After a bit of a fitful start, the $100,000 Challenge got off the ground earlier this week at the 2017 Aussie Millions. On Saturday at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, the final seven men will return to action to determine a champion in the tournament.
This event was supposed to have coincided with the start of the $10,000 Main Event but, due to some apprehension of the players (some were in Day 1A of the Main Event and some weren’t sure they wanted to pony up that much if there weren’t going to be enough players to make it worth their while), the start date was moved to Monday to accommodate them. Additionally, Crown officials chopped the juice in half for the event, giving a bit of discount to those wanting to take part. Still, the players didn’t initially flood the tournament floor.
When the tournament kicked off only eight men were up for battle but, before the end of Level 2 (and the cutoff for the discounted juice offer), five more came to make it a two-table tournament. Once such stragglers as Sam Trickett and some re-entries (that’s right…this was an unlimited re-entry tournament), a grand total of 18 entries were taken in. The resulting prize pool of $1.764 million will be divvied up between the top three finishers, with the winner earning a neat $882,000 for their efforts (the tournament, with its low number of entries, will NOT give Player of the Year points to any calculator).
Such players as Rainer Kempe, Dan Shak, Ben Tollerene, Sam Greenwood and Mikita Badziakouski (in for two bullets) were among those that weren’t a part of the scene when the tournament closed in on the “official” final table. Once Trickett ended the day of Bryn Kenney and Alexandros Kolonias saw his tournament end at the hands of 2016 Player of the Year David Peters, the final seven men decided to call the action and come back to play for the title at a later time.
1. Steffen Sontheimer, 451,000
2. Fedor Holz, 394,500
3. Nick Petrangelo, 381,000
4. Sam Trickett, 265,000
5. Mike Watson, 146,000
6. David Peters, 96,000
7. David Steicke, 78,500
Undoubtedly all of these players are well-versed in High Roller tournaments, but you have to have some ammunition to be able to fight these wars. Thus, it will be tough for Peters or Steicke to make a run at the title. It seems that Holz is still on his heater from 2016, but the trio of Petrangelo, Trickett and Watson can’t be counted out. Sontheimer has a limited resume on the Hendon Mob database (only 14 results for a little over $500K in earnings), but if he’s either found the backing to play in this event or has the pockets to run with the “big dogs,” he’s got to be respected.
Because many of these players were either already in the Aussie Millions Main Event (such as Trickett) or played one of the other Day Ones in the event, the tournament was also put on hold until as late as possible – which turned out to be Saturday – to allow for these gentlemen to be able to concentrate completely on the $10K tournament. When they do come back to the table, the action will be a part of Jason Somerville’s live-streaming efforts on RunItUp.tv. It should be an exciting finale not only to the $100,000 Challenge but also to the Aussie Millions.
