By James Potter and Eliot James

We have come to the end of Day 2 of the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker Main Event. It has been a long day with 9 levels being played. The poker, however, has certainly been first rate. The SkyCity Poker Room has never seen action like this before and the locals are packed to the rafters to watch the biggest poker event in the country’s history.

It was an early day for PokerStars sponsored player Celina Lin who was one of the many very early casualties. Team PokerStars pro Joe Hachem fought hard all day but never got the cards to put up a major challenge. It was a credit to the champion to make it so deep when things weren’t going his way. Joe’s brother, the likable poker playboy Tony, kept all entertained and made the money and showed he is the real deal.

Tony Hachem...Guaranteed!

Grant Levy also finished in the money and another good finish from our APPT Grand Final Winner last year will add to his growing reputation as one of the region’s best.

We are now down to 11 players who will come back and fight it out in the final day of the tournament. This is what poker players play the game for and these players will all be very excited tonight and might not get too much sleep.

Local boy Luke Stanford is our chip leader and played nearly flawless poker all day. Hot on his tails is Nathanael Seet with 400,000 chips and the Singaporean should start tomorrow as the favourite and will be hard to beat.

Luke Stanford leads the way into the final day

Daniel Craker is another one of the local challengers and it has been great to see so many Kiwis make it deep into the money. It certainly is a credit to the game here and it would be a huge result for a local to walk away with the title.

Daniel Cracker another of the local challangers still well in the mix

Tune in early tomorrow for bio’s on all the players on the final table and all the action from the APPT Auckland.