Hon Cheong Lee is out and Aditya Rao is the first player past the one-million-chip mark and into the lead after a massive confrontation just played out at their table.
They got about 200,000 in the middle preflop before Lee led 85,000 into the flop. Rao made it 175,000, Lee shoved huge and Rao called it off with the .
Rao was on the right end of this massive cooler as Lee held the . The board ran out , Rao's kings held and as he took the lead, Lee said his goodbyes.
In the last hand before the break, in fact it lasted five minutes into it, a huge pot played out between Mark Malecha and Michael Seymour. Seymour had raised to 12,000 and Malecha three-bet pretty big to 48,000 in the small blind. Seymour just flat-called and they headed to the flop .
Malecha checked, Seymour bet 48,000 and then faced a check-raise to 150,000. Seymour moved all in for slightly more and Malecha had the dealer count it before paying off the additional 38,000 chips with . Seymour flipped over and faded the runner runner miracle with the turn and river as final two community cards.
Tatjana Zizic doubled up with against the of former November Niner Felix Stephensen and then the Norwegian three-bet jammed into the raise of Travis Rawlins with pocket threes. Rawlins snap-called with pocket tens and that's all she wrote.
Stephensen left his chair with a dry smile and said "that wasn't the best start."
In half an hour from now at 12.15 p.m. local time, Day 2 of the A$1,150 No-Limit Hold'em Opening Event will get underway at the Crown Casino in Melbourne. The first event of the 2016 Aussie Millions Poker Championship drew a field of 1,320 entries through four starting days and just 222 remain to battle for the first-place payout of A$275,300.
The top 126 spots will get paid at least A$2,975 and a total of ten 60-minute levels are scheduled for the penultimate day with a 30-minute dinner break after the end of level six. Play resumes with blinds at 1,200-2,400 and a running ante of 400. Still in the lead is Flight 2 chip leader Ferenc Riech with 205,700.
In the overall top 10, only one other player is not from Australia and that is fellow German Christian Nolte, who led Flight D last night with 166,500. Besides that, plenty of local talent has made it through including Daniel Neilson (167,000), Australian Poker Hall of Famer Van Marcus (148,800) and Andrew Hinrichsen (95,600).
The international field is represented by EPT Malta champion Niall Farrell (131,000), Kenneth Khoo (123,300), Louis Salter (120,000), Josep Maria Galindo Lopez (88,200), Ronnie Bardah (83,200) and Matas Cimbolas (81,300). Among the shorter stacks are Gerald Karlic (53,200), Rainer Kempe (44,200) and Xuan Liu (31,700).
The event is scheduled to play down to a winner tomorrow and the PokerNews live reporting team will be at hand to provide all key hands until the final river card is dealt.
flop. Rao made it 175,000, Lee shoved huge and Rao called it off with the 
.
. The board ran out 
, Rao's kings held and as he took the lead, Lee said his goodbyes.
.
and faded the runner runner miracle with the 
river as final two community cards.
against the 
of former November Niner Felix Stephensen and then the Norwegian three-bet jammed into the raise of Travis Rawlins with pocket threes. Rawlins snap-called with pocket tens and that's all she wrote.
