Bodog Beat

Bodog regular Jon "PearlJammer" Turner is near the top of the 2008 Aussie Millions leaderboard after Day 1c. (Bodog Beat Image)

The third flight of Day 1 fo the 2008 Aussie Millions has wrapped up at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia and has, as we predicted with our god-like foresight, exceeded last year's numbers. In total, the three starting days of this year's event drew 780 entrants, with 270 coming out to play on this last day.

Although there were significantly fewer big name poker pros out in the field, there were syill some recognizable face, including WSOP Europe runner-up John Tabatabai, Alex Kravchenko, Howard Lederer, WSOP Europe champ Annette "Annette_15″ Obrestad, Mike "The Mouth" Matusow, Jeff "ActionJeff" Garza, Anna Wroblewski and Jon "PearlJammer" Turner. The Day 1C chip leader at 150k after the six rounds of play is Soren Erickson.

Along with the last round of Day 1 comes the announcement of the payouts. This year's field generated a $7,800,000 prizepool with the first level of payouts at $15,000 all the way up to the $1.65 million first-place prize, a $150,000 increase over last year's amount that was paid out to Danish poker pro Gus Hansen.

Based on the individual day chip counts available over at PokerNews.com, the chip leader for the start of Day 2 will be Irish poker pro Andy Black, followed very closely by Phil Ivey. There are plenty of other formidable opponents scattered throughout the 330-person field that will kick off the first combined day, ensuring lots of action.

Play will pick back up again at 12.30pm local time, so keep coming back here for more updates on the 2008 Aussie Millions.

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