Holz Shows Up Late, Chasing Recent Champs Barer and Engel

mnuwwarah

Level 12 : 1,000/2,000, 300 ante

At last year's Aussie Millions at Crown Melbourne, Fedor Holz put together a legendary run, pairing a third-place finish in the $100K Challenge with a fifth-place finish in the Main Event for a total of nearly A$700,000 in cashes.

This year, things looked quiet on the Holz watch as there was nary a sight of him in the tournament area through the first three starting days of the Main Event. Perhaps he took Sam Greenwood's Twitter barbs as a challenge, or perhaps he always planned on fashionably late arrival.

Either way, Holz beat the buzzer with a Day 2 registration and got to work right away, He doubled up just a few minutes in after backing into a flush against an opponent who made the nut straight and couldn't find a river fold to Holz's check-raise.

The German legend had nearly triple the starting stack in under an hour, and it looked like the start of another tour de force. However, it would prove a swingy day, and though Holz hit heights around 150,000, he would only put 71,100 in the bag. He has work to do on Day 3, but that doesn't mean anyone will feel comfortable seeing his name on their table draw.

Holz's late registration was part of the final push during the opening level play that pushed the tournament to a record number of 800 runners, creating a prize pool of exactly A$8 million. Even at the ripe old age of 21, the Aussie Millions is doing the opposite of slowing down.

A couple of former champions have built big stacks and put themselves in prime contention among the 160 players remaining at the close of Day 2. Ari Engel (2016) and Ami Barer (2014) both had strong showings. The former bagged 334,000 and the latter 202,400,

Engel got a turn jam through in a huge pot late, inducing a player to fold trip kings on a three-flush board.

While that was happening, loquacious British star Sam Grafton was putting the finishing touches on his monster Day 2 at the neighboring table. He busted a player with aces against ace-king and then got a five-bet shove through on Max Young to finish with 419,000.

"You're gonna tell people about this some day," he boasted to his tablemates. "You're gonna tell them I played with Sam Grafton that year he won the Main Event here."

The chip lead, though belongs to Aussie Najeem Ajez (522,100). He sent Kitty Kuo packing when she couldn't find a fold with nines, five-bet shipping into Ajez's queens.

Marc Macdonnell, Ludovic Geilich, Kahle Burns, Matt Salsberg, Mike Del Vecchio, Martin Jacobson and Mel Judah were some other recognizable names to advance.

The remaining players return at 12:30 p.m. local time for Day 3, set to play 1,200/2,400/400 and hit the money with 88 players left. Come back to PokerNews to follow all of the live updates.

Main Event Day 3 Seat Draw

Table	Seat	Player	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
7	1	Aaron Lim	Australia	188,200	78
7	2	Mel Judah	Australia	47,800	20
7	3	Gareth Pepper	Australia	121,500	51
7	4	Daniel Neilson	Australia	208,100	87
7	5	Dean Blatt	Australia	206,100	86
7	6	Ken Demlakian	Australia	99,900	42
7	7	Yin Liu	China	92,300	38
7	8	Daniel Laidlaw	Australia	57,800	24

8	1	Martin Finger	Germany	80,000	33
8	2	Nino Marotta	Australia	92,000	38
8	3	Sean Ragozzini	Australia	102,900	43
8	4	David Leas	Australia	201,700	84
8	5	Najeem Ajez	Australia	522,100	218
8	6	Kishore Kumar	Australia	124,600	52
8	7	Sam Grafton	United Kingdom	419,900	175
8	8	Nicholas Howard	United States	97,700	41

9	1	Brendan Hurtig	Australia	132,800	55
9	2	Ari Engel	Canada	334,000	139
9	3	Qiu Wenjian	China	137,400	57
9	4	Tristan Bain	Australia	123,200	51
9	5	Louis Salter	United Kingdom	69,200	29
9	6	Anthony Luong	Australia	66,900	28
9	7	Beau Palmer	Australia	226,000	94
9	8	Raphael Tenenbaum	Australia	73,000	30

