It took 14 hours of play to get there but Duhamel used those last couple of hours well to boost his chip stack up from around 100k to a second-place stack of 537,000.
He trails only chip leader Bryan Piccioli, a New York-state pro with plenty of WSOP Vegas cashes to his credit, who bagged up 790,000 to end the night.
Piccioli, who tweets under the handle theczar19, has just under $400k in career live cashes and plenty of experience deep in tournaments himself, setting up an intriguing duel at the top tomorrow.
Ausmus, Karamalikis Co-Headline Final Table
While Duhamel is the headliner for tomorrow's live stream another former November Niner - Jeremy Ausmus - is also still in the hunt for his first WSOP gold.
Ausmus, who finished fifth in last year's Main Event for $2.1 million, held the chip lead for a while on Day 2 today before settling back to 447,000 and a fourth-place spot.
He's not the only major obstacle for Duhamel though as Adelaide's Jonathan "xMONSTERxDONGx" Karamalikis - one of Australia's all-time leading money winners - survived with 296,000.
He'll start the day tomorrow in fifth position and with plenty of room to make his own big move up the pay scale.
An interesting mix of local and international players round out the final nine with Kiwi poker legend Graeme Putt, Malaysian Junzhong Loo, Japan's Iori Yogo, German Peter Kleudgen and Kiwi Ryan Otto also booking seats.
The official final nine and chip counts:
1. Bryan Piccioli – 790,000 2. Jonathan Duhamel - 537,000 3. Junzhong Loo – 525,000 4. Jeremy Ausmus – 447,000 5. Jonathan Karamalikis – 296,000 6. Graeme Putt – 216,000 7. Ryan Otto – 181,000 8. Iori Yogo – 138,000 9. Peter Kleudgen – 137,000 Check our WSOP APAC Event 1 live updates for a full rundown of the day's action plus the seat draw for tomorrow's final table.Action starts up again at 2pm Australian Time (11 pm ET) with a live video webcast available right here on PokerListings.com!
Ivey Debuts, Gaw Leads Event 2, $1,650 PLO
While Event 1 was winding to a final table the second gold bracelet event at WSOP APAC, the $1,650 PLO got underway with a marquee list of names in the running.
Of the 172 players in the starting field, none were bigger than Phil Ivey who made his WSOP APAC debut.
It was a short one, however, as he late registered and busted quickly.
Andrew Gaw from the Phillipines had much better luck than Ivey, bagging up 69,300 for the chip lead at day's end.
Notables making the cut of 29 players returning tomorrow include Australia's "Toothpick Tony" Kambouroglou (67,300), Dan Shak (43,100), Marvin Rettenmaier (42,900), Joe Hachem (24,400), Sam Trickett (24,100), Mike Leah (24,100), Jim Collopy (21,600) and multiple WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro (12,200).
The top in chips heading into Day 2:
1. Andrew Gaw 69,800 2. Tony Kambouroglou 67,300 3. Phillip Willcocks 59,600 4. Paul Sharbanee 48,600 5. Daniel Shak 43,100 6. Marvin Rettenmaier 42,900 7. Martin Kozlov 35,200 8. Bruno Portaro 34,400 9. Ivan Zalac 30,600 10. Minh Phuc Nguyen 27,600Play picks up again at 9pm ET with up-to-the-minute live updates right here on PokerListings. Check the full chip counts here and catch up with the action from Melbourne with our daily video below:
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