Another Aussie Millions Champ in the House
In 2005, an unknown poker player, Joe Hachem, won the World Series of Poker Main Event and changed the course of poker in his native Australia forever. Although 2003 saw Chris Moneymaker's run spark the poker boom in the United States, 2005 was the year poker reached a fever-pitch in the land Down Under. Nowhere was this fever more apparent than at the Crown Casino in Melbourne during the 2006 Aussie Millions Poker Championship.
That year saw a spike in attendance across the board, including the Main Event, which went from 263 players the previous year to 418. In 2006, the Aussie Millions also began attracting the game's top pros, including Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and David Williams. While none of those players managed to make the final table, four players from the U.S. did: Kenna James (9th), Jeff Sealey (5th), Shannon Shorr (4th), and Robert Neary (2nd).
Unfortunately for these pros, the day belonged to Lee Nelson, who conquered the field and took home the AUD$1,295,800 first-place prize, the largest score in tournament poker outside the U.S. until that point.
"Poker has always been a serious hobby for me," Nelson previously told PokerNews in an interview. "It’s been a hobby my whole life since I was a kid all the way through college and medical school. It’s pretty much remained a hobby for tournament poker."
Nelson will continue his hobby here in Macau as he has just entered the tournament. He now joins Mervin Chan and Oliver Speidel as former Aussie Millions champs in the field.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
30,000 |