Day 1B is in the books at The Star Gold Coast; surpassing the number of entries from Day 1A early in Level 2 before attracting a total of 80 entries including re-entries.
Of those, 21 survived, with the likes of Rod Batoz (246,000) and Joe Sandaev (238,500) among the chipleaders. Zhixang Ang, despite being eliminated early in the day when his flopped trips got beaten by the turned full house of Nathanial Hutton, battled back to bag a stack of 258,500.
Hutton also found a bag, but on the shorter end of the field, bagging 106,500. Sean Ragozzini (39,000), Shino Otani (41,000), and Dan Smiljanic (67,000) will take the three shortest stacks of Day 1B through to Day 2.
Of all of the survivors though, it’s the one and only Sean Ooi, champion of the largest ever APL Million Main Event earlier this year for a $585,000 score, who has emerged on top of the counts, bagging 366,500 for Day 2 on Sunday.
Asked by PokerMedia Australia if he plans to change his strategy at all with a big stack in front of him, Ooi replied that he would just “play his normal game” – which, to be fair, makes sense seeing as he usually has a big stack in front of him. Asked what he does to prepare for a series and have the success that he does, Ooi placed high value in his mentality; “I keep my mental side good, [I’m] always coming in to win, try to stay competitive and most importantly, dont tilt!”
He’s earned a couple of days off, though he does plan to play Event 11 tomorrow, Ooi said he will ‘take the time to chill, maybe go to the beach.’
2023 WSOP-C Gold Coast Main Event – Day 1B chip counts
| Player | Chips |
| Sean Ooi | 366,500 |
| Zhixang Ang | 258,500 |
| Rod Batoz | 246,000 |
| Joe Sandaev | 238,500 |
| Slav Rypinski | 230,000 |
| Ken Demlakian | 227,000 |
| Lachlan Crilly | 199,500 |
| Aditya Rao | 193,500 |
| Scott Carmichael | 172,500 |
| Malcolm Trayner | 156,500 |
| Wenjie Sun | 151,500 |
| Wayne Clinch | 151,000 |
| Ali Ghezelbash | 109,000 |
| Nathanial Hutton | 106,500 |
| Killian Farrell | 98,500 |
| Travis Endersby | 96,500 |
| Nigel Kwok | 72,500 |
| Dan Smiljanic | 67,000 |
| Shino Otani | 41,000 |
| Sean Ragozzini | 39,000 |
PokerMedia Australia will be back tomorrow from 14:30pm local time to bring you all of the action from buy-in to bust-out of Day 1C.
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