Dean Blatt

If you thought event 1a was big with 342 players, event 1b was even bigger with 389 players all ponying up the $1100 buy-in to compete for the big prize. This created a combined pool of over $700,000, well in excess of the guaranteed $500,000 advertised.

After another grueling day on the felt, the cards went Dean Blatt’s way and he finished at the top with 145,300. Blatt picked up an 8th place recently at the 2008 PokerNews Cup Championship in October.

Today 110 of the survivors from day 1a and day 1b will compete for the first title of the Aussie Millions tournament and a grand prize of $150,000.

Play starts at 12:30pm local time and should finish around midnight.

Here’s how the chips stacked from day 1b

Dean Blatt 145,300
Paul Rochford 99,600
Jim Ghobrial 86,800
Ben Delaney 80,000
Steve Goldwater 69,200
Thomas Lindbjerg 63,900
Marcel Jaggi 58,700
Guiseppe Gumina 57,700
Clint Jordanou 57,600
James Broom 47,300

Day one of the Aussie Millions event kicked off in Melbourne’s Crown Casino on Friday with 342 players drawn to the felt on the opening round.

Familiar famous faces were found in the field including Australia’s Tony Hachem, Michael Chrisanthopoulos, Jamie Pickering and New Zealand’s own Graeme ‘Kiwi G’ Putt…

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Not only do we get the best season for Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere (honestly, prawns on the Bar-B is 10x better than stodgy old potatoes, turkey and pork) but thanks to Sky City, we’ll be getting another holiday treat, A $50,000* Poker Tournament!

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Alexander Kostritsyn, the 2008 Aussie Millions Winner

If you were walking around South Bank in Melbourne, you would almost feel the anticipation in the air. The Aussie Millions has become like the Melbourne Cup for poker players and Crown Casino certainly knows how to turn it on.

Last year it was 21 yr old Alexander Kostritsyn who was crowned 2008 Aussie Millions Champion, could it be you this year?

Crown Casino is offering local players (Kiwis, you just need to jump on a plane) the chance to have a shot too….

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Over 250,500 people logged into PokerStars on Sunday, making it the biggest day in PokerStars history.

Co-inciding with their world record attempt of 35,000 players in a tournament at one time, the site also boasted it’s biggest day.

Timing couldn’t have been better for player stan34powa, who managed to take out the tournament, winning $30,000.

But it wasn’t only the World Record attempt that was generating cash, lucky player lp_Saki Saki from Sweden managed to take out the Sunday Millions (out of 6250 players) and pick up $331,378 – with no deals being made whatsoever.

Agreed that it was a pretty big day for Poker Stars!

If you haven’t joined the action yet, sign up for your free PokerStars account here: http://www.pokernz.com/Recommends/PokerStars

Win Your Seat @ Aussie Millions!

We’re all counting down to the poker event that ‘stops the nation of poker players’. The Aussie Millions is always a fiercely contested event and the tournement always lives up to the hype that surrounds it.

If you want to play, you still have a chance… Read the full story