Rupert Elder Wins First Gold Run of the 2013 Aussie Millions
Elder went into the ten-handed final table armed with 3,412,000 chips, almost double the amount of his nearest rival, Ashley Warner, who started with 1,884,000 chips.
The opening event of the 2013 Aussie Millions has been completed and it is the British pro Rupert Elder who has won it and the AUD$250,000 first place prize. Elder was also awarded a custom-made gold commemorative ring.
The $1,100 buy-in No Limit Hold'em tournament saw a total of 1,378 entries (including rebuys) making it the largest-ever $1k tournament held in Australia. The huge field created a AUD$1,378,000 prize pool and an AUD$250,000 first place prize, a prize now in Elder's possession.
Elder went into the ten-handed final table armed with 3,412,000 chips, almost double the amount of his nearest rival, Ashley Warner, who started with 1,884,000 chips. Despite his substantial chip lead, the result of the tournament was certainly not a forgone conclusion, as Elder was surrounded by a number of talented players including former European Poker Tour Prague champion Martin Finger, and the winner of this very event in 2012, Brendon Rubie.
The first bust out of the day was Nali Kaselias who saw his already short stack plummet to just 400,000 chips in the first few orbits of the day. Kaselias chose Ad-6d as the hand to move all-in with, but he did not bank on Ted Nguyen waking up behind him with Qs-Qc. Nguyen flopped a set of queens and despite the board threatening to gift Kaselias a straight, the ladies in Nguyen's hand held and the final table lost its first player.
Next to go was the man who started the day second in chips, Warner. Elder opened the betting and for reasons only known to Warner, he decided to three-bet all-in with just Kc-7c. The reason we know his hand is because he was forced to reveal it when Elder called him with what turned out to be 9h-9s. The board ran out without a king anywhere to be seen and Warner sheepishly left the tournament area while Elder stacked up his towers of chips.
Elder took a break from eliminating players as Phillip Libeau's ace-eight could not beat the queens of Fabian Craib. Craib turned executioner again as his ace-seven came from behind to knockout local player and regular at the Crown Casino, Marwan Nassif to reduced the final table to just six players.
Elder Goes on a Heater
It was at this point that Elder became a one-man wrecking ball who dispatched of all the remaining players! Nguyen tried to add to his 675,000 stack by moving all in with ace-nine, only to fall foul of the pocket deuces -- which made a set on the turn -- of Elder.
Shortly after, the aforementioned Rubie got his chips into the middle with queen-jack of clubs and found himself in a race against the pocket sizes of Elder. The race was almost over when Elder flopped a third six and it was completely finished when Elder turned quads a few moments later. Rubie exited in fifth place, quite the achievement considering his won this event in 2012.
Next to run into the run-good of Elder was Dusan Stoevski. After calling a four-bet preflop, Stoevski raised all-in on a 7h-Kc-10d flop with Kd-9d. However, Elder had made that preflop four-bet with Ad-Ks and he called the shove quickly. Elder's hand held up and his stack swelled towards the 10-million chip mark.
Elder indeed passed 10-million chips when he sent Craib to the rail. Craib opened the betting, then called when Edler set him all-in for his tournament life. Craib held a pair of sixes but they would be undone by the much stronger pocket tens that had been dealt to Elder. Of course, the tens held and a heads-up battle between Elder and Finger was set.
Although many members of the crowd that had gathered around the final table were expecting an epic encounter between two former EPT champions -- Elder won EPT San Remo in Season 7 -- it was actually over very quickly. One cannot blame the players for the rapid one-on-one battle, their cause was not helped by Elder holding a 10.4 million to 2.95 million chip lead. Almost immediately after the heads-up battle ensued, it was all over. Elder min-raised to 200,000 and Finger called. Finger then checked the arrival of the 2c-Qs-Jh flop, prompting Elder to fire a continuation bet of 175,000 at his sole opponent. Finger responded by check-raising to 450,000 only to see Elder raise all-in. Finger went into the tank for a couple of minutes before emerging with a call. Elder showed Kd-10s for an open-ended straight draw with an overcard, and he needed to catch one of his outs as Finger was ahead with his Qd-7h.The queen of clubs on the turn improved Finger to trips, but the river took away any hope he had of a comeback because the Ac completed Elder's straight and gifted him the title of 2013 Aussie Millions Event #1 champion!
2013 Aussie Millions Opening Event final table results
1st: Rupert Elder - AUD$250,000
2nd: Martin Finger - AUD$160,000
3rd: Fabian Craib - AUD$120,000
4th: Dusan Stoebski - AUD$96,000
5th: Brendon Rubie - AUD$81,000
6th: Ted Nguyen - AUD$66,000
7th: Marwin Nassif - AUD$52,000
8th: Phillip Libeau - AUD$38,000
9th: Ashley Warner - AUD$25,000
10th: Nali Kaselias - AUD$13,500
Prices quoted in copy are correct at time of publication but liable to change.
