2018 WSOP International Circuit The Star Sydney

On a packed day in the poker room at The Star in Sydney a total of 334 entries showed up for Day 1C of the WSOPC Sydney Main Event. Just 60 of them found a bag by the end of fourteen levels. Chipleader at the end of the night was Michael Spencer who bagged an impressive 545,000 to finish as the only player above half a million in chips.

Spencer won the final pot of the night against Chris Kiltos to overtake Matt Pongrass (494,000) as the end-of-day chip leader after the two crushed the last two levels of play. Spencer’s final hand saw him raise 100,000 on the river after Kiltos bet 30,000 on a board that showed a straight. Kiltos had pocket kings and folded and was shown king-queen which was irrelevant as Spencer played the board.

Trailing Spencer and Pongrass is Alex Lynskey (404,000) who held the chip lead for a considerable time after he won a massive hand against Majid Saab. Lynskey had rivered a full house and watched as Saab shoved all in after a raise. Lynskey obliged with a call and was surprised when Saab showed him his flopped nut-flush.

Some other notable stacks moving on from this flight include Brandon Sheils (387,000), Corey Kempson (355,000), Franky Martino (318,000), Tolly Sakellariou (302,500), Michael Hahn (258,500), Peco Stojanovski (220,000), Suzy Khoueis (213,500), Stevan Chew (183,000) six-time WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro (159,500), reigning WSOPC Sydney main event champion Michael Kanaan (126,000) and Richard Kellett (85,000).

There were several notables that were in this flight but did not manage to find a bag including Australian Poker Hall-of-Fame members Gary Benson, Billy Argyros, Jason Gray and Lee Nelson, as well as Michael O’Grady, Peter Aristidou, Federico Butteroni, Hannah Lee, Tim Englsh, Sam Higgs, Tristan Bain, Daniel Laidlaw, Robert Spano, Kahle Burns, Connie Graham, Eric Assadourian, Dean Blatt, Shivan Abdine, Michael Egan, Nurlan Boobekov and Ash Gupta.

The tournament has now completed it's third of four flights and players will have one last chance to run up a stack for Day 2 on Saturday December 15th. The last Day 1 flight will commence tomorrow, Friday 14th, at 12:30pm local time.

The PokerNews team will be bringing full coverage of the last flight as well as the remainder of the main event so stay tuned.

The tournament clock has been stopped with 10-minutes remaining in the day's play.

The final 63 players will play three more hands before bagging up for night.

Chris Ozer moved all in for 87,500 from under the gun plus one before the action folded around to the player in the big blind.

He went into the tank for several minutes before another player at the table called time.

A few seconds into the official countdown saw the bet get called to put Ozer at risk.

Chris Ozer:
Opponent:

The board ran out to see Ozer spike a queen on the turn to survive towards the end of play.

Jeff Lisandro raised to 10,500 from middle position and was called by Richard Kellett in the big blind.

The flop came and Kellett checked. Lisandro continued for 14,000. Kellett then raised to 35,500. Lisandro paused for a moment then moved all in. Kellett snap-folded his hand.

Richard Kellett raised to 6,500 from the hijack and was called by Jeff Lisandro in the big blind.

Both players checked the flop before doing the same after the fell on the turn.

The completed the board and Lisandro bet 6,000. Kellett called shortly after.

Lisandro then tabled his for a pair and took down the pot after Kellett mucked his hand.

Tolly Sakellariou raised to 7,500 from under the gun before Chris Ozer raised to 20,000 from the hijack. The action folded around to Sakellariou who moved all in and had Ozer covered. Ozer snap-called.

Sakellariou stood up from his chair and let out a big sigh before tabling . Ozer then revealed his .

"I thought I had run into pocket aces there" said Sakellariou, before he re-took his seat.

The board then ran out to see Ozer spike a queen on the flop to double through Sakellariou with a set.