The last of the three starting flights of the 2017 Aussie Millions Main Event was completed early Wednesday morning at Crown Casino Melbourne. With another 322 players taking to the felts, the three-day total is now up to 718 registrants. It does not look like the 2008 record of 780 players, but with registration open through the first level of Day 2, it is entirely possible that last year’s mark of 732 players could be eclipsed.
Tony Mladenovski came out of Day 1C as that flight’s chip leader, ending with 187,400 chips. That is still a ways off from Day 1B leader, Mustapha Kanit, who will enter Day 2 with a tournament-leading 215,000 chips. Mladenovski, a Melbourne local, has almost no live tournament cashes of which to speak. According to his profile on TheHendonMob.com, he has just three cashes in regularly schedule tourneys at the Crown Casino in both Melbourne and Perth for a total of barely over $3,000. Should he maintain a position in the Aussie Millions anywhere in the vicinity of where he is now, he will get to celebrate by far the largest live tournament score of his life.
As we all know, in poker sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. Now, that is not at all to say that another local, Joel Douaglin, isn’t a fine poker player – he did place third in this very tournament two years ago – but it always feels good to have the cards fall your way.
During Level 4, Douaglin and his opponent each got all their chips into the middle in a pre-flop raising war and boy was it terrible timing for his opponent, who had a very nice hand, pocket Jacks. Not that one would typically want to be shoving with that early in a tourney, but still, it’s a good hand. Douaglin had pocket Aces, though, and just as he liked it, the board provided no drama, allowing him to eliminate the other player and grow his own stack to about 67,000 chips.
In the next level, Douaglin found himself in a similar situation. Pocket Aces and a willing raiser pre-flop. When all the chips were in, his opponent had to be feeling terribly about the cooler with which he was just smacked, as he revealed that he had pocket Kings. I don’t even know how one is supposed to feel about that. Do you shrug it off, since there wasn’t much you could do to avoid ending up all-in against Aces, or do you curse the poker gods until you are blue in the face for setting you up in such a sadistic way? At any rate, the board once again was uninteresting and Douaglin’s Aces held up. At that point, he jumped into the chip lead with 142,300 chips. As we have discussed, he is no longer the leader, but his (unofficial) 110,900 chips put him near the top of the list heading into Day 2.
Speaking of Day 2, it will begin at 12:30pm local time Wednesday. About 372 players made it through from the starting flights and, as mentioned, some more may join before the end of the first level.
