Kahle Burns Dominates Feature Table in Day 1g to Capture Overall Chip Lead
It took several bullets, but poker tournament phenom Kahle Burns finally found his footing on the penultimate starting flight of the Australian Poker Open Main Event. Burns ended with an eye-watering 1,590,000 to take the top spot in Day 1g of the 36 remaining players for that flight — which was half a million more than his next closest competitor Louis Luo, who ended as the only other player to breach the seven-figure mark with 1,009,000.
Burns got off to a hot start inside the Club Marconi at Doltone House Western Sydney before making his epic ascent at the feature table, where he grew a stack of 300,000 to over 1,500,000 by the time he was sent back to the floor. Burns maintained his stack through a prolonged bubble to end with 1,590,000.
An impromptu "turbo flight" (Day 1g) featuring 20-minute blinds was added due to popular demand and ended shortly after Day 1f. The seventh and final flight drew an addtional 91 entries to bring the grand total of entries across all flights to 689 — over 100 more than last year's Main Event total of 549. Armon van Wijk emerged as the chip leader in Day 1g after bagging up 916,000.
Day 1fg Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kahle Burns | Australia | 1,590,000 | 106 |
| 2 | Louis Luo | Australia | 1,009,000 | 67 |
| 3 | Daniel Gan | Australia | 972,000 | 65 |
| 4 | Armon van Wijk | Australia | 916,000 | 61 |
| 5 | Paawan Bansal | India | 862,000 | 57 |
| 6 | Nelson Dong | Australia | 826,000 | 55 |
| 7 | David Pham (AU) | Australia | 763,000 | 51 |
| 8 | Steven Zhou | Australia | 735,000 | 49 |
| 9 | Yuanting Wang | Australia | 729,000 | 49 |
| 10 | Ricardo Bono | Australia | 683,000 | 46 |
Day 1f Highlights
Day 1f got off to a lively start and was expected to be the largest flight yet. Unsurprisingly, a starting field of 28 steadily grew until eventually reaching 295 entries — nearly doubling the combined entries from the first five flights.
The always energetic Michael O'Grady, who took down the Diamond Cup earlier in the series, more than tripled his starting stack and appeared to be cruising, but slipped late in the evening and busted shortly before the bubble.
APO regular Nelson Dong managed to grab the chip lead briefly after winning a big pot off of Robert Spano, but would eventually get surpassed in the last couple of levels. Dong still ended with a top ten stack, however, after bagging 826,000.
An exceptionally long bubble period lasted a full two levels longer than any other flight, with many players stalling until it was declared that hand-for-hand play would begin two off of the Day 2 bubble instead of one.
Gavin Ogilvy was eliminated two off the money shortly after hand-for-hand was announced, but the stone bubble lasted several hands without any all in and calls. With many players under 10 big blinds, it was only a matter of time before the action was forced, and eventually, both Yan Yan and Victor Dai got all in preflop at separate tables.
Yan had shoved with king-queen and run into Collin Tran's ace-king and failed to improve, while Dai played a game of chicken with Ricardo Bono after shoving over Bono's preflop raise with queen-trey. Bono tank-called with king-eight suited — much to Dai's dismay, and board gave Bono a flush to eliminate Dai and put an end to Day 1f.
Day 2 is set to get underway on Friday, April 25 at noon local time and will begin on Level 12, which features blinds of 2,500/5,000/5,000. The plan for Day 2 is to play until a final table of nine is reached.
All the remaining players have already cashed in for $A5,000, but it's still a long road to claim APO Main Event glory. Be sure to keep it with PokerNews for continuing coverage leading up to the final table and eventual crowning of the next Main Event Champion!