It was a gorgeous sunny Saturday afternoon in Melbourne. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the records were tumbling.
Day 1b of the ANZPT Melbourne Main Event saw a field of 274 come together to swell the prize pool to record-setting proportions for the ANZPT. The full field of 516 is a record for a $2,200 ANZPT Main Event and it is the first time that we have seen a $1,000,000+ prize pool in ANZPT history. It's a superb result for everybody considering the event.
It was a who's who of the Australian poker world in action today with the likes of former ANZPT champions Michael Kanaan, Martin Kozlov, Pete Matusik, Dave Allan and Jono Bredin, APPT Sydney champ Aaron Benton, previous ANZ Player of the Year winners Danny Chevalier and Mishel Anunu, WSOPE bracelet winner Jackie Glazier, the "Poker Star" Amanda De Cesare and of course, 2005 World Champion Joe Hachem.
That's a powerful list of champions, but that only scratched the skin with quality players corresponding to Jesse McKenzie, Liam O'Rourke, Ricky Kroesen, David Yan, David Steicke, Anthony Aston, Tony Kondevski, Matt Wakeman, Luke Edwards, Patrick Crivell, Ash Warner, Tam Truong, Jazz Mathers, Dean Blatt and Tony Targalia also a number of the field today.
There was also somewhat international flavour, headlined by the lone Team PokerStars Pro within the field in Singapore's Bryan Huang.
After winning an aspect event through the week, Huang was filled with confidence heading into the primary Event. That confidence, in addition to a flopped set against pocket aces, enabled Huang to rake in quite a lot of pots on his strategy to a commanding stack of 123,800 after eight levels of play.
That was an outstanding number, but not as impressive as that of Shy Jachimowicz. He could have been shy by name, but there has been nothing shy in regards to the size of his chip stack. Jachimowicz shot out to a monstrous chip lead with a rivered full house against two opponents and didn't look back.
Jachimowicz shot as much as well into triple digits half way during the day and just about maintained that position for all the day. It was enough for Jachimowicz to bag up 170,000 which looked good for the end-of-day chip lead when a few of the tables had bagged, tagged and headed off for dinner.
However Table 10 had other ideas.
In a hand that went for a fair ten minutes beyond the scheduled close of play, it was Vincent Chua who managed to urge a tremendous call from Ben Pockett on a board of J-7-5-8-T. Chua had moved all in and Pockett agonized before committing himself with jack-ten for 2 pair, but Chua's nine-eight was good for a straight to tug within the massive pot and bag up a tournament leading 210,100 chips.
A total of 94 players would survive Day 1b with Fabian Craib (129,500), Luke Edwards (115,300), Joe Hachem (93,800), Anthony Aston (76,900), Jazz Mathers (67,500), Martin Kozlov (50,900), Matt Wakeman (50,300), Jackie Glazier (36,000), Liam O'Rourke (30,000) and Aaron Benton (20,900) among individuals who will return on Day 2. Head to the live reporting portion of the blog for the entire chip counts and Day 2 seating draw.
A total of 179 players will return to the Crown Poker site at 12:30pm on Sunday with another nine levels to be played. If you want to see us well within the money, in need of reaching the overall table but out the door just in time to hit the player's party at Lumia Lounge!
Until then, enjoy your Saturday night if you are a Richmond supporter, and drown your sorrows if you are everyone else. We'll see you again tomorrow!
Heath "TassieDevil" Chick is a contract Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Australia New Zealand Poker Tour]
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