18+ jogue de forma responsável. Sicad.pt

Srij Gordon Moody Sicad 18+

2019 Aussie Millions

Aussie Millions Highlights
Dias: 1

Aussie Millions Highlights

Dia 1 Concluído

Aussie Millions Actions Gets Underway with First Opening Event Flight

Opening Event Players in Action During Flight 1
Opening Event Players in Action During Flight 1

After months of feverish anticipation amongst poker players both here in Melbourne and further afield, the 2019 Aussie Millions got underway with the first flight in the Event #1 the AUD$1,150 Opening Event.

Carrying a AUD$1,000,000 GTD, the tournament has an added fifth flight for 2019, making it a near certainty that last year's field of 1,538 is going to be surpassed.

With cards getting in the air at 6:10 pm, the tournament garnered a total of 166 entries by the time registration closed at the end of level six.

Among the players to enter was Scott Davies who famously won the World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific Main Event in 2014 at this very casino. Sadly for Davies, he would bust around halfway through the day after a cooler against Tony March.

After March opened to 700 from early position, there was one call before Davies three-bet to 2,300 out of the blinds. Both players called and the flop was {j-Diamonds}{9-Hearts}{7-Diamonds}. Davies continued for 4,800 and March shoved for 5,700. The other player got out of the hand and Davies called.

Davies held {a-Diamonds}{a-Clubs} but was up against the flopped set of March who had {7-}{7-}. That left Davies short and he would bust shortly thereafter. He will be back tomorrow for Flight 2 hoping to make his way through to Day 2.

Jan Suchanek
Jan Suchanek

Another casualty from the first flight was Jan Suchanek who had looked to be going well with an above average stack heading into the final level of the night. However, he suffered ran pocket kings into the {a-Clubs}{a-Hearts} of Mario Mosboeck. The {7-Spades}{q-Diamonds}{7-Clubs}{a-Spades}{2-Clubs} was not what Suchanek wanted to see and he was left short.

And with just a quarter of an hour left in the day, he got his remaining chips in with {a-Diamonds}{4-Diamonds} on a {2-Diamonds}{5-Diamonds}{9-Spades} flop with both straight and flush draws. His opponent Fedon Phaedonos held {a-Hearts}{9-Diamonds} for top pair, and the board bricked out coming {k-Hearts}{6-Clubs} to send Suchanek to the rail.

From the 166 players that started, just 18 players advanced at the end of the night including Australian Heidi May who scored a last-level double up with {a-Hearts}{j-Clubs} against the {3-Hearts}{3-Clubs} of another player. The {q-Clubs}{9-Clubs}{2-Clubs} flop was not what she wanted to see, but the {a-Clubs} turn completed her flush and the {a-Hearts} on the river was just a matter of overkill.

Heidi May
Heidi May (foreground)

"Now I can just chill," said May who was delighted to secure her place in Day 2 at the first time of asking. "I've got a week off and a wedding on Friday so that'll be fun."

Fedon Phaedonos
Opening Event Flight 1 Chip Leader Fedon Phaedonos

Helped by the elimination of Suchanek, it is Phaedonos who leads the opening flight. The Australian has recorded Aussie Millions side event cashes in both 2017 and 2018 and will be looking to secure another one after bagging the chip lead.

Here is a list of the 18 players advancing from the first flight:

NameChip Count
Fedon Phaedonos169,500
Pierce Mchellar128,100
Manuel Rodrigues127,200
Heidi May126,100
Jon Jia121,500
Thorben Vellrath119,600
Dean Blatt119,200
Dean Hutchinson118,000
Mario Mosbock106,700
Joep Raemaekers91,400
David Stanton91,300
Roland Hawkins55,900
Mikael Koistinen46,900
Tristan Bain34,500
Bas de Laat25,600
Doy Q Truong15,800
Ning Zhang15,300
Joel Williams14,300

Flight 2 of the AUD$1,150 Opening Event gets underway tomorrow at 6:10 pm. Stay tuned to PokerNews for interviews and highlights from the early stages of the 2019 Aussie Millions.

Tags: Fedon PhaedonosHeidi MayJan SuchanekScott Davies

Aussie Millions Numbers "Way in Front of What I Thought" Says Tournament Director Joel Williams

Aussie Millions Tournament Director Joel Williams with 2018 Main Event Champion Toby Lewis
Aussie Millions Tournament Director Joel Williams with 2018 Main Event Champion Toby Lewis

With the Aussie Millions getting underway today, Crown Melbourne Tournament Director Joel Williams says he is optimistic with regard to the numbers of the 2019 event.

“Not cautiously optimistic, optimistic,” he said. “Eleven months ago I was really nervous; I thought the PCA was going to decimate the 10k and up crowd. I thought that we’re never going to be able to replicate 2018, but if we blow the siren right now and look at the Main Event, for example, we’re way in front of what I thought we would be.

“We know that the High Roller market has obviously changed, but we know that we continue to have the reputation of arguably the softest 10k field on the planet. If the perception is that it’s a room full of people who are arguably out of their depth, then why the hell wouldn’t you come? Even the locals all go “Oh yeah, no one knows how to play – I do, of course – but no one else does!”"

