650 players register for 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event draws

After three starting flights we have the final attendance numbers for the 2012 Aussie Millions, and even though attendance is down from last year, the Aussie Millions fared much better than the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) in the first running since Black Friday. The PCA saw a dramatic drop in attendance, down some 30% from last year, while the Aussie Millions field size shrank only a fraction of that amount -721 players last year compared with the 650 players registered this year.

It didn’t look good going into Day 1c on Tuesday, considering Day 1a attendance was down 238 to 153 year-over-year, and Day 1b was down 209 to 187 year-over-year. That said, on Day 1c the 2012 Aussie Millions drew a remarkable 310 entrants, an INCREASE of 36 players from last year.

All of poker’s heavy-hitters were in attendance, with Tom Dwan, Gus Hansen, Sam Trickett, Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Erik Seidel and others were in the field, and one of poker’s superstars, Phil Ivey, not only survived his opening day flight, but managed to bag-up an impressive 184,000 chips, good enough for 6^th place on the leader-board heading into Day 2 on Wednesday. Recent WPT winner and one of the top British poker players James Dempsey heads into Day 2 in 4^th place with 189,000 chips.

Here is a look at the chip-leaders heading into Day 2 of the 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event:

1.       Brett Watson — 257,400

2.       Robert Lam — 198,400

3.       Robin Ylitalo — 192,600

4.       James Dempsey — 189,000

5.       David Sonelin — 186,200

6.       Phil Ivey — 184,000

7.       Ilir Beluli — 182,700

8.       Paul Sing — 177,100

9.       Chad Awerbuch — 161,000

10.   Jason Koon — 156,300

As one of the premiere tournaments in the world, the Aussie Million has historically generated one of the largest prize-pools in tournament poker, and this year looks to be no different. Although the payout structure for the tournament has yet to be released, based on former Aussie Millions tournaments the first place prize-money should be in the $2 million range (in 2009 the Aussie Millions had 681 entrants and awarded a $2 million first-place prize).

Australia has held serve at the Aussie Million over the past three years, with Stewart Scott, Tyron Krost (who recently won the Tournament of Champions),and David Gorr (a member of the Australian Poker Hall of Fame) winning the past three Aussie Millions Main Events. Amazingly, no American has ever won the Aussie Millions Main Event, an almost unheard of record considering the tournament has been taking place since 1998!