26 Jan 12

Aussie Millions Day 3: Ivey, Nelson, Idema Build Stacks on Short Day

The third day of the 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event was super speedy with a field of 75 bursting the money bubble and reducing to 26 players within just three blind levels.

Phil Ivey: still in the hunt for a AU$1.6m prize.
Image source: PokerNews

Day 3 of the 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event saw 75 survivors make their way back to the felt. It took just three eliminations to burst the money bubble and within a few hours, we were done with just 26 players remaining.

Main Event Day 3 highlights

From 75 to 26 players - We began the day with 75 players and it took just two eliminations before we hit the money bubble. The bubble lasted for more than 90 minutes before Frank Paul, holding

, lost out to

when his opponent paired the five on the turn.

From there the eliminations came fast and furious, though we're vicariously happy to report that Patrick Liu, who began the day with just 1.75 big blinds, made it into the money for a cash of AU$15,000.

Notable names - Though we lost Kenna James and Michael Tureniec throughout the course of Day 3, there are three big names left in the field. One is, of course, the biggest name of them all: Phil Ivey sits in sixth place with over a million chips.

Also in the top ten is local hero and the only former Aussie Millions champion left in the field. The 2006 winner of this event, Lee "Final Table" Nelson, is in tenth place with an above-average stack and will be looking to live up to his nickname. The other figure you may recognise is WSOP $10,000 Limit Hold 'em champion Daniel Idema, who is poised just behind Ivey in seventh place.

Final hand, biggest pot of the tournament - Leading the way into Day 4 by quite some distance is Matt Turk, with nearly double the stack of his nearest competitor Tim O'Shea. This is thanks to the final hand of the night, which gave us the biggest pot of the tournament so far.

Turk moved all in before the flop and Jason Koon made the crying call with