Registration has now closed and the numbers are in for the 2014 ANZPT Melbourne Main Event. Day 1b produced a total of 274 entrants, which boosted our overall entrants to a whopping 516. That means our prize pool has come in at $1,032,000 which is a record for the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour.

The top 63 players will finish in the money with a min-cash worth $3,100. Reaching the final table of nine will pocket $18,550 while our eventual champion will take home the title, the trophy and $253,000 in prize money!

That’s almost $300,000 in Singapore dollars! Why is that relevant? Well, that’s the calculation that Bryan Huang will have to work out should he be successful in the ANZPT Melbourne Main Event.

Our lone Team PokerStars Pro in the field, Huang has flown in all the way from Singapore to play here at the ANZPT. He landed a few days ago, and regardless of what happens in the Main Event, he could already consider this trip a success.

Huang warmed up for the Main Event with a couple of the side events, and in fact, went on to win the $300 7-Game Event, defeating a field of 60 players to win the top prize of $5,615. By all accounts, Huang dominated proceedings, accumulating half the chips in play by the time the money was reached for the top six players, and went all the way to add yet another trophy to his collection.

Now Huang has his sights set on the ANZPT Main Event title. He’s come close before, with a pair of final tables in Queenstown and a deep run in this very event back in 2012 when he finished in 12th place.

So far on Day 1b, Huang has been able to carry the momentum from his side event success. He built a stack early on, thanks largely to a flopped set against pocket aces.

As we approach the final break of the day, Huang is up to around 95,000 which puts him at the upper end of the chip count leaderboard and well on the way to another deep run here at the ANZPT.

Heath “TassieDevil” Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.

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