By Sean Callander

The last remaining Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson and last remaining PokerStars player Scotty Nguyen have been eliminated from the PokerStars.net APPT Grand Final.

We’d barely processed Guillaume Patry’s elimination in 21st place, and he was followed in quick succession by the two most accomplished players left in the field.

Nelson’s stack had been decimated earlier in the level when he called Mark Ericksen’s all-in bet (holding As 8h) with Ah Qh after a flop of Qc 7d 8c. Well ahead, Nelson’s body writhed in frustration when the Queenslander hit the 8d on the river for trips.

He bowed out soon after to Lei He when he pushed with pocket eights but the Ac on the flop gave Lei He top pair and stayed ahead in the race. Nelson finished 18th.

Scotty Nguyen has again been the consummate professional but the ever-present smile was nowhere to be seen when Larry Wright called his all-in bet of 300,000 on a flop of 9d 6d 5c.

Wright showed the nuts – 8h 7d – while Scotty flipped over As 6h. The 5s on the turn and 4h on the river confirmed Scotty’s exit from the tournament in 19th place.

Julius Colman’s amazingly consistent tournament record now includes 20th in the APPT Grand Final (to go with fourth in the 2007 Aussie Millions and 30th in the inaugural WSOP Europe main event) after he’d pushed in his last 300,000 in chips with As Qh against Sol Bergren’s pocket fours. The board reads 9d 7d 3h 7c Kd, Colman is out and Bergren assumes the chip lead with 1.9 million.

With Patrick Fletcher’s elimination in 17th, the final 16 players are being redrawn into two tables of eight. The average stack is 620,500 and when play resumes we’ll have 22 minutes of level 21 (10,000/20000 with a 3000 ante) to go.

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