What started as 208 players has slowly been whittled down to just 27 on the penultimate day of play at the PokerStars.net 2012 ANZPT Sydney Main Event.
The clock ticked just past midnight when it was all over on Day 2 and it was Nicholas Heather who was bagging up the most chips. A massive late half of the night saw Heather accumulate just under a million in chips as he as placed himself in the best position to make a run at the $226,812 first place prize come Sunday.
At the start of the day it was Tobin Ryall who held the chip lead. Ryall continued his great run early in the day and then hit a plateau. He’ll still be with us come the final day, but will return with only 197,000 in chips.
Not faring quite was well as Ryall was the likes of Joel Dodds, Leo Boxell, Tony Hachem, Daniel Laidlaw, Mel Judah, Lee Nelson, Graeme Putt and Justin Cohen as they all hit the rail throughout the day.
It was a similar fate for Team PokerStars Pro Angel Guillen as he never managed to gain any momentum on Day 2. Guillen open-shoved his last 27,000 holding and unfortunately ran into . No help came for the player from Mexico and he was sent out the door.
Just a short while after Guillen hit the rail, play went hand-for-hand as the money bubble loomed. The player who would eventually burst the bubble was a familiar face in Luis Arrilucea. Readers may remember that Arrilucea was last year’s runner-up finisher at this very event. It wasn’t the same story this year though as Arrilucea couldn’t win a race holding against for his tournament life.
After the bubble burst, play was scheduled to last just a few more levels and as expected, the players started hitting the rail one-by-one. A few of the notable players who finished in the money include Dean McIver (53rd), Andrew Mellado (52nd), Todor Kondevski (46th), Suzy Khoueis (38th) and Jim Sachinidis (29th).
While the above players were hitting the rail, guys such as Jim Collopy, Liam O’Rourke, Gordon Huntly and Mishel Annunu started dominating their tables to finish the night with enough chips to scare come Day 3.
One of the big stories to emerge from the night was the success of Oliver Speidel. A huge day saw Speidel eliminate Day 1b chip leader Tam Truong and from then on, he could not be stopped. The 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event champion will start Day 3 with the second biggest chip stack and will be looking to continue his great form of the last few months.
It will be back at 2:00 pm local time for the 27 remaining players as they each try to make a run at becoming the 2012 ANZPT Sydney Main Event champion. Make sure to join the PokerNews Live Reporting Team for the exciting final day of action here at The Star in Sydney, Australia.
Final day seating draw and full chip counts can be seen below.