour, the tournament floor is hopping with cash games, side events, and three remaining Main Event tables.

Bear in mind, while the Paradise Casino is happy to have the APPT, it would also be happy to have some space back to get more baccarat games going. It's Saturday night. The casino is as full as we've seen it since we arrived Wednesday evening and most of those patrons want to shout and pound tables as they squeeze the baccarat cards. McDonagh needs to be sensitive to the priorities of his casino partner while also making sure that the poker players receive a first-rate experience.

The good news for McDonagh is that the Main Event part of his "problem" grows smaller and smaller with each passing level. But if the APPT wants to continue to grow this event in Seasons 6 and 7 - and the pent-up demand certainly seems to be there - he's going to need more floor space. Hopefully the success of this event will make Paradise eager to give him that space next season.

The bubble is always a fun time to be part of a poker tournament. It doesn't matter if you're a player, an observer or a reporter, we all enjoy the drama associated with the fine line between success and disaster. There's a small, twisted part inside all of us that derives a little bit of pleasure from pain.

In fact, if you got all of the most painful bubbles in poker history and put them together into a compilation, it would probably make pretty entertaining viewing. Or perhaps it would be more like a bad horror movie. Anyway, it got us thinking about some of the craziest bubbles we can remember.

We recalled Kia Hamadani blinding down to a single ante before bubbling the 2009 WSOP Main Event, before nervously reminding Lynn Gilmartin of the 2010 WSOP Main Event exit of Team PokerStars Pro Angel Guillen. Hamadani received entry into the Main Event the following year (which he turned into a nice score!), but when Guillen's pocket aces were cracked by pocket jacks two places from the money, he'd bubbled the bubble to become the last player to go home empty-handed in the biggest event in the world. Ouch!

Of course we only have to look back at the APPT Seoul event in 2008 to provide one of the most exciting bubble periods that we've seen when David Saab went from hero to zero in minutes to bubble in devastating fashion.

One man among our final 29 players who is especially keen to avoid the money bubble is Malaysian Daren Yoon. At the recent Macau Poker Cup series, Yoon pure bubbled two of the side events and now lurks dangerously close to making it number three.

He was recently all in with [6d][6h] against a short stack's [jd][js] but somehow managed to chop when the board ran out [2s][qd][2c][2d][qc].

"I really don't mind," quipped Yoon as we asked him if the bubble now held any fears.

When we suggested the potential for a new nickname should he fall short again today, Yoon was a little more defensive.

"Bubble King? Well they are calling me Burger King at the moment," he chirped, in reference to a recent interview with Lynn Gilmartin discussing the food options here at the casino. "So perhaps Bubble King would be an improvement," he added.

With the bubble about to "pop" we look forward to grabbing front row tickets to watch. One more elimination. It will be pleasure for 28, and pain for one. Popcorn please!

A funny thing may be underway here in Seoul. Not funny ha-ha, but funny curious. Curious like the curiosity of the NAPT Mohegan Sun events in 2010 and 2011, when Vanessa Selbst and Jason Mercier went back-to-back in their respective events (the Main Event for Selbst; the Bounty Shootout for Mercier).

We're now less than one table from the bursting of the money bubble. Of the 35 players remaining in our field, two of them have been in this position as recently as two months ago. Oliver Speidel (145,000) and Ken Wong (135,000) both have seven-figure scores under their belts this year. They finished 1-2 in this year's Aussie Millions Main Event. Wong earned AUD 1,000,000 for his runner-up performance; Speidel's cut for winning was AUD 1,600,000.

Now I'll be the first to admit that we're a long, long, long way away from the final table of this tournament. I'd be the first to admonish against looking too far into the future. But wouldn't it be great to see the two battle it out heads-up again, just two months later?

Speidel, an Australian, by all accounts is the definition of an "enthusiast" or "dabbler" when it comes to poker. A banker by trade, he's the kind of guy who would still play drunken $1-$2 NLHE with his friends the night after winning seven figures. He's seated at one of the far tables in what APPT President Danny McDonagh calls "the alcove" but what I call "the icebox". The area is located directly beneath two lines of air vents that have been blasting cold air all day.

APPT President Danny McDonagh's work table in the Icebox yesterday made way for tournament tables today.

We don't know as much about Wong. He's wearing a Titleist cap today, leading me to surmise he may be a golfer. He's also shown that he's not afraid to play back at table-mate Michael Guzzardi. Both of them are probably getting sick of each other after spending the last several nights foregoing sleep in the juicy cash game side action that's been taking place.

