The third and final flight of the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour Auckland Main Event has finally come to an end. Today was the last day for players to buy-in and give themselves every chance to make it through to Day 2. So it wasn’t any surprise when 86-runners turned up, bringing the tournament total to 207.
As expected, some big name players took their seats today including 2011 Aussie Millions champion David Gorr, defending Auckland champion Danny “Brotha D” Leaoasavaii, Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang and WSOP bracelet winner Simon Watt. Unfortunately for this quartet, they were unable to progress to the next day.
It was some fairly unknowns who made their presence felt, and made late runs to obtain the chip lead. Xiaodong Xia left it till the last 20-minutes of the day to win two of the biggest pots of the day, and lead all comers going into Day 2. His 180,600 chip-stack towered over those of Monica Eastick (137,000), Patrick Lui (105,700) and Pravin Haryi who finished atop the leader board.
Day 2 will commence tomorrow at 12:15pm NZPT with 76 players returning, all hoping to make a deep and taking home the NZ$107,640 first prize and title of ANZPT Auckland Champion. Be sure to join the PokerNews Live Reporting Team for all the live updates as they happen.
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