Klimczak Tops Day 1b; 2019 The Star Sydney Champs Sets New Main Event Record

Christian Zetzsche

Level 11 : 1,200/2,400, 400 ante

The second and final starting day of the 2019 The Star Sydney Champs A$3,000 Main Event had already reached the guaranteed prize pool of A$1,500,000 before the cards got in the air at 12.30 p.m. local time at The Star Sydney and a new attendance record was set in stone.

Once the late registration closed at the start of level five, the screens showed 320 entries for Day 1b and that boosted the overall field size to 600 entries, which created a prize pool of A$1,680,000.

It was a tight race for the Day 1b chip lead and Cezary Klimczak topped the leaderboard with a stack of 414,500. He is closely followed by Michael Tran (381,000), Trevor Godfrey (375,000), Nickolas Oiberman (338,500) and Brian O'Farrell (336,500). The top finishers of Day 1b all surpassed Day 1a leader Jo Snell.

Further big stacks and notables that advanced from the second flight were Navid King (274,000), Luke Edwards (263,000), Mazyar Misaghian (247,000), Murray Chick (203,000), Dylan Kehoe (173,000), Connie Graham (125,000), David Hirst (115,000), Craig Blight (96,000), Graeme Putt (77,000), Matthew Wakeman (67,000), and Chad Awerbuch (64,000).

The remaining players will return to their seats in the poker room of The Star Sydney on Sunday, August 4th, 2019, at 12.30 p.m. local time when another 11 levels of one hour each are scheduled on the penultimate tournament day. The returning blinds will be 1,500/3,000 with a 500 ante.

Joining the 57 survivors from Day 1a will be 66 hopefuls that made the cut after 11 levels of one hour each and the 123 remaining contenders will aim to follow in the footsteps of Nebojsa Blanusa, who took home the trophy and biggest Main Event prize in history so far.

A new chapter of poker in Sydney will be written in the two days to come, as Blanusa was among the many casualties of a fast-moving tournament day. Since the buy-in was increased to A$3,000 back in 2013, the attendance of the Main Event has grown every year and a new highest top prize will be awarded to the eventual champion.

The Sydney Champs Main Event Since 2013

Year	Entries	Prize Pool	Winner	Top Prize (in AUD)
2019	600	A$1,680,000	tba	A$352,800
2018	522	A$1,461,000	Nebojsa Blanusa	A$314,265
2017	496	A$1,388,800	Henry Tran	A$300,000
2016	428	A$1,198,400	Kahle Burns	A$297,203
2015	281	A$786,800	Ben Jee	A$200,634
2014	235	A$658,000	Martin Kozlov	A$171,080
2013	227	A$635,461	Daniel Laidlaw	A$165,000

The poker room was buzzing with all but ten cash game tables reserved for the Main Event and more than 250 players were in their seats in the first level of play. Many notables that failed to run up a stack in their first attempt took another shot at glory.

For such big names as Jason Gray, Ebon Bokody, Sean Ragozzini, David Wang, Tyron Krost, Tino Lechich, Ashish Gupta, Sarah Bilney, Jarred Graham, Vincent Huang, Didier Guerin, Dale Marsland, and last year's third-place finisher Charlie Hawes, Day 1b was not crowned with success.

Defending champion Nebojsa Blanusa saw his title defense come to an end on the feature table. Short in chips, Blanusa was all in preflop with ace-queen suited and Adam Kharman looked him up with ace-king. Both flopped a pair and Kharman's pair of kings remained best to send Blanusa to the rail.

By then, Andrew White was already on the rail. In just the second level of the day, White ran into a set of aces and chucked his cards into the muck before heading out of the tournament area. John Thomson was also already gone, the last player to depart from Day 1a was the first casualty of the second flight.

Suzy Khoueis, well-known in Sydney and the player with the second-most recorded cashes at The Star, was one of several players that were coolered by a case one-outer. In Khoueis' case, most of her chips vanished when three players hit a flush and the ace-high hearts of Khoueis were cracked by a straight flush on the river. Soon after, it was all over when her tens could not get there against pocket aces.

