Over the years, the Aussie Millions Poker Championship has carefully built a reputation of one of the most prestigious poker festivals to be taking place annually. The tournament series was founded back in 1998, or, in other words, some time before other globally popular festivals such as the World Poker Tour and the now retired European Poker Tour.
The Aussie Millions has enriched its schedule with each year passing, adding more poker variants and formats so as to make itself equally appealing to different types of players. For instance, the poker series features some of the highest buy-in events available on the live tournament scene, including the A$250,000 Challenge.
Excluding the high roller tournaments, which annually attract the attention of some of the world’s best players, the Aussie Millions Main Event is certainly the player-favorite tournament.
During the first two editions of Australia’s largest festival, the Main Event featured a buy-in fee of A$1,000 and a Limit-Hold’em format. The Aussie Millions’ third edition in 2000 was marked by a change in the Main Event’s format into a No-Limit Hold’em one and in the buy-in fee to A$1,500. Two years later, the buy-in fee was increased to A$5,000 as interest in the event grew continuously.
In 2003, the tournament saw another buy-in increase. The fee doubled to A$10,000. That buy-in was retained until 2014, when an additional entry fee of A$600 was added. Since then, interested players have been paying a total of A$10,600 in order to enter the event.
As mentioned above, interest in the Main Event never really stopped growing. Its first edition in 1998 attracted 74 entries who generated a prize pool of A$74,000. Local player Alex Horowitz topped its field to capture the lion’s share of A$25,900 and to enter records as the first-ever Aussie Millions Main Event champion.
The tournament hit its highest attendance in 2008, when its field drew 780 entries from all over the globe. The Main Event generated a prize pool of A$7,758,500 that year and distributed payouts to the top 80 finishers. Russia’s Alexander Kostritsyn won the event for A$1,650,000 in prize money. Emerging victorious over a field of 779 other players is a great accomplishment, but it is also interesting to note that the Russian faced heads-up none other but Erik Seidel – or one of the poker world’s greatest.
Although Kostritsyn was the winner of the largest-ever Aussie Millions Main Event, he was not the one to win the largest-ever first-place prize. That title is held by three other players – locals Stewart Scott, Tyron Krost, and David Gorr. They won the event in 2009, 2010, and 2011, respectively, each collecting A$2 million in prize money.
Canadian Ari Engel emerged victorious in the Aussie Millions Main Event last year. The tournament ran on January 25-31, attracted 732 entries, and generated a prize pool of A$7,320,000. Engel collected A$1.6 million for his efforts.
This year’s edition of the Main Event kicked off on Sunday, January 22. The tournament is set to feature three starting flights and four more days of play. The official final table will be played on Sunday, January 29.
