Aussie Millions, Event #1 Day 1a: Xen Xenofontos and Tony Hachem Build Stacks
Over 300 hopefuls stormed the Crown Casino poker room Thursday evening for the inaugural event of the 2010 Aussie Millions. With an $1,100 AUD buy in, three Day 1's, and the chance for players who busted on Day 1a and Day 1b to rebuy on Day 1c the first event of the series promises to kick off the Aussie Millions with some serious fireworks. When all was said and done at day's end, Xen Xenofontos led the way with 186,300.
Xenofontos earned a large part of his big stack against Ben Delaney when the two saw a Q♥3♦4♦ flop with about 5,000 in the middle. Xenofontos led out for 4,100 and Delaney made the call. They saw the 6♥ fall on the turn and Xenofontos checked to Delaney who fired 7,200. Xenofontos called. The river brought the 5♦ and Xenofontos checked to Delaney who released a hefty 22,000 into the middle. Xenofontos then check-raised all-in for 48,300 and Delaney snap-called.
In the biggest pot of the tournament, Delaney revealed 10♦9♦ for a flush only to see Xenofontos flip over Q♦J♦ for a bigger flush.
In all, 51 players survived the day and some of the other big stacks going into Day 2 are Team PokerStars Pro Tony Hachem (136,600), Englishman Dan Carter (106,900), Jarred "FlopNutsOnYou" Graham (100,600) and Vanessa Selbst (92,400).
Among the notables who were not lucky enough to survive the day were local favorite Billy "The Croc" Argyros, Aleks Brkovic, Josh "JJ Prodigy" Field, Peter Aristidou, Antonis "Toothpick Tony" Kambouroglou, Andrew Demetriou and star of the G4 reality television show Two Months, Two Million, Jay Rosenkrantz.
Day 1b of Event 1 gets under way Friday at 12:30 p.m. GMT +11. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for complete coverage.
Follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news, and also become our fan on Facebook.
