Today was the third and final opportunity for players to remove their skis and venture inside the warmth of the SKYCITY Queenstown Casino for the APPT Queenstown Main Event.
The third flight also produced the largest field as a total of 47 entrants took part, but with several overseas no shows, there was a nice little overlay for our players.
The official number for the NZ$3,000 Main Event came in at 126 to produce a nice prize pool of NZ$340,200 with first place set to take home the shiny trophy and NZ$93,600.
Once again players would only have to endure five levels but that was enough for our field to be reduced to just 18 players. It was an extreme rate of attrition, with a few of the notable players in the field making their presence known.
First it was defending champion Dave Allan, who was looking to become the first back-to-back champion in APPT history. Allan was then joined at the top by another familiar face in Kiwi Geoff Smith. The 2012 ANZPT Auckland champion was also progressing very well today and would love to join Grant Levy and fellow Kiwi Brotha D as those to have both ANZPT and APPT titles in their trophy cabinet.
However they were all trumped by one of our own as Team PokerStars Bryan Huang soared late in the day.
We take some credit for Huang’s success after kick-starting his day when we went an orbit with Bryan. We clearly inspired him to bigger and better things, capped off by a late cooler with Huang’s K♥ Kâ™ flopping a set to crush the Q♣ Q♦ of an unfortunate Tim Woods.
Huang ended the day with 99,425 which puts him well on top of our field. In two previous trips to Queenstown, Huang has finished 9th and 7th, so he’ll be looking for another big run this time around. Other notables to survive Day 1c include Geoff Smith (69,550), Keith Walker (55,800), Alex Lynskey (44,025), Alicia Sale (39,350), Edison Nguyen (36,700), Dave Allan (35,475), Patrick Healy (32,550) and David Yan (30,950).
Find out more about the day’s action with PokerStars.tv hostess Sarah Grant and SKYCITY Queenstown Shift Manager Andrew Gray:
The remaining 66 players will come together at 2pm on Friday for a combined Day 2 field instead of the previously scheduled split day. Extra tables will be used on the gaming floor to accommodate the overflow.
Check back a little later in the live reporting section for the official chip counts and Day 2 seating draw.
With that, we say Happy Birthday to all the horses and look forward to seeing you again tomorrow as the APPT Queenstown starts to really heat up!
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