10	1	Sherif Derias	Australia	68,100	28
10	2	Julian Powell	Australia	41,300	17
10	3	Duncan Packington	Australia	210,100	88
10	4	Eli Loewenthal	United States	81,900	34
10	5	Marton Czuczor	Hungary	37,600	16
10	6	David Stonehouse	United Kingdom	112,100	47
10	7	Harry Demetriou	United Kingdom	141,400	59
10	8	Jarred Graham	Australia	146,100	61

25	1	Zdravko Duvnjak	Croatia	84,600	35
25	2	Kah Boon Teh	Malaysia	131,500	55
25	3	Stefan Huber	Switzerland	155,100	65
25	4	David Hanlon	Australia	37,500	16
25	5	Haoran Zhang	Australia	143,200	60
25	6	Nicholas Wright	Australia	187,300	78
25	7	Duff Charette	Canada	238,400	99
25	8	Craig Mason	United States	19,700	8

26	1	Gary Tomes	Australia	92,500	39
26	2	Jesse Sylvia	United States	31,700	13
26	3	Duy Ho	United States	471,700	197
26	5	Corentin Hillion	France	123,700	52
26	6	Jamie Sadlier	Australia	87,500	36
26	7	Rinaldo Piastrino	Australia	143,100	60
26	8	Ross Grammer	Australia	222,000	93

27	1	Farhad Mohajerani	Iran	157,600	66
27	2	Michael Smith	Canada	98,000	41
27	3	[Removed:321] Sharifkazemi	United Kingdom	70,400	29
27	4	Tung Nguyen	Australia	141,100	59
27	5	Brandon Ageloff	United States	126,300	53
27	6	Anthony Hachem	Australia	290,900	121
27	7	Edel Maher	Australia	56,100	23
27	8	Rory Young	Australia	160,000	67

28	1	Rob Raymond	Australia	70,300	29
28	2	Michael Hahn	United States	136,200	57
28	3	Ludovic Riehl	France	191,400	80
28	4	Kim Au	Australia	106,400	44
28	5	Artur Koren	Australia	147,600	62
28	6	Ashley Whitfield	United Kingdom	69,100	29
28	7	Jonas Lauck	Germany	189,000	79
28	8	Kahle Burns	Australia	201,500	84

29	1	Taylor Black	United States	107,900	45
29	2	David Loonstra	Australia	41,100	17
29	3	Ashley Sleeth	United States	34,900	15
29	4	Matt Rolfe	Australia	279,900	117
29	5	Saijes Mundadan	Australia	41,000	17
29	6	Tim Wei	Australia	112,900	47
29	7	Jack O'Neill	United Kingdom	159,800	67
29	8	Liam O'Rourke	Ireland	243,900	102

30	1	Matthew Moss	United Kingdom	188,600	79
30	2	Tony Tartaglia	Australia	123,600	52
30	3	Peter Mordaunt	Australia	65,000	27
30	4	Paul Michaelis	Germany	37,300	16
30	5	Panayotis Flourentzou	Australia	110,500	46
30	6	Matt Salsberg	United States	133,400	56
30	7	Xiangxiang Ni	China	276,500	115
30	8	Gurpreet Lubana	Canada	198,500	83

31	1	Espen Solaas	Norway	207,900	87
31	2	Ize Bourne	Australia	32,100	13
31	3	Arne Ruge	Germany	204,900	85
31	4	Sarah Bilney	Australia	55,700	23
31	5	Xiaojun Zhang	Australia	187,000	78
31	6	Lee Armstrong	Australia	284,400	119
31	7	Yosuke Sekiya	Japan	88,400	37
31	8	Michael Tchong	Australia	190,400	79

