The next few days are filled with quality live action in Australia. After the popular Aussie Millions in Melbourne, we saw the first-ever Australian Poker Open (APO) kick off at the Star Gold Coast. The series began on January 25 and will be running till February 1. Once the Australian Poker Open gets over, there is the inaugural Super High Roller Bowl Australia that comes to an end on February 4.
Featuring seven events with in buy-ins between $10,000 up to $100,000, the Australian Poker Open has already crowned three winners. Here is a round-up of the events that are done and dusted:
EVENT #1: $10,000 NLH
The opening event of the high stakes tournament series – the A$10,000 NLHE- attracted 59 entries to create a prize pool of $590,000, which was eventually shared by top nine players. Coming out on top of the field was the Canadian pro Mike Watson who shipped the title for A$177,000 in prize money.
Post his win, Watson stated, “I’m thrilled to have won it. Especially in these series it’s great to get off to a good start and set the tone, get your confidence high, and try to make a run for that player of the series title. It’s also the first live event I’ve won a little while, so that monkey’s off my back.”
On the final table of the event, Watson eliminated Jamie Lee (5th), Orpen Kisacikoglu (4th) and eventually his heads-up mate Michael O’Grady (2nd) who shoved on the final hand with his Ax 8x and was called by Watson with Ax Qx, which went on to win the pot as well as the title for Watson.
Payouts (AUD)
1st: Mike Watson – A$177,000
2nd: Michael O’Grady – A$118,000
3rd: Benjamin Shannon – A$82,600
4th: Orpen Kisacikoglu – A$59,000
5th: Jamie Lee – A$47,200
6th: Andras Nemeth– A$35,400
7th: Elio Fox – A$29,500
8th: Ben Lamb – A$23,600
9th: Lucas Greenwood – A$17,700
Event #2: A$10K Pot Limit Omaha
The first PLO event of the series drew 43 entries. With each paying A$10k buy-in, the event created A$ 429,000 (~US$ 292,800), which was eventually divided among the top 7 players. Grabbing the lion’s share was Hungary’s Andras Nemeth who earned A$ 146,200 after beating Ajez in HU. This is turning out to be a good series for Nemeth who finished 6th in the opening event of the series.
The money began after Dutch pro Jorryt Van Hoof going out on the bubble. The first ITM elimination came in David “Chino” Reem (7th), followed by Poker Hall of Famer Erik Seidel (6th) and Sean Winter (5th). Finnish pro Joni Jouhkimainen fell in 4th place to chip leader Najeem Ajez, while Watson went out in 3rd place, leaving Najeem Ajez and Andras Nemeth in the heads-up to battle it out for the title.
While heads-up started with Nemeth behind in chips, he was able to overcome a couple of crucial hands to surge ahead and defeat Ajez to win the title for A$ 146,200 in the first place prize.
Payouts (AUD)
1st Andras Nemeth – A$ 146,200
2nd Najeem Ajez – A$ 93,600
3rd Mike Watson – A$ 64,500
4th Joni Jouhkimainen – A$ 43,000
5th Sean Winter – A$ 34,400
6th Erik Seidel – A$ 24,800
7th David “Chino” Reem – A$ 25,000
EVENT #3: $25,000 NLH
Canadian pros are dominating the scene at the ongoing Australian Poker Open. Timothy Adams is another Canadian pro taking down the $25k No Limit Hold’em for A$416,500 in the top prize. He defeated a 49-entry field, including the UK’s popular pro Stephen Chidwick in heads-up to become the 28th player in poker history to cash for a total of $19,000,000 in live tournament earnings.
“This final table was really tough with all guys I’m used to playing against. At the high stakes you play mainly against all the same players and those guys are all really great and I’m very happy that I won. To win a tournament a lot of things have to go your way and today that happened to me.”
In heads-up, Chidwick and Adams played only a few hands, all of which were won by the latter. On the final hand, Adams’ pocket sevens held up against Chidwick’s ace-five to win him the coveted title.
Payouts (AUD)
1 Timothy Adams- $416,500
2 Stephen Chidwick- $269,500
3 Andy Lee- $183,750
4 Steve O’Dwyer- $122,500
5 Orpen Kisacikoglu- $98,000
6 Aaron Van Blarcum- $73,500
7 Chino Rheem- $61,250