"I'm a bit of worried now," said PokerStars Asia Pacific Live Events Manager Sam Dawson. It was half way through Level 21 and Dawson was understandably concerned that the slow progress of play might mean we're in for an extended haul.
"Danny (McDonagh) is more confident, but I BELIEVE it is usually 4am now," Dawson added.
He could also be right. We would indeed be here to 4am tonight, and there has been a period of play recently that made us worry that it may be even later than that.
Level 20 was a real grind. AN ACTUAL war of attrition with the fast stacks fighting tooth and nail to outlive. Eventually something needed to give.
Henry Tran bumped into pocket kings to fall in 24th place and we clearly jinxed Luke Brabin by talking up his chances in our last article as he fell in 23rd.
Shao Liu, Luke Edwards, Lloyd Godsland and Robert Salter all had their day dropped at an early end because the players formed the overall two tables.
We'd only lost six players within the last two hours of play, but ahead of the hot break the luck went against the quick stacks as Nicholas Mullen, Henry Szmelcer and Adrian Bolzonello all succumbed.
With 15 players remaining heading into the second one break of the day, Dawson, and the remainder of us, are actually a little bit more relieved that the tournament is back on schedule and we'd get out of here before the sun rises tomorrow.
Emerging from the pack within the last two hours have been Luke Spano.
Spano picked up ace-king within the perfect spot on multiple occasion, removing both Shao Liu and Luke Edwards with the old "Big Slick".
With a cash earlier this year on the ANZPT in Perth, Spano is obviously a player to observe as we get deep on this tournament, especially now as he's our chip leader with over 1.5 million in chips.
Spano also has claim to a different interesting stat here in Melbourne.
Due to the giant size of the prize pool, if no deals are done at the final table, the winner's cheque of $253,000 will instantly elevate the winner to two# at the all-time earnings for the ANZPT. That leaderboard is currently led by former ANZPT Perth champ Dejan Divkovic with $258,440 in earnings, so if our winner has no less than $5,440 in previous ANZPT earnings, he'll take excessive spot.
A quick skim through our remaining player's records and it looks as if Luke Spano is one among only two players within the field who could potentially take that #1 spot. Spano's two previous ANZPT cashes have netted him $7,780, so he's a first-rate candidate for prime spot. The one other player who can take the #1 spot is Edison Nguyen who finished 19th on the ANZPT in Sydney earlier this year.
A few others, equivalent to Dennis Huntly an Peter Skouteris for example, do have previous ANZPT cashes but they will not have earned enough to take over #1.
With 15 players left and a large chip lead, Spano will certainly be beginning to eye that winner's cheque.
Heath "TassieDevil" Chick is a contract Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Australia New Zealand Poker Tour]
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