When PokerStars announced last week the elimination of the European Poker Tour (EPT) and creation of the PokerStars Championship (the new home for most of the EPT tour stops) and PokerStars Festival, many assumed that the Aussie Millions was not going to be included in the new tours because the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), of which the Aussie Millions was a part, was not going to be migrated over. The Aussie Millions was also not explicitly mentioned as one of the live tournament stops that would be on the PokerStars Championship (or Festival) and one would think that if a major tournament series were to be included, it would have been mentioned. Those who assumed all of that were right. The Aussie Millions will go back to being a stand-alone tournament series starting in 2017.
Crown Poker Tournament Director Joel Williams penned a statement with the announcement regarding the Aussie Millions’ fate:
Crown Melbourne can confirm that the 2016 Asia-Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Melbourne, set to take place on Thursday 6 October 2016, will be the final APPT event to be held in Melbourne.
Crown Melbourne can also confirm that the 2017 Aussie Millions Poker Championship, set to take place from Wednesday 11 January to Monday 30 January 2017 will revert to a stand-alone event.
On behalf of Crown Management and the Poker Team, we would like to extend our sincerest thanks to everyone from APPT including the management and operations teams, along with the poker community for their ongoing support.
All previous Satellites entry pathways are expected to remain active for the 2017 Aussie Millions. Land based satellites have already commenced in the Crown Poker Room.
Haley Hintze of Flushdraw.net briefly opined on the reason that the Aussie Millions was no longer going to be a part of PokerStars’ plans and I would suspect she is largely correct:
Reasons for the Aussie Millions’ departure from the Stars-branded family events are likely closely tied to the fact that the new Stars tours are designed to promote the PokerStars name, first and foremost. The Aussie Millions, on the other hand, was always unusual among recent Stars-sponsored events in that it long preceded PokerStars’ own creation and rise to online prominence.
The Aussie Millions has long been a prestigious stop on the poker tournament calendar, almost like a southern hemisphere WSOP ultra-light junior. Its name has carried weight all by itself; it seemed kind of out of place on the PokerStars-sponsored tour. One would think that the inclusion on the tour was more important for Crown Melbourne and the Aussie Millions than it was for PokerStars, so it is not all that surprising that PokerStars decided not to bring it along to the PokerStars Championship or Festival.