As we arrived, [Removed:17] was already getting up while Nino Marotta was celebrating. While he had just been knocked out, Yan was kind enough to tell us what had happened.
Yan opened and picked up two callers, one of them being Marotta. Yan bet 36,000 on and another 39,000 on the turn. Marotta was the only one that stuck around after the flop and he called the turn as well. The river was the and Marotta lead out for 100,000. Yan shoved all in for a little more and Nino Marotta called.
Yan showed but that hand was second best as Marotta tabled .
We arrived just as there was an all-in and a call with Xiuming Huang getting all the chips in pre-flop against Frank Pezzaniti.
Xiuming Huang:
Frank Pezzaniti:
Huang was the at risk player and received no help on the flop. Pezzaniti was on his feet calling for his hand to hold and it did so when the turn and river ran out and respectively. Huang hit the rail and Pezzaniti stacked up to just over 900,000.
Jeff Rossiter opened the action with a raise to 23,000 from middle position and Fedor Holz three-bet to 56,000 from the button. Rossiter shot Holz a look and counted out the call.
Rossiter checked the flop over to Holz, who checked it right back and it was off to the turn.
Rossiter now led for 90,000 and after thinking it over Holz made the call.
Both players check the river and Rossiter showed to take the pot.
“No bet on the river?” Queried Rossiter.
“I’m never going to win that hand as you’re not folding.” Replied Holz who dropped to around 500,000 while Rossiter climbed to 900,000.
Richard Ashby got his chips in with up against the of Mustapha Kanit with, what we believe was, at least some part of the board out already. The on the turn was a blank but the on the river sure wasn't.
With that, Richard Ashby was eliminated and the tournament down to 36 players - a pay jump and time to redraw. There was, however, another hand in progress. That hand follows in another update.
Nick Georgoulas, known as Nick The Greek around this part of town and winner of a side event earlier this festival, just decimated Brian Altman's stack.
The two got it in before the flop and it proved a huge cooler. Georgoulas showed to Altman's . The board brought no help to Altman and he was down to just 20,000 or so.
Two hands later, Altman was all in while Richard Ashby just busted on the other table to send the tournament down to 6-handed play. Altman was all in for 18,000 from the hijack and some people tanked - not aware of the implications it seemed -, which guaranteed Altman the extra pay out.
Altman was eventually called by small blind Koray Aldemir who had . Altman showed and doubled as the board came .
With just 36 players remaining, the 2017 Aussie Millions Main Event goes from 8-handed to 6-handed. That, however, will start tomorrow and with 43 minutes and 4 seconds left on the clock, the tournament is paused for tonight. We'll get back to you soon with an end-of-day recap and some more counts.
Another day at the Aussie Millions is in the books and once again it was all about Mustapha Kanit. The Italian all-time money leader crushed the opposition and didn't seem to be able to lose a hand. He ended the day with a massive 2.3 million, far more than any of the other 35 remaining players.
Fedor Holz (539,000), Jennifer Tilly (700,400) and several other notables are also still left in the field, making the Aussie Millions once again a tournament to follow for anyone even remotely interested in poker.
Player
Country
Chip Count
Mustapha Kanit
Italy
2,318,000
Marc Macdonnell
Ireland
1,078,000
Luke Roberts
Australia
1,073,000
Michael Weiss
Australia
1,000,000
Jeff Rossiter
Australia
995,000
Day 3 of the 2017 Aussie Millions started with exactly 150 players, and 70 would go home empty-handed as only 80 would cash. While 70 players might sound like a lot, they were dropping like flies early on although play tightened up as the bubble loomed.
Before the tournament went hand for hand, Australian poker legend Billy "The Croc" Argyros played a pot that got people from the entire poker room rushing to see what was going on. While Argyros, a member of the Australian Poker Hall of Fame, must have played thousands and thousands of hands in his long and illustrious poker career, we're sure he won't forget this one anytime soon. He got it in for quite a bit of chips with a set of deuces against a set of queens. The river, you guessed it, was a deuce and Argyros knocked out his opponent with a pure one-outer.
Despite winning that pot, Argyros would not make it into the money as he busted just before the AUD$15,000 min cash cheques were getting handed out.
The last player to share that fate was Alek Givotovsk. The first hand of hand for hand play, he lost ace-queen suited to ace-king suited and that was it, the 80 remaining 2017 Aussie Millions Main Event players were in the money.
One player was particularly happy about that; WSOP APAC champion Scott Davies survived the bubble with just a single big blind and one ante. He didn't make the great comeback he hoped for, but still seemed happy just cashing.
While Mustapha Kanit already had the chiplead at that time, post-bubble would only be more of the same as Kanit kept sending people to the rail and collecting chips. He hit a set of fives against Felix Schulze who had top-two with ace-king, and busted Richard Ashby on the last hand of the day to finish play with that huge stack.
Kanit is joined by several other notables, some of them fellow high rollers. Koray Aldemir, Fedor Holz and Jeff Rossiter are just some of the players who'll we be seeing on Day 4 of the Main Event. They're joined by Jennifer Tilly who crushed in her own way. Starting out as chipleader, she slowly but steadily chipped up. One failed bluff set her back a little, but she recovered soon enough and ended the day with 700,000 - well above average.
Day 4 of the Main Event is the day the livestream starts so on top of live updates from the PokerNews team, you'll be able to follow the feature table with the soft voice of Jason Somerville guiding you through the action and tactics.
Play will resume at 12:30 p.m. local time, with 43 minutes and 4 seconds left in the level 5,000/10,000 with 1,000 ante. The tournament, from here on out six-handed, will play down to a final table on Day 4.