32	1	Con Krousoratis	Australia	197,000	82
32	2	Justin Victor	Australia	148,500	62
32	3	Mike Del Vecchio	United States	104,500	44
32	4	[Removed:415]	Australia	219,100	91
32	5	Fedor Holz	Austria	71,100	30
32	6	Joseph Foleti	Australia	74,800	31
32	7	Andreas Klatt	Germany	59,300	25
32	8	Tobias Hausen	Germany	159,000	66

33	2	Barry Long	Australia	47,500	20
33	3	Bobby Zhang	Australia	150,100	63
33	4	Casey Kastle	Slovenia	94,000	39
33	5	Antonino Cascio	Australia	249,000	104
33	6	Aki Pyysing	Finland	271,600	113
33	7	Daniel Hachem	Australia	198,900	83
33	8	Timothy Mitchell	United Kingdom	52,600	22

41	1	Hung-Sheng Lin	Taiwan	124,000	52
41	2	Vincent Chua	Australia	128,300	53
41	3	Martin Jacobson	Sweden	92,200	38
41	4	Arif Mustafa	Australia	284,900	119
41	5	Jan Pettersson	Australia	455,500	190
41	6	Joseph Abdulnour	Australia	121,800	51
41	7	Martin Rowe	Australia	129,400	54
41	8	Jack Brown	Australia	114,100	48

44	1	Robert Lieu	Australia	108,800	45
44	2	Takao Shimizu	Japan	154,600	64
44	3	Scott Davies	United States	87,400	36
44	4	Ludovic Geilich	United Kingdom	218,200	91
44	5	Ami Barer	Canada	202,400	84
44	6	Milton Trickey	Australia	171,700	72
44	7	Benjamin Richardson	Australia	178,500	74
44	8	Darwin Lai	Hong Kong	147,400	61

45	1	Michael Egan	Australia	164,400	69
45	2	Chen An Lin	Taiwan	205,400	86
45	3	Eddie Puia	Australia	160,900	67
45	4	Dennis Huntly	Australia	94,400	39
45	5	Jonathan Karamalikis	Australia	147,600	62
45	6	Rody Kaka	Australia	30,600	13
45	7	Lukas Soucek	Czech Republic	56,600	24
45	8	Julian Stuer	Germany	120,000	50

46	1	Giuseppe Reina	Australia	64,700	27
46	2	Nick Solomos	Australia	233,700	97
46	3	Chi Thinh Nguyen	Vietnam	73,000	30
46	4	Hon Cheong Lee	Hong Kong	58,900	25
46	5	Chris Kostoulas	United States	228,700	95
46	6	Glen Cymbaluk	Canada	265,300	111
46	7	Brian Payne	Australia	190,900	80
46	8	Jason Pritchard	Australia	80,000	33

47	1	Cale Treacy	Australia	176,200	73
47	2	Tu Lan	China	132,000	55
47	3	James Broom	Australia	319,500	133
47	4	Federico Butteroni	Italy	103,700	43
47	5	Johan Schumacher	Belgium	265,600	111
47	6	Marc Macdonnell	Ireland	296,700	124
47	7	Joshua Abady	United States	83,100	35
47	8	Adrian Indovino	Australia	93,600	39

48	1	Paawan Bansal	India	98,100	41
48	2	Darryl Lapthorne	Australia	61,000	25
48	3	Matthew Wakeman	Australia	198,000	83
48	4	James Hopkins	Australia	429,500	179
48	5	Max Young	United States	120,100	50
48	6	Szymon Wysocki	Poland	397,300	166
48	7	James Romero	United States	25,000	10
48	8	Alessandro Furneri	Italy	223,400	93

49	1	John Parker	Australia	195,100	81
49	2	Kabeelan Rajamurthy	Australia	82,700	34
49	3	Craig Zwies	Australia	112,300	47
49	4	Frank Pezzaniti	Australia	480,000	200
49	5	Peter Aristidou	Australia	48,400	20
49	6	Chul-Hyon Park	Australia	371,300	155
49	7	James Clarke	United Kingdom	155,300	65
49	8	Toby Lewis	United Kingdom	144,400	60