Card dead for most of the tourney, and in his words dying a slow painful death, late in the day he turned that frown upside down. The entire poker room was buzzing with excitement as the first (and so far only) royal flush was played out, and who’s grinning mug should be the center of that attention but our fearless leader!

Sadly Anthony didn’t quite survive to the dinner break, the call of a good steak was just too strong. I’m kinda glad though, we ended up having a great steak.

So it looks so far like everyone’s a winner down here from Carbon Poker.

Shane @ APPT Sydney

Leading the way is young Brazilian BatataSC, he has been one of our chip leaders since he started play, right along with our second highest stack Halo77. Both players have taken hits but bounced right back and end day one with 107,000 and 101,000 respectively.

Next on our list is dannyboy904, he showed great patience early and the late double up sees him end day one with 56,700.

Right behind him is bradfish who had a high of about 75,000 but just couldn’t find that extra hand to keep him up. He took down some big pots but just couldn’t get that back to back pot to really give him a lift. At one stage he looked like he might not survive after the last break, but he played his cards well and finished with 31,100, just enough chips to make an early move.

Our last player through to day two is flail1, he came through day 1b with 15,500 and while I suggested it might be worth moving all-in in the dark first hand, he is taking the safer approach of seeing what he can find in that first orbit before the blinds and antes take him out.

It was great to see all of our qualifiers do well, even the two players who couldn’t survive day one can hold their heads high after playing some great poker. The quality of play from this group has been unbelievable.

Its just 12 hours till we shuffle up and do it all again, hopefully this great play will continue and we can see a couple of players taking home some cash!

Here is the list:
BatataSC 107,000
Halo77 101,000
dannyboy904 57,600
bradfish 31,100
flail1 15,500

Shane @ APPT Sydney

The player to his left pushed hard only to have another player come over the top harder, when the action came to dannyboy904 he made his move and pushed all-in. The initial raiser thought long and hard before getting out of the way leaving dannyboy904 heads up. Having been especially patient in the early stages of the day I was certain he would only be making such a move with a big hand, he just isn’t the reckless type. When the cards were flipped it was dannyboy904′s A-K all hearts up against pocket Queens. He got out in front real quick with an ace on the flop, and from there it was all cream. A third ace on the turn gave him the absolute nuts and a king on the river for the full house was the finishing touch on a beautiful hand. dannyboy904 quickly rocketed up from about 20,000 to 60,000. With the hand over the initial raiser was left to ponder what might have been, having laid down A-K himself, dannyboy904 was very glad not to have shared that pot.

At the last break, with the average stack at about 55,000 our chip stacks looked like this:

Halo77 100,000
BatataSC 60,000
dannyboy904 60,000
bradfish 25,000

Shane @ APPT Sydney

Halo77 80,000
BatataSC 80,000
dannyboy904 50,000
bradfish 40,000

Shane @ APPT Sydney

Just before Hallo77 started raking in his chips he flipped his cards face up into the muck… 8-2 offsuit. His grin said it all.

Shane @ APPT Sydney

The latest chip counts look something like this:

bradfish 50,000
dannyboy904 50,000
Halo77 45,000
BatataSC 31,000

Shane @ APPT Sydney

Barcajuve looked good on the flop hitting an ace for a nice little set. He showed his strength there and moved all-in. He got a caller and with the cards flipped his pocket aces were up against A-T of clubs with 2 clubs on the flop. A blank on the turn saw him move from roughly a 70% favorite to about a 80% favorite with one card to come.

Unfortunately that last card was the 4 of clubs, and Barcajuve’s opponent rivered his flush sending Barcajuve to the rail in horrible fashion.

With one player down our chip counts look like this:

Halo77 38,000
bradfish 29,000
BatataSC 25,000
billbones 25,000
dannyboy904 24,000

Shane @ APPT Sydney