After three Day 1 flights the 2013 Aussie Millions is heading into Day 2. A total of 622 players registered for the tournament over the three starting flights, and 319 of those players will be back in action at the Crown Casino for Day 2 of the event, including some of poker’s top talents like Patrik Antonius, Sam Trickett, Vanessa Selbst, Antonio Esfandiari, John Juanda, Gus Hansen, Jason Mercier, Melanie Weisner, Phil Ivey, Joe Hachem, and former Aussie Millions winners Tyron Krost, David Gorr, and Oliver Speidel.

Another player who received a lot of attention at the Aussie Millions was political prognosticator Nate Silver, who played on Day 1c and managed to bag-up nearly 90,000 chips at the end of the day.

Day 1a saw 157 players register, followed by a slight uptick on Day 1b where 196 players registered. As is generally the case, Day 1c was the largest starting flight of the tournament, but the 269 registrations left the final attendance tally well below last year’s turnout of 659 participants. The final number for the 2013 Aussie Millions Main Event was 622 players, marking the third straight year the tournament has seen declining attendance: There were 746 registrations in 2010, 721 in 2011, 659 in 2012, and 622 in 2013.

Still, the total prize-pool for the tournament is one of the biggest in poker, topping off at over $6 million, and the event remains one of the Top 5 most prestigious tournaments in the world; saying the Aussie Millions has seen an attendance drop is like saying the Super Bowl saw its viewership decline.

Here is a look at the chip-leaders from the three starting day flights:

Day 1a leaders:

1. Brian Payne – 299,900

2. Phillip Willcocks – 208,400

3. Kevin Rabichow – 183,900

4. Mark McQuinn – 176,600

5. James Obst – 156,700

6. Ayaz Mahmood – 154,700

7. Billy Jordanou – 147,000

8. Raj Ramakrishnan – 127,300

9. Daniel Neilson – 93,900

10. Micah Raskin – 93,000

Day 1b leaders:

1. Francis Rusnak – 165,100

2. Mark Betts 145,300

3. Michael O’Grady 143,100

4. Cole Swannack – 135,000

5. Minh Phuc – 133,500

6. Andrew Pantling – 131,100

7. Matthew Ginn – 125,000

8. Fazez Dawood – 122,000

9. Michael Ryan – 120,800

10. Julius Coleman – 120,000

Day 1c leaders:

1. Patrik Antonius — 204,800

2. Slade Fisher — 199,400

3. Kish Kumar — 134,600

4. Sam Cohen — 128,800

5. Julian Powell — 125,000

6. Giacomo Fundaro — 120,000

7. Hoang Anh Do — 115,000

8. Christopher Brammer — 110,000

9. Sam Trickett — 110,000

10. Gary Benson — 92,800

 

Tags: Antonio Esfandiari, Aussie Millions, Brian Payne, Crown Casino, Gorr, Gus Hansen, Joe Hachem, John Juanda, Mark Mcquinn, patrik antonius, Phil Ivey, Prestigious Tournaments, Prize Pool, Prognosticator, Rusnak, Speidel, Trickett, Vanessa Selbst, Viewership, Weisner

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 at 10:38 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.