Oliver Speidel Completes Four Years Of Aussie Millions Main Event Winners

A couple of days ago, the 2012 Aussie Millions in Melbourne drew to a close after twenty-six events and three weeks of quality poker action.
As well as making top headlines with stories such as Phil Ivey’s dramatic winning return to tournament poker, Australian’s were also pleased to see local hero Oliver Speidel winning the $10k Main Event to keep the trophy on home soil, once more.
Back in 2009, Stewart Scott became the first Australian to win the Aussie Millions Main Event, heralding in an unbroken tradition of Aussie winners ever since, including 2010 winner Tyron Krost, 2011 winner David Gorr and now in 2012, Oliver Speidel.
This time around, Oliver Speidel defeated a field of 658 players over five days to capture the AUD$1.6 million (US$1,647,158) top prize, while taking his live tournament winnings to $1,829,530. Furthermore, the Melbourne man had no backers, meaning he gets to keep the whole sum for himself, later commenting:
“This is the biggest tournament in the Southern Hemisphere, and to win it in my home city, it’s almost like a fantasy, it’s crazy…You can’t help but think about the money and everything, what sort of freedom that can give me. I feel just amazing.”
Oliver Speidel started playing poker professionally around five years ago, after leaving his risk management job at the Reserve Bank. He said he really enjoyed the strategic nature of the game, but took a while longer to master the emotional side of the game, with its wild swings.
In this year’s Main Event, Speidel had to endure a few further swings and at one stage was down to a short-stack after calling a Phi Ivey raise on the river. Eventually, he managed to battle back and make the final table, ultimately triumphing over Hong Kong’s Ken Wong to lift the title. However, the typically modest Aussie concluded:
“At the end of the day, I was incredibly lucky, that’s the overriding factor…I figured going into the final table with seven left, I thought I had a one in four, one in five chance, so to win it was incredibly lucky.”