Welcome to Day 1a of the 2019 The Star Sydney Champs A$3,000 Main Event
A very successful 2019 The Star Sydney Champs will culminate in the flagship event of the festival as the 3-day Main Event kicks off with Day 1a as of 12.30 p.m. local time at The Star Sydney near Darling Harbour.
The tournament comes with a price tag of A$3,000 and features a guaranteed prize pool of A$1,500,000. Many regulars of the venue secured their seats at a bargain in the live satellites of the last few days.
Not only because of the six-figure Royal Flush cash game jackpot, but the poker room has also been buzzing in each tournament with very impressive field sizes throughout the festival so far. On top of that, the Main Event super satellite 40 seats guaranteed final week countdown had been exhausted half-way through the six qualifiers already.
Defending champion of the event is Nebojsa Blanusa from Adelaide, who emerged on top of a field of 522 entries to claim the top prize of A$314,265. Other notables to reach the final table were Charlie Hawes, Suzy Khoueis, Martin Ward and Michel Bouskila, while Ashish Gupta, Shivan Abdine and Honglin Jiang were eliminated on the final two tables.
The tournament features a starting stack of 30,000 and levels of 60 minutes throughout, and players can register for each of the two starting days until the start of level five at approximately 4.50 p.m. local time. Should they bust on Day 1a, they can re-enter on Day 1b to give it another try at running up a stack.
Day 1 Level Structure
| Level | Duration | Small Blind | Big Blind | Ante |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 60 | 100 | 200 | 0 |
| 2 | 60 | 150 | 300 | 0 |
| Break | 10 | |||
| 3 | 60 | 150 | 300 | 25 |
| 4 | 60 | 200 | 400 | 50 |
| Break | 10 | |||
| 5 | 60 | 300 | 600 | 50 |
| 6 | 60 | 400 | 800 | 100 |
| Break | 30 | |||
| 7 | 60 | 500 | 1,000 | 100 |
| 8 | 60 | 600 | 1,200 | 200 |
| Break | 10 | |||
| 9 | 60 | 800 | 1,600 | 200 |
| 10 | 60 | 1,000 | 2,000 | 300 |
| Break | 10 | |||
| 11 | 60 | 1,200 | 2,400 | 400 |
The tournament is scheduled to play down to a winner on Day 3 on Monday, August 5th, 2019, as of 12.30 p.m. local time and the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor to provide all the action. There will also be a live stream with hole cards displayed on a dynamic delay for each of the tournament days on the Run It Up Twitch channel as well.
and a pot of 6,200 had emerged. A yellow T-5,000 chip was in front of Kroesen and John Caridad simply moved all in.
turn and the 
river were both blanks and Kroesen became the first casualty of the day. He may re-enter in tomorrow's second and final flight for another chance at the seven-figure prize pool.
and Pappas spiked the ace on the turn to score a double knockout.
, the kicker played and Jiang became the third casualty in a row on the same table.
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.
, 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.
turn and the 
river brought no help to both players at risk and the bottom set of Boskovic Sr scored a double knockout.
, 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. 
