Event #9: Aussie Millions Main Event
Day 5 Started
2011 Aussie Millions
Event #9: Aussie Millions Main Event
Day: 5
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2011 Aussie Millions
Buy-in
10,000 AUD
Prize Pool
7,210,000 AUD
Entries
721
Level
27
Blinds
50,000 / 100,000
Ante
0
Aussie Millions Final Table is Here; Dorfman Heads Australian and England Dominate Table
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Welcome back to the Crown Casino for the final day of the 2011 Aussie Millions Main Event!
The 721-player field has been whittled down to an unusual final eight. Unusual you may ask? Well normally this final table is a seven-handed affair, but with a longish day yesterday, Director of Poker Operations Jonno Pittock decided that it would be better to have a reasonable day yesterday in preference for a long battle on the felt today.
Of those eight players remaining, it is Randy Dorfman leading the charge with his 3,895,000 in chips, but it seems as though all eyes are on the statue-like Team Full Tilt Poker member Patrik Antonius who sits tucked away in fifth place.
Three Australians remain in the hunt with local tournament veteran David Gorr leading the charge in third position overall as relatively unknown youngsters in Jeff Rossiter and Michael Ryan round out the bottom of the table.
With the three Aussies, sees three Brits as Chris Moorman, Sam Razavi and James Keys waving the Union Jack strongly as they look to capture their first Aussie Millions main event title since 2004.
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | BBs | Chip % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chris Moorman | England | 955,000 | 32 | 6.6% |
| 2 | James Keys | England | 2,395,000 | 80 | 16.6% |
| 3 | Patrik Antonius | Finland | 1,300,000 | 43 | 9% |
| 4 | Jeff Rossiter | Australia | 1,235,000 | 41 | 8.5% |
| 5 | Randy Dorfman | USA | 3,895,000 | 130 | 27% |
| 6 | David Gorr | Australia | 2,370,000 | 79 | 16.4% |
| 7 | Sam Razavi | England | 1,360,000 | 45 | 9.4% |
| 8 | Michael Ryan | Australia | 960,000 | 32 | 6.6% |
With eight great players remaining and AUD$2,000,000 on offer, today will be one of the hardest days on the felt for these eight players. Tough decisions, heart-beating bluffs and a long waiting game will be just some of the criteria if they are to be the last one standing with a coveted shiny gold bracelet on their wrist.
The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be based in Studio 3 for the entirety of the final table providing you at home all the live coveragefrom 12:30 p.m EST as we do best. Sit back, grab a coffee and get ready to see who will be crowned the 2011 Aussie Millions Main Event Champion!
Seat 8: Michael Ryan (960,000)
Michael Ryan comes into the final table as the second shortest stack in action with 960,000. That's good enough for 6.6% of the chips in play, but he'll be looking to dig himself out of the hole he's in if he wants to come out and win this thing.
Ryan is from right here in Melbourne and that's where all the cashes come on his record dating back to 2007. He doesn't boast a massive cash list and most of them are only for a few hundred dollars. The largest score he's had is a fourth-place finish in the AUD$240 Pot-Limit Omaha at the 2009 Melbourne Texas Hold'em Championship. That score landed him AUD$4,600. With only $5,268 in live cashes to his name, this final table run has already earned him nearly 25 times that amount.
Yesterday, Ryan was fairly quiet for most of the day, but that doesn't mean he won't come out firing today. As one of the shorter stacks in the room holding 32 big blinds, he'll have to work if he wants this title.
Seat 7: Sam Razavi (1,360,000)
With a smile that shines ear-to-ear, it’s hard to miss Sam Razavi when he is sitting at the poker table. Just throw in that pommy accent, and Razavi has been without doubt one of the most bubbly players remaining over the past few days.
PokerNews took some time out with Razavi after he made the final table and was strolling through the poker room, and consequently he detailed to us some information on the smiley Brit.
Based in the Asia region – predominately Macau and Thailand – Razavi has been playing the game for roughly five years now and is a mid-stakes ($1-2 NLH, $2-4 NLH) heads-up cash game specialist online.
With only a few cashes to his name, his $9,000 in tournament earnings have mainly been generated through a few final tables in Macau and in his hometown of Brighton. So why is Razavi tackling the main event here in Australia? Taking part in a Black Belt Poker competition that saw twenty-five players battle it out over six weeks to see who was the best two players, two players – one of which was Razavi – had the chance to travel to the Aussie Millions to play in the main event and two preliminary events.
Hoping to make the transition into a more fulltime MTT schedule, Razavi’s start to the year couldn’t have been better as he sits in fourth place with a 45-big blind stack.
