12 players returned to the poker tables at the Crown Casino on Saturday to play down to the official final table of the 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event, and before players even got situated the biggest story at the Aussie Millions, Phil Ivey, was eliminated in 12th place. Ivey pocketed $100k for his deep-run and simply went over to the $250k buy-in tournament where his Main Event winnings didn’t even cover half of the buy-in!

With the elimination of Ivey all eyes turned to 2007 Aussie Millions Champion and Australian Poker Hall of Famer Lee Nelson, who was looking to become the first player to win multiple Aussie Millions Main Event titles. Unfortunately Nelson would be eliminated in 9th place, earning $125,000.

With the biggest name, and the second biggest name now eliminated, the focus turned to the next most-successful player still in the field, Daniel Idema. Idema, who has a WSOP Bracelet and a British Columbia Poker Championship win on his resume (both wins earning mid-six-figure paydays for the Canadian poker pro) would also fall short of the official final table, being eliminated in 8th place, and earning the same prize as Nelson.

That leaves a relatively unknown final table to play for the $1.6 million first-place prize on Sunday. Although the field doesn’t have any big names, there will be some major talent on display, including Day 4 chip-leader Yann Dion, Aussie poker pro Oliver Speidel (Speidel won the $1k side event at last year’s Aussie Millions), Ken Wong (Wong has over 20 cashes in UK poker tournaments in the past few years), Macau Poker Cup High-Roller winner Bjorn Li, Swedish poker player Mohamad Kowssarie (Kowssarie is no stranger to big buy-in events judging by his Hendon Mob statistics), as well as two relatively unknown Aussie poker players in Patrick Healy and Mile Krstanoski.

Here is a look at the official final table chip counts and seat assignments heading into the final day of the Aussie Millions Main Event:

* Seat 1: Mile Krstanoski — 2,295,000

* Seat 2: Yann Dion — 2,325,000

* Seat 3: Patrick Healy — 2,995,000

* Seat 4: Bjorn Li — 4,775,000

* Seat 5: Kenneth Wong — 2,330,000

* Seat 6: Oliver Speidel — 3,415,000

* Seat 7: Mohamad Kowssarie — 1,750,000

And here is a look at what the final seven players are playing for in terms of prize-money (not to mention adding their name to the distinguished list of Aussie Millions Champions):

* 1st place: $1,600,000

* 2nd place: 1,000,000

* 3rd place: $610,000

* 4th place: $405,000

* 5th place: $300,000

* 6th place: $230,000

* 7th place: $170,000

Notable finishes from yesterday:

* 8th place: Daniel Idema $125,000

* 9th place: Lee Nelson $125,000

* 12th place Phil Ivey $100,000

Tags: 2007 Aussie Millions, Canadian poker, Cashes, Crown Casino, Hendon Mob, Ken Wong, Lee Nelson, Mohamad, Patrick Healy, Paydays, Phil Ivey, Poker Championship, Poker Hall, Poker Player, poker players, Poker Pro, Poker Tables, Seat Assignments, Speidel, Uk Poker Tournaments

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 9:43 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.