Coming to you live from Melbourne Australia and The Crown Hotel & Casino, we will be keeping you up to speed on all the happenings in this the 2009 Aussie Millions. The Aussie Millions opens today with event 1 which is a $1,100 AUD No-Limit Hold’em tournament, the event will comprise of two day ones and culminate as a 2 day event played over 3 days.
As we approach the start of the tournament this place is absolutely a-buzz with excitement, today’s event is expected to set records for the Aussie Millions. The tournament today is carrying a guaranteed prize pool of $500,000AUD and with 500 players already pre-registered it will exceed that number substantially.
With day 1a under way some of the notables already seen here today include Annette Obrestad, Mel Judah and Tony Hachem (brother to former WSOP “Main Event” champ Joe Hachem). The action is going quite fast as one would expect with a preliminary event, at present we are hearing that the numbers for today’s event is sitting around 350.
Annette Obrestad form WSOPE “Main Event” champion found herself on the outside looking in, after a hand that had a touch of underhandedness to it. David Saab re-raised a middle position raise and was then called by the SB before Annette moved all her chips in from the BB, upon which the middle position player laid down. Bringing the action back to Saab who whilst thinking about his situation asked Annette “Is your name Annette?” after getting no response from Annette, he turned to the player next to him and asked him “Is her name Annette?” At this the player next to him responded that he wasn’t sure, but he believed her name was Annette, at this Saab said to Annette “I think your name is Annette, So I call.” At this he tabled a pair of 8’s and was in great shape against Annette’s A-8 off which did not improve and leaves Saab over 10k in chips and Annette a tad upset.
Every poker player in the world has heard and probably said “Chip and a Chair” well today Nathan Swayers is trying to prove that true as he was reduced to a single 100 chip and after a few lucky spots no finds himself at over 2,000 chips and has just doubled yet again after his A-Q flopped a Q against his opponents 10’s and to make it worse turned a second Q and Swayers is just over the 4k mark.
As the day came to a close Tony Hachem found himself exiting with the standard “that’s so sick” as his K-10 lost to 7’s after hitting a 10 on the flop and seeing a 7 spike the river. As day 1a wraps, we have seen a flash of players start and finish with 11 levels in the books and only 54 players out of 342 are left to tell the tale and look to day after tomorrow it should be interesting, David Saab is still in it, and our chip leader is a David Griffiths who sits over 100k.
As day 1b gets under way there have been some typical fireworks but nothing really out of the ordinary, we are seeing many well known Australian poker players and many APPT and EPT well known’s. The biggest name player in the field today appears to be Tony G, and if we see any others we’ll let you know. The official numbers have come in, and we have 389 in today’s action giving a grand total of 731 players or runners as the Aussie here likes to say. This number is a dramatic upswing from last year, and leaves us with a prize pool exceeding 700K. 72 players will go home from here with money and the top “mate” down under will go home with 150k AUD.
After an early hand that saw Tony G in a 3 way all-in holding A’s against K’s and Qc-Jc, where he came out in 3rd place things are looking up for Tony as it appears, he’s playing small ball poker and slowly re-building his stack. There has been lots of action today as the field is slowly sliming down to what will make up the final day tomorrow. Tony G found his exit as day 1b was coming to close when he tried to make a move on the blinds from late position with A-J but walked into not only K’s but A’s after flopping a Jack he was unable to improve anymore and is heading home for the night. One of the highlights of day 1b was right at the end as the level was winding down Petar Lackovic got into an “A” Typical confrontation with his 9d 9c up against Ad Kc and when the flop and turn made a board of 5s Jd 8d 10d the murmurs began and where fulfilled when the Qd hit the river leaving his opponent bewildered and without chips.
As Day 2 begins here Melbourne Dean Blatt finds himself in the tournament drivers’ seat with over 140k in chips. One thing that is surprising us here today is that with the bubble not far away so many of the mid-stacks are getting mixed-up in hands typically left for the short and big stacks leaving some fast and furious action.
In a hand that no one wants to lose Mark Jacobson found his Qc Qd against the Qh Qs of Paul Rochford and found a way to lose as Rochford made a spade flush. That is just cruel punishment. It didn’t take long a mere 2.5 levels to find ourselves on hand for hand play as we have reached 73 players. And hand for hand only took one hand as Daniel Mulgrew found his Q’s and his last 20k in chips lose to James Owens’ AK. With the bubble gone, we should see a fast and furious move towards the final table now. With just over 1 level played since the bubble we have seen 27 players eliminated and this trend should continue.
