CarbonPoker correspondant, Shane, is back with another update from Down Under.

Day 2 of the Aussie Millions saw again only one Carbon Poker runner. This was a relief some 13 hours later as our one entrant for the day kept me busier than one player really should!

Elliot “ilikebiggirls” Smith showed quite early he was going to play a lot of pots, and getting called down or losing pots was not going to change his strategy. He came into the day very well fed and focused and it showed as he negotiated early proceedings including one of the most bizarre live hands I have ever seen.

Elliot and his opponent went to the river both feeling pretty good about their hands, but the board was somewhat trouble some. After a QQ5 flop the turn brought another queen and the river another 5. Both players now had a full house and most on the rail assumed it was the same full house, queens over fives, how wrong they all were. Elliot’s opponent flipped up pocket tens making queens over tens, Elliot’s look of confusion had me thinking he was beat and was playing the boards queens over five full house. I too was wrong as Elliot flipped pocket tens, both players indeed had the same full house, queens over 10’s. I’ve never seen symmetry at the poker table like that before, and I doubt I ever will again!

As the day wore on an older gentleman an the table quickly became Elliot’s nemesis, he seemed to have Elliot covered at every turn. Elliot’s pocket jacks were called down by granddads Q4, which of course flopped a queen to make the higher pair. No matter how these hands played out though Elliot stayed true to his plan, kept his foot down and for every pot that was shipped away from him, there was one coming back.

Late in the afternoon Elliot’s table was broken and he was moved to a new table, there was a change in scenery but no change in his style of play. Down went the sunglasses, in went the chips. As afternoon became night it was more of the same and Elliot’s chip stack started to stand out as being one of the bigger stacks in the room. Often if he let one hand go and a decent amount of chips with it, he would fire aggressively at the very next pot quickly recouping any losses.

As time passed there were only three decent sized stacks left at the table, Elliot took this as his cue to do his best Sammy Faha impression, ‘raisey daisy’! Elliot was raising almost every pot, stealing blinds left right and centre.  He finally ran into a reraise in hand that was to become a serious battle on Elliot’s table. Facing each other from opposite ends of the table was Elliot and one of the young guns of poker Dani Stern. Stern started the day with the the larger stack, but Elliot started to put a dint in that stack and as the hours dragged on both players grew more and more determined to take the other down. With Dani reraising Elliot there was finally some resistance at the table. First Elliot called for a count of Dani’s stack, then Dani called time on Elliot. Elliot stayed in the tank for a few minutes still, by now even I was sweating in the rail… however it all came to an anti-climax as Elliot laid his hand down.

To get back into the groove Elliot reraised the very next hand which once again went uncalled. Elliot rode plenty of hands like this through the evening and by the time the final level of the evening rolled around Elliot  built such a formidable stack that he was in fact the chip leader.

The next massive hand was again with Dani Stern. Preflop Elliot raised to 2500, Dani raised to 5k and Elliot quickly bumped it again throwing another 10k in the middle. Dani wasn’t going away though and he pushed all-in put his tournament life on the line as he was well covered by Elliot. Elliot went into the tank but eventually laid down his hand. Dani gleefully showed his hand J-7 of diamonds, quite happy with himself and the move he had just made.

Elliot really had dominated his table and his more well known opponent all night, this was made especially clear by the opposite end of the table scheming together to try to find a way to take him down. They of course weren’t successful and at the close of day 1 flight 2 Elliot ‘ilikebiggirls’ had 98,100 in chips and was entrenched at the top of the leaderboard.