The latest from Sinead Quigley at the Crown Casino in Melbourne…
Today see the remaining of our PartyPoker players throw their hats in the ring that is the PokerNews Cup. 9 online qualifiers, 5 NPL qualifiers, 2 re-buys from day 1 and 1 newbie puts Party’s daily tally to 17 contenders in a field of 210.
3 Dutch players, Nordin Kerkvliet, Wing Kwok Tang and Peter Ockenden(re-buy), 4 online Aussies: Gary Pettersen, Dean Francis, Frank Freskos and Stewart Scott (re-buy) join the 5 Aussie NPL players: Imad El-Kerdi, Rajkumar Ramakrishnan, Anderson Wang, Michael Martinovic and Mohomed Tamir.
Guillaume Godier representing France, Gabriel Alarie representing Canada, Jeppe Svendsen from Denmark and Joerg Einhaus from Germany. Also joining my trusty team is my new buddy Arif Mehmet from NSW, who I met in the Promenade hotel lift and opted to join the Party Players and don the Party Shirt.
It was a mixed morning for the group with Gabriel and Nordin amassing chips early, others were hovering around start chip figures while Stewart and Michael had a continuous grind with nothing going their way. Sadly the game ended all too early for Stewart and he left the tables for good.
It’s has been, to say the least, a busy day with plenty for hands to watch and players to keep an eye on and all was going well up to the level before dinner when we lost a number of our players including Frank Freskos who just could not catch a break. Finally, he was dealt KJ(s).
The pre-flop player under the gun limped in, Frank calls as do the cut-off and button. Flop comes K(d) J(h) 9(s). Player under the gun leads out with 3.5K, Frank raises to 12.5K, cut off and button fold. Turn 3(S), gets a check so Frank calls all in for 5.1K. River is A(H), player shows A9(s)k(d) and Frank is out.
Nordin and Gabriel see a change in their luck after the dinner and their strong stacks start to show signs of fatigue while Dean Francis, Peter Ockenden, Joerg Einhaus and Guillaume are eliminated one by one. Our strongest contender from NPL, Michael Martinovic sees his determination pay off when the cards turn favorable for him and his stack starts to show a healthy glow. Meanwhile Gary Pettersen, who just seemed to be enjoying the whole experience, played steady all day and was eliminated with 105 players left. Jeppe follows shortly after.
By the end of the day there are 85 players left and play finishes with 4 of our players still in, Gabriel Alarie who was hit hard just before end of play and will have to come out tomorrow all guns blazing to improve his 10K stack. Wing also ran into trouble when his Allin with pocket A’s got cracked by pocket J’s with a J on the river, however his 77K in chips won’t have him too nervous tomorrow. Michael turned his day around and ends on 66K.
So we have a total of 8 players go through to Day 2 and a remaining field of 134:
Gabriel Alarie (Canada)
Nordin Kerkvliet (Netherlands)
Wing Kwok Tang (Netherlands)
Jeff Woods (Australia)
Jason Brown (New Zealand)
Matthew Kepitis (Australia)
Micheal Martinovic (Australia)
Arif Mehmet (Australia)
So it’s bed time and with the clocks changing everyone misses 1 hour of sleep, lets hope it won’t affect tomorrow’s play too much.