In what is being called the pot of the tournament Michael Chrisanthopoulos opened the action with an all-in shove for 29k, sending the action to Ben Delany who came over the top in an attempt to isolate for his whole stack of just over 200k. Which should spell the end of the action however Clint Jordanou’s decided to get in the mix for his final 123k. Creating a pot of nearly 275k and when the cards were tabled Chrisanthopoulos looked in great shape.
Chrisanthopoulos: Ah Ac
Delany: Kd Qd
Jordanou: Ad Kc
However, Chrisanthopoulos knew that poker can be a cruel game and when the board fell Qh 10s 8c things were looking a little dicey, and it didn’t take the poker gods long to smite him as the Jack of spades hit the turn leaving Chrisanthopoulos with a one of two King’s to chop and Delany with the case Ace to chop and Jordanou was looking at every other card in the deck and one of those came the 5c. Jordanou is now our chip leader with 274,000 chips. Furthermore, to add to Delany’s poor luck not long after this hand he ran Q’s into A’s and was eliminated in 29th. As we head for the final table we are seeing many classic 50-50 races and right now they are sitting about level as they should be.
With the eleventh place prize money awarded to Naz Sibaei, the tournament staff here has elected to make a final table of ten rather than the two tables of 5 going hand for hand as is typically done. With that we have our final table there seats and stacks are as follows:
Seat 1: Scott Peters (134,000)
Seat 2: Christian Heich (596,000)
Seat 3: Steve Topakas (446,000)
Seat 4: Dean Blatt (113,000)
Seat 5: Sam Khouiss (176,000)
Seat 6: Clint Jordanou (204,000)
Seat 7: David Griffiths (674,000)
Seat 8: Steve Bouya (750,000)
Seat 9: Ismail Ismail (80,000)
Seat 10: Paul Rochford (490,000)
The tournament staff is also going to wind the clocks back a single level to allow for a little more depth and play here in event 1. It took just over 10 minutes to see Ismail Ismail our short stack made his way to the exit as his Ks Qs lost to Rochford and his Ac 10h with a flop of 10-7-7 things weren’t looking good for Ismail and when a second 10 hit the turn it was all over. Ismail was followed minutes later by Scott Peters and with only 8 players left here is the count:
Steve Bouya – 1,100,000
Christian Heich – 723,000
Paul Rochford – 690,000
Steve Topakas – 430,000
David Griffiths – 290,000
Clint Jordanou – 167,000
Sam Khouiss – 120,000
Dean Blatt – 65,000
With 2 players gone and the payouts beginning to escalate, we are seeing play tighten immensely and after quite a few hands Dean Blatt our chip leader entering today is going home in 8th taking just shy 12k AUD.
After David Griffiths was shown the door in 7th for 16k AUD it didn’t take long for Clint Jordanou to follow in 6th worth $25,585 as level 20 came to a close. Furthermore, with only 5 players left here is the count:
Steve Bouya – 1,505,000
Christian Heich – 1,173,000
Steve Topakas – 678,000
Sam Khouiss – 172,000
Paul Rochford – 169,000
After a few hands including yet another cracking of Aces, which has become quite a normal sight here over the last 3 days, Sam Khouiss has found himself out in 5th and Paul Rochford out in 4th. With 3 players left the action his getting tense as all 3 of these men look forward to win the newly introduced gold aussie millions ring.
Steve Bouya found himself short stacked at the start of 3 handed play and was unable to over come that and is going home in 3rd taking 73,100 AUD with him. Bouya found his Kh Qc up against Steve Topakas and a lovely pair of Kings leaving Bouya in bad shape. However, the flop of A-J-Q breathed some life back into his sail’s he was sad to see running 9’s and the door. As heads up play begins between Steve Topakas and Christian Heich the chip counts read as such:
Steve Topakas: 1,975,000
Christian Heich: 1,690,000
And with the stack nearly level this should be a good confrontation with just under 40k AUD up for grabs. After a bunch of small pots and the players coming virtually even it all came to a head when Topakas called Heich’s raise from the BB for 100k. With a flop of Ah 3c Jh Topakas check called Heich’s bet of 110k. After the turn fell the Eight of Spades Topakas again checked to Heich who made a bet of 275k and was raised all-in by Topakas who to his surprise got a Snap! Call from Heich who tabled a set of Jacks! And left Topakas with a double gut shot to stay alive
Topakas: Qh 10d
Heich: Jd Js
Board: Ah 3c Jh 8s
When the river landed a blank Christian Heich found himself 150k AUD richer for his efforts over 2 days of play. Topakas is leaving the tournament room today with an equally amazing pay day of $110,380 AUD.
To all the players who made the money today congratulations’ and special thanks to the entire tournament staff here at the Crown Hotel and Casino. Keep posted to PokerProp for continuing coverage of the 2009 Aussie Millions.
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