Leo in box seat

By Ben Blaschke
03 December 2009

IT’S been a lean year for Aussie poker icon Leo Boxell but he could be in line for a spectacular finish after roaring to the top of the leaderboard following Day 1b of the Pokerstars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour grand final at Star City yesterday.
Boxell enjoyed a huge surge midway through the day’s play to stack up a whopping $147,700 with one more flight remaining later today.
“I said to my wife that I’d love to reach $150,000 but even $100,000 would have been good – so I’m stoked,” said Boxell.
“It’s been a very skinny year – I haven’t had much of a collect at all.
“I think the last one was back at the Aussie Millions in January.
“Since then I’ve been to Perth and Christchurch and all over the place.
“I was lucky enough to jag a win in a qualifier for here so if I could just make the money I’d be happy with that.
“We’ll see where it takes me from there.
Boxell was up and down early but proved unstoppable once he got going.
“I had a very good table that was easy to read so that chipped me up and then there was a big hand when I hit a flop hard and a guy tried to bluff me,” he said.
“I flopped a set and he went all-in so that threw me up to $100,000 and I coasted from there.”
Second in chips after two flights is Tom Grigg – who won the shoot-out event last week for $35,000 – with a total of 10 players currently sitting on over $100,000.
Among those to take their seats yesterday were David Steicke, Jay Kinkade, Michael Guzzardi, Wooka Kim, Brendon Rubie, reigning champion Martin Rowe and The Poker Star and Joe Hachem Deep Stack champion Amanda de Cesare.
All but Kinkade made it through with a total of 68 progressing from the 109 that started Day 1b.
The final flight kicks off today with a star-studded field featuring 2005 WSOP champion Joe Hachem, 2008 champ Peter Eastgate, 2007 APPT winner Grant Levy and Pokerstars pros Emad Tahtouh and Celina Lin.