Melbourne resident Anh Nguyen has vaulted into a spot among the leaders.
According to Nguyen, he's picked up a ton of small pots along the way to building a big stack, and hasn't had much in the way of big hands or huge all-in confrontations.
In the biggest hand he could remember, he did make trip kings, but other than that one, it has been a long slow grind to the top.
Scott White put the remainder of his chips in with and had a massive kicker issue versus . There was no help on the board and White headed to the rail.
One hand later, a short stack was all in with the and Arunas Sapitavicius called with . Again the better hand held up the the chips were sent to the Lithuanian, who remains below average.
"Oh, I just keep on getting lucky," Kevin Blackwood said with a smile before then stating that it was rather a matter of run good instead. The biggest most recent pot came off an opponent's shove with and Blackwood looked him up with to scoop the pot.
A huge set up hand nearly cost Joseph Cristallo his tournament life. Instead, he's the new chip leader.
There was an early position raise to 2,100. The player behind bumped it to 5,500 and when it folded to Cristallo in the small blind, he looked down at two kings and shoved in.
Both players called, the first with two aces and the second with two queens. A king in the window gave Cristallo a set and with bricks on the rest of the board, he collected a more than 60,000 chip pot and moved up to the top of the counts.
With the overwhelming success of this Opening Event, and the unprecedented number of international players already in town for this year's Aussie Millions, it looks like a big number may be very likely for the Main Event starting next weekend. This looks like the year to try for the Aussie Millions bracelet!
Manig Loeser more than doubled up his tiny stack and Geoffrey Mooney one table nearby also has reason to smile. After a flop of , he went heads-up against an opponent that then shoved the turn with . Mooney called with for top pair and held up with the river as final community card.
The seat of Kitty Kuo is empty. Off to a flying start, the stack of the Taiwanese had slowly but surely dwindled to only 12,000 and Kuo just three-bet pretty large to 4,100. Scott Peters had raised to 1,500 and then shoved and won the flip versus .
and had a massive kicker issue versus 
. There was no help on the board 
and White headed to the rail.
and Arunas Sapitavicius called with 
and Blackwood looked him up with 
and that was it for the German.
turn with 
. Mooney called with 
for top pair and held up with the 
river as final community card.
versus 
