APPT Melbourne After three days of hyper-aggressive action, the final table for the 2011 APPT Melbourne Main Event is at last playing out today with Phillip Willcocks starting in a commanding lead on over 2 million in chips. Second-in-chips is Leo “The Mechanic” Boxell with just over 1 million while the rest are yet to surpass the seven-digit chip-mark.
Having started both Day 2 and Day 3 as the chip leader, Willcocks, who is best known for his runner-up finish at the inaugural 2009 ANZPT Queensland Main Event and 8th place finish at the 2009 APPT Cebu Main Event, has consistently dominated the tournament. Along the way, he eliminated two heavyweights in the field, PokerStars Team Asia Pro Bryan Huang and 2003 WSOP Champion Chris Moneymaker. Up against Huang, Willcocks disposed of him in a preflop showdown of Pocket Kings versus Huang’s Pocket Fives. Moneymaker met the same fate with Pocket Sixes when Willcocks snap-called his all in holding Pocket Aces.
Also amongst the fallen were current Aussie Millions Champion David Gorr when his Ace-Jack all-in did not improve against an opponent’s Pocket Queens. 2010 ANZPT Melbourne runner-up James Obst fell short of a final table berth when he was eliminated in 11th place with 
against 2008 APPT Manila Champion Van Marcus who held 
. Meanwhile, PokerStars Qualifier Jackson Zheng eliminated Antonis “Toothpick Tony” Kambouroglou with Pocket Queens over Pocket Sixes and, consequentially, his departure gave Leo Boxell the lead in the PokerStars ANZ Player of the Year race.
For Boxell this prestige is certainly something worth bragging about and part of how he got there was scooping up a huge pot while knocking out two players in a single hand. The action began from middle position, when Australian PokerStars Qualifier Ivan Zalac went all in preflop. He was called by Aaron Lim on the small blind and Boxell on the big blind. The flop read 
. Lim bet it out and Boxell who had Lim well covered in chips announced he was all-in. Lim insta-called with 
only to be crushed to see Boxell’s 
in a commanding lead with a set, while Zalac lagged way behind with 
. With a 
on the turn and a 
on the river, Boxell was well placed for his final table berth.
The unfortunate player knocked out in 10th was Aharon Shabtay, whose aggressive action in the previous days seemed to have lost most of its steam during crunch time. In a desperate need to double up, Shabtay went all-in with 
only to have his hopes quashed by Steve Bouya, who held Pocket Queens. Shabtay failed to improve and the final table was decided.
Here is the list according to chip count of the 2011 APPT Melbourne Main Event finalists:
Phil Willcocks 2,317,000
Leo Boxell 1,170,000
Steve Bouya 910,000
Michael Frydman 741,000
Will Jones 730,000
Jackson Zheng 640,000
Julius Colman 513,000
Van Marcus 346,000
Eddie Mascardi 335,000
With a mixed bag of players looking to be the next APPT Champion, check out PokerStarsBlog.com for the exciting final table hand highlights.
February 22, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
The Dirty Ice Cream Cup (DICC) is returning to Metro Card Club on March 15-20, 2012 and what better way to get the lowdown on it than to go to the man behind the tournament, Neil Arce. Every year, Arce holds the DICC to help celebrate his birthday and the tournament has been constantly growing with bigger fields and prize pool guarantees with every running.
Arce has an impre...
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February 22, 2012 by Posted By: Triccia David
DafaPoker has just announced the creation of two new mini sites, the Mega Million De Zhou Poker Tournament and the Mega Million, aimed at promoting their upcoming tournament, the Mega Million Main Event on July 7, 2012. Although these sites are in Chinese and targeted towards the Chinese market, the event itself is open to all registered DafaPoker players.
As previously rep...
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February 21, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
PokerStars Macau issued a press release earlier this month announcing the postponement of the Macau Millions tournament and the ending of its three-year partnership Casino Grand Lisboa in March, 2012. Ever since there has been speculation on where Asia’s biggest and most successful tournament room would relocate.
The norm with these kind of releases is to also announce a n...
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February 20, 2012 by Posted By: Triccia David
The PokerStars Macau room at Casino Grand Lisboa kicked off this weekend with a field of 196 players taking to the felt for the opening event of the 2012 Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon. After all the excitement, it was Xiao Yang Cui from Australia who claimed victory in the HKD $3000 No Limit Hold’em event, earning himself HKD $127,100 in winnings.
"This is my first time play...
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February 17, 2012 by Posted By: Triccia David
One of the things we observed at APT Asian Series Cebu at the beginning of the month was that no players from the Philippines managed to make it to the final table. At last year's event, more than half of the final tablists were Filipinos and, with our curiosities piqued, we decided to take a closer look at the stats and found a few surprises.
In 2011, a large percentage of ...
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February 16, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
Another running of the rake-free PokerGuru Tour (PGT) was completed last weekend with Vinay Suchede taking out top honours in the INR 25,000 buy-in Main Event. He conquered a field of 58 players to take home INR 550,000 in first place prize money.
On Saturday, play went down until the money bubble burst courtesy of Vineet Bailur who departed at seven-handed. Many of the not...
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February 16, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
Crown Melbourne’s VIP gaming salons have recently won the ‘Casino VIP Room of the Year’ title at the International Gaming Awards (IGA) 2012 in London. The ultra-luxurious VIP gaming salons are one of the showpieces of a AUD 1.5 billion redevelopment project at the complex, which is due to be completed later this year.
Poker players the world over should be familiar wit...
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