The players also came and left the feature table at a rapid pace and among the many to run out of chips during the Run It Up live stream were Sam Capra, Gautam Dhingra, Akshay Kapoor, Vesko Zmukic, and Laurence Hall. The bid of Michael Tran to take the honors of Day 1b chip leader culminated in a late double knockout when his ace-king suited remained ahead of Rehman Kassam with king-queen and the jack-ten suited of Patrick Laoyont.

Once the final three hands of the night were wrapped up, around one fifth of the field bagged up chips and they will be back in action after a good night's sleep. Around half of the remaining field will leave empty-handed on Day 2, as just the top 63 spots take home a portion of the seven-figure prize pool.

Make sure to tune back in then, as the PokerNews live reporting team will provide all the action from start-to-finish as a neww champion will be crowned here in Sydney.

Main Event Day 2 Seat Draw

Table	Seat	Player	Country	Count	Big Blinds
1	1	Nickolas Oiberman	Australia	338,500	113
1	2	Phillip Siddell	Australia	251,000	84
1	3	Nicholas Woodhams	Australia	121,000	40
1	4	Wenjian Qiu	New Zealand	102,500	34
1	5	Jacob Horowitz	Australia	79,500	27
1	6	Blake Lockwood	Australia	92,000	31
1	7	Chris Moussa	Australia	49,000	16
1	8	Errolyn Strang	Australia	125,000	42
1	9	Martin Ward	New Zealand	116,000	39

2	1	Michael Larcher	Australia	51,500	17
2	2	Bassam Habib	Australia	128,500	43
2	3	Mark Lassau	Australia	189,000	63
2	4	Monil Gohil	Australia	30,500	10
2	5	Shaun Zammit	Australia	39,500	13
2	6	Reza Vakili	Australia	156,000	52
2	7	Martin Rowe	Australia	70,500	24
2	8	Mark Betts	Australia	47,600	16
2	9	Michael Kanaan	Australia	264,000	88

3	1	Shivan Abdine	Australia	247,000	82
3	2	Dylan Kehoe	Ireland	173,000	58
3	3	Carlos Youssef	Australia	235,500	79
3	4	David Lee	Australia	30,500	10
3	5	Milan Gurung	Australia	74,500	25
3	6	Gary Benson	Australia	38,000	13
3	7	Trevor Godfrey	Australia	375,000	125
3	8	Salvatore Fazzino	Australia	190,500	64
3	9	Billy Argyros	Australia	132,000	44

4	1	Michael Tran	Australia	381,100	127
4	2	Robert Spano	Australia	188,500	63
4	3	Wei Dai	Australia	39,500	13
4	4	Ramin Mansour-Seperghan	Australia	98,500	33
4	5	Luke Edwards	Australia	263,000	88
4	6	Peter Dykes	Australia	216,000	72
4	7	Vanig Kalpakian	Australia	68,500	23
4	8	Matthew Mcguigan	Australia	36,000	12
4	9	Graeme Putt	New Zealand	77,000	26

5	1	Phat Nguyen	Australia	94,500	32
5	2	Justin Layden	Australia	40,500	14
5	3	Yesha Punjabi	Australia	76,000	25
5	4	Tu Le	Australia	279,500	93
5	5	Sid Gunasekaran	Australia	177,000	59
5	6	Michael Egan	Australia	179,500	60
5	7	Hamish Crawshaw	New Zealand	150,000	50
5	8	Cezary Klimczak	Australia	414,500	138
5	9	John Zwaine	Australia	53,000	18

6	1	Samuel Dessaix-Porter	Australia	217,000	72
6	2	Tien Phan	Australia	150,000	50
6	3	Navid King	Australia	274,000	91
6	4	Joe Antar	Australia	143,000	48
6	5	Charbel Boustani	Australia	74,500	25
6	6	David Hanlon	Australia	33,000	11
6	7	Carlos Gonzalez	Australia	319,000	106
6	8	Collin Tran	Australia	43,000	14
6	9	Barry Forrester	Australia	101,500	34

