Ryan Otto Leads Stacked Final Table in the WSOPC Sydney High Rollers
In what proved to be an arresting and action-packed Day 1 of the AU$20,000 World Series of Poker International Circuit The Star Sydney High Rollers, some of Australia's finest fought it out at the felt over fourteen 45-minute levels.
With the format offering competitors unlimited re-entry for the first nine levels, the event attracted a total of 53 entries (including re-entries), topping the 50 entries the 2018 edition attracted by three and generating a sizable AU$1,007,000 total prize pool, with the top six places paying out.
The winner will take home a hefty AU$377,625 (~$257,640) top prize, in addition to a coveted WSOP Circuit Ring and accolades for defeating a field that was jam-packed with poker talent.
The man in pole position coming into the second and final day is New Zealand's Ryan Otto, who put on a dominant display of power poker to claim the chip lead, and Otto will be returning with a stack of 630,000 in chips. With the blinds continuing at 3,000/6,000 with a 6,000 big blind ante and the level length increasing to 60-minutes, this gives Otto a hefty 105 big blinds with which to make his play for the title.
The kiwi will have his work cut out for him, however, with plenty of star power still left in contention. Otto's closest rival is no stranger to high stakes poker, with Caribbean Poker Party champion Roger Teska bagging up the second-biggest stack of 461,000.
Other big names to cut their way through the star-studded field to make the nine-handed final table include Australia's youngest Poker Hall of Fame inductee Jonathan Karamalikis, Michael Egan, and France's Julien Sitbon, all of whom boast seven-figures in live tournament winnings on their poker resumes, with the final nine stacking up as follows:
WSOPC Sydney High Roller Final Table
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Julien Sitbon | France | 110,000 | 18 |
| 2 | Bernie Stang | Australia | 142,000 | 24 |
| 3 | Qiang Fu | New Zealand | 366,000 | 61 |
| 4 | Jonathan Karamalikis | Australia | 128,000 | 21 |
| 5 | Mladen Vukovic | Australia | 360,000 | 60 |
| 6 | Tom Rafferty | Australia | 258,000 | 43 |
| 7 | Ryan Otto | New Zealand | 630,000 | 105 |
| 8 | Michael Egan | Australia | 204,000 | 34 |
| 9 | Roger Teska | USA | 461,000 | 77 |
Day 1 Action
Day 1 began with 23 early birds, though this increased to 31 by the time the first break rolled around. Otto climbed into an early lead, though with re-entry available for the first nine 45-minute levels, players were not shy about throwing the chips around, and the action increased steadily as the play progressed with New Zealand's Sosia Jiang, 2018 Main Event champion Alex Lynskey and Australia's Vincent Huang and Corey Kempson just a few of those who fired multiple bullets in an attempt to build big stacks.
Of these, all came up short of a final table appearance, though Kempson gave it the best shot, building up to a stack in excess of 150,000 at one point, though it took him his third bullet to do so. However, Kempson then played the largest pot of the day against the similarly stacked Michael Egan, with the duo getting all the chips in pre-flop in pot in excess of 300k, Kempson's ace-king offsuit trailing to Egan's pocket aces.
Kempson's exit shot Egan to the top of the counts, where he would remain until a move to the feature table after the re-entry period had ended saw him drop down the pecking order and saw Otto begin his climb to the top of the counts.
Notables to exit before this included Huss Hassan - whose exit from the feature table provided New Zealand's Qiang Fu enough fuel to reach the final nine - and Luke Edwards, who was unable to get anything going with two bullets. Vincent Huang was another who had a rough day at the tables that saw him fire thrice to no avail.
Both Jiang and Kempson fired multiple times - Jiang five times and Kempson four - when they came back in just before the end of the re-entry period to bring the total field up to 53 entries to make the tournaments' AU$1m guarantee, though by this time there were just 22 players left in contention.
Jiang departed the first level after re-entry closed, falling at the hands of $5k Challenge champion Shivan Abdine, who was taken out by Otto in turn as play got down to the last two tables.
Otto was not alone in his ambitions to climb to the top of the tree, however, with the USA's Roger Teska beginning to make his own moves to send Michael Hahn to the rail and claw his way up the counts.
Other notables to exit empty-handed included Hamish Crawshaw, Robert Spano and Jan Suchanek, with Otto cementing his place at the top of the counts with the double-elimination of Geoff Mooney and Abdine, following this up with the elimination of Kempson after the latter's pocket sevens lost a race to the former's ace-jack suited to bring in the final table bubble and further increase Otto's stock price.
The departure of the short-stacked Jarred Graham over on the live-streamed feature table at the hands of Tom Rafferty concluded play for the day, with action resuming at 2:15 p.m. on Thursday, December 5 and running concurrently with Day 1c of the Main Event, which gets underway at 12:15 p.m. local time.
Full coverage for both will be available on PokerNews, with the official live-stream focusing on the Main Event. It should be a thrilling day of poker action, so join us then as we see who has what it takes to become the 2019 WSOPC Sydney High Roller champion.