APPT starts in Melbourne - Day 2 just ended, the show is on

260 players compete for the $330,000 prize

Lots of large poker tournaments kicked off this summer, and most of them drew the attention of poker fans throughout the world. After the World Series of Poker Main Event ended, players focused on the next big tournament, and the current ongoing one is happening all the way in Australia. The APPT is currently in its fifth season, and so far there have been 2 days of the tournament that ended.

The $5,000 Main Event captured the attention of no less than 260 players - a lot, lot less than the thousands that came together in Las Vegas for the WSOP Main Event, but quite a lot more than last week's World Poker Tour, held in Slovenia.

This leg of the APPTT is held in Melbourne, at the Crown Casino. The prize pool for this edition of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour reached more than $1.2 million, with $330,000 going to the first place player - again, a lot more than at the WPT last week.

Chris Moneymaker and Joe Hachem were the stars that caught the eye of poker fans at the Season 5 APPT. Local player Joe Hachem busted out on Day 1, however, when he busted out after going all in against Liam Moffett - an online poker player, coming straight out of an online qualifier. His A-Q were beat by MOffett's A-K, and it was game over. Chris Moneymaker, on the other hand, managed to end the day sitting on a 30,000 chip stack. Although this is far from the top players, it's a respectable chip count nonetheless.

And speaking of the top players, here they are: Mitchell Carle, Australian native, was first, with close to 188,000 chips. He was followed by Kyle Cheong (also an Australian), with just under 127,000 chips. David Allen completes the podium of Australian players, and he's third with just under 124,000 chips. The first non-Australian one the list is Phillip Willcocks, who comes from New Zealand and sits all the way on 7th place, with just over 110,000 chips. The top 10 list is completed by the only player from Hong Kong in the top players - David Steicke, who has 107,050 chips.

We look further for the battle for the top prize. Not long now before we go into the bubble and things really start to heat up. Join us for more news for one of the top tourneys in Asia and Australia.