UPDATED 3:25 a.m. LAS VEGAS - Four players remained at the final table of the World Series of Poker's main event after British player Jon Kalmar lost a head-to-head bet against South African Raymond Rahme on Tuesday.

Kalmar, 34, said he was thrilled to have made nearly $1.26 million with his fifth-place finish, and said he intended to use his winnings to pay bills and perhaps buy a car back home in Chorly, England.

His failed gambit to double his dwindling cache of chips boosted Rahme, a 62-year-old former bed and breakfast inn owner from Johannesburg, to a distant second behind Jerry Yang.

Yang used aggressive play to eliminate three other players in the first five hours of the no-limit Texas Hold 'em tournament.

Only minutes earlier, Hevad Khan, 22, from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., became the fourth player eliminated when his ace and queen of spades couldn't top a pair of jacks belonging to a surging Yang.

Khan didn't seem disappointed with sixth place and his $956,243 payday as he celebrated with friends in the audience.

When play resumed, Jack Effel, tournament director, offered congratulations to the remaining five players.

"You are all millionaires," he said before guards brought in metal cases and unloaded the winner's $8.25 million share on a table.

Kalmar bet all his chips on an ace of spades and king of hearts, but lost to Rahme's pocket jacks when the common cards provided neither player any help. The pot was 10.4 million chips.

Yang, a Hmong psychologist from Temecula, Calif., who says he uses his ability to read players as a weapon, piled up a 71.3 million in chips by Kalmar's ouster. He faced an eclectic group of poker unknowns including Rahme, a grandfather from South Africa who vowed not to be bullied, and Tuan Lam, a Vietnamese Canadian who once couldn't get hired as a dishwasher but read through a bluff by former champ Scotty Nguyen on his way to the final table.

Rahme had 30.1 million in chips, followed by Lam, a 40-year-old online player from Mississauga, Ontario, with 17.5 million. Alex Kravchenko, a 36-year-old businessman from Moscow, had 8.7 million.

The elimination of Kalmar and Khan followed exits by poker pro Lee Watkinson and computer engineer Lee Childs, who both lost head-to-head, all-in bets against Yang. Yang, 39, started the day eighth in chips before quickly building his pile.

"I was playing for the bracelet," Watkinson, a 40-year-old animal rights activist from Cheney, Wash., who finished eighth and took home $585,699. "I wasn't going for third, fourth or even second. I wanted to make a play and be a contender."

Childs a 35-year-old from Reston, Va., who quit his job a month ago to play poker for a living won $705,229 for his seventh-place finish.

"My goal when I came in to the tournament was to trust my instincts, make the right decision and hopefully not get unlucky," Childs said. "I was that close to doubling up."

First to fall was Philip Hilm, a 31-year-old Dane who lives in England. He won $525,934 for his ninth-place finish after busting out on the day's 15th hand.

Watkinson's exit left Kravchenko as the only one at the table with a World Series bracelet. Watkinson won a pot-limit Omaha event last year, while Kravchenko, a 36-year-old businessman from Moscow, became the first Russian to win a bracelet with the $1,500 buy-in Omaha High-Low event this year.

Play began shortly after noon and was expected to continue into the night. The finalists ranged in age from 22 to 62, and hailed from five nations: the U.S., Canada, Russia, England and South Africa. By birthplace, players also were from Laos, Vietnam and Denmark.

"The final table says a lot about the globality of poker and the globality of our fans," said Jeffrey Pollack, World Series of Poker commissioner for event owner Harrah's Entertainment Inc.

The nine players who began the day were all that remained from a field of 6,358 players that began to play down in stages July 6. Everyone paid or won $10,000 to enter the main event, the biggest poker tournament of the year.

Notes: Alexander Kravchenko was eliminated by Jerry Yang early Wednesday morning.

Associated Press Writer Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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Chip count

Jerry Yang 67,300,000

Raymond Rahme 36,100,000

Tuan Lam 24,075,000