Despite the strong showings of Gus Hansen, Andy Black and Patrik Antonius on Day Three of the Aussie Millions main-event, when all was said and done the day belonged to one man, or should I say boy. Jimmy "Gobboboy" Fricke, from Illinois and aged just 19, began the day third in chips and ended as the runaway chip leader after a string of remarkable bust-outs and suck-outs which sent the watching crowd into a frenzy.

Gobboboy's habit of coming from behind to crush his opponents became something of a legend over the course of the day with the incredulous railbirds eventually choosing to nickname him "Luckbox" instead of "Gobboboy".

Gobboboy began his run of knockouts with a fairly routine hand against the Day Three chip leader Haralobos Voulgaris, catching a flush to bust his Voulgaris' two pair and send him crashing out of the event much earlier than he would have liked. Next he busted Ville Laukenen, after he called the Scandinavian's all-in with K-7o and was lucky to only be up against a pair of twos. Even so the J-9-8 flop was not a good one for the teenager and an ace on the turn left him a big dog, but a ten fell kindly on the river to complete his gutshot straight and send Laukkanen packing.

But it was Gobboboy's next elmination that led to the change of nickname. Up against the healthy stack of Shane "Shaniac" Schleger the super-confident Gobboboy was perhaps a little rash to get all his chips in with Q-T on a Q-9-2 board and he found himself in big trouble when Shaniac flipped up Q-J. A king fell on the turn meaning Gobboboy was drawing to dead to just three jacks in the deck. Of course you've already guessed the ending to this story. The pot was close to $3 million in chips when the jack duly dropped on the river and a digusted and shocked Shaniac headed to the rail in a daze after a beat that will take him some time to get over.

The newly christened "Luckbox" lived up to his name when he went on to bust Nathan Bobik's pocket kings with a lowly pair of tens, catching a set on the flop when all the money had gone in pre-flop. But by now no-one expected anything less from Luckbox . . .

Meanwhile "The Great Dane" Gus Hansen was on the TV table busy doing what he does best, namely bamboozling opponents with his unpredicatble play. He did also win some conventional pots though, busting Lee Nelson with A-Q against K-9, and raking a $600k pot when his pocket jacks held up in a three-way all-in pot against As-Ks and Qc-Tc. He ended the day where he started, in second position, but with considerably more chips! It was also a good day for Andy Black, who ended in third place, and Patrik Anotnius, who followed up his extraordinary end to Day Three (see yesterdays news) with another dominant perfomance, adding roughly $1.3 million to his stack to finish in fourth place. These three are bound to prove a serious danger to Gobboboy's dominance tomorrow.

Not so lucky on Day Three was Joe Hachem who exited in 23rd place to tumultuos applause from players and fans alike. But another WSOP hero, Paul Wasicka (2nd in 2006), made it to the penultimate day although he will have some work to do if he is to make it to the final table.

Fourteen players start Day Four tomorrow, here's how the chip counts looked at the end of Day Three:

Jimmy "Gobboboy" Fricke $2.6M
Gus Hansen $1.861M
Andrew Black $1.759M
Patrik Antonius $1.637M
Marc Karam $1.249M
Julius Colman $1.018M
Hans Martin Vogl $849K
Jonas Buskas $820K
Kristy Gazes $713K
Paul Wasicka $560K
Jacob Glassl $464K
Patrick Fletcher $462K
Dennis Huntly $449K
Emanuel Seal $434K
Submitted: 18/01/2007 13:31:25