Aussie Millions: Vincent Wan lifts Main Event trophy as Kahle Burns bags $100K title

The Aussie Millions has reached its grand finale and the story of the biggest tournament in town has now been written. The Main Event brought an Australian winner, a deep run for a Vietnamese player and a final table for Erik Seidel, further adding to the great run older players have been on lately, as we reported here. In addition, Kahle Burns has been busy wrapping up another High Roller title in a field strewn with world-class talents.

AU$10,600 Main Event – Winner: Vincent ‘wonky’ Wan

This tournament has been as keenly anticipated as it is every year, with its distinctive winner’s trophy and usual stack of cash on offer. This year saw 820 entries, with each player putting up AU$10,600 to get involved. This helped the total prize pool to reach AU$8,200,000 (US$5,599,370).

It took three starting day flights and a full second day to bring the field size down to 160. Jordan Tentori led the way, with Shao Liu following close behind. They were joined in the top 10 by Fabian Quoss, Jeff Madsen, Paawan Bansal and Quan Zhou. It took two more days to bring the field down to a final table of 7, with very few chips separating the top 4 players.

Short-stack Ngoc Tai Hoang was able to climb the counts throughout the final table, with the top two stacks struggling throughout. Erik Seidel also could not gain much traction, eventually falling away in 5th place. Chip leader when the final table began, Nino Ullmann eventually slid back to a 4th place finished, at which point, the players struck a deal. Ngoc Tai Hoang and Vincent Wan took the biggest shares, with Gareth Pepper accepting a smaller prize.

The final payouts are as follows:

1st – Vincent Wan (Australia) AU$1,318,000* (US$907,196*)
2nd – Ngoc Tai Hoang (Vietnam) AU$1,318,000*
3rd – Gareth Pepper (New Zealand) AU$1,000,000*
4th – Nino Ullmann (Germany) AU$480,160
5th – Erik Seidel (United States) AU$378,660
6th – Oliver Weis (Germany) AU$307,820
7th – Nicolas Malo (Canada) AU$240,080

AU$100,000 Challenge – Winner: Kahle Burns

The AU$100,000 Challenge event attracted all the usual top High Rollers, with 54 entries buying in to the event. This created a prize pool of AU$5,292,000 ( USD$3,613,642) with the top two finishers guaranteed seven-figure scores.

The latter stages of the event saw the field almost entirely formed of notable names, with the likes of Alex Foxen, Kahle Burns, Bryn Kenney and Michael Soyza all reaching the final table. Timothy Adams and Sam Grafton were the first to fall, with Michael Soyza next to hit the rail in 5th place. Bryn Kenney could not do any better than 4th place, with Aaron van Blarcum’s exit bringing the action heads up. Australian Kahle Burns was cheered on by his home crowd as he quickly took command of the heads up match, wearing Foxen down before finishing the job.

Here are the final payouts:

1st – Kahle Burns (Australia) – AU$1,746,360 (US$1,192,501)
2nd – Alex Foxen (United States) – AU$1,111,590
3rd – Aaron van Blarcum (United States) – AU$740,880
4th – Bryn Kenney (United States) – AU$582,120
5th – Michael Soyza (Malaysia) – AU$423,360
6th – Sam Grafton (United Kingdom) – AU$370,440
7th – Timothy Adams (Canada) – AU$317,250

Other Events

Event 18 – AU$1,150 (US$) Pot-limit Omaha hi/lo
Entries: 133
Prize Pool: AU$136,325
Winner: Dan Mayoh (Australia) – AU$35,445

Event 19 – AU$2,500 (US$) NLH
Entries: 299
Prize Pool: AU$672,750 (US$)
Winner: Ari Engel – AU$141,775

Event 20 – AU$1,150  Tournament of Champions
Entries: 283
Prize Pool: AU$290,075
Winner: Yuan Li (Canada) – AU$68,915

Event 21 – AU$5,000 (US$) NLH Six Max
Entries: 197
Prize Pool: AU$925,900
Winner: Bernard Larabi – AU$240,725

Event 22 – AU$1,150 (US$) Turbo NLH Shot Clock
Entries: 296
Prize Pool: AU$303,400
Winner: Hamish Crawshaw (New Zealand) – AU$72,070