Stevan Chew was among the shortest stacks when coming back and the Aussie has since more than doubled up. He remains under immediate pressure though, but already survived around 25 opponents that busted within the first half hour. A list of bustouts will be available shortly.
At the same table, Matt Salsberg has also more than doubled up as well.
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."
Russell Thomas had Christos Vlahos at risk of elimination with versus and flopped top pair on . Instead of the flush, Vlahos made a back door straight thanks to the turn and river to stay in the tournament.
Jonathan Karamalikis walked over to Xuan Liu and reported about his elimination while a short-stacked Nam Le just shoved for the remainder of his stack with . Liu called with and scooped the pot after a board of . Soon after, Wissam Boumadi moved all in and Liu flat-called, all other opponents folded.
Boumadi:
Liu:
After the board , Liu had knocked out the second player in a row and more than doubled up her stack.
The cards of Ali Ghezelbash were already in the muck, but he had been unable to beat the of Josep Maria Galindo Lopez on a board of . The Spaniard moved up to six digits and is well on track with twice the average.
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.