$3,250 Championship Main Event Day 1a | 2009 PokerStars.net APPT Auckland

10-13-2009 18:43 UTC-12

Waterman Doubles

[user92162]

Dennis Waterman has doubled through. Waterman shoved with {A-Diamonds}

and after some time in the tank his opponent called with {K-Hearts}

.

The board ran out {7-Spades}

to double him up to 30,000.

Tags: Dennis Waterman

10-13-2009 18:46 UTC-12

Tahtouh Motors On

[user67765]

With three limpers in the pot Emad Tahtouh looked down at his cards in the big blind and his incredible day continued as he squeezed out the {Q-Spades}

.

Tahtouh decided to narrow the field with a raise of 3,000, forcing two folds but Michael Shinzaki made the call on the button.

We took a little step closer at the prospect of our two tournament chip leaders playing a huge pot, but it wasn't to be as the scary board of {A-Hearts}

was checked down.

Tahtouh tabled his queens and they were good as Shinzaki mucked. Tahtouh is now up to 160,000 chips and has a massive chip lead over the field.

Tags: Emad Tahtouh

10-13-2009 18:48 UTC-12

Five More Hands

[user67765]

With fourteen minutes on the clock, Tournament Director Danny McDonagh has announced that we'll be playing five more hands on each table before play concludes for the day.

10-13-2009 19:00 UTC-12

That's A Wrap; Emad Dominates!

[user67765]

That's it from the opening flight of the 2009 PokerStars.net APPT Auckland Main Event.

135 players took to the felt and we started in rather dramatic fashion as home-town hero Lee "Final Table" Nelson didn't quite live up to his nickname as he was incredibly eliminated from his first table on only the second hand of the day.

From that early spike in action, play was methodical for most of the day with Emad Tahtouh putting in a dominant performance. Back-to-back pocket aces was useful to send two opponents to the rail, and from there Tahtouh applied relentless pressure to his opponents and padded his stack all day.

His nearest rivals from today's play include Michael Shinzaki (109,800), James Ciurlionis (105,600), Danny Hall (93,600) and Jacky Tastavin (73,300).

In all, 67 players survived the day including PokerStars Pros Grant Levy (35,600), Celina Lin (16,300) and the defending champ Daniel Cracker (37,000).

Join us again tomorrow from 12:15pm local time (GMT+13) as we do it all again with a new batch of hopefuls as the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland Main Event continues!

Tags: Emad Tahtouh

$3,250 Championship Main Event

Day 1a Completed