Erik Seidel wins most expensive buy-in event in history
Erik Seidel wins 2011 Aussie Millions Poker Tournament
The event with the highest buy-in ever paid for a single seat at a poker tournament has been played out at the 2011 Aussie Millions in Melbourne, Australia.
20 players, including three unknown Chinese businessmen as well as a throng of international poker stars, paid a whopping $250,000 Australian dollars – that for all intents and purposes are currently worth their equivalent worth in American dollars (247,061 to be exact) – for seat in the event that was never going to last more than a day but did have to suffer from a change in a structure due to the unforeseen number of entrants and the huge prize pot they generated. From only 20 participants, 5 million $AUS had been accumulated and its was deemed necessary to share this amongst the players who made it to rostrum: those in first, second and third places; it had originally been decided that the winner of the Super High Roller event would take the whole of the pot. It has been reported in the poker press that the structure was changed to make the play, and therefore eliminations, much quicker so the Chinese players could make a flight they had for later that day.
The huge buy-in and its consequently huge prize structure attracted a number of poker’s favourite sons and one of its daughters; the Norwegian winner of the 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event Annete Obrestad. Sponsored poker professionals by the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, John Juanda, Chris Ferguson and Tom Dwan were joined by the aforementioned three Chinese businessmen and the eventual three “money-winners” Seidel, Englishman Sam Trickett and French professional David Benyamine.
Seidel, an eight-time World Series Of Poker bracelet winner and member of the poker hall of fame earned the title and top prize of 2.5 million AU$ ($2.47 million) after overcoming a 5-1 chip disadvantage to beat Trickett in the heads up . Trickett, fresh from an impressive win in the Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge a few days ago, eliminated five players from the final table before taking on Seidel. Even though he eventually lost, Trickett took home 1.5 $AUS million and has made over $2.9 million this month alone.
From his perspective going in to the heads up with a 5-1 deficit, Seidel later said: “It didn’t look good and it didn’t feel good. I thought well, I’m obviously not laying down. I’ll sit and play and hope things go well and then they did.” He managed to turn his the match around and gain enough chips to get a hold against Trickett when he used his time chip – that gave him an extra 30 seconds to make his decision – to out-think a bluff that Trickett was throwing on a nothing hand against Seidel’s pair of kings.
Already in January, Seidel has made $3.4 million in earnings thanks to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and Aussie Millions High- and now Super High-Roller events. He now has a profitable third place in the all-time earnings list with $13.1 million behind Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu.
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