2017 Aussie Millions One for the Record Books

The 2017 Aussie Millions took place at the Crown Casino in Melbourne from January 11th to 30th, with this year’s series proving the most successful in its almost two-decade long history. Overall, its 26 event schedule attracted a record 7,049 players to create a combined prize pool of $20,595,525, with the number of participants 11% higher than the 6,370 players recorded for 2016, and 28% up on 2015.
Furthermore, almost all of the 2017 Aussie Millions’s events saw an uptick in attendance, with a rare exception being the A$10k Main Event which attracted a healthy 725 competitors, down slightly on the 732 players who entered last year.
The impressive numbers were even more surprising considering that this year the Aussie Millions no longer fell under the umbrella of the PokerStars-sponsored Asia Pacific Poker Tour, meaning no online qualifiers were available. The Crown Melbourne was then able to counteract any potential negative impact by hosting a whole host of live qualifiers, and commenting on the development, Crown Melbourne Tournament Director Joel Williams, stated:
“So we added in two highly successful warm-up weeks as early as June last year, and this ensured that the awareness and excitement of the 2017 Aussie Millions was building within the poker community both locally and internationally, and gave everyone as much opportunity as possible to be part of this great event.”
Amongst the many highlights from this year’s Aussie Millions was the two-time winner James Chen from Taiwan, who took down Event #2: $2,500 H.O.R.S.E. for A$39,700, followed by Event #9: $25k NLHE Challenge for A$861,840. One of the most inspirational stories, though, involved Aussie amateur player Shurane Vijayaram, who won the Main Event for A$1.6 million after first qualifying for the $10k tournament via a $130 satellite tournament.
Amongst the many notable pros also cashing in at one of the 2017 Aussie Millions events was Germany’s Fedor Holz, USA’s Nick Petrangelo, the UK’s Sam Grafton, and Canada’s Mark Radoja.