Rendall with Big Lead on Day 1a of APPT Auckland
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It��s not often that Day 1 of a poker tournament finishes up with only 19 surviving players, but that��s exactly how Day 1a of the APPT Auckland Main Event turned out.
There were 53 total entrants on the opening day of the final stop on Season 8 of the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour. This is likely to be the smallest of the three Day 1 flights on offer, with the vast majority of the 74 total online qualifiers registered for Day 1b.
Plenty of recognizable players were at the felt today including Dean Francis, Lukas Byrns, Oliver Gill, Pravin Harji, and Australian Poker Hall of Fame member Leo Boxell. However, none of these players were still alive when the day was over.
Unlike the aforementioned players, Ben Rendall was able to survive the night and did so with the largest chip stack. He will begin Day 2 with 179,600 in chips, which is well ahead of his nearest competitor, Qiang Fu who has 114,600.
Some of the others who survived the eight 60-minute levels of Day 1a included Brett Unkovich, Ryan Shiffman, Daryl Hussey, and Dean Blatt. You can find all their chip counts, and all the other survivors�� stacks, in the live reporting blog below. That��s where you will also find play-by-play coverage for the entire day.
Those who made it through Day 1a will now have a few days of a break before returning for Day 2 on Saturday. Before then, two more batches of players will hit the felt of the SKYCITY Auckland Casino.
PokerNews will be back at it for Day 1b, which kicks off bright and early at 10:15 a.m. local time Thursday. Be sure to join us then as we continue to report on all the APPT Auckland action.