Scott started the day with a substantial chip lead, and never faltered on his way to capturing the title.

Many people believed his stiffest competition would come from the two short-stacks: Poker Pro Barney Boatman, and Richard Ashby, AKA CHUFTY, in the online world.

It looked like Boatman was going to make a move early on when he more than doubled his starting stack, but it was not to be, as Boatman was the first player eliminated.

Boatman was soon followed by Ashby, leaving 6 virtually unknown players vying for the title.

Perhaps the hand of the day was when Zach Gruneberg flopped top pair on a J44 board. The problem was that Rajkumar Ramakrishnan flopped quad 4s! Sending Gruneberg out in 6th place.

Sam Capra was the next to go when he moved all in with pocket Tens, and was insta-called by Peter Rho’s pocket Aces.

Rajkumar Ramakrishnan lost with pocket Aces to Peter Rho’s pocket Kings, when Rho spiked a King on the flop.

Elliot Smith finished in 3rd place when his AQ lost to Stewart Scott’s A7, leaving Rho and Scott to play for the title.

In heads up play Scott got the dream scenario, AA, with Rho re-raising all-in with AJ! When the dust settled Stewart Scott was the Aussie Millions winner.

With 64 players making the money, and very long 2 hour levels, you can expect play to slow down quite a bit at the start of day 3 with the bubble looming.

When day 3 does kick off,  it will be two women leading the way, with Patrik Antonius right on their heels:

Annnic Ivert: 555,900
Annette Obrestad: 454,800
Rajkumar Ramakrishnan: 388,200
David Dochtery: 362,000
Stewart Scott: 348,000
Karl Bullock: 347,900
Patrik Antonius: 335,900
Michael Tureniec: 332,000
John Paul Kelly: 321,600
Will Zemljaric: 308,000

Other top pros still in the mix are: The always entertaining Scotty Nguyen, WSOP final table participant Raymond Rahme, internet superstar Steve Sung, and WPT sensation Clonie Gowen.

The payouts for the event are:

PLACE PRIZE

1 $1,381,392

2 $659,196

3 $461,437

4 $263,678

5 $197,759

6 $138,431

7 $98,879

8 – 9 $65,919

10 – 12 $52,736

13 – 18 $42,848

19 – 24 $32,960

25 – 30 $26,368

31 – 36 $19,776

37 – 40 $16,480

41 – 48 $13,184

49 – 64 $9,888

The chip leader is Brent Daphne, with 120,250 chips. Ivan Demidov continues his incredible play, and finds himself currently sitting in 7th place, with 81,925 chips.

The notable rail birds are: Jeffrey Lisandro, 2008 Aussie Millions champion Alexander Kostritsyn, Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, Ross Boatman, Jason Gray, and Harry Demetriou.

There are two keys to properly playing big aces:

1 – Playing aggressively to limit the field
2 – Playing aggressively to increase your fold equity on the flop

The key is to play aggressively, these hands are either raise or fold. Calling is simply not an option.

You want a smaller field, and the betting lead, because it’s easier to make a successful continuation bet against 1, at most 2 opponents. Additionally, with a smaller field it becomes less likely someone will run you down when you make a hand.

Remember, big aces are raise or fold! If you are limping in, or worse calling a raise with these hands you need to rethink the strengths and weaknesses of big aces.

Lets start the new year off with some big news from the tournament scene. WSOP champ, Peter Eastgate, captured another title by winning the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure!

Eastgate outlasted a field of 237 players to win the $343,000 first prize. Eastgate is proving he is a top tournament player, and not just a lucky champion.

Check it out and give us feedback.

The owner and staff would like to wish all of our readers a happy holidays, and new year.

Hopefully we will all have productive new years, both at the poker tables and away from them.

The holidays are a great time to improve your game. Use some of that money on a poker book, or buy some software, or redeposit online:  this is your chance to start fresh, and play your best.

Start those new year’s resolutions early: patience, focus, and hard work. Now is as good a time as any to buckle down and play your best poker.

According to highstakesdb.com: ‘papa ninja’ played a few sessions of $50/$100 PLO before jumping into the $200/$400 game, which leads some to speculate that it is a new player taking a shot at the nosebleeds.

So far no one has been able to pin who the account belongs to.

The country listed is the US, but that is by no means 100% accurate, since several players have used false countries of origin in the past.

It has also been revealed that ‘papa ninja’ is the name of an obscure Czech Republic rock band; we will see if this has any bearing on the player’s identity.

As of now, ‘papa ninja’ has played 16 sessions (roughly 32 hours) and is up $188,000.

Chino bested a very tough field that included: Hoyt Corkins, Amnon Filippi, and Steve Sung.

The final hand saw Justin Young move in with top pair (Q5) unfortunately for Justin, Chino had pocket Kings.

Final table lineup, Preliminary event results

Seat 1: Chino Rheem — 4,240,000
Seat 2: Amnon Filippi — 2,750,000
Seat 3: Hoyt Corkins — 2,295,000
Seat 4: Steve Sung — 5,885,000
Seat 5: Justin Young — 2,410,000
Seat 6: Evan McNiff — 4,805,000

The action will resume tonight; the prize money for the final 6 is as follows:
1st – $1,538,730
2nd – $936,760
3rd – $540,440
4th – $396,205
5th – $288,235
6th – $216,175