Alexander Debus is another one of the internationals in today's field and so far he has had a strong start. We recently watched Germany's Debus send a short stacked player home when he held and the at-risk player had . The board ran out and Debus scooped the pot to move to 26,000.
Debus has more than US$600,000 in tournament cashes on his resume and will be looking to add to that here in Perth.
Ken Demlakian is a staple of the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour but has unfortunately been unable to get any results on the board since he finished runner-up in the 2012 ANZPT Queenstown Main Event. There may have been no ANZPT results after that, but Demlakian did win a HK$11,000 side event at the 2013 ACOP.
Demlakian is travelling okay at the moment as he's up to 24,000 early on Day 1b of the ANZPT Perth Main Event.
We recently watched Demlakian take down a pot on a board against once opponent. Both players committed 525 each on the turn and Demalkian led for 1,600 on the river. Eventually Demlakian's opponent folded and so the pot went to him.
There have been lots of new entrants towards the end of this level which isn't too surprising considering this is the last level that sees registration open. Day 1b of ANZPT Perth is now up to 92 total entrants. Added with yesterday, that brings the total field to 191 so far. That's quite a bit down on last year. Let's see if a few more wander in. We will have confirmation of numbers shortly after the break.
High roller specialist Steve O’Dwyer just made an early exit. Two pivotal hands were to blame, as he ran into an opponent’s and couldn’t improve, before Ash Mason finished the job.
O’Dwyer made a flush on the turn holding and check-called a bet from Mason before the river brought a fourth club. Mason bet enough to cover O’Dwyer, who opted to call off for his remaining 4,000 before he saw the bad news.
Mason tabled for a rivered nut flush which was good enough to send O’Dwyer to the rail.
Michael Pedley has just managed to send a player home. We arrived with the player already heading to the rail and with Pedley's out on the felt with a board showing. Whatever Pedley's opponent had, it wasn't strong enough for Pedley's pocket kings and so he was eliminated while Pedley was up to around 30,000.
ANZPT regular Ken Demlakian has just hit the rail. We arrived at the aftermath of the hand which saw Demlakian's out on the felt against Adam Twohig's . The board showed with the quad aces far too strong for Demlakian's cowboys!
Apparently all the chips went in on the turn, with Demlakian commenting that he could have folded with one ace out there, but not with two. Regardless, Twohig is now one of the chip leaders with a stack over 50,000.