Home / Poker News January 2010 / Aussie Millions - $100K challenge and event #7
Aussie Millions - $100K challenge and event #7
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2010-01-25 11:12
The $100k Challenge of the Aussie Millions attracted a field of only 24 players. Considering the size of the buy-in though, even that was impressive. Obviously, pretty much all of the participants in this
poker tournament were name players. Phil Ivey was there, together with Gus Hansen, Tony G, Howard Lederer, David Steicke, Barry Greenstein and online poker sensations Tom Dwan and Jonathan Karamalikis.
The event would feature a unique structure. There would be no antes at all, and players would play PL
Texas Hold'em before the flop, only to switch to NL Holdem after it. Each player would have 30 seconds to reach a decision each time the action was on him. Although the organizers had planned to let the flimsy field play down to the winner in one day, eventually, the event was turned into a 2-day one and day 1 got called as soon as the final table was set.
Karamalikis, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Don Shak, Barry Greenstein, Tony Bloom, Tony G and Bill Jordanou are the ones who made it to the final table, but peculiarly enough the money bubble wasn’t reached yet, as only the first 5 places will be paying ones. Three more of these guys will still leave empty handed.
Event #7 meanwhile did much better starting-field wise. A total of 108 players bellied up to the tables in this one, as the $1,150 buy-in was obviously much less restrictive than that of the $100k Challenge.
Mike Watson walked away the winner from this poker tournament, his share a $129,920 chunk of the $464,000 prize-pool. The final table was everything but a walk in the park for Watson, who had to go to war against players like James Obst, Stewart Scott and Florian Langmann.
Shane Warne was the first casualty of the final table. His late arrival failed to save him. He was followed to the rail by Nicholas Faure and Stanley Hou in 8th and 9th places respectively.
Antonio Fazzolari and Manny Stavropoulos followed, with Stewart Scott hitting the rail in 5th place. Watson got going then and he eliminated Obst in 4th, but he didn’t stop there. He showed Florian Langmann to the payout queue too. Gary Benson fell in 2rd, and Watson ended up with the spoils.
