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12:40pm: Cards in the air for the 2016 Aussie Millions Main Event

The 2016 Aussie Millions Main Event is officially underway!

The players were welcomed to the Crown Poker Room by "The Voice" of Australian poker, Mr. Paul Khoury, before he introduced Twitch sensation, US pro Jason Sommerville.

Sommerville is a special guest at the Aussie Millions this year and will be live streaming every day on his Twitch channel at runitup.tv. Sommerville will be streaming with hole cards, on a 30-minute delay and it's completely free to watch! Today and tomorrow, Sommerville will be covering the 100k Event before focussing on the Main Event later in the ween.

The microphone was then handed to Crown Poker Room Tournament Director Joel Williams. He thanked the staff for their tireless efforts, as well as the local players for their ongoing suppor. Williams announced that there were over 300 local qualifiers for the Main Event, and eight of the first ten events of the schedule had year-on-year growth which is a tremendous result.

Finally Khoury introduced a man who knows the feeling of winning this great event - last year's Aussie Millions champion, Manny Stavropoulos. The home town hero said that the last twelve months has gone by very quickly, but he's enjoyed a few overseas trips and travelling the poker circuit.

The honour was then given to Stavropoulos to utter the immortal words, "Shuffle up and deal!"

With that, the cards are now in the air for Day 1a of the 2016 Aussie Millions Main Event. We'll be playing seven 90-minute levels today, which means we'll be wrapping up tonight at 1:30am local time.

Take a look at the Aussie Millions official website for tournament schedules, structures, news and information from the Crown Poker Room in Melbourne.

Live updates brought to you courtesy of Brad Kain and Heath Chick. Photos by Jonno Pittock and Christian Zetzsche.