Snell Claims Day 1a Chip Lead Followed by Gonzalez and Pritchard
A long day has come to an end after eleven one-hour levels have been played here at The Star Sydney Champs during Day 1a of the Main Event. During the first four levels of play, 280 players paid their A$3,000 buy-in to play in the highly anticipated Main Event which features a guaranteed prize pool of A$1,500,000. Of those 280 entries, 57 made it through to Day 2 which will take place on Sunday, August 4th. Claiming the Day 1a chip lead is Jo Snell with 335,000 in chips.
Snell slowly but surely built up his stack throughout the day and was battling two other players at the top of the chip counts to eventually end up with the honors. Carlos Gonzalez finished second in the counts with 319,000. Gonzalez spent the latter part of the day on the feature table and collect a bunch of chips when he eliminated Steve Pappas as he turned the nut-flush when Pappas shoved with the overpair of kings who was drawing dead.
Third on the podium is Jason Pritchard with 313,200. The trader by profession has been playing poker a while and has collected cashes over the past ten years with some adventures abroad in Las Vegas and even winning a tournament in Monte Carlo. With almost $600,000 in lifetime cashes, Pritchard will be looking to add on more to that amount.
Some other familiar names to have made it through the battlefield today with an above average stack include Shivan Abdine, Corey Kempson, Robert Spano, Andrej Senic, Dejan Boskovic Sr, Michael Egan, and Hamish Crawshaw. Travis Endersby, Will Davies, and Mladen Vukovic have bagged a below average stack and will be looking to run it up on Day 2.
2011 Main Event champ Errolyn Strang is still in with a shot to become a double winner as she bagged 125,000 in chips. The defending champion, Nebosja Blanusa wasn’t as lucky as he fell to Davies as he ran his king-queen into the aces of Davies after losing most of his chips when he doubled Davies up. Davies held ace-queen against the jacks of Blanusa and turned a queen for two pair to double up.
The number of entries for the final starting day that is Day 1b is expected to exceed today’s and with 25 tickets which were awarded in the 253-strong field Main Event satellite that took place today, the A$1,500,000 guaranteed prize pool is probably going to be smashed. Day 1b will start at 12:30 p.m. local time and play the same eleven levels of an hour each. A 10-minute break will take place after every two levels with a 30-minute dinner break after the sixth.
This will be the last chance for players to make it through to Day 2. Who knows, maybe John Thomson, Vincent Huang, Gautam Dhingra, Chao Duan, Rehman Kassam, Minh Nguyen, Chad Awerbuch, Steve Pappas, Jason Gray and some of the other players who got eliminated today, will be back to try again.
As usual, the PokerNews live reporting team will be around to bring you all the action to see who else will make it to Day 2 from when the first shoes have been loaded until the final chips have been bagged.
for Moffitt to hit the nut-flush immediately to eliminate Faul and earn a full double through Strang.
. The board came 
and Klinghammer was sent to the rail.
and Hawes had the 
. The board came 
and the pocket pair held up to let Cohen double.
turn was a bad card for Mehmet. He found no help on the blank 
river and pushed his chips over to his table neighbor before departing from the tournament area.
, Graham found no help and was sent to the rail.
for Davies to hold and even improve to a full house to eliminate the defending champion.
, Senic and the hijack checked. Amiri fired a bet of 5,500 over the line for Senic to respond with a shove for 23,000. The hijack quickly folded and Amiri dived into the tank. Amiri talked through his options but Senic didn't show any reaction. After a while, Amiri made the call. 
, Andrian Chin bet 2,600 and Gavin Mccumstie raised to 5,200, which Dejan Boskovic Sr called. Chin then raised it up to 16,800 and Mccumstie called all in for 11,350. Boskovic Sr moved all in for around 70,000 and Chin called all in after very brief consideration.
, Ardi Jaya faced the check-shove of Biziya Zorigtbaatar in the small blind and asked for a count, having invested a bet of 4,000 by then. The jam was for 26,550 in total and Jaya made the call with the superior stack.
on the river was a mere formality, and he moved up to more than three times the starting stack early into the third level of the day.