8 players entered the day with a shot at the Aussie Millions title, and $1.3 million. In the end it was Australia’s own Stewart Scott coming away with the bragging rights.

Scott started the day with a substantial chip lead, and never faltered on his way to capturing the title.

Many people believed his stiffest competition would come from the two short-stacks: Poker Pro Barney Boatman, and Richard Ashby, AKA CHUFTY, in the online world.

It looked like Boatman was going to make a move early on when he more than doubled his starting stack, but it was not to be, as Boatman was the first player eliminated.

Boatman was soon followed by Ashby, leaving 6 virtually unknown players vying for the title.

Perhaps the hand of the day was when Zach Gruneberg flopped top pair on a J44 board. The problem was that Rajkumar Ramakrishnan flopped quad 4s! Sending Gruneberg out in 6th place.

Sam Capra was the next to go when he moved all in with pocket Tens, and was insta-called by Peter Rho’s pocket Aces.

Rajkumar Ramakrishnan lost with pocket Aces to Peter Rho’s pocket Kings, when Rho spiked a King on the flop.

Elliot Smith finished in 3rd place when his AQ lost to Stewart Scott’s A7, leaving Rho and Scott to play for the title.

In heads up play Scott got the dream scenario, AA, with Rho re-raising all-in with AJ! When the dust settled Stewart Scott was the Aussie Millions winner.

After 3 days of flights, and day 2, 86 players out of the original 320 are still in the running for the Aussie Millions title.

With 64 players making the money, and very long 2 hour levels, you can expect play to slow down quite a bit at the start of day 3 with the bubble looming.

When day 3 does kick off,  it will be two women leading the way, with Patrik Antonius right on their heels:

Annnic Ivert: 555,900
Annette Obrestad: 454,800
Rajkumar Ramakrishnan: 388,200
David Dochtery: 362,000
Stewart Scott: 348,000
Karl Bullock: 347,900
Patrik Antonius: 335,900
Michael Tureniec: 332,000
John Paul Kelly: 321,600
Will Zemljaric: 308,000

Other top pros still in the mix are: The always entertaining Scotty Nguyen, WSOP final table participant Raymond Rahme, internet superstar Steve Sung, and WPT sensation Clonie Gowen.

The payouts for the event are:

PLACE PRIZE

1 $1,381,392

2 $659,196

3 $461,437

4 $263,678

5 $197,759

6 $138,431

7 $98,879

8 – 9 $65,919

10 – 12 $52,736

13 – 18 $42,848

19 – 24 $32,960

25 – 30 $26,368

31 – 36 $19,776

37 – 40 $16,480

41 – 48 $13,184

49 – 64 $9,888

Day 1 of the Aussie Millions has been split into 3 flights this year, and with 2 flights completed 102 of the 202 entrants are still alive.

The chip leader is Brent Daphne, with 120,250 chips. Ivan Demidov continues his incredible play, and finds himself currently sitting in 7th place, with 81,925 chips.

The notable rail birds are: Jeffrey Lisandro, 2008 Aussie Millions champion Alexander Kostritsyn, Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, Ross Boatman, Jason Gray, and Harry Demetriou.

Big aces (AJ, AQ, and AK) are tricky hands to play; you’ll improve on the flop about a third of the time, but this hardly translates into a lock hand.

There are two keys to properly playing big aces:

1 – Playing aggressively to limit the field
2 – Playing aggressively to increase your fold equity on the flop

The key is to play aggressively, these hands are either raise or fold. Calling is simply not an option.

You want a smaller field, and the betting lead, because it’s easier to make a successful continuation bet against 1, at most 2 opponents. Additionally, with a smaller field it becomes less likely someone will run you down when you make a hand.

Remember, big aces are raise or fold! If you are limping in, or worse calling a raise with these hands you need to rethink the strengths and weaknesses of big aces.

Hi all, I’m back from vacation, and will be updating the blog more often.

Lets start the new year off with some big news from the tournament scene. WSOP champ, Peter Eastgate, captured another title by winning the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure!

Eastgate outlasted a field of 237 players to win the $343,000 first prize. Eastgate is proving he is a top tournament player, and not just a lucky champion.

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