Nelson Charges Towards Final Table in Queenstown

The full field of the 2010 ANZPT Queenstown will finally be united in one room tomorrow, as the final 35 players get together to play down to the money. After a short three and a half hour session today, 35 players were left in the Queenstown room and they will combine with the 15 players who qualified from the Auckland day one and day two flights.

The leaderboard is pro heavy with Julian Cohen taking the flight chip lead late in the day. Cohen seized the lead in dramatic fashion turning a royal flush against "Furniture" John Apostilidis who rivered a full house, after flopping a set. Cohen will enter day three with 116,000 in chips. Lee “Final Table” Nelson is also snapping at his heels on 115,600. Of course they both have a fair bit of work to do to catch monster chip leader Yannick Frenette who has managed a nice tour of New Zealand in between his poker commitments, playing in both Auckland and Queenstown.

But the name players are everywhere with Michael Spilkin (90,500), James Bills (89,800), Matthew Pearson (88,800), and John Maklouf (77,400) all in contention for the title. Tony Hachem put in a tough day of grinding, once again proving to everyone that his style of game that suits the ANZPT Structure. Hachem bagged up 20,600.

Also amongst those returning tomorrow to pursue the title are Tim Clarke (74,000), Rick Kroesen (48,300), Andrew Watson (48,300), Bryan Huang (36,900), Robert Wang (32,900), Andrew Scarf (31,400), Jie Gao (25,900), Chris Levick (25,600), and Jason Gray (22,200).

That means that Raj Ramakrishnan, Julius Colman, Hugh Cohen, and Bruno Portaro we’re among the 18 players that didn’t make it through day two in Queenstown.

Tomorrow will see the field whittled down to the money spots. 15 players will cash with NZ$4,690 for a minimum cash, up to NZ$73,630 for the winner. PokerNetwork will be back after day three concludes with all the action from Queenstown.