Seat 3: Erik Seidel -- 120,000
Erik Seidel is no stranger to the poker scene, and he's especially no stranger to high buy-in events like this one. Seidel won the Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge in 2011 for AU$2,500,000.
Seidel boasts a career tournament record of over $17,000,000, and over $4,500,000 of that comes from the Oceania region where he just seems to kill it. Here at the Aussie Millions alone, Seidel has seven cashses, and all of those cashes are finishes in the top four of the event.
In 2003, Seidel took fourth in the AU$2,000 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo event for AU$9,200, then took second in the AU$1,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em event for AU$35,000. In 2007, Seidel placed second in the $100,000 Challenge for AU$550,000 and topped that earning the next year when he came runner-up in the Aussie Millions Main Event for AU$1,000,000. He then won the AU$10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha in 2010 for AU$120,000 in 2010, but 2011 proved to be his best year ever Down Under.
In 2011, Seidel first placed third in the $100,000 Challenge for AU$625,000 and then went on to win the $250,000 Challenge as mentioned above. Needless to say, Seidel crushes Australia.
At this final table, Seidel will enter as the shortest stack with 120,000, but that's only 6,000 behind Philipp Gruissem. In the $250,000 Challenge just two days ago, Seidel entered the final table as the shortest stack, but was unable to manage a comeback and finish in the money. Here, he's already locked up AU$51,000.