Gray Day in Sunny Sydney: APPT Grand Final Day 1b

As expected, Day 1b of the PokerStars APPT Grand Final here in Sydney was a more robust version of its predecessor just one day ago.

While Day 1a saw 108 APPT hopefuls take to the Star City felt, a whopping 172 got in the game today.

More players usually means more stars, and Day 1b did not disappoint, as a list of big names topped by defending APPT Grand Final champ Grant Levy showed up on the shores of Darling Harbour to kick things off just after 12:30 p.m. local time.

Team PokerStars Pro Raymond Rahme got off to a lightning-fast start, pushing his $20k starting stack up to $40k by the time the second level rolled around, but the 2007 WSOP Main Event third-place finisher was quickly surpassed by an even bigger poker star.

Poker's only WSOP/WPT/EPT Triple Crown winner, Gavin Griffin, rode pocket kings toward an $80k stack when he was lucky enough to fade one foe's nut-flush draw as the second level came to a close. He suddenly found himself the early chip leader.

Sleeping with the Sydney fishes.

Big-name pros like Bill "The Croc" Argyros and Jeffrey "The Scary Aussie Gangster" Lisandro began falling fast as the day wore on, the former in a set-over-set debacle involving Terrence "Not Johnny" Chan, but Griffin kept on coming.

At one point it looked like the Team PokerStars pro hit a high-water mark of $90k before slipping a little, then righting the ship at the end to get over $120,000.

But even Griffin could not match the massive day that Aussie Jason Gray enjoyed.

Gray, who won a prelim at the Victorian Poker Championships Down Under in 2007 and made the Omaha Hi/Lo World Championship final table at the 2008 WSOP, jumped into the spotlight byflopping a set against an opponent's top two to grab a seat among the leaders.

With unrelenting aggression he pushed his way into the lead before the dinner break and became the first player over the $100k mark before finding himself on the enviable end of the biggest pot of the tournament so far.

A Gray day.

He bet $13k into a J T 9 7 board with $25k in a heads-up pot with APPT Auckland sixth-place finisher Nathanael Seet.

Seet then lost his mind and pushed in for $54k total. Gray shrugged and made the call, and when Seet turned over Q Q, he was only too happy to show 8 5.

Having turned the straight, Gray needed only to fade an eight or a king and after he did that, suddenly he found himself with $172,000 in chips and a lead no one would come close to by the time play was through.

Whereas it was clearly Gray's day in Sydney - he ended with over $180k - it was definitely not Grant Levy's. His title defense came to a close just before the dinner break when he shipped it short with sevens and had as much luck convincing a player with two overs to fold as he did fading them.

The previously mentioned fast start by Ray Rahme came to an even quicker close when he ran into APPT Macau Season 2 High Roller runner-up Andrew Scott late in the day. Scott had a tough start but it looked like a strong finish would make up for it, until he ran trips into quads late. He will limp into Day 2 Friday with under $40,000.

Full Tilt pro Mark Vos was also in attendance today, and although he managed to find himself on the right end of AA vs. KK a couple of times, he never really got things going until the late stages. In the end, Vos ended with around $70k in chips and will be looking forward to a deep run deep here in Sydney.

Rolling high.

Not as well-endowed in the chips department, Team PokerStars Pro's Lee Nelson and 2007 APPT Macau High Roller champ Eric Assadourian were still among the 83-odd players who survived the day.

They'll join the 46 Day 1b survivors returning Friday to play out Day 2, but PL.com and a whole new crop of Day 1 Grand Finalists will hit the Star City felt tomorrow beginning at 12:30 p.m. Sydney time.

Although it's beginning to feel a lot like Groundhog Day Down Under, with the biggest name in Australian poker in Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem on the roster for Day 1c tomorrow and 2008 WSOP Main Event champ Peter Eastgate, APPT Season 2 title holders Van Marcus, Edward Sabat, Yoshihiro Tasaka and Daniel Craker joining him, it'll definitely be worth the price of admission.

Especially considering there is none.