Yanji Ge Leads Day 1b of APPT Melbourne Main Event
After seven levels of play on the second starting day in the PokerStars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour Melbourne Main Event, the chip leader was Yanji Ge with 163,100 in chips. Nearing the end of the day, it looked like one of Daniel Botta or [Removed:17] would finish on top. We then noticed a rather large stack that didn’t have an occupant seated behind it for most of the last level. Ge then appeared right near the end to bag up his monstrous stack. Not a bad way to assure a big stack heading into the next day.
A total of 198 players registered for Day 1b creating a 309-player field. Many pros competed, but not nearly all of them will return tomorrow for the second day of play.
Team PokerStars had two representatives take his place in the event. Bryan Huang was amongst the action today, and finished with a respectable 50,300 in chips. Unfortunately for Roy Bhasin, he was unable to progress after being eliminated during the midway point of the day.
Other notables to take part today and survive were recent APPT Melbourne side event winners. Daniel Levy (48,300) won the $50 Opening Event – Accumulator, Yesha Desai (51,600) took down the $350 Mix-Max Event and Ash Mason (45,000) outlasted the quality field to win the $1,650 No Limit Holdem 6 Handed Event just days ago. They will all be hoping to capture another within such a short space of time.
Among some of the famous faces that didn't survive the day were Tony Hachem, Brad Bower, Dinesh Alt, Nick Oiberman, Tony Tartaglia, David Borg, Jonathan Bredin and Tom Grigg. Tony Hachem had a day to forget after several big hands brought his demise. It started with him having to fold 
after a heated battle pre-flop and then letting go of his pocket jacks after a queen appeared on the turn in another hand. Eventually he would run another pair of pocket jacks into pocket kings and not improve.
The remaining 103 players will return tomorrow at 12:30 PM local time to play another very interesting day of poker. Combined with yesterday's survivors there are still 168 players remaining. The final table will ultimately be played on Monday when another APPT champion will be crowned!