Online high stakes poker legend Ben Tollarene looks like a good bet to win the $100,000 buy-in Challenge event at the Aussie Millions championships unfolding in Melbourne this week; the US player has the chip advantage on a final table of six, but still faces some formidable opponents in Connor Drinan, Fedor Holz, Jason Mercier, Sam Greenwood and Fabian Quoss
It’s an exciting prospect for railbirds, but they will have to wait until Saturday to see who prevails due to the Challenge over-running on to the main event of the Championships
41 entries were recorded for the $100,000 buy-in Challenge, creating a $4.01 million prize pool for distribution among the six remaining players and ensuring a $1,446,480 payday for the winner.
The event has already seen some stunning setbacks, most notably to Igor Kurganov, who spent $400,000 on re-entries on the first day of the competition, following this with another $100,000 re-entry on the second day, only to bust out again. He called it a day after that.
Well-respected names busting out before the final six also included Jeff Rossiter, Byron Kaverman, Paul Newey, Mike “Timex” McDonald, Steve O’Dwyer, Erik Seidel, Pratyush Buddiga, WSOP champion Martin Jacobson, Jason Koon, Brian Rast, David Peters, David Steicke and Stephen Chidwick.
The surviving six players have the following chip stacks;
Ben Tollerene USA 1,522,000
Connor Drinan USA 943,000
Jason Mercier USA 508,000
Fabian Quoss Germany 478,000
Sam Greenwood Canada 458,000
Fedor Holz Germany 192,000