ANZPT7 Sydney – Melbourne Records Stays Intact after Day 1B

Day 1B of the ANZPT in Sydney has come to its natural conclusion. The expectations were high but only partially met. While the Day 1B did attract bigger field than yesterday, it was still not enough to break the record from Melbourne.

Total of 257 players registered to play yesterday and combined with the 188 yesterday, it brought the final field to 445 entries. Their buy-ins combined to create a prize pool of $912,500 and the first prize of almost $225,000.

Number of well known players joined the fun, including Canadian Xuan Liu, American Ronnie Bardah, one of the Macau regulars Elliot Smith and the name known to every high stakes fan out there: Doug ‘WCGRider’ Polk.

After seven one-hour levels, the initial field was cut in half and then some, leaving only 128 players still standing. They will combine with the 84 survivors from the Day 1A and these 212 will continue the march towards the title.

Unlike in the initial flight, there wasn’t one dominant chip leader emerging at the end of the day. Instead, there was a number of stacks looking very similar, with only one man entering the six figure territory. His name is Sam Ruha and he bagged the total of 102,200. Trailing him are Uzziah Thomas on 91.400 and Min Jae Park with 90,900.

Apart from those finishing at the top of the chip counts, other players who will be returning for their shot at the money include Xuan Liu, Tony Hachem, Michael Gzzardi, Jack Drake and Ronnie Bardah, to mention a few.

Manny Stavropoulos, the Aussie Millions reigning champion, was also in the field yesterday and he made it through the day. Stavropoulos took a couple of months off after his big victory but is now back in full force, looking for more titles and big scores to add to his resume.

Doug Polk did not make it to Day 2, but it is hard to imagine that the high stakes pro will have time to be bored, when there is always a big cash game just waiting around the corner.

Starting on the top of the chip counts tomorrow will be three chip leaders from the Day 1A as no one was able to top their stacks yesterday. Jabbour is firmly in the lead with 157,400 followed by Voegele on 122k and Tty Ly with 111,100. Ruha’s 102k stack is good for an overall fourth position.

The search for the champion continues soon.

Photo: PokerStars Blog