First Flights Concluded in Main Event WSOP Circuit at The Star Sydney
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The Star Sydney World Series of Poker Circuit $2,200 Main Event features a bit of an unusual format in which the first two starting days played out over the weekend, and they'll be followed by more starting days the coming weekend after a few days off during the week.
Day 1a and Day 1b drew over 400 entries combined, and 71 punched Day 2 tickets after all the cards were dealt and the chips found the bottoms of the bags.
WSOPC The Star Sydney $2,200 Main Event - Day 1a
Day 1a brought out 232 entries but by the end of the day only 34 players had survived the first 14 levels of play.
Plenty of notables made it out to play but at the end of the night, Diarmuid O’Kane had bagged a monstrous chip lead heading into Day 2 with 968,500. O’Kane won a massive pot in one of the last hands of the night when he doubled through then chip leader Matt Pongrass when his pocket aces trumped pocket kings.
Not all were as lucky as O’Kane though. Among those who played on Day 1a but didn't survive were the likes of Jonathan Karamalikis, six-time WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro, recent $5K Challenge winner Shivan Abdine, Jarred Graham, James Obst, Ehsan Amiri and Graeme Putt.
Amiri and Putt would get crippled in only the second hand of the day, when they ran separate flush draws into Gaojie Xu’s already made straight, and never improved. They would both fall in the ensuing hands.
Some notable survivors from Day 1a include Jethro Horowitz (379,000) Michael Dao (360,500), David Tang (339,000), and Sam Mrad (321,000).
WSOPC The Star Sydney $2,200 Main Event - Day 1b
The second of the Main Events' four starting flights ended with Australia's Marc Seymour (pictured) bagging up a sizable 502,000 to conclude play with the chip lead.
A total of 208 players anted up the $2,200 entry and fought it out at the felt over 14 45-minute levels, with 37 of them finding a bag at the end of the day.
There were plenty of notables in the running, but it was Seymour who topped them all, snatching the chip lead from tablemate Evaldas Stanevicius on the last level of the day in a pot worth 272,000 after outflopping the latters' ace-king with queen-ten by hitting trips, rivering a full house and getting paid.
Stanevicius dominated a great deal of the action on the livestreamed feature table but dropped down the counts to bag up 122,500 in total.
Several players made a spirited attempt at snatching the lead during the last two levels played, with China's Xun Sun ending play as Seymour's next closest rival, bagging up a total of 408,500 in chips. Australia's Jules Wilson rounded out the top three after bagging up 360,500.
The rest of the field are all sitting on stacks of below 300K or less, with other notables successful in their quest to make Day 2 including the UK's Daniel Hope (261,500), Billy "The Croc" Argyros (220,000), Hamish Crawshaw (182,500) and Peter Robertson (169,000).
Over 80% of the field was not as fortunate, with notables to bow out before the close of play including Abdine again, along with World Series bracelet holder James Obst, Daniel Laidlaw, Luke Edwards, George Mitri and Karamalikis, the latter of whom came agonizingly close to finding a bag but falling during the last level played.
There is now a two-day break, with the PokerNews live coverage focusing on the two-day $1,650 Pot Limit Omaha, which kicked off Monday.
The final two starting flights of the Main Event, Day 1c and 1d, play out on Thursday and Friday, each at 12:30 p.m. All Day 1 survivors will unite for the first time on Saturday for Day 2 where they will play down into the money and beyond.
Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews as we continue with updates for the remaining days.