Last year’s Main Event attracted a field of 800 entries, with the “bitcoin lottery” in part helping to boost numbers in what was a record field says Williams.

“The fact that the poker community won the bitcoin lottery mid to late last year certainly helped, but we’re not gonna replicate that this year, unfortunately! Hayley Breen is in contact with players every day of the year. Last year the day after the Aussie Millions finished she was helping them get out of the country, and the moment they land she’ll be working to get them to come back!”

The tournament continues to thrive, despite no shortage of factors seemingly working against them says Williams, including the lack of online poker, the location, competition, and cost of living.

“We were planning 2019 two weeks after last year’s tournament finished, and there were seats to this year’s Aussie Millions locked up in the second or third week in March. It’s just good at creating awareness; it keeps the Aussie Millions constantly at the front of players’ minds.

“We came to a fork in the road when the online poker legislation changed. That was suddenly 250 seats that we needed to get back just to where we were. And a lot of the satellites back then were already enormous, and the answer was just to run more of them!”

Joseph Foleti and Karl Symonds are two of many Main Event satellite winners

With the number of satellite winners approaching 250, Williams expects that number to almost double over the course of the next two weeks.

“We started running the satellites early and mixing up the price points. It was hard to get people to start thinking about the Aussie Millions in February or March. It’s like having a bet on blackjack in March and finding out whether you won in January next year! It’s hard to get people to hand over money that could very well be an awful investment.”

This year there are a number of changes to the Aussie Millions including the inclusion of the big blind ante in a few tournaments, but not in the Main Event.

“We only introduced [big blind ante] in a weekly tournament half-way through the year or so. It’s just a lack of exposure. It’s got to get to a better level of experience among the players before it can be introduced in the Main Event. But look, last year there was none and this year it’s in a third of events. Next year, probably in two-thirds of events and who knows, maybe the Main is one of them.”

The first event, which gets underway tonight, is the AUD$1,000,000 GTD Opening Event which has an added fifth flight which Williams says will make it “by far the biggest ever”

Another addition to the schedule is the AUD$25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha which starts the day of the Main Event final table.
“That surprised me,” said Williams. “Everyone’s excited about it already. If you run another vanilla Hold’em High Roller then you always have names in mind for these kinds of things, but people are coming out of the woodwork already talking about the AUD$25,000 PLO.”

The inclusion of the PLO High Roller is in part down to player feedback, something that Williams considers of paramount importance if they’re going to keep players coming back to Melbourne for poker.

“There are so many blockers to get you to come, just geographically and with the hotels and whatever else. We know that there is plenty of opposition and bigger prize pools and that the centre of the High Roller universe is not Melbourne anymore.

“But there are guys like Fedor [Holz] that are “retired” but then say that they’ll always go to Aussie Millions; that’s fun, not work. Then you get here and you see him sat next to a guy who’s won his seat for pennies. That's pretty special.”

Fedor Holz
Fedor Holz in action at the 2018 Aussie Millions

Tags: Fedor HolzJoel Williams

Today at the Aussie Millions

Aussie Millions
Aussie Millions

Welcome to PokerNews's coverage of the 2019 Aussie Millions where over the next 21 days we will bring you all the action from the Crown Casino in Melbourne from the largest poker festival in the southern hemisphere.

The PokerNews live reporting team will be on hand to bring you all the exclusive action from the festival, including feature coverage of all the preliminary events including the AUD$1,150 Opening Event, the AUD$2,500 H.O.R.S.E. and the AUD$1,150 Shot Clock Shootout.

This year's reporting will culminate in live coverage of the AUD$25,000, AUD$50,000 and AUD$100,000 Challenge, as well as the prestigious AUD$10,600 Main Event, won in 2018 by Toby Lewis for AUD$1,458,198.

Here's what's going on today:

DayEventTimeBuy-in
15th JanuaryOpening Event Day 1 Flight 16:10 PMAUD$1,150

The 2019 Aussie Millions kicks off with the first of five flights of the AUD$1m guaranteed AUD$1,150 Opening Event, starting at 6:10pm this evening. Last year this tournament smashed the AUD$1,000,000 guarantee with a total of 1,538 players generating a prize pool of over AUD$1.5m!

2018 Aussie Millions Opening Event Winner Benedikt Eberle
2018 Aussie Millions Opening Event Winner Benedikt Eberle

Austrian Benedikt Eberle won the event, beating home favourite Michael Addamo into second place. Eberle was the only non-Australian and the final table and walked away with AUD$315,295 after his victory.

On each of the starting flights, players will receive 10,000 chips and play 12 40-minute levels. Late registration is open for the first six levels. Subsequent flights are open to players eliminated from previous flights as well as new players.

Stay tuned to PokerNews for highlights and updates from the day's action.

Tags: Benedikt EberleMichael AddamoToby Lewis

Aussie Millions Highlights

Dia 1 Iniciado