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Aussie Millions 2008 Champ: Alexander Kostritsyn |
It seems like the ages of every new winner of these major poker tournaments keeps getting lower and lower, and now it's reached the limit. This year the annual Aussie Millions tournament, often heralded as the best international no limit hold em tournament outside of the WSOP, was taken down by 21 year old Russian pro Alexander Kostritsy. This toddler is now the proud owner of $1.65 million in Australian dollars, the largest prize ever awarded in poker in the Southern hemisphere.
This year's Aussie Millions event was held at the Crown Casino in Melbourne. An Aussie Millions record 780 players showed up and gave their $10,000 buy in for a chance at poker superstardom, thus creating a massive prize pool of $7.8 million in Aussie dollars. This tournament comes on the heels of Gus Hansen's spectacular win that a lot of people will remember from television and his strange heads up battle with Jimmy Fricke, who also won an Aussie Millions event this year.
Kostritsy's credibility goes up even further when you hear who he beat out in 2nd place to win the event: none other than Rounders background icon Eric Seidel. He was the youngest player in the tournament, obviously, and the only European to make the final table at his age.
"We congratulate Alexander Kostritsyn on his tremendous accomplishment,’ said Peter Mim, Executive General Manager of Table Games at Crown. "He played superb poker over a prolonged period against a record field that included virtually every top professional and hundreds of talented amateurs from Australia and around the world."
The other members of the final table didn't turn out too shabby themselves:
3rd place: Michael 'Mick the Greek' Chrisanthopoulos- $750,000 AUD
4th place: Peter Ling- $500,000
5th place: Nino Marotta- $400,000
6th place: Antonio Casale- $300,000
7th place: Peter Mobbs- $225,000
Another great tournament, another huge pot, and another notch on the belt of 2008's poker odyssey.
January 28, 2008 |
