Before most poker tournaments you'll usually find players milling about outside the tournament area, discussing the game, the occasional bad beat, passing time before taking their seats and dropping any hint of camraderie. It's no different on the first floor of the SKYCITY Adelaide casino today. Old stagers mix with "young guns", even some father son combinations. Successful  internet "younger guns"  complete the field of roughly 104 on this day one flight one of the $3,000 main event.

After an inevitable but short delay Tournament Director Danny McDonaugh opens with  thank yous all round before handing the microphone to  Joe Hachem, surely the man who has delivered the most  "shuffle up and deal"  speeches in Australia to date.  Duty done Hachem took his seat with the todays other hopefuls. Once things  were underway the  usual hush came over the room as the  game and the concentration begins.

Action came quickly on hand two. Even with the first level of blinds being 50-100 with a stack of 20,000, David Hovey  under-the-gun on table eight, found himself all-in against Steve Tapakas in the big blind. David showed kings but even before turning them over seemed to know Tapakas had aces. A jack-ten-nine flop provided a few more outs but Hovey was headed from the room when his last hopes fail to arrive. He was joined there by the popular Antonio Casale.