Speaking of his approach to the final table, Razavi stated, “I’m going to playa tight game, but looking to play mostly preflop. When it gets short-handed, I’ll open my game up a bit more!”
With his vast heads-up experience and many years on the live and virtual felt, if Razavi gets chips as the final table condenses, the PokerNews team have two words for you. Watch out!
Seat 6: David Gorr (2,370,000)
David Gorr may be one of the least well-known players on today’s final table, but if you’ve ever taken a stroll through the Crown Casino poker room, you are bound to see him battling it out.
With results in the Australasia region dating back to 1998, Gorr has been an avid tournament player since he first took up the game. A regular for nearly every tournament at his beloved Crown Casino, Gorr can be found playing anything from the $25 rebuy to the $10,000 Aussie Millions Main Event!
Grabbing cashes in Australia and New Zealand, Gorr has never really ventured overseas to take to the felt – and why would he – as he has had so much success here logging upwards of $160,000 (poker results in Australia are scarce before 2004) in tournament earnings.
Apart from notching up a few small buy-in victories, Gorr’s breakout performances have never included major tournament wins, but instead deep final table runs.
In 2008 he finished runner up in the Aussie Millions Pot Limit Holdem event for over AUD$35,000 while finishing on the final table in three separate regional championships for five-figure scores. His final table appearance today will not only be his first Aussie Millions Main Event cash, but also another notch on the belt of making championship final table appearances here in his hometown casino.
Seat 5: Randy Dorfman (3,895,000)
Hailing out of Miami, Florida, Randy Dorfman has all the momentum coming into today's final table as he has amassed a table-leading 3,895,000 in chips.
A relative newbie to the game in comparison to some of his fellow final tablists, Dorfman does however possess the skills of what it takes to take down his first ever major title. Just a handful of days ago, Dorfman was unlucky not to snatch a preliminary event victory when he finished runner-up in the $1,100 No Limit Holdem Rebuys event for over AUD$71,000.
However, this wasn't his only big figure result as Dorfman made a deep run in the 2010 WSOP Main Event where he finished in 82nd place for just over $79,000, but it was long before that where Dorfman made his name. In 2009, Dorfman finished runner up in the €25,000 EPT High Rollers event for €420,000 (roughly $552,000), and if he finishes third or higher today, this will be his best result.
With over a 130-big blind stack, an aggressive approach to the game and some Aussie Millions run good, Dorfman is one of the most dangerous players at the table, and if his eight opponents aren't careful, Dorfman could have this wrapped up by dinner!
Seat 4: Jeff Rossiter (1,235,000)
Unknown to many – even those that have been involved in the Australian poker industry for many years – finding some information on Jeff Rossiter is one of the toughest tasks endured by the PokerNews team this Aussie Millions!
Our search took us to Vincent Wan who has had some interaction with Rossiter on the cash game felts of Crown Casino.
Hailing from Adelaide, but now based in Melbourne, Rossiter spends the majority of his time grinding the cash games here from anything above the $2-5 NLH stakes. Having experience online, Rossiter spends most time playing cash now but does dabble in MTTs and decided to have a crack at the Aussie Millions main event.
Although spending a few thousand on satellite efforts, Rossiter has definitely reaped the reward after winning his seat as he is now guaranteed an AUD$130,000 payday which will leave him with plenty of buy-ins for his usual game.
Quoted by Wan as “having a lingering laugh,” it is without doubt that we may hear this if Rossiter can emerge from the bottom of the table and have the momentum swing his way as he makes a run at the AUD$2,000,000 first prize.
Seat 3: Patrik Antonius (1,300,000)
Back in 2008 when Patrik Antonius made the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em World Championship final table at the World Series of Poker, change100 wrote "Don't hate him because he's beautiful." to kick off Antonius' final table bio. Beauty doesn't win you poker tournaments though and there's a lot of people in the poker world who envy Antonius for much more than just his good looks.
Born in Finland in 1980, Antonius is one of the most recognizable faces in the game. He regularly dominates the largest cash games in the world, both live and online, and is a member of Team Full Tilt Poker. Antonius began playing poker at 12 years old with friends, but things didn't become serious for him until he stopped playing serious tennis after a back injury. He ran through the stakes and up the ranks online to soon become one of the best and most feared players in the world.
Antonius' first major deep run in a live tournament came at the beginning of 2005. He placed 12th in the World Poker Tour PCA Main Event for $34,600. A couple months later, he followed that up with a 15th-place finish in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars for $40,000. That summer he cashed three times at the WSOP before going over to Sweden and winning the Scandinavian Poker Championships for over $66,000.
