Crown’s Aussie Millions Poker Championship has now completed its fifteenth day. Twelve winners have been crowned so far and Day 3 of the Main Event will be played today, where 136 players remain from a starting field of 648.
Yesterday, (Wednesday, January 28) saw the entire 2015 Aussie Millions Main Event field compete under the one roof for the first time. 338 players from the opening three Day 1 flights came together to continue their journey towards fame and fortune.
The overall number of 648 entrants for the Main Event is a little down on last year (668 in 2014) but still shows tournament poker is alive and well. The top 72 players will finish in the money and the winner will receive a payday of $1,600,000.
2014 champion Ami Barer is still in the field and putting up plenty of resistance in the defence of his title. Barer was one of the big stacks through day one and he continued to climb on day two to amass a healthy stack of 318,600 chips going into Day 3.
There has been solid representation by the locals where it’s hoped the title will be brought back down under this year. Some of those well positioned include two-time Aussie Millions event winner Michael Pedley, WSOP APAC bracelet winner AJ Antonios, two-time ANZPT player of the year Tony Hachem, 2007 Aussie Millions Main Event 4th place Julius Colman, $25k Challenge champion Alex Trevallion and former APPT Sydney champion Grant Levy.
Levy has made a remarkable comeback – he was down below 2,800 in chips on day one when his kings full were rivered by quads. Somehow he’s managed to rebuild and now sits with a top ten chip stack entering Day 3.
Of the internationals. Mustapha Kanit and Jonas Mackoff have tasted Aussie Millions gold before, while the likes of Benny Spindler, Mike McDonald, Bryan Huang and former Aussie Millions Main Event champion Tony Bloom, all remain in with a chance. But all eyes will be firmly on international poker legend Phil Ivey. He had deep runs back in 2012 and 2013 and sitting on 278,300 chips, will be hoping for another big performance this year.
Final table results for events 4 through 9 and 12 through 14, are as follows.
Remaining events on the schedule include the $2500 Pot Limit Omaha, $2500 Shot Clock NLH Six Max, $1500 NLH ‘Deep Freeze’, $5000 NLH Six Max, $1150 Australian Poker Hall of Fame NLH and the $250,000 LK Boutique Challenge.
Event details and photo with thanks to Crown Melbourne.