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The second official starting day of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Queensland Main Event, sponsored by PokerStars, went down yesterday at the SKYCITY Casino in New Zealand. Once again, the field was a little sparser than organizers had hoped, with just 43 players arriving and paying their buy-ins. PokerStars still expects a larger turnout on Thursday, the final starting flight of the tournament.

Following a relatively brief six hours of play, the competitor pool was reduced to 28. These players will join the survivors from Day 1a and Day 1c on Friday for what will officially be Day 2. Several big name pros, including Grant Levy, Daniel Neilson, native New Zealander Simon Watt and famed PokerStars professional player Joe Hachem, will not be joining them.

One player that will certainly attend Day 2 is Marcel Schreiner. The German native racked up 72,600 chips to become the Day 1b leader. Although his stack is undoubtedly impressive, it still comes up shy of what the top New Zealand players were able to accumulate on Day 1a.

Overall, it was Australia, not New Zealand, that dominated the leaderboard on Day 1b. With players from locales as diverse as Russia, Ireland, the Netherlands and even New Caledonia, Australian natives Daniel Laidlaw, Andrew Hinrichsen, Jonathan Karamalikis, Ryan McKay and Tom Grigg managed to take up spots 3 through 7 in the top 10. It should be noted that Matt Yates, a New Zealand resident, is currently in 2nd place for Day 1b with 62,100 chips.

If there’s a player to watch out for, it’s probably the aforementioned Karamalikis. The Australian pro was the Grand Final Champion at last year’s APPT Sydney Main Event, and his momentum increased exponentially towards the end of the day.