Thursday, 28th March 2024 19:26
Home / Uncategorized / Aussie Millions Day 1a: The right day to play

We were sitting at the blogging desk late last night, wrapping up the final table in one of the Aussie Millions preliminary events when we were approached by someone on the rail with a question.

He asked us, “In your opinion, which flight of the Main Event would be the best one to play in for an amateur player?”

It’s a tricky question as there is no right answer. The real answer is, “It doesn’t really matter,” but that wouldn’t be overly helpful, so we tried our best to logically map our the lay of the land for our friend.

“Typically, flight three will produce the biggest field,” we explained. “But that’s not necessarily a good thing.”

There’s a misconception in poker that the biggest flight will produce the biggest chip stacks. I’m here to say that argument is a myth. I don’t have any stats to back up my theory, but in essence, a smaller field means the big stacks will come together more quickly, and big stack versus big stack equals mega stack.

However in fields as big, with stacks as deep, as the Aussie Millions, that theory doesn’t really apply as the big stacks are less likely to get close to each other during the day.

So ruling out field size, what other factors could my friend consider when deciding what day to play?

“Well Day 1b is on Monday if you’re a working man so that’s no good,” we said. “What about Day 1a?”

There are many good reasons to play today. Firstly, it’s Sunday. The day of leisure. On the sixth day God finished creating the Earth and he was happy. On the seventh day he rested and played some heads-up cash against Adam.

The other big plus for today is that the $25,000 Challenge event is scheduled for 6:15pm tonight.

“The best forty or fifty players in the country won’t be playing Day 1a as they’ll be in the $25,000 Event that night!” we explained.

The likes of Mercier, Negreanu and Hachem have already tweeted their intentions to play the event later tonight, so that means they’ll be playing one of the later flights in the Main Event. That’s as good a reason as any to toss your AU$10,600 entry into the ring on Day 1a.

And indeed that’s what many players have opted to do with a very healthy field out in force for Day 1a. Some of those spotted in today’s field include Joe Ebanks, Jackie Glazier, Mel Judah, Jeff Lisandro, Eoghan O’Dea, Raymond Rahme, Paul Khoury, Full Tilt ANZPT Ambassador Tom Grigg, and former Aussie Millions Main Event champ Oliver Speidel.

oliver_speidel_2014_aussie_millions.jpg

Also in the field representing PokerStars Team Online is Naoya Kihara. The Japanese sensation won a WSOP bracelet in 2012 and then backed that up with an extremely strong 2013 with big results at the PCA, WPT, APPT, WSOP and Macau Poker Cup.

He’ll be looking to start 2014 with a bang with his first result down under at the 2014 Aussie Millions.

naoya_kihara_2014_aussie_millions.jpg

We’ll be playing seven 90-minute levels today, and on each of the opening flights. Throw in breaks and we’re looking at getting out of here around 3:30am this evening. Grab some Red Bull!

Heath “TassieDevil” Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.

Study Poker with Pokerstars Learn, practice with the PokerStars app