2010 PokerStars.net APPT Sydney Day 1b: Neilson Finds His Way to the Top
Wednesday marked the second day of action at the 2010 PokerStars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour Sydney Grand Final Main Event. After another seven levels of play, Day 1b’s starting field of 68 runners was whittled down to 39 players. Leading the pack was PokerStars qualifier and native Australian Daniel Neilson. He bagged up 164,100 chips at day’s end, making him the overall chip leader thus far in the event.
Australians weren’t the only players in the field on Day 1b. The countries of Malta, Germany, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Russia and the United States were all represented, but none had as recognizable a face as Canada. None other than multiple World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner, World Poker Tour champion and Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu took to the felt on Wednesday. He had plenty of eyes on him all day long, whether it be the media, fans or other players in the event. Negreanu’s no slouch though, even under the spotlight he had a solid day on the felt, bagging up 57,400 chips, which was roughly double the starting stack.
One of the players Negreanu was able to eliminate on the day was Matthew Pearson, who moved all in holding the A♠J♦. Negreanu made the call with the 7♦7♠ and off to the races they went. Despite hitting an ace on the flop and taking the lead, Pearson fell victim to a seven on the turn that left him drawing dead and sent him to the rail.
Even though Negreanu may have quite a few titles to his name, the one thing he doesn’t have is an APPT Main Event title. Wednesday saw a few former APPT champions enter the tournament as well, two of who won this very event in previous years. Grant Levy was the winner of APPT Sydney in 2007 and Martin Rowe won APPT Sydney in 2008. Eddy Sabat was also in play today and he won APPT Macau back in 2008. Out of those three, Levy had the best day and finished up with 92,900. His finish was good enough for fourth place on the final leader board from Day 1b while Sabat wrapped up with 79,200 and Rowe with 24,100.
Not everyone was able to make it through to the end though. Notables Van Marcus, David Steicke, Cole Swannack and Graeme Putt all hit the rail throughout the day’s play. Joining them in the bustout category was Team PokerStars Pro Celina Lin, who failed to get there with A♥K♠ against the Q♣Q♥ for PokerStars qualifier Roel Pijpers.
Top 10 Chip Counts from Day 1b
| Place | Player | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel Neilson | 164,100 |
| 2 | Aaron Tran | 147,200 |
| 3 | Sean Dunwoodie | 95,400 |
| 4 | Grant Levy | 92,900 |
| 5 | Chris Bianco | 86,000 |
| 6 | Jason Brown | 83,000 |
| 7 | Jay Kinkade | 82,500 |
| 8 | Eddy Sabat | 79,200 |
| 9 | Heinz Kamutzki | 79,200 |
| 10 | Maksim Semisoshenko | 75,500 |
The total number of entrants so far for the APPT Sydney Grand Final Main Event is 143. That number’s not huge, but don’t worry because there’s still one final starting flight to take to the felt on Thursday. Last year, the poker room was jam packed for the final starting day and this year should be much of the same to make the overall field just about double in size. There’s also plenty of big names slated to play including Team PokerStars Pros Chris Moneymaker, Lee Nelson, Bryan Huang, Joe Hachem and Tony Hachem.
Play for Day 1c kicks off to 12:30 p.m. local time down in Sydney, Australia. As much as we know you’d all love to be there, you can still follow all of the action on PokerNews as only our world-leading live reporting team can bring it to you straight from the floor.
