Potter was struck in the back of the head by his assailant as he walked across the Spencer Street Bridge in central Melbourne, not far from the Crown Casino. The attacker had possibly ‘cased’ Potter earlier in the evening, perhaps selecting his victim. After striking Potter, the robber reached immediately into the stunned Potter’s hooded pocket where Potter still had $30,000, in large part his winnings from the 2008 Aussie Millions Main Event, where he placed 31st.


The money taken from the the young Oklahoman was mostly in U.S. $100 bills and large Australian notes, and authorities have issued a notice to banks and travel institutions to look out for anyone attempting to exchange large quantities of American currency. Authorities are also examining surveillance tapes from the area to see if the crime or the assailant may have been captured on camera.

Potter briefly attempted to fight his attacker before seeing the knife, at which point he ceased resistance. According to one Australian newspaper report, Potter remained philosophical. “It’s not life changing,” he said. “It definitely hurts really bad, but nothing in my life will change because of it. I’d come back here – I’ve had a really great time.”

pokernews.com

Aside from taking in the sights and culture of Australia’s most beautiful city, Team PokerNews got down to some serious poker with seven out of the original 17 making it to Day Two. This included Thierry Radovanovic, Cedric Segato and Tony Pruvot from France, Kairit Leibold from Estonia, Sebastiaan van Kempen from The Netherlands, Melbournian David Wyatt and German Michael Wolf.

Michael Wolf managed to outlast the rest of Team PokerNews to finish in the money. Michael came up against Bong Vongsykeo’s Aces as he moved all in for his last 4,000 with A-Q. His hand did not improve and he was eliminated in 70th place taking home AUD$15,000 in prize money. Not bad for three day’s work, considering it cost Michael nothing to compete in the Aussie Millions.

“I am really excited,” explains Michael, “this has been an amazing trip, plus it cost me nothing to come here… I had a very good vacation and I am very happy.” The German, who qualified through a freeroll on Full Tilt Poker liked the way he played. “I know I didn’t play bad, I played good… I had a really tough Day Two starting on a table with some of the world’s best poker players and I survived that.” Michael smiles, “I also met some really great people.”

Congratulations to all Team PokerNews members for such a tremendous effort at the 2008 Aussie Millions in Melbourne.

Think you have what it takes to represent Team PokerNews at the next major poker event? PokerNews is giving you over 100 chances to win a fantastic €1,500 package to the 2008 PokerNews Cup Austria. Stay tuned to PokerNews and our freeroll page for more details.

pokernews.com

Clonie Gowen’s Day 2 was short and less than sweet. Gowen pushed all in preflop with
and ran into pocket kings. No ace appeared on the board, and she was eliminated early. Joe Hachem went to the rail early when he got into a big hand with Peter Ling. Hachem raised from the button, and Ling defended his big blind. The board came down 7-3-3 with two spades, and Ling bet out. Hachem raised, Ling moved all in over the top, and Hachem called with 5-3 for trips. Ling revealed , but caught a runner-runner four-flush to eliminate the world champ. Other early eliminations included JJ Liu, Ari ‘BodogAri’ Engel and Graeme ‘Kiwi G’ Putt.

Team Full Tilt had a rough run in the middle of Day 2, with several of their players hitting the rail in a short span. Howard Lederer came to the Aussie Millions and immediately won over a million dollars by capturing the top prize in the $100,000-buyin Event #9 earlier in the series. Lederer’s luck ran out when Raymond Rahme outflopped him with A-9 to Lederer’s A-K to eliminate poker’s ‘Professor’. John Juanda was the next Full Tilt pro to bust when he ran pocket fives into Kofi Farye’s pocket tens and failed to improve.

Phil Ivey’s day ended when he got it all in with Richard Teatum on a board of . Teatum led out, and Ivey raised. Teatum went all in over the top with , and Ivey called with . No ace appeared for Ivey, and he was eliminated. More notable Day 2 exits included Michael Binger, cricket star Shane Warne, Jon ‘Pearljammer’ Turner, Tony G and Allen Cunningham.

Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow played tight all day until he made a key double-up late in the action. After complaining earlier about his lack of quality cards, Matusow doubled up with pocket aces against pocket queens to finish the day with a decent chip stack. Matthew LaGarde finished the day with the chip lead among the final 98 players, in sight of the money bubble of 80, as the top ten chip counts looked like this:

Matthew LaGarde – 490,000
Alexander Kostritsyn – 445,000
Dale Townsend – 420,000
Dusan Stoevski – 410,000
Kevin ‘BeLOWaBOVe’ Saul – 400,000
Con Angelakis – 376,000
Erik Seidel – 330,000
Adriano Cendron – 280,000
Jason Potter – 279,600
Andy Black – 271,000

Other notable survivors of Day 2 included Kenna James, Erick Lindgren, Max Pescatori and Jeff Lisandro.

pokernews.com

Field achieved notoriety of sorts after being exposed as a 16-year-old using at least two accounts following a major online win, and issued a written apology published on major poker-discussion forums a few weeks ago. The apology preceded Field’s preparation for what was intended to be his ‘live’ debut, an appearance at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, running concurrently to the Aussie Millions at its Bahamas venue. However, PokerStars announced soon
after that Field, already banned from play at that site, would have that ban extended at least through the PCA.

Field promptly switched his plans and flew to the Aussie Millions instead, where he was corralled for a video interview by PokerNews’ own Amanda Leatherman. In the interview, Field talks a bit about his multi-accounting past, his reaction to being banned from the PCA, and his initial impressions of live tournament play. Field was bounced from Event #5 at the Aussie Millions, a $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em (w/ rebuys), not far outside the money bubble. Here’s the easy link to the PokerNews exclusive video with Field:

pokernews.com

Plenty of Australian poker stars were in the field, including ‘Aussie’ Sarah Bilney, Lee ‘Final Table’ Nelson, Billy ‘The Croc’ Argyros, and Graeme ‘Kiwi G’ Putt, who made the final table of Event #3, the mixed Stud tournament. Grant Levy, the winner of the APPT Grand Final Event in Sydney, made his first appearance of the 2008 Aussie Millions, as did PokerNews’ own Tony ‘G’ Guoga.

The rebuy period was typically fast and wild with Fricke taking advantage of the loose action with an early double-up. Anna Wroblewski needed all the rebuys she could find when she ran into several rough hands early. “I’ve lost with A-Q four times, and A-K twice!” exclaimed Anna. By the end of the rebuy period, the prize pool for the $1,000 buy-in tournament had swelled to $526,000, with a first-place prize of $168,320.

After the rebuy period ended, play returned to a more normal pace, and players began heading to the rail in fairly short order. Among the early eliminations were Kenna James, Nelson, Gary Benson and Karib Karib. 52 players remained at the dinner break, with Brandon Schaefer, Bilney and Sol Bergren busting soon after dinner.

Field’s exit came in the early evening, just short of the money bubble. Wroblewski raised from early position and found callers in Michael Russell and David Steicke. Field re-raised, and Wroblewski and Russell got out of the way as Steicke called for the rest of his chips with . Field tabled , and lost the race when the board came down .

APPT Macau High Rollers tournament winner Eric Assadourian was the bubble boy when he got his last few chips in with against Emmanuel Seal’s pocket fours. Assadourian became an extreme short stack in the tournament after running into Michael Russell’s pocket aces, and went to the rail when Seal’s fours held up to burst the bubble, leaving the final 18 players in the money. 14 of those players made it to the end of day, including Wroblewski and Kevin Saul, but the chip lead belonged to Tony Dunst when the action concluded. Dunst picked up a big pot on the last hand of the day to send Daniel Zink to the rail and take the chip lead. The final chip counts looked like this as players bagged up their stacks for the night, with these 14 players fighting for the winner’s share of the purse when action resumes on Wednesday:

Tony Dunst – 138,200
Dane Lomas – 110,700
Kevin Saul – 83,300
Julian Powell – 75,000
David Bach – 63,800
Emmanuel Seal – 48,700
Robert Wang – 48,200
David Steicke – 47,300
Michael Pedley – 44,200
Anna Wroblewski – 39,700
Erich Kollmann – 30,600
Larry Karambis – 27,200
Rayan Nathan – 17,500
Christine Klecz – 13,100

pokernews.com