By James Potter and Eliot James
Andrew Meldrum from Sydney has stormed to an early chip lead and has just under 40k in chips. Meldrum, who has been a quite achiever in the Asian poker scene, is hot off a successful campaign in America after the WSOP.
Hot on his tail is local Aucklander Simon Davis who has been playing poker now for three years. He won his way into the tournament in a SkyCity satellite for $40. He has been a regular at the SkyCity Poker Room and is looking to deliver the Pokerstars.net APPT SkyCity Auckland Festival of Poker Main Event Title to his home town and poker room. He currently has over 35k in chips.
The loudest table in the room is the one featuring David Saab and Tony Hachem. After David welcomed Tony to the table the atmosphere intensified when Saab pleaded with the gallery that it was a quiet table before Hachem arrived. Tony then replied: “where’s your Superman T-Shirt you banana?”
Saab usually wears Superman logos and is looking to be known as David “Superman” Saab. We certainly haven’t heard the last of these two, and Saab just managed to get his hands on some more chips in a recent pot.
Looking down at an unspectacular board of 3-3-7-5-2, Saab was facing a bet of 2.5k into a roughly 4.5k pot. After an initial “do you have Jacks?” Saab went on to mutter to himself in the tank for a full two minutes.
Finally Saab talked himself into a call, holding his cards above the muck pile, but he was beaten to it by his opponent who threw his into the muck without showing, pushing the almost 10k pot in Saab’s direction.
We also have the final table of the PLO Omaha running in the room with good friends but fierce rivals and PokerStars Sponsored players Eric Assadourian and Grant Levy clear cut chip leaders with five players left.
