Payne Leads Day 1a Survivors
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Day 1a of the 2013 Aussie Millions Main Event is complete, and the end-of-day chip leader is Brian Payne, who bagged 299,900 chips.
A total of 157 players entered Day 1a of the Aussie Millions Main Event – a four-player increase from 2012. Only 70 runners survived after seven levels of play, and joining Payne at the top of the counts are James Obst, Phillip Willcocks, Ayaz Mahmood, and Kevin Rabichow.
En route to the chip lead, Payne played a very strange hand against an opponent at his table. The two players were heads up on a board of 
, and there was about 90,000 in the middle. Payne tossed out 30,000, which was enough to put his opponent all in, and the player called for a little less. Payne begrudgingly turned over 
for ace-high, and his opponent grinned before flipping over 
for the same hand!
Payne’s aggressive style helped him grow his stack all day, and will return on Day 2 as one of – if not the – chip leaders.
There were plenty of casualties on Day 1a, including 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event champion Oliver Speidel, 2011 champion David Gorr, Brian Townsend, Rupert Elder, Grant Levy, Leo Boxell, Valdemar Kwaysser, and Peter Aristidou.
Gorr was eliminated when he lost a race against German Tobias Schwecht. The two got all of the money in the middle preflop, Gorr with 
, Schwecht with 
, and the board ran out 
. Gorr hit the rail, and despite recording the knockout, Schwecht was eliminated soon after.
Elder was eliminated after the 75-minute dinner break. He lost most of his stack with 
against an all-in opponent’s 
, and a few hands later he was busted by a different opponent’s 
.
Day 1b of the 2013 Aussie Millions Main Event will begin on Monday at 12:30 local time. The survivors from Day 1a will return on Thursday at 12:30 local time for Day 2.