Ruha Leads Advancing 33 Players; Heimiller, Thomas & Gross Lurking
On Saturday, the 2014 World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific continued with Day 1 action from Event #2 $2,200 No-Limit Hold’em. The tournament – one of the new events added to the WSOP APAC schedule – attracted 215 players, but after ten one-hour levels of play, just 31 remained with Sam Ruha and his stack of 122,000 leading the way.
Ruha got some of his chips in Level 7 (200/400/50) when Daniel Negreanu opened for 950 from middle position and Ruha called. The 
flop saw Ruha call a bet of 1,600, and then he called one of 2,800 when Negreanu bet the 
turn. Both players then checked the 
river and Negreanu rolled over the 
for a pair of sevens. It was no good though as Ruha held an overpair with the 
. Negreanu would fall later in the night while Ruha went on to bag up the chip lead.
Others who made it through with big stacks included Tim O’Shea (100,200), Michael O’Grady (82,200), Bill Zahris (82,100) and Sam Nee (68,400).
Straight out of the gate the tournament was characterized by one thing – eliminations. The reigning WSOP champ, Ryan Riess, was among the first to go when he ran kings into aces, but he was far from the last. Among those to exit on Day 1 were Vanessa Rousso, Jack Salter, Jonathan Dimmig, Jonathan Duhamel, Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Brandon Shack-Harris, Jackie Glazier, Jonathan Little, Scott Clements, Bruno Politano, and George Danzer.
After finishing in 22nd place in Event #1 and surpassing Shack-Harris atop the 2014 WSOP Player of the Year leaderboard, Danzer jumped into Event #2 just as registration came to a close. Danzer managed to work his 6,000 starting stack up to 15,000 or so, but that's as high as he'd get.
Danzer lost a good deal of his chips when he raised from the button and then called a shove from the player in the small blind. Danzer was ahead with 
against his opponent's 
, but a king on the river saw the German fall to six big blinds.
He got it in a short time later after two players had limped, one of which called him with 
. Danzer held 
but failed to improve. He confirmed that he will be playing Event #3 $1,650 Pot-Limit Omaha on Sunday.
While dozens fell, a lucky throng of players made it through to Day 2 including Dan Heimiller (55,200), Kitty Kuo (45,400), Russell Thomas (13,000), and Jeff Gross (13,000). The latter two will have their work cut out for themselves if they hope to make the money at the top 24 and contend for the $107,500 first-place prize.
The remaining 33 players will return to action at 12:30 p.m. local time on Sunday, and the plan is to play down to the final table of nine. Of course the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be there every step of the way to bring you all the action and eliminations from the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia.