Today we had a total of 193 players making a total turnout of 326 players in this years event which is a huge jump from the 260 they had in last years event. This has created a huge prize pool of HK $10,919,040 which equates to US$1,408,699 – a very attractive sum indeed.
PartyPoker had 4 players and one invited guest playing today all hoping to get their hands of their share of the cash.
Raymi Sanches Thorm from Sweden
Francesco Canzonieri from Italy
Joerg Shultz from Germany and
Philipp Gmunder from Switzerland.
Kazuki Ikeuchi from Japan
Despite a very busy tournament room, the early play was not particularly eventful for our players. It was not until the fifth level that a great deal happened and it happened with a bang. Francesco went from having a comfortable stack to heading for the rail in a matter of minutes. That was just before the dinner break but unfortunately I could not catch him as he left the room.
After dinner I checked in on Joerg who was now sitting with a short stack having recently lost a big pot.
On a board showing the King, deuce and ten of hearts, Joerg went all in on the river which his opponent (who surprisingly had an even smaller stack) insta-called. Jeorg showed the six and three of hearts for a flush but his opponent showed the Ace Queen of hearts for a much higher flush. Joerg lasted only 5 more minutes and headed to the rail.
Philipp was also very short stacked and at one point went down to 1975 chips at one stage before getting back up to about 4000. Minutes later he was all in with 8’s and got a call from someone holding AK. A king on the flop did not look good for Phillip but an 8 on the turn gave him the pot as the river bricked. That double up still only gave Philipp a stack of about 8000 chips.
On a separate table in a corner a big money Pot Limit Omaha cash game was getting started with Chris and Tom from the Asian Poker Tour taking on some the Poker pack guys.
I tried keeping up with Raymi from Sweden but he moved around the room quite a lot today as he seemed to always be picking up his chips and getting moved from table to table. It did not seem to put him off his stride because he finished the day on 48900 chips.
I left the tournament room soon after the dinner break to grab something to eat and as I walked back into the room I was very happy to see that Philipp had increased his stack all the way up to 31,000 chips. By the end of the day he was on 25200 and looking forward to Day 2.
By the end of Day 1B there was a grand total of 88 players who would be starting Day 2. Party still had the following 5 players – Philipp from Switzerland, Ian from England, Gylbert from Canada, Maksim from Belarus and Raymi from Sweden will all need a good nights sleep but I do not think many of them will heed that advice. I saw Maksim at the cash game tables on the second floor at about 2am and Ian was heading off to the MGM with his mate Trigger.
