Home / Poker News January 2009 / Aussie Millions 2-card Manila Event report
Aussie Millions 2-card Manila Event report
Posted by: James Carter. - Wed, 2009-01-28 07:49
The final event of the Aussie Millions, the 2-Card Manila one took place on Australia Day, and featured a poker variant which is an Australian specialty so to speak.
Fittingly, the last championship ring of the series went to an Aussie player, Billy ‘the Croc’ Argyros, who bested a micro-field of 18 players to take down the $18,000 first prize. The top 4 players finished in the money, and given the extremely small size of the starting field, the whole tournament was over very fast.
Manila is a community card poker game which uses only 32 cards. All cards lower than 7 are removed from the 52-card deck. Players are required to use both their hole cards in their showdown hand. Flushes beat boats in Manila because the reduced number of suited cards makes them extremely scarce.
The community cards do not hit the table in the flop-turn-river format, rather they’re revealed one at a time, allowing for no fewer than 5 betting rounds to take place.
Billy Argyros arrived late for the event, but that didn’t prevent him to put the chill on the other participants and send them to the rail one by one.
Graeme Putt, Sam Khouiss and Ian Cooper didn’t make the final table. Interestingly enough, because of the small starting field, making the final table didn’t mean making the money too for the remaining players.
Constantine Harach would know that best as he became the first casualty of the final table. His A,J doubled up Joe Meissner first and it only took a few more hands for him to bust out in 7th place and outside the money.
Mark Scott left the tournament in 6th, followed by Peter Bowen who became the bubble boy in 5th place. Kerry Stead took home AU$3,690 for his 4th place finish.
As three handed play continued, Argyros won a huge pot from Paul Ravesi as Joe Meissner did his best to preserve his short-stack.
On a aboard of A,Q,J,K,Q, Argyros made a full house against Ravesi’s Broadway straight. Meissner’s maneuverings paid off as Ravesi headed to the rail in 3rd place after running his two pair into the former’s full house.
The heads-up stage was a mere formality though as Argyros held a huge advantage over Meissner. The final hand of the day saw Argyros’ Q,10 hit a set of Qs on the board making short work of Meissner’s K,J which made two pairs.
