Howard Lederer wins Aussie Millions Event 9Howard Lederer is 1.25 million dollars (AUD) richer. Late last night, he won the $100,000 buy-in Aussie Millions Event #9. This is quite an accomplishment. The other 24 elite poker players entered this event include the likes of professionals such as, last year’s event winner Erick Lindgren, 2007 Aussie Millions Main Champion, Gus Hansen and multi-time high stakes tournament winners Phil Ivey, Tony G, Chris Ferguson and Jeff Lisandro.

This tournament was played as part Pot Limit Texas Hold’em and part No Limit Texas Hold’em, a mixed structure most these players were not accustomed to playing. The way it worked was, before the flop player’s bets were restricted to the size of the pot, but after the flop the game was played with no betting limits. With 25 buy-ins of $100,000 each, the prize pool was 2.5 million which would be shared between the top 5 finishers starting with $1.25 million to first and $100,000 to 5th.

It took several hours for the tournament to reach the bubble, and it was the champion of this event last year, Erick Lindgren, who became this year’s bubble boy. He got his money all in with a flopped set of Kings but ended up busting courtesy Michael Sampoerna who held 10-7 of clubs and made a flush on the turn.

The following eliminations lead to heads up play:
Michael Sampoerna sent Niki Jedlicka to the rail in 5th place ($100,000).
Mark Teltscher sent Jeff Lisandro to the rail in 4th place ($150,000).
Mark Teltscher sent Michael Sampoerna to the rail in 3rd place ($350,000).

Howard Lederer played cautiously through most of this tournament but select aggression helped him to steadily build a stack. Lederer rarely found himself in high risk situations and benefited from his opponents knocking each other out. Once heads up it took less than an hours play for Lederer to eliminate Mark Teltscher and claim the 2008 Aussie Millions Event #9 title.