2015 Aussie Millions

Day 1b of the 2015 Aussie Millions Poker Championship AU$10,600 Main Event attracted 173 players – 20 more than the year before – but after seven 90-minute levels, approximately 91 remained with Ian Wassell and his stack of 229,500 leading the way.

Others who bagged up big stacks were online legend Dan "jungleman12" Cates, Corey Kempson, Mustapha Kanit, and Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang.

Speaking of Cates, he was involved in perhaps the biggest pot of the day, which happened in Level 6 (250/500/75) against Kanit. There was around 30,000 in the pot when action exploded on a flop and a series of raises resulted in Cates getting his remaining stack of 75,275 all in and at risk against Kanit.

Kanit tabled the , but it was no good as Cates had flopped a set with the . It was a particularly interesting spot for both players. Kanit won two massive pots earlier in the day courtesy of aces, while Cates busted the $100,000 Challenge twice on Sunday holding kings only to be shown aces on both occasions.

With approximately 180,000 on the line the dealer slowly burned and put out the turn. It was a safe card for Cates, but there was still one more card to come. The dealer burned a third and final time and revealed the . Safe again.

"Finally won one of those," Cates said as smile beamed across his face. Kanit, who at one point was the chip leader with nearly 200,000 (nearly 40,000 more than the Day 1a chip leader), silently cut out chips from his stack and sent them across the table. Kanit and Cates continued to clash after that, but even so both finished with top-five stacks.

Others who managed to punch their ticket to Day 2 were Australian Poker Hall of Famer Gary Benson (97,600); European Poker Tour regular Andrew Chen (88,200); Jesse "OnTheMac" McKenzie (87,000); long-time Aussie pro Grant Levy (78,700); a legendary sportscaster's son, Kane Kalas (74,000); the UK's Simon Deadman (28,700); and Macau "Big Game" pioneer Winfred Yu (18,000).

Of course not everyone was so fortunate. Among those to hit the rail on Day 1b were David Steicke, Aaron Lim, Celina Lin, Sam Cohen, Chad Awerbuch, Tom Grigg, Jake Abdalla, Fabian Quoss, and Shiva Dudani, who actually fell after running aces full into a Royal Flush.

Day 1c, which is the third and final starting flight, will begin at 12:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday. It will be the largest flight thus far, and it'll be filled with plenty of big names including Patrik Antonius, Sorel Mizzi, and Phil Ivey, just to name a few. Players will once again play seven 90-minute levels, and of course the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be there every step of the way to bring your all the action and eliminations straight from the floor of the Crown Poker Room.

While you wait, check out our video on Australia Day:

Fabian Quoss wanted PokerNews to have a great comeback story featuring him but it wasn't to be.

He was very short, found pocket threes, and shoved but walked into an opponent holding nines behind him.

The tournament staff has just announced that the remaining players, of which there are approximately 96, will play three more hands before bagging and tagging for the night. We're headed out to the field to compile some chip counts, so stay tuned for those as well as a full recap of the Day 1b action.

Bryan Huang's table mates were full of envy at the way he won a chunky pot as play nears an end here on Day 2.

The Team PokerStars Pro was on the button and battling the big blind. They'd made it to the river with the board reading . Huang bet 13,500 and after a bit of thought, his opponent moved all in for almost 40,000 with . Huang snapped him off with and was full of smiles as he was teased.

"I waited so long for kings," we heard a short-stacked player bemoan.

We made our way over to discover that he did in fact get his last 8,000 all in preflop holding pocket kings, but he was unfortunate to run into the buzzsaw that is Corey Kempson.

Kempson:
Opponent:

The board ran out a clean and Kempson added to his already massive stack.

Simon Deadman's pretty good at showdowns. So good in fact that he got the last of his chips in dominated and thought it best to apologise to his opponent in advance.

A player in the hijack raised to 1,600 before Deadman three-bet all for 10,000 from the button. The small blind moved all in behind and the original raiser flashed pocket nines and left them to it.

Deadman's was in bad shape against his opponent's but he found a way out on the board.

With around 7,000 in the pot and a board reading , a player in middle position bet 3,000 only to have Alan McMaster three-bet all in from the hijack for right around 21,000. The middle-position player thought for nearly two minutes and eventually laid down his hand.

Shola Akindele was witnessed as high as 90,000 earlier but slipped back since then. She just won a small three-way pot to get back up to around 68,000.

She opened from the cutoff and picked up a call from the button and Timo Pfutzenreuter in the big blind. All three players checked the flop to head to turn. The action checked to the button who bet 1,600. Pfutzenreuter folded quickly but Akindele called to the river.

Both players went back to checking and the dealer pointed at the button to show. He knew he was beat and held his card towards the muck and finally into it after Akindele opened .