Congratulations to Sam Trickett, Winner of the 2011 Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge (AUD$1,525,000)!
Yesterday, 38 players ponied up the big six-figure buy-in to the 2011 Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge. To start the day, Sam Trickett was just one of them. He quickly jumped out to an early chip lead and never looked back through Day 1. Trickett stormed through the starting day and ended atop the leader board as the final table was set.
The ride at the final table wasn't easy for Trickett. It seemed to go his way at the beginning, but then he started dropping chips and shortly found himself kicking and scratching as one of the shorter stacks still left when play got down to the final few players. He didn't give up though and battled his way back to the chip lead before Erik Seidel went out in third place and set the stage for a heads-up battle between Tony Bloom and Trickett, two Brits.
Trickett held the lead when the heads-up play began and it didn't last long. Although Bloom drew first blood, Trickett made two runner-runner straights in back-to-back hands and scored some big pots from each. Those two hands put a hurting on Bloom and shortly thereafter he put the rest of his stack in with the 
. Bloom walked into a monster with the 
for Trickett and the board ran out 
to finish things off.
Congratulations to Sam Trickett for conquering the largest buy-in tournament in the southern hemisphere and pocketing $1,525,000 in prize money! We will leave you with Lynn Gilmartin's table-side interview with Trickett: