WSOP APAC
Day 1 of the 4th WSOP APAC event from Melbourne is in the books, and Ben Wilinofsky is finishing the day sitting top of the pile.
The A$5,000 buy in to this 6-Max event has limited the field to around 170 players, and ensured that the general quality of these players is scarily good.
With Wilinofsky’s stack sitting at 160,400, his nearest rivals were both Australian. Sam Higgs will be sitting behind a 151,525 stack when player resumes, and 2nd place finisher in Event #1, Jonathan “monsterdong” Karamilikis is on 149,350, and is obviously running pretty well this week.
Other players doing well include always “broke” Jean-Robert Bellande (38,725), JC Tran (61,075) and Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier (40,425).
Bellande had encountered some issues earlier in the day, when a floor man had to make a ruling after a 25 minute wait to decide a hand. Bellande had opened from the cutoff for 1,000, which was raised to 2,500 from the button. The small blind mucked, and the Big Blind re-raised to 6,500. Bellande mistook the raise for a call, apparently due to the colours of the chips not being clear, and threw out 2,500 in chips. The dealer informed Bellande of the error, and that the bet was 6,500, which bought a fold from American, who attempted to reclaim the extra 1,500 chips. After much wrangling, the floor was called to sort out the mess.
Bellende explained his issue and announced
“I didn’t know those chips where in play…No one ever announced the introduction of those chips into the tournament, and from here the blue ones look the same. ”
The Tournament Director didn’t see it that way, and Bellende was forced to hand over the extra 2,500, and he really wasn’t happy about it. However, he was still positive at the end of the day:
Feeling a lil tournament rusty. I have 38k going into day 2 in the 6max. Feeling ok. #brokedownunder
— Jean-Robert Bellande (@BrokeLivingJRB) April 9, 2013
He’ll be returning tomorrow, when we’ll have the prize pool, and payout information. Play starts at Noon local time, and we’ll bring you all the highlights here on FTR.