Today was the second and final opportunity for players to join the fun inside the Crown Perth Casino, and the players spoke with their feet as a record-setting field turned out for the ANZPT Perth Main Event.
The Day 1B field was announced as 170, but a late adjudication on a no-show qualifier bumped the final number to 171 – and that decision would prove to be rather significant.
Combined with the 85 runners from Day 1a, our ANZPT Perth Main Event field came in at 256 – just enough to form a record prize pool here in Perth. The 2010 event came in at $510,600 but that one extra entrant popped this year’s event to a prize pool of $512,000 to set a new record for this event. It’s a large increase on last year’s numbers, and when you consider how events around the world are struggling with growth, it becomes even more impressive. Well done to the Crown Perth staff, ANZPT organizers and of course, the players on supporting this event.
It was a star-studded affair with the likes of Dan Kelly, Amanda De Cesare, Ricky Kroesen, Ivan Zalac, Daniel Neilson, Michael Kanaan, Mile Krstanoski, James Broom, Tristan Bain, Stev Lackovic, Jesse McKenzie, Tony Tartaglia, Aussie Millons gold ring winner Edison Nguyen, Full Tilt Ambassadors Liam O’Rourke, Tom Grigg and Jonathan Karamalikis, WSOP APAC bracelet winner Aaron Lim, WSOPE bracelet winner Andy Hinrichsen and ANZPT Auckland champ David Lim all in attendance.
Lim was looking to climb the ANZ POY leaderboard after the top ten became flooded with overseas players who dominated during the Aussie Millions. Lim was pretty relaxed and comfortable throughout the day and managed to progress in good shape.
Tom Grigg, Aaron Lim, Luke Brabin, Andrew Hullah and Cale McLean were prominent throughout the day, but it looked like was to be WSOPE bracelet winner Andy Hinrichsen that snatched the chip lead.
Hinrichsen spent the entire day inside the main poker room so we weren’t able to pick up too many hands from him, but Tony Tartaglia was quick to point out that Hinrichsen flopped a set of jacks to crack Tartaglia’s queens before he slapped him in a headlock as punishment!
Hinrichsen bagged up 83,025, but that was pipped by local Brian McAllister who became the only player in the six-figure club. McAllister is in fine form. He recently won a weekly event here at Crown Perth, and followed that up with a second place last night in the 6-max side event (which was won by good friend Pat Healy).
McAllister bagged up 103,175 for the biggest stack in the room when the 91 survivors bagged and tagged, while James Broom, Stev Lackovic, Tristan Bain, Ricky Kroesen, Dylan Honeyman and Jesse McKenzie were just a few names to reach Day 2.
Head to the live updates section for a full list of chip counts from today and the Day 2 seating draw.
Tomorrow the 145 survivors will return to the Crown Perth Poker Room to continue the battle. We probably won’t quite reach the money tomorrow but by the end of the day, we’ll certainly have a better idea of who might be set for a deep run in this event. We’ll be back at 12:30pm (GMT+8) to bring you all the big pots, bad beats, and everything in between. In the meantime, we’re off to The Merrywell for a few refreshing ales at the official ANZPT Player’s Party. Perhaps we’ll see you there?
Heath “TassieDevil” Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.
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