Day 1a on the PokerStars.net APPT Sydney Grand Final saw 81 runners take to the felt. When action ended, around 50 players remained. That official number along with the official chip counts will be posted as soon as it's received.
Some of the notables that began their quest today included Julian Powell, Jason Gray and Joel "StrongPlay" Dodds. All three of those failed to survive the day. On the other hand, Graeme "Kiwi G" Putt, Dennis Waterman, Casey Kastle and Jamie Pickering will be coming back for Day 2.
Team PokerStars PRO members Eric Assadourian and Lee "Final Table" Nelson were also in action today. Both of them made it to the bag-and-tag portion of the night.
The big story of the day came not from the actual play of poker. A fight broke out between Mark Ericksen, who was playing in the high roller event, and an unknown man not participating in anything. There was an unscheduled, lengthy pause while things got settled and the tournament staff resolved the issues. Shortly thereafter, play resumed back to normal.
Tony "Bond18" Dunst was able to come out on the positive end of a few big confrontations, allowing him to boast the biggest chip stack in the room at the end of the day. He finished up with 104,325 chips, well over three times the starting stack.
The second flight is scheduled to begin tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. local time. We'll see you right back here at PokerNews.com for all the live updates as the next round of players hits the felt.
Tournament Director Danny McDonagh has just announced that we'll be playing five more hands tonight before the bag and tag. The tournament clock currently shows 51 players remaining in the Day 1a field.
At table 22 a sizable pot unfolded when Frank Galea popped it up in early position to 1,600. Both Nick Velcic and Charles Lam called and all three saw a flop of prompting a series of checks.
The turn card was the , and Galea once again checked. Velcic checked as well, and Lam tossed out four red chips, betting 4,000. Galea made the call, and Velcic folded.
The river brough the and Galea chose to check, leading Lam to bet 8,000, a bet slightly smaller than the size of the pot. After thinking it through, Galea decided to make the call and flipped over for second pair. Lam, on the other hand could only produce ace-high with his and the 30,000 pot was pushed to Galea, who now sits on about 50,000.
On a board of , action was checked to Roel Pijpers by one player. Pijpers bet 9,600 and his opponent tank-called. Pijpers showed for the nut straight. His opponent mucked after showing it to the table.
Lee "Final Table" Nelson raised to 2,100 from the cutoff seat and Emad Moaref called out of the big blind. The flop came down and both players checked.
The turn was the and Moaref bet 3,000 Nelson mucked, dropping to 28,000 chips.