Home / Poker News July 2011 / APPT Melbourne – Day 1 Report
APPT Melbourne – Day 1 Report
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2011-07-31 03:53
The 5th season of the
PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour kicked off with a newly introduced stop: the Melbourne, Australia one. Although the Tour hadn’t ever organized an event in Melbourne before, it became obvious from the get-go that the event would be a huge success. Numerous elite players attended, among them no fewer than 2
WSOP Main Event Champions.
The first day of action saw a starting field of 260 belly up to the tables of the Crown Poker Room. The registrants combined buy-ins, creating a prize-pool that would award the eventual winner a $330k prize.
The event kicked off in style: APPT Commissioner Danny McDonough introduced Chris Moneymaker, the winner of the 2003 WSOP Big Dance, who then officially got the event underway. In addition to the throngs of players anxiously awaiting the start of the action, a huge crowd or railbirds had gathered too.
Chris Moneymaker had a pretty tough day at the green felt. He struggled all day and even though he managed to survive the first hurdle, he did so on a stack barely larger than his starting one. The other WSOP Main Event Champion in attendance was Joe Hachem. Hachem had an even worse day than Moneymaker: he busted out when his A,Q fell to Liam Moffet’s A,K with all his chips in the middle of the table.
Mitch Carle was the one who clinched the chip lead at the end of the day. Carle had an excellent day as he dominated the table where he played. Despite that fact, it wasn’t until late in the day when he emerged as a serious contender for the chip lead. He took down a huge pot when he decided to make the all-in call on a board of Ah,6h,10d,7h,4s, holding A,K for the top pair. His opponent had A,J for the same top pair with a weaker kicker.
156 players survived the first day’s attrition, among them Van Markus, Jonathan Karamalikis and Tony Hachem.
