david steickeLast year we saw the premier of this event at the Aussie Millions, the 100k buy-in event! Last year this event was won by Full Tilt Poker Pro Howard Lederer, this years event has drawn 23 players all competing for 2.3 Million prize pool. The players competing today and there seating assignments are:

Seat 1 Chris Ferguson
Seat 2 Tony Bloom
Seat 3 Alexander Kostritsyn
Seat 4 Michael Sampoerna
Seat 5 Erik Seidel
Seat 6 Jason Gray
Seat 7 Sandor Demjan
Seat 8 John Hennigan

Seat 1 Phil Ivey
Seat 2 Jeff Lisandro
Seat 3 Dan Shak
Seat 4 JC Tran
Seat 5 Sergey Rybachenko
Seat 6 Bill Jordanou
Seat 7 Jamie Pickering
Seat 8 John Juanda

Seat 1 Andrew Robl
Seat 2 Nam Le
Seat 3 Empty
Seat 4 Patrik Antonius
Seat 5 Masa Kagawa
Seat 6 Gus Hansen
Seat 7 Tony “G” Guoga
Seat 8 David Steic

The action is moving along already as we have seen some players pull ahead in chip counts, those include Patrik Antonius how picked up a couple small pots and is up by a small margine. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson is off and running increasing his stack to nearly 170k after flopping trips. Other wise there has been much back and forth with many players exchanging pots. We are a short way into today’s action and we are still awaiting the arrival of one Mr. Phil Ivey, not long after his arrival he was given a 5 minute penalty for using his cell (mobile) phone. As Phil was coming back to the table from his penalty he was able to bear witness to the exit of Gus Hansen, after Gus was down to 27k and moved all in with pocket 7’s and was eliminated by Masa Kagawa and his Jx-10x.

Following the elimination of Hansen we have seen a few other players exit including Jamie Pickering, and with the 3rd level coming to an end Phil Ivey moved all-in with Kc-Qc and was called by Juanda’s Ac-Jc. The board ran out 10s-5c-3s-10h-Js and with that Ivey is done for the day and likely off to either Baccarat or Craps for a days gambling. The tournament staff here have just announced the prize pay outs and they are as follows:

1st $1,200,000AUD
2nd $600,000AUD
3rd $300,000AUD
4th $200,000AUD

Tony G was our most recent player to be eliminated after his Ah-10c got busted by David Steicke’s Ks-5s in a preflop all-in confrontation; the board read Js-7d-5d-6c-4s giving Steicke a pair of 5’s and all of Tony G’s chips. With the elimination of Tony G we have now gone down to two tables and the seat assignments are as follows:

Seat 1 Chris Ferguson
Seat 2 Tony Bloom
Seat 3 Patrik Antonius
Seat 4 Empty
Seat 5 Nam Le
Seat 6 Jason Gray
Seat 7 Jeff Lisandro
Seat 8 John Hennigan

Seat 1 David Steicke
Seat 2 Andrew Robl
Seat 3 Dan Shak
Seat 4 JC Tran
Seat 5 Masa Kagawa
Seat 6 Bill Jordanou
Seat 7 Erik Seidel
Seat 8 John Juanda

As the final table begins to loom over the players here we have just watched John Hennigan take leave of us here in the Crown Poker Room, and was followed shortly by the biggest hand of the tournament. Two FullTiltPoker.com Pro’s hooked up in a very large hand as Chris Ferguson re-raised Patrik Antonius’s opening raise of 13k to 41,500. Following that Antonius took his time as before announcing a raise to 140,000, which after some typical deliberation Ferguson declared all-in and was called by Antonius.

