Aussie Millions Reaches Final Table

The Aussie Millions Main Event played down to a final table on Saturday, with seven players reaching the final step on the journey to the $1.6 million top prize.

Heading into the last day of play, Bjorn Li has the largest chip stack remaining. He’ll enter the final table with 4.775 million chips, giving him a fair lead over the rest of the tightly bunched field.

Not much earlier, though, Li looked as though he might be the player to hit the final table bubble. With eight players remaining, Li found himself sitting on the short stack of the group. But Li was able to slowly build his way back to an average stack before a fateful encounter with Daniel Idema, the most experienced player remaining in the field. Idema got his money in with AQ, but ran into Li’s AK. Unable to improve, Idema was eliminated in 8^th place.

That left a field of relative unknowns to contest one of the year’s most prestigious titles. It has been pointed out that the final seven players actually have less in combined lifetime winnings than Idema did alone.

That said, it’s not as though the final table members are without their own accomplishments. Oliver Speidel, who is second in chips, has already reached two final tables at this year’s Aussie Millions series. Several other players have cashed in WSOP events, even if their lifetime winnings aren’t particularly impressive. The short stack, Mohamad Kowssarie, has over $142,000 in live tournament cashes.

However, the biggest stories of Day 5 were the players who were eliminated, not those who remain in the field. Along with Idema, Phil Ivey was eliminated in 12^th place, quickly ending a day in which he came in as the short stack. However, he did win $100,000 for his excellent finish.

The final table chip counts going into Sunday are as follows:

Bjorn Li – 4,775,000

Oliver Speidel – 3,415,000

Patrick Healy – 2,995,000

Ken Wong – 2,330,000

Yann Dion – 2,325,000

Mile Krstanoski – 2,295,000

Mohamad Kowssarie – 1,750,000