Day 1b of the ANZPT Repechage Main Event brought together a very strong field of 254 entrants to quickly dispel any concerns over this tournament not meeting the $750,000 prize pool guarantee. With satellites pushed hard in the Crown Poker Room throughout the day, a massive field is expected tomorrow to build one of the biggest prize pools ever seen in the history of the ANZPT.
Some were taking their first shot at this event while several interstaters were just arriving in Melbourne. Some of the new faces spotted today included the likes of former ANZPT champion Octavian Voegele, James Obst, Ben Richardson, Matthew Wakeman, Paul Birman, Michael Chrisanthopoulos, 2011 Aussie Millions champion David Gorr and the ANZ Player of the Year leader Dejan Divkovic.
Others were firing, or rather misfiring, their second bullet in this event. Kristian Lunardi, Dave Allan, Ivan Zalac, Bruno Portaro, Ricky Kroesen, Tom Grigg, Didier Guerin, Tony Tartaglia, Mishel Anunu, Anthony Aston and Aaron Benton were just some of those who will be forced to try their luck one more time on Day 1c. Thank God for the repechage!
The attrition rate was noticeably high today. Perhaps some players were keen to duck away to enjoy the $9.90 Chicken Parma special at Jimbo & Rex, or perhaps it was due to the emergence of several big stacks during the evening. Mishel Bouskila, Alexander Margina and Octavian Voegele were among the big stacks causing havoc but they were dwarfed by the impressive chip accumulation prowess of Daniel Neilson.
With little fanfare, and his typical no fuss approach to life, Neilson was able to quickly get to around 400,000 around half way through the day - an enormous stack that was already more than our chip leader from Day 1a. Neilson was able to grab most of his chips when his top two pair held against an opponent's top pair and flush draw. With a stack in hand, Neilson continued to pound on his opponents to amass a staggering 613,000 in chips at the end of the day as approximately 28 players survived the carnage.
Others through to Day 2 include previous ANZPT champions Michael Kanaan and Octavian Voegele, Ben McLean, Mishel Bouskila, Michael Chrisanthopoulos, Fabian Craib, Craig Blight and Brian McAllister.
We'll have the official chip counts for you in the live updates section of the website a little later this evening.
Tomorrow is the third and final opportunity to be a part of the historic ANZPT Repechage Main Event. Whether it's your first or your third bullet, we wish you good luck with a massive prize pool up for grabs.
Enjoy your Friday evening in Melbourne and we look forward to you joining us from 12:10pm local time on Saturday for live updates of Day 1c of the ANZPT Repechage Main Event.