Jo Snell Wins 2020 Aussie Millions Opening Event (A$341,325)

Will Shillibier

Jo Snell Wins 2020 Aussie Millions Opening Event

After six days of intense competition, Jo Snell has topped a field of 1,665 players to win the 2020 Aussie Millions Opening Event and A$341,325.

Snell came into the final day slap bang in the middle of the pack, sitting seventh in chips with 14 players remaining and defeated Samuel Jefferies heads-up for the biggest result of his career by far.

The result almost triples his lifetime cashes, as well as making him the latest proud recipient of an ANTON Jewellery Championship Ring after navigating his way to victory in less than nine hours.

Opening Event Final Table Results

Place	Player	Payout (AUD)	Payout (USD)
1	Jo Snell	$341,325	$235,514
2	Samuel Jeffries	$210,775	$145,435
3	Jonathan Karamalikis	$125,445	$86,557
4	Michael Egan	$90,625	$62,531
5	Jungwoon An	$61,450	$42,401
6	Ryan Henry	$44,375	$30,619
7	Egor Bulychev	$37,550	$25,910
8	Sohrab Rezvanpour	$32,425	$22,373
9	Bo Jin	$27,315	$18,847
10	Andrew Shanahan	$20,825	$14,369

Winner's Reaction

"This is my first Aussie Millions event," said Snell. "And just to whack it off out of like 1,600 people is...you have to get pretty lucky. And for that to be my first event is outrageous."

A pivotal hand for Snell at the final table came with the elimination of Sohrab Rezvanpour. Snell held pocket kings against his opponent's queens, with the subsequent elimination seeing Snell chip up to almost four million in chips.

Snell told PokerNews that he was just trying to play for first and that he felt extremely thankful and grateful for the result.

"I wasn't trying to pay jump or anything. When I got to the final table I was annoyed because I had a decent stack, with the two big stacks to my left. I was pretty handcuffed, so I really thought once the draw came out it was going to be really tough to do well.

Jonathan Karamalikis will have to wait for a second Aussie Millions ring after finishing third today

With a number of cashes on the Australian Poker Tour to his name, Snell said that he didn't change his game ahead of the Aussie Millions.

"I just tried to play normally. I mean, it's worked so far, so why change it? Coming into today I thought if I was going to win I was going to have to get really lucky, because there was Jono [Karamalikis] left, along with Zack [Cowrie] and Michael Egan. The final table was going to be extremely tough.

"But to get through Jono and Michael at the final table, especially when they were pretty deep... I was pretty happy about that.

Tournament Recap

Eliminations in the money included David Yan (139th - $3,070), Jackson Warne (132nd �C $3,070), Kristy Moreno (123rd - $3,415), 2010 Aussie Millions Main Event winner Tyron Krost (109th - $3,415), Ivan Deyra (101st - $3,755), Marc Macdonnell (93rd - $3,755), Corentin Ropert (78th - $4,095), Quan Zhou (75th - $4,095), Gautam Dhingra (73rd - $4,095).

H.O.R.S.E. runner-up Julien Sitbon (71st - $4,435) also cashed, along with fellow European Bart Lybaert (58th - $4,435) and Anthony Spinella (39th - $5,290), Daniel Hachem (32nd - $5,975), Martin Jacobson (21st - $9,555) as well as start-of-day chip leader David Tang (18th - $11,095).

A Strong Start to the 2020 Aussie Millions

With a changed up schedule, the Opening Event has occupied a new slot in the Aussie Millions schedule this year, but that hasn't stopped it attracting strong numbers year-on-year.

Flight	2019 Entrants	Players Advancing	2020 Entrants	Players Advancing	%change
1	166	18	242	28	+45.78%
2	191	24	255	38	+33.51%
3	213	26	307	40	+44.13%
4	446	56	268	35	-39.91%
5	736	138	593	80	-19.43%
Total	1,752		1,655

There's still a lot of poker to be played at the Aussie Millions this year, and you can stay up-to-date with it all right here on PokerNews

Event	Dates
$25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha	January 13-14, 2020
$25,000 Challenge	January 15-16, 2020
$50,000 Challenge	January 17-18, 2020
$10,600 Main Event	January 17-24, 2020
$100,000 Challenge	January 22-23, 2020