APPT Melbourne Day 1 of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Main Event got underway yesterday with a total of 260 players coughing up the AUD $5000 buy-in. Thanks to the cavernous Crown Casino Poker Room it was the first time in history that a main event for the APPT was able to fit its entire field into a single Day 1. The combined prize pool generated was AUD $1,220,000 with the top dog at the end of the four-day event set to receive AUD $330,000.
A number of big names were there for the tournament, including the 2003 WSOP World Champion Chris Moneymaker, who kicked off proceedings with the obligatory “shuffle up and deal”. Of course, Australian notables were littered throughout the room, such as Tony Hachem fresh from his deep run at the 2011 WSOP Main Event, his brother 2005 WSOP World Champion Tony Hachem, 2008 APPT Manila Champion Van Marcus, 2009 Aussie Millions winner Stewart Scott, reigning Aussie Millions Champion David Gorr and 2010 APPT Sydney winner Jonathan Karamalikis, just to name a few.
Some more familiar names from the Asian poker scene in attendance were Charles “Mr Macau” Chua, PokerStars Team Asia Pro Bryan Huang, Sixiao “Juicy” Li and Hong Kong-based David Steicke. At the end of the day, Chua was the only one of those to bust. His stack was crippled after his Big Slick ran into the Pocket Aces of Chris Moneymaker and he was then railed a short time later when his top pair got crushed by the flopped set of Fours of his opponent. Bryan Huang ended well in contention with 66,875 in chips, which was also the best of the Team PokerStars Pros.
Meanwhile, Juicy Li had an interesting rise. Late in the day, she tried to re-raise an opponent preflop with throwing in one 5000 chip and waving a finger. With no verbal declaration it was ruled a call and the flop came 
. Li then check-raised all in against her opponent and was quickly called by 
. Her ambitious 
looked to be on death row until the 
turn pinged for the wheel and the 
river delivered around 70,000 in chips her way.
The next few days are promising just as much action and you can catch all the hand highlights at PokerStarsBlog.com.
May 18, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
With the launch of Poker Portal Asia’s revamped Player Database, users can now search by country and find out who are the top players from their respective homelands according to how much they have cashed in Asia Pacific tournaments since 2008. To coincide with the launch of this new feature we’re releasing a series of articles showcasing the top cashers in each major Asian...
Read more»
May 17, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
May 16, 2012 may just go down as a landmark date in Macau’s poker history as it reportedly saw the widespread introduction of a new regulation allowing multiple poker tables to count as only one gaming table in each casino’s table cap.
According to World Gaming Magazine sources, as of 6am yesterday Macau’s table cap in relation to poker rose so that 20 poker tables wou...
Read more»
May 16, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
On May 15, 2012, PokerStars officially launched the fast action ring game of Zoom Poker. The move has come after a successful beta release from March that has seen over 300 million hands dealt and more stakes and games added.
You can now play Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo and Five Card Draw and various No-Limit, Fixed Limit and Pot Limit variations of Zoom Poker. Stake...
Read more»
May 15, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
The poker scene in Singapore just got a welcome boost today with the opening of Resorts World Sentosa’s long-awaited poker room. As the first legal poker room in the country, ‘Poker World’ opened for business at 12pm today and will be operating 24 hours, seven days a week for the foreseeable future.
As reported, the impending opening first came to Poker Portal Asia’s...
Read more»
May 15, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
The Metro Independence Day Tournament (MIDT) is once again returning to Metro Card Club, Ortigas – the biggest card room in the Philippines – on June 14-19, 2012 and is a chance for local players to celebrate Philippines Independence Day in style. The tournament will feature a PHP 5000 buy-in this time around, as opposed to last year’s PHP 3000, while the guaranteed prize...
Read more»
May 11, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
At long last we can say that PokerStars Macau has found a new home. Well, in actual fact, it’s an old home but what’s important is that Macau’s biggest poker room is finally about to be back in business. PokerStars Macau will officially return to the Grand Waldo Entertainment Complex on June 9, 2012, where it started its days in 2008 before shifting to Casino Grand Lisboa...
Read more»
May 11, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
With the launch of Poker Portal Asia’s revamped Player Database, users can now search by country and find out who are the top players from their respective homelands according to how much they have cashed in Asia Pacific tournaments since 2008. To coincide with the launch of this new feature we’re releasing a series of articles showcasing the top cashers in each major Asian...
Read more»
.JPG "APT Trophy (4)")
.JPG "Adam Monaghan (4)")
.JPG "Adam Monaghan (7)")
.JPG "Adam Monaghan (8)")
.JPG "Antonio Martins (1)")
.JPG "Antonio Martins (4)")
.JPG "Antonio Martins (7)")
