Italian poker pro Mustapha Kanit showed the Aussies how it’s done this week when he took down the first event in this year’s Aussie Millions – the A$1,000 buy-in NLHE tournament – in Melbourne.
The event attracted a huge entry list of 1,302 players, among them many top aces, and was eventually whittled down to a final table that saw Kanit facing David Lim, Daryl Hussy, Orjan Skommo, Lukas Byrns, Otto Pickermann, Suraj Dutt, Christopher Zeng, Slade Fisher and Steven Tabb.
When Hussey went out at third for A$125,000, he left Kanit with the chip lead going into the heads up with David Lim. The surviving duo agreed a chop that left the honours, the winner’s gold ring and A$6,000 on the table for the winner, and then got down to business.
It was a short but exciting finale as Kanit saw off his opponent, sending him home with a runner-up check for A$190,000 and claiming the main spoils of $196,000 for himself.
It’s been a profitable year so far for Kanit, who finished fourth for $492,000 in the 2014 $25,000 buy-in Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure High Roller competition earlier this month (see previous report).
The Aussie Millions peaks this week with a A$10,600 buy-in Main Event; and three Challenge events with buy-in of A$25,000, A$100,000 and A$250,000.