Richard Ashby just walked by our live reporting desk, leading us to believe that he was recently eliminated. Indeed, upon further inspection of his former table, we can confirm that he is busto.
As we made our way to the far corner of the Crown Poker Room, we noticed the seat formerly occupied by Marvin Rettenmaier was empty. Upon closer inspection, we discovered it was also void of chips. It all adds up to one thing . . . Rettenmaier has been eliminated from the tournament.
Last year's winner of this event, Martin Drewe, took a shot at a title defense yesterday, but despite a deep run, was eliminated late in the evening. Not to be deterred, Drewe took advantage of the recharge format and reentered today.
While he isn't off to the hot start that he was yesterday, Drewe is still in contention. In a recent hand, there was about 6,000 in the pot and a flop of when Drewe checked to his opponent in the cutoff, who fired out 2,300. Drewe then woke up with a min-check-raise to 4,600, which was enough to take down the pot.
We're not sure how it happened, but we can confirm that both Joseph Cheong, who if you recall placed third in the 2010 World Series of Poker, and David Gorr, the defending champ of the Aussie Millions Main Event, have been eliminated from the tournament.
Matt Wakeman is one of Australia's most talented online poker players and is so far proving his worth on the live felt in today's Day 1b flight of the Aussie Millions opening event.
Wakeman recently busted a short stack when he held and managed to catch the nut flush on the turn.
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When we say that Hachem is in the house, you no doubt think of Joe Hachem, or possibly his brother Tony. While Joe has been spotted around the Crown, he is not playing in today's event. However, his son, Anthony, is.
We were also informed that all three of the aforementioned Hachem's plan on playing the Aussie Millions Main Event, marking the first time all three have played in the same tournament. No doubt a deep run in today's event will give young Anthony the confidence he needs to compete with his old man.