The Crown Poker Room in Melbourne, Australia, was the venue where the newest champion of the Super Stack series was crowned this afternoon. Local player Quoc Nguyen defeated a field of 510 entrants to capture the Shane Warne Super Stack Main Event title, named in honour of Australian cricketing legend, and Team888 member, Shane Warne.

Day 2 of play started with 160 players returning to first burst the bubble for the top 45 players before surging on towards the final table.  Along the way there was plenty of carnage as the likes of Liam O’Rourke, Tom Wing, Josh Foster, Dale Marsland, Chris Whitmee and previous Shane Warne Super Stack champion Monica Huynh (pictured below with Dean Schneider) were among those to fall short of the money.

 

After the bubble popped, the players trickled to the cashier at a steady pace throughout the evening.  Mario Ljubicic (44^th), Billy Seri (40^th), Dale Chapman (35^th), Nali Kaselias (34^th), Lorriane Craig (32^nd), defending champion Dean Schneider (27^th), Vinh Tran (26^th), Dean Blatt (21^st) and Melanie Wohlers (19^th) were some of the more notable players who went home with some profit for their efforts.

The key hand of the tournament actually unfolded on the final table bubble when Quoc Nguyen and Day 1a chip leader Sebastian Selvaggio collided on a flop of 5h-6d-Kh.  Nguyen looked dead and buried when he opened As-Kd for top pair, only to discover Selvaggio had flopped a set with his pocket fives.  The table then watched in shock as the 6h turn and Kc river completed the board to give Nguyen an unlikely bigger full house!

So surprising was the result, that Selvaggio didn’t even realise as he went to shake the hand of his opponent, only to be told the bad news.  That hand was the difference between elimination and eventual victory for Nguyen. Selvaggio would end up falling in 9^th place as Nguyen finished off the job with pocket kings against Selvaggio’s ace-rag.

The leader at the start of the day was Michael Rinaldi, and his highlight of the day was the double elimination of Busra Kaluntakasuwun (7th) and David Atkins (8th) when Rinaldi’s pocket aces held in a three-way all in. From there Rinaldi wasn’t able to get much going, losing his spark and eventually blinding out in 5^th place.

At that point, the four remaining players agreed to a deal, based on an ICM chop, with $4,000 spared for the eventual champion.

Andrew Kyle did well out of the deal as he lost a race with Ad-7c against Dale Townsend’s pocket deuces to fall in 4^th place as Townsend went on a heater to gain the chip lead. But a huge coinflip with ace-king against Sam Paisley’s pocket tens saw Paisley flop a set to take control of the contest with a massive chip lead.

Townsend was eliminated moments later to see Paisley take a five-to-one chip advantage into heads-up play against Quoc Nguyen. However Nguyen quickly closed the gap with a double up, and then put pedal to the metal as he ramped up the aggression to gain the ascendency.

Paisley eventually made a stand with Ah-Th as Nguyen three-bet shoved pocket eights, but the board bricked out 6s-3h-kh-6d-5d to give Nguyen the title of Shane Warne Super Stack champion along with $21,800 in prize money.

 

Shane Warne Super Stack Final Table Results

1^st Quoc Nguyen - $21,800*
2^nd Sam Paisley - $17,500*
3^rd Dale Townsend - $17,100*
4^th Andrew Kyle - $16,100*
5^th Michael Rinaldi - $6,000
6^th Anthony Legg - $5,000
7^th Busra Kaluntakasuwun - $4,000
8^th David Atkins - $3,000
9^th Sebastian Selvaggio - $2,500
10^th Darryl Gassal - $2,100

* denotes four-handed deal

A complete list of prize winners can be found over in the Poker Asia Pacific forum.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Shane Warne Super Stack and congratulations to our prize winners. We look forward to seeing you all back in the Crown Poker Room for the next Shane Warne Super Stack event in Melbourne in early November.

