APPT Sydney: Gwinner the winner on Day 1B

By Sean Callander

Day 1B is done and dusted here at the Star City Casino with 42 of the 184 players who took their seats at 10.30am set to return for Saturday's Day 2 action in the hunt for the PokerStars.net APPT Grand Final title.

Players in action today included Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson, Scotty Nguyen and Jeff Lisandro, along side scores of Australasia's best players and PokerStars qualifiers.

It was a much more sedate session than day 1A when players fell thick and fast in the early levels. However, the eliminations have been frequent this evening with less than half the field who went to dinner still alive in the tournament at the end of play.

At day's end, Henrik Gwinner topped the chip count on more than 375,000 – well ahead of Davoud Khajeh who led the field on day 1A (with 297,600). In the final 15 minutes, Gwinner made a gutsy call with 7h 5c against PokerStars qualifier Paren Arzoomanian (6h 5d) on a board of As 7s 5s 4d Jd to haul in a pot worth more than 200,000.

Scotty Nguyen had a quiet afternoon, but has taken control since the dinner break and with just under 300,000, the 1998 world champion is poised to have a big say on Saturday. He took a massive pot (nines against eights) in the last five minutes of play to rocket past all but one player in the chip count.

Others to finish the day strongly were the remarkably consistent Julius Colman Gary Diamond (220,000) and well known Sydney pro Steve Wise on 141,000.

Sid Kim, who was third in the PokerStars.net APPT Seoul main event, was a late mover after doubling through local youngster Kenny Ng and lucking out with a rivered straight against kings earlier in the night.

Other well known names who'll return on day 2 include Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson, veteran Melbourne player Leo Boxell, PokerStars Supernova Van Marcus and Tiffany Williamson.

We're back for day 1C from 10.30am tomorrow when Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem and Isabelle Mercier, PokerStars players Daniel Schreiber, Emad Tahtouh and Guillaume Patry plus dozens of PokerStars qualifiers will be in action.

Progressive Tournament Chip Count:

Henrik Gwinner 390,400

Davoud Khajeh 297,600

Jason Lien 278,200

Terrence Chan 253,200

Scotty Nguyen 250,400

Lei He 241,100

Gary Diamond 239,000

Michael Zowie 228,100

Julius Colman 196,600

Joseph Loruzzo 194,200

Larry Wright 180,600

Grant Levy 173,000

Karib Karib 155,400

Matthieu Logel 150,200

John Donahue 145,200

Sol Bergren 142,600

Leo Boxell 142,100

Luigi A'Preda 130,800

Jai Kemp 109,000

Tony Dunst 108,200

Vijayan Nagarajan 108,000

Sid Kim 107,300

Paren Arzoomanian 105,300

John Matwey 97,300

Lee Nelson 93,500

Robert Korun 93,400

David St Eloi 93,300

Franciscus Dekkers 92,800

Daniel Elkington 90,500