Home / Poker News January 2010 / Aussie Millions Event #1 – Matthew Ephraums wins
Aussie Millions Event #1 – Matthew Ephraums wins
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2010-01-18 16:56
Event #1 of the Aussie Millions series featured a buy-in of $1,100 and drew a massive number of 1,143 registrations. Many of these were direct buy-ins but there were many
online poker qualifiers as well. The AUD 200,025 first prize was certainly enticing enough to turn the poker tournament into a huge success: it became the largest ever live
poker tournament held an Aussie soil.
The second and final day of the event saw a field of 193 players belly up to the tables. Given that the money bubble was set for 108th place, plenty of players had to fall before the survivors could relax knowing that they wouldn’t leave empty handed.
Not only did the money bubble burst on day 2 though, the organizers wasted no time and had the field play right down to a winner. After 17 hours of heated green felt warfare, Matthew Ephraums walked away with the first prize and with the bragging rights of becoming the first champion of the 2010 series.
Tony Hachem had been doing well through the event, but he eventually fell just short of the final table. He was eliminated in 11th place, only good for a $9,000 payday.
The next player to hit the rail was Sam Vakili. With his back against the wall, he shoved all-in holding pocket 8s and got called by Anthony Kingston, who had pocket 2s.As it so often happens in such cases, the flop hit Kingston for a set, settling the issue for good.
Kingston’s joy was short-lived though: he was the next to bite the dust at the hands of Trung Tran, who ran his pocket rockets all over Kingston’s pocket 10s. Tran continued on and he knocked out Brad Rawiller in 6th place and then sent Glenn Croft to keep him company on the rail immediately after. At one point there, it certainly looked like Tran would sweep the floor with the remaining players, but he got stopped in his tracks by Matthew Ephraums. With 3 players remaining and with Tran out of the equation, the action slowed a little.
Brent Thomas was eventually knocked out in 3rd place. Brendan Edwards fell in second after his Jd, 10d was blown away by Ephraum’s Ac, 10c.
