Welcome to the $100k Final Table
A couple days ago on Saturday, 24 of the biggest names in poker took to the felt upstairs in Studio 3 at Crown Casino for the 2010 Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge.
After nine levels of play, only eight of them remain at the final table. Gus Hansen, Erik Seidel, Erick LIndgren and David Steicke were all on hand for the event, but none of them will be returning today. Amongst those headlining the final table are Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Tony G and Barry Greenstein. Jonathan "xMONSTERxDONGx" Karamalikis may not be a recognizable name to the world outside of Australia, but down here he's a force to be reckoned with.
Karamalikis took a big chip lead after busting Hansen from the tournament and never gave it up. Although he slipped a little bit from the time he claimed the lead until the end of play on Saturday, Karamalikis will still enter the day with 508,000 — the only player over the half-million mark. Dan Shak isn't too far behind with just 53,000 less than his much younger opponent.
Play will resume at 12:30 p.m. local time here in Melbourne. Three of the final eight spots will go home empty handed with the top five being paid. First place is a whopping $1,200,000!
Here's how the players will be seated t the final table:
Seat 1: Bill Jordanou - 195,000
Seat 2: Phil Ivey - 328,000
Seat 3: Tony Bloom - 227,000
Seat 4: Jonathan Karamalikis - 508,000
Seat 5: Howard Lederer - 141,000
Seat 6: Dan Shak - 453,000
Seat 7: Tony G - 200,000
Seat 8: Barry Greenstein - 388,000
For those of you in the area, Crown has opened the event this year to the viewing public. You are welcomed to come down to the casino and check out the action live from the balcony just a few feet above the stage. And if things turn out like they did last time, Tony G will be buying plenty of rounds of drinks for the spectators.
If you can't make it though, don't worry. Just stay glued to PokerNews.com for all the live coverage as we move towards a new $100,000 Challenge champion! We'll see you shortly.