Another warm Sydney autumn day greeted players today for their second and final shot at the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT) Sydney Main Event.
Once again a very strong field took to the felt of The Star with a total of 247 entrants for Day 1B. That took the total number to 458 players to fall just two players short of last year’s figures to maintain great consistency for this event on the ANZPT circuit.
The top 54 players will finish in the money, with a min-cash worth $3,650 while our eventual champion will take home a whopping $225,300 in prize money.
It was a highly-talented line up today that included the likes of Dennis Huntly, Todor Kondevski, Nam Le, John Maklouf, Ricky Kroesen, Michel Bouskila, Nathan Gubieski, Matthew Wakeman, Brendon Rubie, Ash Mason, Jesse McKenzie, Ben McLean, Dale Marsland, Patrick Healy, Dean Blatt, Dan Neilson, Errolyn Strang, Oliver Gill, Daniel Charnock former ANZPT Gold Coast champ Peter Matusik, previous Aussie Millions Main Event winner David Gorr, Australian Poker Hall of Famer Gary Benson, WSOP bracelet winner Christina Pie, ANZ Player of the Year leader Sal Fazzino and Full Tilt Ambassador Liam O’Rourke. A couple of late arrivals also included two-time ANZ Player of the Year Tony Hachem and the 2005 World Champion in Joe Hachem.
There was also an international flavour with today’s line up with the likes of Kevin Rabinchow, Ben Benoit, Ash Mason, ANZPT Perth champ Patrick Mahoney and former WSOP Octo-Niner Jake Balsiger all in the field.
After the rather unusual lunch break, it was the stack of Marcel Naboulsi who started to grab our attention in the second half of the day.
First, Naboulsi spiked a set with his pocket kings to crack pocket aces. He then followed that up by rivering a straight to eliminate Sheldon Mayer to climb to a stack that was already with the chip leaders from yesterday and we still had nearly half of the day still to play.
As the levels ticked by, Naboulsi slipped back into the field as the likes of Michael Pinzone and Aussie Millions gold ring winner Adrian Attenborough surged into contention. Attenborough won an enormous pot late in the day with pocket kings against ace-king, but in the end it was Pinzone who grabbed the unofficial chip lead with 169,300 as 94 players survived the day’s play.
Adrian Attenborough (159,300), Nathan Davis (155,100) and Brent Taunton (133,600) were next best while the likes of Luke Brabin (77,500), Daniel Neilson (71,200), Tom Rafferty (59,500), David Gorr (58,500), Jesse McKenzie (53,600) and Dale Marsland (46,400) also made it through the day.
Head to the live reporting section of the website for confirmation of the end-of-day chip counts for all the survivors and Day 2 Seating Draw.
The remaining players will return to The Star at 12:30pm on Saturday for Day 2 of the ANZPT Sydney Main Event. They’ll be striving to reach the money for the top 54 players with the bubble likely to burst some time on Saturday before we play down to the final table on Sunday.
Enjoy your Friday evening and we hope you’ll join us again tomorrow as the ANZPT Sydney Main Event continues.
Heath “TassieDevil” Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.
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