His year was going great so far, but his largest scores were yet to come. In September, Antonius placed third at the EPT Barcelona Main Event for over $145,000. He then won a side event at the EPT Baden Classic for $343,366. Both of those were great, but a massive seven-figure score was in the works for December. Antonius ran second behind Rehne Pedersen in the $15,000 Main Event at the Fourth Annual Five Diamond World Poker Classic. He scored himself $1,046,470 and his career earnings for the year Sky rocketed to $1,696,485.
Although 2005 was Antonius' best year for tournaments, his results haven't slacked since. He's cashed 10 more times at the WSOP and had some very nice results coming from those events. In 2006, Antonius finished ninth in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. for $205,920 during a year where he had five WSOP cashes. The following year, his best result was a third in the $10,000 World Championship Pot-Limit Omaha for over $300,000. In 2008, Antonius placed seventh in the $10,000 World Championship Pot-Limit Hold'em to record another WSOP final table and lock up $124,080 more in prize money.
In the recent years, Antonius has been less of a frequenter on the tournament scene and more of a staple in the largest cash games in the world. You can often find me him online at Full Tilt Poker playing multiple tables in the largest games available. He's not playing against chumps either. Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Viktor Blom are common adversaries of his.
Antonius placed 13th in the Aussie Millions Main Event for AUD$90,000 back in 2007, the year his fellow Team Full Tilt Poker member Gus Hansen won the event. He's already topped that finish as he's at the final table here and will be looking to secure the title. If he can do that, it will be his largest tournament score ever and further cement his name in poker history as one of the greatest players to ever live.
Antonius resides in Monte Carlo, Monaco with his wife Maya Gellarand his baby daughter Mila. Antonius also makes frequent appearances on "Poker After Dark" and "High Stakes Poker".
Seat 2: James Keys (2,395,000)
Hailing from London, England, this is the fourth Aussie Millions in-the-money finish in the past two years. It's also his largest. Last year, Keys placed in the money in the AUD$1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Bounty Event before going on to place 65th in the Main Event. This year, Keys already has one final table in the AUD$1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout. He took sixth in that event for AUD$9,480 and this will be his second final table of the series.
Also on Keys' tournament record are six World Series of Poker cashes. Back in 2007, he finished in ninth place at the WSOP Europe Main Event, taking home £61,540. The following year he placed in the money in that event again for a 36th-place finish. Then in 2009, Keys cashed in the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas.
Outside of his deep run in the WSOP Europe Main Event in 2007, which netted him $123,925 after the currency conversion, Keys' largest score on record is a second-place finish at a €1,000 No-Limit Hold'em event at the PokerStars Baltic Festival in Tallinn. He won over $72,000 there.
In total, Keys has over $400,000 in live tournament winnings and has already locked up at least another AUD$130,000 here. He comes into the final table second in chips with 2.395 million and will be looking to go a lot deeper than he's already made it.
Seat 1: Chris Moorman (955,000)
Chris Moorman from Brighton, England isn't so much know for his live game as he is for his online game. Just recently he won his 11th PocketFives.com Triple Crown while being ranked as one of the best online tournament players in the world. To win the award, a player must win three online tournaments with a prize pool of $10,000 or more across three different online poker sites within a week. Winning a single one is quite a feat in itself and Moorman has scored 11 of them.
In the online realm, Moorman has won over a total of $6.2 million. On Full Tilt Poker, he's won himself over $2.5 million alone. The largest cash he ever recorded online was on Full Tilt Poker when he chopped FTOPS Event #17 in August 2009 for $204,000. The event was a $300 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em event with 1,134 players.
On top of that finish, Moorman has landed himself two other six-figures paydays online. He won the Sunday Brawl in March 2010 for $109,620. In April 2009, he finished eighth in the SCOOP $10,300 Main Event for $112,950.
Live, Moorman only has $102,991 in career tournament earnings. Out of his nine cashes on record, seven of them have come in World Series of Poker events. His largest live cash was worth $38,424 and came in the 2010 WSOP Heads-Up Championship.
Although Moorman entered Day 4 with the chip lead, he went into the dinner break as the shortest stack in the room. When the players returned, Moorman landed a couple double up to get back into the game. Those chips didn't last long though as he gave them right back shortly thereafter. Moorman plays an aggressive style and should be firing away early as he is the shortest stack at the final table with 955,000.
Moorman is also a member of the "Brunson 10", a young group of online poker superstars supported by Doyle Brunson himself.