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January 18th 2007
Aussie Millions Main Event: 80 players still in the hunt
The Aussie Millions main-event continues to attract one of the biggest non-WSOP fields of the year, as the 747 entrants in this years event proved beyond any doubt. Among them were many of the biggest names in world poker.
Unsurprinsly Day One was split into two seperate days, with a total of 299 players going on to Day Two. It would prove a start of mixed fortunes for the pros, with Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey busting in the first couple of days, while the likes of Gus Hansen, Patrik Antonius, Andy Black, Joe Hachem and many more were in good health with just 80 runners remaining.
Leading the pack at the end of Day Two was Haralobos Voulgaris, a gifted tournament player who finished second in the 2005 WPT LA Poker Classic for just under $1 million. But most of the crowds attention was focused on The Great Dane Gus Hansen who was up to his usual tricks in building up a healthy stack, ending the day in second place with $562,500. Just behind Gus the Internet prodigy Jimmy "Gobboboy" Fricke was also going strong, and the top ten also contained Andy Black (6th) and the 2006 WSOP main-event runner-up Paul Wasicka, a man whose recent tournament performances are beginning to back up his WSOP acheivement.
One of the crowd favorites was of course the 2005 WSOP Champion Joe Hachem, and he had a reasonable day, moving along slowly until the bubble, at which point he used his experience to bully the shorter stacks who were desperate not to finish out of the money. He ended the day with around $275k in chips.
Perhaps the most exciting performance of the day came from the Finnish sensation Patrik Anotonius, a player whose reputation has grown so much over the last year that he is now considered by many pros to be one of the top five players in the world, on a par with Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu. Anotnius started the tournament in typically bullish fashion, building a large stack before he clashed with defending champion Lee Nelson towards the end of Day Two. Lee Nelson was one of the few players on Antonius's table with a large enough stack to hurt Anotnius, and when he caught a flush to crack the Finn's pocket jacks Anotonius was back to below $200k in chips. The beat sent Anotonius steaming, and after walking away from the table to try and calm himself down, he came back in entirely the wrong mood to play poker.
Despite still sitting on a reasonable stack of chips Anotnius proceeded to bluff off most of them before suffering a few regualtion beats that left him hanging on by a thread with just under $3000 in chips. His tournamnet appeared over to all except Anotnius, who managed to quadruple up twice before doubling through Lee Nelson and promptly busting Barny Boatman of the Hendon Mob. By the time play was finished for the day Antonius was up to $270,000. A remarkable comeback.
Action will resume tommorrow at 12:30pm Melbourne time, with the likes of David "The Dragon" Pahm, Shane "Shaniac" Schleger, Ross Boatman, Lee Nelson, Kirill Gerasimov and many more still in the running.
Submitted: 18/01/2007 10:42:04
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