Coming into this final table, Alan ‘Ari’ Engel was the commanding chip leader, and had over $2.2 million in live cashes under his belt, along with a number of distinguished years in the online world, which included a SCOOP title in 2014. It always looked to be a difficult task for anyone to wrestle this title away from him, but Tony Dunst had a large stack, and probably stood the best chance of anyone. Nothing at the final table dispelled those facts, as those two players grew stronger, and the challengers fell one by one.
Samantha Abernathy put up a very good fight with her medium sized stack, managing an admirable 3rd place finish, for $625,000. She now holds the record of best ever finish by a female player in the Aussie Millions Main Event.
In the end though, it always looked likely to be Dunst and Engel reaching heads up, given their experience, and the chip stacks of both opponents when play began.
Heads up was no easy procession to the title for Engel, as it took another 4 hours to conclude the event. In the end, Dunst hero called a river shove to bring things to an end. His opponent had turned top pair, and that was enough to bring him the trophy, and the AU$1,600,000 in what is his best ever career score. The Canadian bested a field of 731 players to win the title. Tony Dunst picked up AU$1,000,000.
Alan “Ari” Angel (Photo PokerStars blog)
The final results and payouts are as follows:
1st – Alan Engel – AU$1,600,000
2nd – Tony Dunst- Au$1,000,000
3rd – Samantha Abernathy – Au$625,000
4th – Alexander Lynskey – Au$445,000
5th – Dylan Honeyman – Au$340,000
6th – Kitty Kuo – AU$270,000
Louis Hartwell
Graduated in Media Communication at the University of Lausanne, Louis Hartman is a co-founder of somuchpoker.com. He began his career in Cambodia as freelance journalist. In same time he was making his living by playing poker every night at that time. Intense learner, he read dozens of poker strategy books to improve his skills during many years. With a strong interest about poker "behind the scene" in Asia and his communication skills, Louis launched Somuchpoker in 2014.
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