Aussie Millions Actions Gets Underway with First Opening Event Flight
After months of feverish anticipation amongst poker players both here in Melbourne and further afield, the 2019 Aussie Millions got underway with the first flight in the Event #1 the AUD$1,150 Opening Event.
Carrying a AUD$1,000,000 GTD, the tournament has an added fifth flight for 2019, making it a near certainty that last year's field of 1,538 is going to be surpassed.
With cards getting in the air at 6:10 pm, the tournament garnered a total of 166 entries by the time registration closed at the end of level six.
Among the players to enter was Scott Davies who famously won the World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific Main Event in 2014 at this very casino. Sadly for Davies, he would bust around halfway through the day after a cooler against Tony March.
After March opened to 700 from early position, there was one call before Davies three-bet to 2,300 out of the blinds. Both players called and the flop was 
. Davies continued for 4,800 and March shoved for 5,700. The other player got out of the hand and Davies called.
Davies held 
but was up against the flopped set of March who had 
. That left Davies short and he would bust shortly thereafter. He will be back tomorrow for Flight 2 hoping to make his way through to Day 2.
Another casualty from the first flight was Jan Suchanek who had looked to be going well with an above average stack heading into the final level of the night. However, he suffered ran pocket kings into the 
of Mario Mosboeck. The 
was not what Suchanek wanted to see and he was left short.
And with just a quarter of an hour left in the day, he got his remaining chips in with 
on a 
flop with both straight and flush draws. His opponent Fedon Phaedonos held 
for top pair, and the board bricked out coming 
to send Suchanek to the rail.
From the 166 players that started, just 18 players advanced at the end of the night including Australian Heidi May who scored a last-level double up with 
against the 
of another player. The 
flop was not what she wanted to see, but the turn completed her flush and the on the river was just a matter of overkill.
"Now I can just chill," said May who was delighted to secure her place in Day 2 at the first time of asking. "I've got a week off and a wedding on Friday so that'll be fun."
Helped by the elimination of Suchanek, it is Phaedonos who leads the opening flight. The Australian has recorded Aussie Millions side event cashes in both 2017 and 2018 and will be looking to secure another one after bagging the chip lead.
Here is a list of the 18 players advancing from the first flight:
| Name | Chip Count |
|---|---|
| Fedon Phaedonos | 169,500 |
| Pierce Mchellar | 128,100 |
| Manuel Rodrigues | 127,200 |
| Heidi May | 126,100 |
| Jon Jia | 121,500 |
| Thorben Vellrath | 119,600 |
| Dean Blatt | 119,200 |
| Dean Hutchinson | 118,000 |
| Mario Mosbock | 106,700 |
| Joep Raemaekers | 91,400 |
| David Stanton | 91,300 |
| Roland Hawkins | 55,900 |
| Mikael Koistinen | 46,900 |
| Tristan Bain | 34,500 |
| Bas de Laat | 25,600 |
| Doy Q Truong | 15,800 |
| Ning Zhang | 15,300 |
| Joel Williams | 14,300 |
Flight 2 of the AUD$1,150 Opening Event gets underway tomorrow at 6:10 pm. Stay tuned to PokerNews for interviews and highlights from the early stages of the 2019 Aussie Millions.