2015 ANZPT Perth

The first event on Season 7 of the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour began on Wednesday as 99 players hit the tables for Day 1a of the ANZPT Perth Main Event.

After six 60-minute levels, exactly 54 players made their way out of the Crown Perth poker room having a secured a spot on Day 2. Leading the way with a stack of 80,450 is Raiden Kan.

It was a productive day at the felt for Kan as he looks to continue the success he had at the Aussie Millions where he finished 10th in the Main Event for $95,000 and 7th in the $25,000 Challenge for $125,000.

Trailing Kan with 75,450 in chips is none other than Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang. For much of the last level of the night it was looking like Huang was going to finish on top, but he ultimately missed out by a few thousand.

Australian regular Didier Guerin closes out the top three with 68,400 in chips. Guerin had a great day at the felt and not only in the Main Event as he finished runner-up in the $1,100 Six-Max side event just a short while before Day 1a kicked off.

Some of the others who made it through the night, albeit with less chips than the top three, include Canaian pro Xuan Liu (59,600), Tony Tartaglia (52,300), Michael Addamo (54,575), Anthony Legg (46,275), reigning ANZ Player of the Year David Lim (42,675), Jesse ‘On The Mac’ McKenzie (38,000), 2013 ANZ Player of the Year Iori Yogo (28,950) and recent Aussie Millions Main Event runner-up Lennart Uphoff (14,400).

All these players, and the rest of the survivors, will now return to the felt from 12:30pm local time on Friday. A new batch of players, meanwhile, will partake in the second and final Day 1 flight in just a few hours from 12:30pm local time Thursday. Be sure to join us then as we continue to provide live updates from ANZPT Perth.

Michael Craig, author of The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King, joins the podcast to talk about Andy Beal's latest appearance in the high-stakes poker world, his favorite characters from the book, and some new projects he is currently working on in poker.

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The tournament clock has been paused and each table will be dealing two more hands before Day 1a of the ANPT Perth Main Event is all over. Stay tuned for any last-minute action, followed by a recap of theevening's action and the all-important end-of-day chip counts.

Macau regular Raiden Kan has been one of the chip leaders for much of the evening and is now looking like the main threat to finish on top as we edge near the end of the night. The latest pot that went Kan's way saw him open the cut off, which was called by the big blind. On the flop. The big blind check-called a bet of 2,000. Both players then checked the turn and a was dealt on the river. Kan's opponent led for 2,625 here and Kan made the call. At showdown, Kan's opponent tabled , which went into the muck when Kan turned over .

Here are approximate stacks of some of the players during the final level of the night.

Mishel Anunu was getting ready to leave the tournament area when his all-in preflop hadn't caught anything against Yaxi Zhu's by the turn of a board.

But then a river meant Anunu had made a flush to double up.

Anunu is still struggling with under ten big blinds and will need to get to work to ensure he survives the night.

There was a little bit of a confusion on one of the tables recently that resulted in the tournament being paused for just a few minutes. It happened when a player moved all in from middle position and his cards were mucked with the big blind still to act.

Eventually the ruling was that the all-in player's cards were not retrievable and unfortunately there was nothing that could be done except his all-in bet returned to him and the pot given to the player in the big blind.

Approximately 66 players have just started the final level of the night.

In 60-minutes Day 1a of the ANZPT Perth Main Event will be all over.