Erik Seidel wins Aussie Millions $250k Super High Roller
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Erik Seidel may fly under the radar compared to some of his more higher profile rivals but another massive win confirms his position as one of the greatest tournament players ever.
In total, 20 players paid the $250,000 buy in, making two full tables and a $5,000,000 prize pool in the event that featured Phil Ivey, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, David Benyamine, Annette Obrestad, Daniel “jungleman12” Cates and Aussie Millions High Roller champion Sam Trickett. Also in attendance were the three famous Chinese businessman from the Million Dollar Cash Game.
After Daniel Cates bubbled the final table (he did the same in the Bahamas at the $100,000 event there) we were left with Trickett, Benyamine, two of the businessmen, Andrew Feldman, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey and Nikolay Evdakov. Only three would be paid then and with the elimination of Chinese businessman Wang Qiang we had our three.
Sam Trickett, fresh from a $1.5m victory in the $100,000 buy-in event at the Aussie Millions, rode the train of luck and confidence all the way to the final and picked up cards in all the right places to have a three-handed chip lead. With Benyamine eliminated in third for $1,000,000; it was old versus new as Erik Seidel faced off against Trickett.
Seidel played a patient game to wear Trickett down and eventually took a dominating chip lead before the final hand in which he flopped top pair with J-9 and called Trickett’s A-Q check-raise, holding to win the tournament. Amazingly, this puts Seidel up to over $3.65m in tournament earnings for 2011; Trickett has over $3.05m in the same three-week period.
“I’m really, really excited to win this. This was very special because it’s such an elite field,” said Seidel. “The entry fee was so big, I didn’t want to lose $250,000. I’m just having such an amazing month, year so far. It’s just incredible.”
The payouts were as follows:
1.Erik Seidel $2,500,000
2.Sam Trickett $1,500,000
3.David Benyamine $1,000,000
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