Trevor Godfrey had been a big stack for some time on his new table and just got it in against his neighbor for more than 90,000.
Godfrey tabled and faced the of his opponent. A flop gave him middle set and he had to fade the four remaining kings in the deck. It was all over after the turn as Godfrey celebrated loudly, the blank river was a formality and got scooped up in a heartbeat.
The second and final starting day of the 2019 The Star Sydney Champs A$3,000 Main Event had already reached the guaranteed prize pool of A$1,500,000 before the cards got in the air at 12.30 p.m. local time at The Star Sydney and a new attendance record was set in stone.
Once the late registration closed at the start of level five, the screens showed 320 entries for Day 1b and that boosted the overall field size to 600 entries, which created a prize pool of A$1,680,000.
It was a tight race for the Day 1b chip lead and Cezary Klimczak topped the leaderboard with a stack of 414,500. He is closely followed by Michael Tran (381,000), Trevor Godfrey (375,000), Nickolas Oiberman (338,500) and Brian O'Farrell (336,500). The top finishers of Day 1b all surpassed Day 1a leader Jo Snell.
Further big stacks and notables that advanced from the second flight were Navid King (274,000), Luke Edwards (263,000), Mazyar Misaghian (247,000), Murray Chick (203,000), Dylan Kehoe (173,000), Connie Graham (125,000), David Hirst (115,000), Craig Blight (96,000), Graeme Putt (77,000), Matthew Wakeman (67,000), and Chad Awerbuch (64,000).
The remaining players will return to their seats in the poker room of The Star Sydney on Sunday, August 4th, 2019, at 12.30 p.m. local time when another 11 levels of one hour each are scheduled on the penultimate tournament day. The returning blinds will be 1,500/3,000 with a 500 ante.
Joining the 57 survivors from Day 1a will be 66 hopefuls that made the cut after 11 levels of one hour each and the 123 remaining contenders will aim to follow in the footsteps of Nebojsa Blanusa, who took home the trophy and biggest Main Event prize in history so far.
A new chapter of poker in Sydney will be written in the two days to come, as Blanusa was among the many casualties of a fast-moving tournament day. Since the buy-in was increased to A$3,000 back in 2013, the attendance of the Main Event has grown every year and a new highest top prize will be awarded to the eventual champion.
The Sydney Champs Main Event Since 2013
Year
Entries
Prize Pool
Winner
Top Prize (in AUD)
2019
600
A$1,680,000
tba
A$352,800
2018
522
A$1,461,000
Nebojsa Blanusa
A$314,265
2017
496
A$1,388,800
Henry Tran
A$300,000
2016
428
A$1,198,400
Kahle Burns
A$297,203
2015
281
A$786,800
Ben Jee
A$200,634
2014
235
A$658,000
Martin Kozlov
A$171,080
2013
227
A$635,461
Daniel Laidlaw
A$165,000
The poker room was buzzing with all but ten cash game tables reserved for the Main Event and more than 250 players were in their seats in the first level of play. Many notables that failed to run up a stack in their first attempt took another shot at glory.
For such big names as Jason Gray, Ebon Bokody, Sean Ragozzini, David Wang, Tyron Krost, Tino Lechich, Ashish Gupta, Sarah Bilney, Jarred Graham, Vincent Huang, Didier Guerin, Dale Marsland, and last year's third-place finisher Charlie Hawes, Day 1b was not crowned with success.
Defending champion Nebojsa Blanusa saw his title defense come to an end on the feature table. Short in chips, Blanusa was all in preflop with ace-queen suited and Adam Kharman looked him up with ace-king. Both flopped a pair and Kharman's pair of kings remained best to send Blanusa to the rail.
By then, Andrew White was already on the rail. In just the second level of the day, White ran into a set of aces and chucked his cards into the muck before heading out of the tournament area. John Thomson was also already gone, the last player to depart from Day 1a was the first casualty of the second flight.
Suzy Khoueis, well-known in Sydney and the player with the second-most recorded cashes at The Star, was one of several players that were coolered by a case one-outer. In Khoueis' case, most of her chips vanished when three players hit a flush and the ace-high hearts of Khoueis were cracked by a straight flush on the river. Soon after, it was all over when her tens could not get there against pocket aces.
The players also came and left the feature table at a rapid pace and among the many to run out of chips during the Run It Up live stream were Sam Capra, Gautam Dhingra, Akshay Kapoor, Vesko Zmukic, and Laurence Hall. The bid of Michael Tran to take the honors of Day 1b chip leader culminated in a late double knockout when his ace-king suited remained ahead of Rehman Kassam with king-queen and the jack-ten suited of Patrick Laoyont.
Once the final three hands of the night were wrapped up, around one fifth of the field bagged up chips and they will be back in action after a good night's sleep. Around half of the remaining field will leave empty-handed on Day 2, as just the top 63 spots take home a portion of the seven-figure prize pool.
Make sure to tune back in then, as the PokerNews live reporting team will provide all the action from start-to-finish as a neww champion will be crowned here in Sydney.