Cockburn Leads as 18 Remain

A huge field of poker’s elite took to the felt today in hopes of being crowned the Event 5:$1,100 NLH 6 Handed champion. It took more than twelve hours, but eventually the field dwindled down to just three tables and it was Craig Cockburn who finished up the day as the chip leader.

This same event last year featured 373 entrants and was won by Tim O’Shea. This year’s event beat that field, hosting 385 players. This amount makes for a prize pool of $385,000 and will see the eventual winner take home $84,200.

Joining the field today, but falling short of a deep run, included Jonathan Karamalikis, Vitaly Lunkin, Roberto Romanello, Van Marcus, Sam Holden, Randy Dorfman, Mario Ho, JP Kelly, Andrew Hinrichsen, Grant Levy, Dan Smith and Nacho Barbero.

As the clock drifted late into the evening, the money bubble was finally reached, with Nick Bizimoski the unlucky player to go home with no cash for his time.

After the bubble was burst, the eliminations started happening all over the tournament area, with Vesko Zmukic (36th), Tyron Krost (34th), Jesse McKenzie (29th), Jackie Glazier (28th) and Chris Moorman (20th) each bowing out as the field was down to only 27.

Tom Middleton will be happy he made the trek to Australia, managing to felt 2005 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Hachem. Middleton and Hachem had been rumbling all evening and eventually it seemed like Hachem had enough, four-bet shoving his stack holding {a-} {10-} and running into the {a-} {q-} of Middleton. The board brought no help for Hachem and he was sent to the rail in 27th place.

While Middleton was the first player to hover around 500,000 in chips, that wouldn’t last long as the Brit tussled in a multiple pots, sending plenty of chips to the eventual chip leader. The biggest portion of Middleton’s stack to be sent to Cockburn occurred when the two players got all the chips in on a flop showing {4-} {5-} {j-} . Middleton held {6-Spades} {7-Spades} and would need to catch some cards to beat out Cockburn’s {a-Spades} {j-Spades} . When no help came for Middleton, Cockburn became the new chip leader.

Joining Cockburn with healthy chip stacks includes Stefan Jedlicka, Joel Dodds, Ben Richardson and Kosta Mamaliadis, while Darren Kramer, Antonis Kambouroglou and Brian Roberts are also alive and well.

The final three tables are set to kick off at 4:00 pm and PokerNews will again be on the floor to provide all the live coverage as a 2012 Aussie Millions 6 Handed champions is crowned! Don't forget to join us a couple of hours earlier as the Event #6 $1,100 NLH w. Rebuys kicks off at 12:00 pm.