 

It was a wintery day in Melbourne, Australia, but that didn’t stop a healthy field of 221 entrants taking to the felt of the Crown Poker Room for Day 1c of the Shane Warne Super Stack Main Event.  The quality structure of the Super Stack series again proved popular as the total field for this event totalled 510 - well above last year’s figure of 332.

The prize pool of $132,600 will be divided across the top 45 players.  A min-cash will be worth $600 while our champion will collect the title and a very handsome $32,500 in prize money.  That’s an impressive return on investment!

It took a while for players to slowly trickle into the Crown Poker Room today but once registration was locked out after four hours, we had plenty of notables to keep an eye on. Antonio Fazzolari, Sean Karita, Liam O’Rourke, Leo Boxell and Sam Higgs were all back for a chance at redemption, while it was the first time we’d seen the likes of Raj Ramakrishnan, Pat Dillon, Daniel Dessman, Nali Kaselias and former Joe Hachem Deep Stack champion Daniel Botta.  Also among the field were many of the 84 888poker online and live poker qualifiers, some who were taking their first shot at a championship-like tournament such as the Shane Warne Super Stack.

Unlike yesterday where Michael Rinaldi was a dominant chip leader, today the chips were spread far more evenly around the room, despite nearly twice as many starters.

It appeared that Alf Frommer may bag the chip lead, but he was topped late in the day by Vinh Tran (pictured below).  After winning a big pot with pocket aces against pocket queens, Tran bagged up 193,800 for the day’s chip lead. Tran only has a couple of other previous results to his credit, mostly in deep-stacked tournaments like this one, so he’ll be looking for a big result on Day 2 on Sunday.

 

Salvatore Ruotolo (162,400), Alf Frommer (160,200) and Arnold Bathan (154,200) were the other big stacks in the room. Joining them on Sunday will also be Antonio Fazzolari (110,800), Dean Francis (101,100), Nali Kaselias (66,800), Liam O’Rourke (62,000) and Karan Punjabi (36,500) as 80 players survived the day.

The full chip counts for the field, prize pool information and the Day 2 seating draw can be found over at the Poker Asia Pacific forums.

A total of 160 players remain in contention for the Shane Warne Super Stack title and they will all come together for the first time on Sunday at 12:10pm for Day 2 of the event.  There will be some nervous moments before the bubble bursts on the top 45 players, before they power on towards the final table and crown a new champion late in the evening.

Make sure you follow us on Twitter for regular updates from the Crown Poker Room throughout the final day of the Shane Warne Super Stack event.

The Shane Warne Super Stack was once again centre stage at the Crown Poker Room in Melbourne, Australia, as Day 1b of the $300 Main Event got under way this afternoon. 

Despite it being a work day in Melbourne, a respectable field of 115 players entered (and some re-entered) on Day 1b to enjoy a championship-like 25,000-chip start bank and thirty-minute levels - a quality structure for a budget buy-in.

Some were back to fire a second bullet with Dale Townsend, Billy Seri, Fabian Craib and Antonio Fazzolari among those returning to the front line after misfiring yesterday.  Craib and Townsend in particular made good use of their second chance as they accumulated healthy stacks during the day.

The Day 1b field was also greeted by not one, not two, but three members of the Australian Poker Hall of Fame. Leo Boxell, David Gorr and Mel Judah (pictured below) all took part in today’s field, although the trio couldn’t gather much momentum as they failed to progress through the day.

 

Aussie young gun Liam O’Rourke made a cameo appearance as one of the last registrations, before making a swift exit when his pocket kings fell to pocket fives.

Fabian Craib and Darryl Gassali both enjoyed time at the top of the leaderboard, but after the final break of the day it was the relentless Michael Rinaldi (pictured below) who stormed to the top of the counts.

Rinaldi ran red hot with a key hand seeing him rake in a monster pot with his king-eight making a full house.  Even a table change didn’t deter Rinaldi who continued to power through his opponents, as he flopped top two pair on two of the final three hands of the day!