7	1	Lawrence D'lapico-Bien	Australia	130,500	44
7	2	Peter Brasile	Australia	43,500	15
7	3	Anastasia Tyulyakova	Australia	147,500	49
7	4	Corey Kempson	Australia	223,000	74
7	5	Sam Vakili	Australia	56,500	19
7	6	Jason Pritchard	Australia	313,000	104
7	7	Dejan Boskovic	Australia	67,000	22
7	8	Andrej Senic	Australia	187,000	62
7	9	Huang Huang	Australia	169,500	57

8	1	Murray Chick	Australia	203,000	68
8	2	Adam Kharman	Australia	79,700	27
8	3	John Rosario	Australia	278,500	93
8	4	Zesong Wu	Australia	115,000	38
8	5	Gang Zhu	Australia	70,000	23
8	6	Ardi Jaya	Australia	295,000	98
8	7	Hauman Darbani	Australia	143,000	48
8	8	Stefan Urosevic	Australia	219,500	73
8	9	Harlie Jensz	Australia	239,000	80

9	1	Kun Dadul	Australia	37,000	12
9	2	Kahlia Moussa	Australia	136,000	45
9	3	Marc Seymour	Australia	296,500	99
9	4	Steve Chu	Australia	63,500	21
9	5	Lachlan Dykes	Australia	120,000	40
9	6	Richard Davis	Australia	261,500	87
9	7	Kris Scully	Australia	106,000	35
9	8	John Yacoub	Australia	66,500	22
9	9	Paul Elliot	Australia	51,000	17

10	1	Yisi Zhang	Australia	246,000	82
10	2	Sam Khoueis	Australia	113,000	38
10	3	Mazyar Misaghian	Australia	247,000	82
10	4	Haoran Zhang	Australia	89,500	30
10	5	Tri Nguyen	Australia	113,500	38
10	6	David Hirst	Australia	115,000	38
10	7	Robert Lee	Australia	108,500	36
10	8	Patrick Yazbeck	Australia	122,000	41
10	9	Christopher Colaneri	Australia	273,000	91

11	1	Win Tan	Australia	195,200	65
11	2	Hussein Chamas	Australia	225,000	75
11	3	Chris Kittos	Australia	155,000	52
11	4	Daniel Cohen	Australia	32,500	11
11	5	Kumar K.A	Australia	285,500	95
11	6	Connie Graham	Australia	125,000	42
11	7	John Moffitt	Australia	118,000	39
11	8	Jo Snell	Australia	335,000	112
11	9	Sebastian Trisch	Germany	99,600	33

12	1	Ljudevit Marinic	Australia	168,200	56
12	3	Dejan Boskovic Sr	Australia	183,000	61
12	4	Con Angelakis	Australia	252,000	84
12	5	Matthew Wakeman	Australia	67,000	22
12	6	Chad Awerbuch	Australia	64,000	21
12	7	Peter Robertson	Australia	135,000	45
12	8	Will Davies	United Kingdom	125,000	42
12	9	Joseph Hayek	Australia	133,500	45

13	1	Guangyu Wang	Australia	154,700	52
13	2	Steve Pappas	Australia	141,000	47
13	3	Hedley Fung	Australia	50,500	17
13	4	Duy Nguyen	Australia	103,000	34
13	5	Bernie Stang	Australia	160,500	54
13	7	Marco Perri	Australia	40,500	14
13	8	Mladen Vukovic	Australia	76,500	26
13	9	Craig Blight	Australia	96,000	32

14	1	Tony Nardi	Australia	109,500	37
14	2	Hunter Song	Australia	104,500	35
14	3	Travis Endersby	Australia	139,500	47
14	4	Darren Lukas	Australia	55,000	18
14	5	Zachary Tay	Australia	121,000	40
14	6	Mladen Ivin	Australia	169,000	56
14	7	Brian O'Farrell	Australia	336,500	112
14	8	John Caridad	Spain	84,000	28