With the average stack currently at 153,000, Wong and Speidel both have a lot of work to do if they want to get back to heads-up play. But in a tournament that so far is progressing without many of the usual bells and whistles (no massage therapists, no rail and no Team Pros left in the field), it'd be great for a little of the NAPT Mohegan Sun magic to make its way out east to Korea.

You've probably heard us use phrases such as "in the tank" and "stalling" when we write up various hand histories at the tournaments we visit. Usually we try to provide some sort of adjective to help describe the situation to the readers at home when a player is taking a long time over his or her decision. While both terms describe the same action, they have very different meanings.

Players "in the tank" or the "think tank" probably have a tournament-changing decision that's causing them some headaches. We have no problem with players taking their time over the big decisions. The decisions that matter. We're playing for big money here, and you have every right to take your time when there's a big pot in the middle.

But when there's not a big pot, we highly recommend that you stay away from the tank. Otherwise you may experience the fury of your table mates, the tournament staff, or Lord help us, the poker media!

It seems to be a growing trend, especially in Macau, for players to act slooooooowly in general. Sure, you can wait for your turn to act before you look at your cards that's fine, but for the love of God, be ready when it is your turn. How often do we see this scenario...

Preflop action folds to Mr.Time Waster. He's not paying attention so he needs to give the dealer the "Oh, is it on me?" look of approval before sitting up in his chair. He stops riffling chips and adds them neatly to his stack before bringing his two cards near each other. He'll shuffle one under the other for a moment or two as he looks around the table to get up to speed on what's happened in the hand so far. The action has folded to you sir! He forms a "V" with his hands to protect his holding and peels back the cards slowly one by one. Squeezing the life out of them in the hope for an ace, or at worst, a picture. The seconds tick by....ohhhh, shoot me now!

One table here at the APPT Seoul Main Event has just been given a firm warning by Danny McDonagh.

"The action has been very slow all day on this table," declared McDonagh. "Let's speed it up please!"

We watched on and observed a TD keeping an eagle eye on Masanori Ishihana in the four seat as time was called on Ishihana after a standard preflop raise and three-bet.

The act of "stalling" is something that we've seen time and time again in poker tournaments all around the world, but noticeably throughout Asia. It's the act of deliberately wasting time when you don't really have a decision to make. Usually it's more prevalent around the money bubble, but it can happen throughout a tournament for various reasons such as avoiding paying the blinds or maintaining a table image.

Ishihana is clearly not deliberately wasting time in order to reach the money. He's one of the big stacks in the room with a stack of over 230,000 and should cruise into the money with 37 players left and the top 28 being paid. But that KRW5,000,000 money bubble is certainly worth fighting for, so we expect to see more people stalling in the coming levels.

It may not be breaking the rules, but it's certainly bad etiquette, so let's try to speed it up!

A few hours ago I mused that, although the players in the 2012 APPT Seoul Main Event may reside in 37 different countries, they're all really citizens of the same country - the country of poker. Yet as I wandered the floor during the last hour, I was struck by a very notable regional difference here in Korea.

In mid-February I traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil for the LAPT Seaon 4 Grand Final. A few months before that saw me in Medellin, Colombia for the LAPT's first foray into that country. At both events, the rail of spectators swelled as we moved deeper and deeper into the tournament. In Medellin in particular, the rail at the money bubble was sizable.

Here in Seoul, on the other hand, there is no rail to speak of. Granted we're still 22 players (almost three full tables) away from the money. But there's no palpable spectator excitement about the tournament. The baccarat tables and the poker cash games are hopping. Some players have the glazed look of people who have been sitting at poker tables for days (and in a few cases that's probably not far from the truth).

But the rail so far today has consisted of basically a few people wandering by and casting a semi-curious look at the remaining players. I asked my blogging partner, Heath Chick, what the rail is like in Macau these days as Heath is often found in Macau blogging for PokerStars. He said that, come bubble time, spectators are two and three deep.

We pondered what the difference could be here in Seoul. The best deduction we could make is that there are no locals in the casino whose curiosity can be piqued by the unusual spectacle of a big buy-in poker tournament playing out in front of them. By law, the only guests allowed inside the Paradise Casino are foreigners. Sure, there are expat locals who are here - American Ron Kluber is a long-time resident of Seoul. But they're the exception to the rule.

The baccarat tables here seem to have attracted more attention than the poker tables, due to the antics of the baccarat players (lots of shouting and pounding). I'm not advocating for a return to that style of poker play; that's better left in the dustbin of 2006. Rather I'm just noting another unfortunate side effect of the peculiarities of Korean gaming law.

