The Aussie Millions made history today as the popular poker series brought poker to a whole new level by introducing the highest tournament buy-in in the poker world with twenty players making a mighty Quarter Million Dollar buy-in to play in this first ever event.
Three players shared the massive $5 million prize pool with the victory worth $2.5 million going to WSOP hall of famer Erik Seidel. Seidel had an incredible January month posting a total of $3.46 million in winning during the month, enough to bump him up to 3rd place in the all time poker money list with $13,788,227 in career tournament winnings behind Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey.
As the $250K tournament got underway, the small but incredibly talented field included some of the riches players in poker and such notable players as Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Tom Dwan, John Juanda David Benyamine, Sorel Mizzi, Daniel “jungleman12″ Cates, Annette Obrestad, Roland de Wolfe, and Sam Trickett.
Seidel found himself in a 5 to 1 chip deficit in heads-up play against Sam Trickett but almost an hour into showdown Seidel managed to overtake Trickett. The final hand of the tournament came when Seidel was dealt :Jh :9c to Trickett’s :As :Qh. The flop came :3s :5h :9h giving Seidel a pair. Trickett check-raised Seidel all-in who made the call. Trickett took 2nd place and $1,384,631.
Despite the large buy-in, players dropped quickly in a surprisingly fast-paced structure.
Here’s a look at the final results of the 2011 Aussie Millions Super High Roller event:
1. Erik Seidel – $2.5 million
2. Sam Trickett – $1.5 million
3. David Benyamine – $1 million
4. Wang Qiang
5. Richard Yong
6. Chris Ferguson
7. Andrew Feldman
8. Phil Ivey
9. Nikolay Evdakov
10. Dan Cates
11. Paul Phua
12. Tony Bloom
13. Annette Obrestad
14. Eugene Katchalov
15. John Juanda
16. Alexander Kostritsyn
17. Roland de Wolfe
18. Tom Dwan
19. James Bord
20. James Obst
Congratulations Erik Seidel…
