The 372 survivors from the three starting flights of the 2017 Aussie Millions Main Event came together on Wednesday for Day 2 at the Crown Melbourne casino. Seven more players registered before the end of the first level, bringing the grand total number of entries to 725, just shy of last year’s 732. Riding the chip lead (497,100 chips) into Day 3 is none other than actress and serious poker player, Jennifer Tilly.
Tilly has an acting resume dating back to the early 1980’s, but it was the 1990’s that was her hey-day (not to take anything away from her current-day career). The highlight of her career – at least in the public’s eyes – was her 1995 Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for Bullets over Broadway. She has also lent her unique voice to animated films and television shows such as Monsters, Inc. and “Family Guy“.
Tilly rose to prominence in the poker world when she won the 2005 WSOP Ladies Championship as well as forming half of a poker power couple with Phil Laak. She has gone back and forth with poker as a career and as a hobby since the mid-2000’s.
One of Tilly’s biggest hands of the day came during Level 10. According to PokerNews, there were already about 70,000 chips in the pot on the turn with the board reading 7♠-J♦-6♦-3♠. After Tilly checked, her opponent moved all-in. His stack had her covered, so either he was representing something huge or he was trying to bully Tilly out of the hand.
As it turned out, it was the latter. Tilly called quickly, flipping over pocket Jacks for a flopped set. Her opponent only had K♠-T♠, but Tilly still had to dodge spades to stay alive. She did, nabbing the tourney’s largest pot to the point and ascending to the chip lead.
There are 151 players remaining going into Day 3 and Tilly is not the only “name” still in the field. Other poker luminaries include Erik Seidel, Tony Dunst, Fedor Holz (who was one of the seven players who signed up on Wednesday), Cate Hall, Shane Warne (well, I guess he’s not exactly a poker luminary), Dominik Nitsche, Matt Affleck, Ben Tollerene, Day 1B chip leader Mustapha Kanit, and Dario Sammartino.
With registration now closed, the total prize pool is AUD $7.685 million. 80 players will make the money with a minimum cash of $15,000 and a first prize of $1.6 million. Second place will receive $1 million on the nose.
Day 3 gets underway at 12:30pm local time in Melbourne.
2017 Aussie Millions Main Event – Day 2 Chip Leaders
1. Jennifer Tilly – 497,100
2. Tony Mladenovski – 432,100
3. Stephen Bantick – 411,600
4. Michael Weiss – 334,000
5. Haoran Zhang – 329,100
6. David Yan – 319,800
7. Koray Aldemir – 316,200
8. Nicholas Wright -312,700
9. Erik Seidel – 309,100
10. Ryan Pignatelli – 306,400