If competitive StarCraft can spawn a whole cottage industry of television shows, media coverage and excitement here in Seoul, then surely poker can do the same. But that will only happen if and when locals can get in on the action themselves.

Until then, Koreans inside the borders of Korea will be second-class citizens of the "country of poker". And that's a damn shame.

Unfortunately Team PokerStars have lost their last member in the APPT Seoul Main Event with Celina Lin dropping by our desk to let us know the sad news. Lin recalled to us that she raised ace-king from the cutoff before her opponent three-bet on the button. Lin moved all in but her opponent made the call with pocket kings. There was no ace from space for Lin as she was left to spend her last days in Seoul sightseeing and shopping.

Lin's elimination has thinned the number of females still alive in this event. On Day 1a we mentioned that there were a significant number of women doing well but unfortunately the girls haven't been able to maintain that form into Day 2. With nine tables and 72 players still remaining, our head count sees seven ladies still flying the flag. That represents a little under 10% of the field, which is down on yesterday's numbers, but hopefully it means we should see at least one female reach the final table.

We just entered the 1,000/2,000/300 level after just navigating our way through a couple of unique levels - 700/1,400/200 and 900/1,800/200.

"We made the decision to remove the 250/500/50 from day one as I was worried about having enough tables to fit everyone in for day two," explained APPT chief Danny McDonagh. "We then added in these two new levels to replace the 800/1,600/200 level."

Players have often commented on the big increase in the "cost per round" at this stage of a tournament. The 600/1,200/100 level costs a player 2,700 chips each orbit on a nine-handed table. Move to the 800/1,600/200 level and it will cost 4,200 chips, which represents an alarming 55% increase. McDonagh has helped to alleviate that problem.

"So we've removed a non-crucial level on day one, but given more play during a more crucial period on day two. It was specifically for this event and I think the players will like it," added McDonagh.

McDonagh went on to explain that PokerStars are looking to standardize their structures with the APPT moving more towards an ante structure that is more in line with international tournaments.

Many of the APPT events also employ a rule that ensures that the final table has an average stack of at least 40 big blinds. If the tournament has moved too fast, the clock will be wound back to ensure the big bucks are played for on an even playing field.

There's more to poker tournaments that putting some tables down in a room and letting the players loose, and McDonagh and his APPT team continue to lead the way with the most professionally-run tournaments in this region.

A few minutes before the end of Level 9, I caught an all in on Table 6. On a K-9-3 flop, a big stack tried bullying the short-stacked Hirotoshi Nakabo by making a bet big enough to put Nakabo all in. Nakabo snap-called with [As][Ac]. His opponent was drawing thin with jack-ten. Poker being what it is, the turn blanked but the river fell a queen to complete the big stack's inside straight draw and knock Nakabo out.

When that queen hit the river, Nakabo wailed a stream of Japanese. I had no idea what the words were, but I knew exactly what he was saying. He couldn't believe that his tournament had come to an end after getting it all in on the flop against a four-outer.

"Can you believe it? I had aces and all he had was a gutshot!"

Nakabo slumped in his seat as the pot was pushed to his opponent. He then very reluctantly stood up and retired to the rail, where he wistfully stared at his former table for a solid five minutes. A friend came by to check on him, prompting another stream of Japanese and some pointing. Again, the words were unintelligible to me but again I knew that the sights, sounds and body language of a bad beat story in progress.

There are 37 different countries represented in this tournament. Listen closely at the tables, on the rail, and elsewhere on the gaming floor and you'll hear Korean, Japanese, Chinese, English, Russian, German and a host of other languages being spoken. Each of those speakers brings with him or her unique cultural identities developed from a lifetime spent in his or her home country.

The language and culture of poker bridges all of that. It's a shared culture where the actual language being spoken is largely irrelevant. A bad beat in Japanese is still a bad beat in English. The frustration that comes from dealing with a big stack on your left is the same whether you grew up in Monaco or Mongolia. In Brazil they say "Vamo!" when something good happens; in Macau it's "Aiyah!" when something bad happens. Nobody needs to speak Portuguese or Mandarin to understand those sentiments.

I've traveled to five continents and fifteen countries on the international poker circuit. Poker may be an American game but whether I'm in a poker room in Sydney or Sao Paulo or Monte Carlo or Seoul, I'm always at home. The game of poker itself has no country. Or maybe the game is its own country, and we're all citizens sharing the same culture and speaking the same language in different dialects.

Despite that shared citizenship, if you try to tell me a bad beat story at the media desk in any language, I'll pretend not to speak that language.