Steicke All Day as Play Concludes

On the first hand that he played today, David Steicke flopped top pair, top kicker with the nut flush draw and stacked a player with second nut-flush draw when the flush filled on the river. From that early double-up Steicke never looked back as he led this 2009 Asian Poker Tour Macau Main Event Day 1a field wire to wire.

The players produced a somewhat modest field today of 133 players. Those 133 players played for 10 hours to reduce themselves down to 37 contenders. Along with David Steicke (86,200), other notables to make it through with sizable stacks include England's hope Ian Frazer (67,000), Michael Woo (63,000), and Aussie favorite Jay "SEABEAST" Kinkade (62,600).

For each of those big stacks to have been created, many players had to bust. Andrew Scott hit the rail late in the day. He was preceded by the likes of Mansour Matloubi, Eddie Hearn, Corwin Cole and 2008 APT Macau champion Yevgeniy Timoshenko.

Tomorrow the survivors get a day off while the tournament staff and media fall into a time warp and do it all over again. Day 1b is slated to start at noon local time with a field that is expected to top 200 players. We'll have all of the action as always. See you then!