Ferguson: Qd-Qc
Antonius: Js-Jc

With a flop of 3h-Ks-5d Ferguson looks in great shape, however when the turn came off in the form of the Jack of Diamonds things became very rough for Ferguson. To Ferguson’s misfortune the 5c came off the river leaving Ferguson with a measly 35k, while Antonius is up to 440,000 and is our chip leader. Erik Seidel and Nam Le were our last two victims prior to the formation of our final table here tonight the seat assignments and chip counts are as follows:

Seat 1 Dan Shak – 370,000
Seat 2 JC Tran – 335,000
Seat 3 Patrik Antonius – 248,000
Seat 4 Jason Gray – 145,000
Seat 5 David Steicke – 462,000
Seat 6 John Juanda – 290,000
Seat 7 Tony Bloom – 181,000
Seat 8 Jeff Lisandro – 75,000
Seat 9 Bill Jordanou – 180,000

The first few hands of final table action moved on without much to talk about, however that all changed in a heart beat as Patrik Antonius flopped top pair top kicker and JC Tran flopped bottom set! All the money got in on the flop and with Antonius drawing to running fullhouse, he was left drawing dead on the turn. It is not a surprising twist for Antonius’s aggressive style of play to go from first to out in a matter of hands. As todays action came to a close David Steicke took out Jason Gray then cracked Lisandro’s Ace’s on his way to a day 1 chip lead as we bag up the chips for the night.

It was a long night last night for these final 6 hopefuls in the 100k tournament here at the Aussie Millions, 23 began and only 6 remain with David Steicke in the lead but others close at his heals. As play begins today here are the chip counts:

David Steicke – 631,000
JC Tran – 528,000
John Juanda – 480,000
Dan Shak – 356,000
Tony Bloom – 181,000
Bill Jordanou – 139,000

As the start of today’s action was looming Dan Shak had yet to make an entrance, the players along with tournament staff decided to extend the start of today’s action by 10 minutes and just as that time allotment expired Shak burst into the room. After a very slow start to today’s action we have a seen a flurry of excitement as John Juanda was eliminated following a hand that left him crippled in which he tried to make a huge double barrel move on a 3 way pot. It didn’t take long for his then short stack to end up all-in and in the end it was against JC Tran who flopped trip Queens against Juanda’s Jacks. Shortly after that the bubble burst as Steicke improved his chip lead after getting fortunate to have Pocket Kings vs. Bill Jordanou’s Pocket Queens.

With only 4 players left and all of them in the money one has to wonder how long this event will now play out, it didn’t take long for the next player to be eliminated following the loss of Jordanou. This time it was Dan Shak who struggled all day to gain footing in the end he got all his money in with Pocket 3’s against Steicke’s Pocket 7’s. Shak was in trouble but to his astonishment he was drawing dead straight away on the flop as Steicke flopped Quad 7’s! And with that Shak has “doubled up” cashing out for $200,000AUD in 4th place. As level 12 came to a close the story was Steicke vs. Tran and Tran continually coming out on the wrong end! With the completion of level 12 and the players on break things are looking very good for David Steicke here tonight; the chip counts are as follows:

David Steicke – 1,070,000
Tony Bloom – 920,000
JC Tran – 300,000

To our surprise with only 3 players left and less then 6 hours play in the books the players have decided to take a dinner break, and after being offered a 45 minute break over the usual 30 the players still managed to get more making it a 70 minute dinner break. One has to wonder if this is bad for Steicke who is on a nearly unstoppable path only time will tell if this will help him or hinder him. Following the dinner break Tran kept on his downward spiral and finished his day here in 3rd place taking home $300,000AUD after his Kc-6d ran into Steicke and Kd-Jh. The board ran out blank for both players and the K-J high was good for the pot and Tran is gone leaving Tony Bloom and David Steicke to battle for $600,000AUD. With Steicke holding a massive chip advantage one has to wonder if Bloom has any chance the counts are:

David Steicke – 2,094,000
Tony Bloom – 206,000

It only took two hands for this one to get in the books following a raise and fold to a re-raise from Steicke, Bloom sat on just over 100k in chips when he looked down at Ac-4s which was definitely good enough to take a stand. Steicke made the call with 10s-3s and as has been the case all night Steicke found a way to come out on top spiking a 3-outer on the river to win the title. The board read 6d-7s-7d-6h-10h and with that Tony Bloom collects $600,000AUD for 2nd and David Steicke gets 1st place along with $1,200,000AUD and the Raymond Weil Watch (valued at $15,000AUD). For those people who have followed the APPT the name David Steicke is not a new to you and this win should come as no surprise! However for those of you who have never heard of him you sure have now! And will in the future you can be sure of that!

From all of us at PokerProp congratulations to David Steicke and all those who played today, from The Crown Hotel & Casino good night and good luck.