2018 Aussie Million breaks record

Despite some less successful tournaments this year at the Aussie Millions, the Main Event seems to still be player's favourite.

This year's poker festival in Melbourne had some disappointing results in terms of player pools - the A$50,000 Challenge infamously generated a total of only 4 entries. However, it looks like the Main Event is finally achieved some success as the number of entries reached an all-time high of 785 during the three starting days.

Day 1a saw a total of 212 players registering for the event, with former champions like Manny Stavropoulos and David Gorr in the field. Lee Armstrong ended the day as the chip leader, accumulating 165,400 chips.
On Day 1b 196 additional players joined the tournament, making the total to 406. At the end of the day, only 97 of them remained, with Cole Swannack having the biggest stack of 197,300 - thanks to a lucky hand where his ♠A♠K managed to outdraw the pocket kings of James Obst's in a pre-flop all-in confrontation.

The biggest field formed on Day 3c, where 379 jumped into the mix, making the total of the field to an all-time high of 785. It's certainly a big step ahead after last year's 725 entries. The previous record was 781 from 2008.

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Aussie Millions Tournament Director, Joel Williams was pretty optimistic before the start of the registration: “We knew we would get close to breaking the record but to actually do it well before the registrations close tomorrow at 2:15 pm AEST is incredible. The team has worked hard to make this year’s tournament the biggest and best yet and this proves that we are well on our way to achieving that as we expect to confirm even more entries overnight.”

The estimated total prize pool for the event is A$8 million, with A$1.6 million for the eventual winner - as well the prestigious diamond bracelet. Several well-known players are still in the competition.
Fourth place finisher at this year's A$25k Challenge, Kitty Kuo has a healthy chip stack of 140,000 but UK's Sam Grafton also has plenty of room to manoeuvre with his 118,000 chips. See some of the notable chip counts below:

The A$100,000 Challenge is yet to be started and after the record low number [4] of participants for the A$50k Challenge, it will be interesting to see how many of the high rollers show up to play. Remember, Phil Ivey [5] and Tom Dwan [4] are also in town.

Popular Twitch-streamer, Jason "jcarver" Somerville will be broadcasting the Main Event, you can watch his channel here: 

Watch live video from runitup on www.twitch.tv [6]