Home / Poker News August 2009 / APT Macau Day 1A: Steicke dominates
APT Macau Day 1A: Steicke dominates
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2009-08-23 16:00
The Asian Poker Tour’s Macau Main Event kicked off the other day, starting the high buy-in poker season in the Asian gambling paradise. Compared to last year, when the APT’s Macau Main Event drew an overall crowd of 257, this year saw the buy-in reduced to $4,400, from last year’s $5,300. Possibly due to this fact but probably because of the increasing popularity of high stakes live poker in Asia, this year’s Day 1A saw 133 players start, 30 more than last year.
Day 1A saw fierce action from the get go, and when the dust settled at the end of it, the 133 starting field had been reduced to 37.
David Steicke, one of the most popular Australasian players dominated Day 1A, pretty much from one end to the other, as he managed to secure the provisional chip lead as well.
The very first hand that he played saw Steicke double up. Three players went to a flop of Qs,9d,5d after a preflop raise and Steicke wasted no time in check-raising the initial raiser on the flop. The turn was a 2c and the river brought a 7d to fill up Steicke’s nut flush (he held Ad, Qd in his pocket). The interesting thing was that one of his opponents had also rivered a flush, but unfortunately for him, it was only a K-high one.
Steicke is known for being one of the most skilled players when it comes to reading his opponents. A living testimony to why poker is indeed a game of skill, Steicke put his skills on display once again on Day 1A of the APT Macau. In one hand, his opponent put him in a position where he had to decide whether to call a bet or not for half of his 60,000 chip stack. He did make the call eventually and ended up facing Kd, 6d. His pocket 9s held up and he scooped the pot which took him to 90,000 chips.
Jay Kinkade was not about to let Steicke steal the limelight though and he did his best to keep up the breakneck pace Steicke had imposed. He did in fact manage to keep it up for the first few levels, but he was then seated to a tough table and eventually faded into the field.
Last year’s APT Macau Champion, Yevgeniy Timoshenko had a much tougher Day 1A though. Timoshenko didn’t really get anything going, and he only briefly managed to exceed his 10,000 chip starting stack. He was eventually forced to stake his tournament life on a coin-flip and he rammed his pocket 9s into an opponent’s K,Q. He lost the race and his title defense was over virtually before it really began.
Young Phan and Mansour Matloubi soon joined him on the rail too, and so did Mel Judah and Tony Dunst.
Given the fact that most registrants prefer to get rolling on Day 1B, the overall starting field may well exceed 330. That would mean a prize-pool in excess of $1.3 million.
