As one former Main Event champion exits, another has jumped into the Main Event field. David Gorr is a member of the Australian Poker Hall of Fame and is seated at a table alongside fellow Australian Heidi May.
Gorr finished third in the 1998 Main Event, but 13 years later took down the Main Event for a cool AU$2,000,000.
On the river, Thomas Wing faced the shove of Shao Liu for 12,825, well more than the size of the pot, and gave it some thought before shrugging and tossing in calling chips.
Liu turned over for the nut straight and Wing mucked the for two pair.
Sorel Mizzi never recovered from his earlier setback, and despite his double not long ago, the Canadian was no longer to be found on the secondary feature table. According to Dylan Honeyman, Mizzi got his last 9,000 in preflop with jacks versus aces and couldn't improve.
Further big names among the Day 1a bustouts include Najeem Ajez and Marc MacDonnell, while Jake Schwartz, Michael Dyer and Jerry Wong are all short-stacked before the dinner break.
Dyer just bet a heads-up flop of for 525 and Scott Wilson came along from the button. The turn was checked and Dyer check-folded the river when facing a bet of 1,600.
Nicholas Tologlou bet the flop and Jerry Wong shoved for 7,725. Tologlou asked the dealer how much more he had to call and tossed in the extra chips soon after.
Wong rolled over and Tologlou had the . On the turn, Wong was about to leave his chair, but the river was a blank.
Another player at the table asked Wong, who replied "yeah, I thought he had two spades." Instead of being flushed, Wong had to settle for the split pot instead.
The seat that formerly belonged to Manny Stavropoulos no longer features the former Aussie Millions champion and Anthony Kingston was busy stacking his chips properly in 20s. Right at that moment, Benny Glaser had raised to 800 and Jackie Glazier three-bet to 2,200, Glaser called. Both players checked the flop and Glaser check-called a bet of 3,000 on the turn.
On the river there was no betting action either and Glazier won the pot with .
After the hand was over, Glazier and Kingston confirmed as to what happened to Stavropoulos. In a three-way pot, Kingston flopped the nut straight with ace-jack and Stavoropoulos held for the second nut straight, a third player in the hand went broke with ace-king for top pair, top kicker and a gutshot.
The remaining players in the 2019 Aussie Millions Main Event Day 1a are going on their dinner break and will return at 8:50 pm AEDT.
With over 160 entries so far on Day 1, plenty of home favourites, ring winners and former Main Event champions have joined - and left - the field.
David Gorr is the only Main Event champion left standing after Ari Engel and Manny Stavropoulos were both eliminated. 2019 Mix Max champion Engel is lost with jack-ten against the kings of Heidi May, while Stavropoulos lost straight over straight in one of the last hands before the dinner break.
Other notable eliminations during the first four levels include Michael Moore, who was gone inside the first level, along with Kenny Hallaert, Sorel Mizzi, and last year's seventh-place finisher Johan Schumacher.
Schumacher shoved sixes into jacks midway through the first four levels of the day, but said that he had been "running bad" in a number of spots including set over set and making a straight against a better straight.
Australian Poker Hall of Fame member Graeme Putt meanwhile was eliminated shoving jacks into the pocket aces of Quan Zhou, moving Zhou up into the top ten chip counts.
Currently, it is Anthony Kingston who leads the way after a string of bustouts propelled him to well over 150,000 in chips.
Other notables still in include 2019 8 Game champion Michael Gathy and 2019 Shootout champion Justin Liberto along with the likes of Benny Glaser, Aymon Hata, Dzmitry Urbanovich, Paul-Francois Tedeschi, Vojtech Ruzicka and Jackie Glaser .
On the four-way flop of , Dylan Honeyman bet the small blind for 1,000 and was called three ways including Sam Khoueis and Ajay Chabra in the cutoff. The fell on the river and Honeyman checked, the big blind made it 1,000 to go. Khoueis folded and Chabra raised to 4,000.
Only the big blind snap-called and Chabra showed for the flush to claim the pot.
In a battle button versus big blind, Justin Liberto took on Quan Zhou and they created a pot of 10,500 to the river. Zhou bet 15,000, which covered the remaining stack of Liberto, and the American made an agonizing fold to be left with fewer than half the starting stack.
Zhoun flashed the and claimed the pot without any table chat.
Dylan Honeyman also used the power of his stack to boost his stack without showdown. Honeyman bet the turn for 11,000 i9nto 20,000 and that was enough to force a reluctant fold from his sole remaining opponent.