 

In the end Rinaldi bagged up 352,100 for a massive chip lead, over Kyungrok Kim (215,200) and Paul Altis (181,400).  Other notables to survive include Dale Townsend (109,600), Billy Seri (81,100) and Luisa Helps (24,700).  Full chip counts of the entire 32 survivors can be found at Poker Asia Pacific.

Rinaldi final tabled this event in April last year after also emerging as one of the chip leaders on that day. Can he improve on his 7^th place finish and go all the way to the Shane Warne Super Stack title?  He’ll have to wait until Sunday to find out, but in the meantime we have the third and final opening flight kicking off at 12:10pm on Saturday.  Once again we’ll have daily recaps of all the action here on the 888poker blog, while you can also follow us on Twitter for more regular live updates throughout the event.

Five continents, nine countries and 27 stops in 18 cities. Arguably one of the world’s most far-reaching poker series, the 888poker Super Stack headed down under today as Melbourne’s world-class Crown Poker Room played host to the 7^th leg of the 2013 Super Stack schedule.

The event was the Shane Warne Super Stack (SWSS) Main Event, named after Australian cricket hero and Team 888poker member, Shane Warne.

The $300 buy-in afforded local players a generous 25,000-chip start bank and 30-minute levels. It’s the deep-stacked structures that the Super Stack series is known for, and it was enjoyed by the 162 entrants who took to the felt this evening for Day 1a.

The number of entrants was well above last year’s number, and with an additional flight added to the schedule on Saturday, we should see a large field and healthy prize pool up for grabs.

A great mix of the local Melbourne poker community were amongst the Super Stack action. Some were taking their first shot at a tournament with a championship-like structure, while others had plenty of experience under their belts.  Some of those notable players that were spotted included Billy Seri, Jie Gao, Antonio Fazzolari, Mario Doria, Marwin Nassif, Dale Townsend, Chris Whitmee, Fabian Craib, George Cotaidis, Mario Ljubicic, Dale Marsland, Luke Santo, Tom Wing, Aussie Millions final tablist Jarrod Glennon, and former SWSS runner-up Josh Foster.  Our field also contained two previous Shane Warne Super Stack champions in Monica Huynh and the defending champ Dean Schneider.

The SWSS event is a repechage and single re-entry event, meaning that it was possible to enter up to six times in order to reach Day 2.  One of those spotted firing two blanks was Sam Higgs who was unable to match his WSOP APAC form after busting not once, but twice within the first level of play!

While Higgs didn’t take advantage of the deep stacks, the remaining players enjoyed plenty of game time with the luxury of 25,000-chip start banks and thirty minute levels.

After twelve levels of play it was Melbourne local Sebastian Selvaggio (pictured below) who soared to the top of the chip counts with a stack of 195,900.



Selvaggio emerged half way through the day as a runaway chip leader and it was a position he was able to maintain until the final cards were dealt.

Not far behind was Busra Kaluntakasuwun with 177,600, thanks largely to her pocket jacks spiking a set to crack her opponent’s pocket aces.

Our two previous SWSS champions also made it safely through to Day 2 with Dean Schneider amassing 108,600 while Monica Huynh (pictured below) battled with a short stack for most of the day, before some late aggression saw her claw up to a respectable 47,000.

 

48 players survived the day, with the top ten chip counts as follows

Top Ten Chip Counts

Sebastan Selvaggio - 195,900
Busra Kaluntakasuwun - 177,600
Chin Neah Shim - 170,100
Quoc Nguyen - 154,000
Sam Paisley - 148,200
Chris Rowell - 142,700
Melani Wohlers - 140,000
Alister Jones - 135,000
Dale Marsland - 128,400
Amirul Yamin - 116,500

Day 1b commences at 12:10pm on Friday with the third and final flight at 12:10pm on Saturday.  We’ll have daily recaps of all the action here on the 888poker blog, while you can also follow us on Twitter for more regular live updates throughout the event.