Crown Poker has landed a marketing coup in the lead-up to April’s inaugural World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific after Malaysia’s Mervin Chan (pictured above) secured victory in the 2013 Aussie Millions Main Event.
The 29-year-old becomes the first Asian player to win Australia’s premier poker title and ensures Crown the ideal PR vehicle in south-east Asia ahead of the first WSOP bracelet event on April 4.
After play was halted at the final table on Sunday morning, the surviving trio returned later in the day to decide the title, with the chip counts reading Joe Cabret 7,720,000, Chan 5,670,000 and Patrik Antonius 5,650,000.
It loomed as another lengthy session but that wasn’t the case. Antonius had adopted an extremely aggressive approach, which came undone after he three-bet shoved from the small blind, with Chan snap-calling and showing pocket jacks. The A-4 of Antonius needed help, but it didn’t materialise on a board of 9-8-6-K-6, leaving him with just a single big blind.
After Antonius limped out shortly after, Chan and Cabret sat down to contest the heads-up match with the former holding a narrow chip lead, 10 million to 8.1 million. However, it would take just a few hands before the chips were in the middle.
As reported on aussiemillions.com, “Mervin Chan raised to 320,000 and then called when Joseph Cabret three-bet to 860,000. Both players checked the 8c-7d-3c flop, the 8d turned, and that’s when things heated up. Cabret, who was first to act, led out for 1.2 million, Chan raised to 3 million, and Cabret moved all-in. Chan snap-called and tabled 8s-6s for trips, and he was out in front of Cabret’s Ad-3d flush draw. The dealer burned one more time and put out the Kh, the last card of the 2013 Aussie Millions Main Event.”
In addition to the first prize of $1.6 million, Chan also won a custom made diamond-encrusted rose gold bracelet by LK Jewellery valued at $40,000, representing the game’s ultimate achievement, a glass trophy and a new Chrysler 300C valued at more than $50,000. Cabret, the highest placed Australian in the field, took home an even $1 million as runner-up.
Aussie Millions Event 8: $10,600 No Limit Hold’em Main Event (629 players; 64 players paid; total prizepool $6,290,000) results
1 Mervin Chan $1,600,000
2 Joe Cabret $1,000,000
3 Patrik Antonius $600,000
4 Dan Shak $400,000
5 Jarrod Glennon $290,000
6 David Yan $220,000
7 Jennette Tan $150,000
8 Sam Cohen $120,000
9 Mark Betts $120,000
10 Ping Chan $95,000
11 Damian Baldi $95,000
12 Daniel Laidlaw $95,000
13 Ray Ellis $70,000
14 Josh Ang Pang Leng $70,000
15 Man Hei Lam $70,000
16 Naz Sibaei $55,000
17 Kitty Kuo $55,000
18 Jeremy Simon $55,000
19 James Obst $40,000
20 Joey Lovelady $40,000
21 Dylan Honeyman $40,000
22 Brandon Adams $40,000
23 Jan Collado $40,000
24 Celina Lin $40,000
25 Phares Bouya $35,000
26 Sean Keeton $35,000
27 Stuart Kerr $35,000
28 Kenny Wong $35,000
29 David Garcia $35,000
30 Phil Ivey $35,000
31 Lee Markholt 30,000
32 Kevin Rabichow 30,000
33 Shoshiro Karita $30,000
34 Scott Wilson $30,000
35 Minh Nguyen $30,000
36 Stevan Chew $30,000
37 Daniel Neilson $25,000
38 Jan Suchanek $25,000
39 Wei Low $25,000
40 Frank Rusnak $25,000
41 Tyron Krost $20,000
42 Adam Carlton $20,000
43 Christopher Haywood $20,000
44 Michael Harrison-Ford $20,000
45 Rob Fenner $20,000
46 Mark Vetsavong $20,000
47 Ying Kit Chan $20,000
48 Matthew Ginn $20,000
49 Paul O’Brien $15,000
50 Tony Da Costa Silva $15,000
51 Antonino Cascio $15,000
52 Michael Teren $15,000
53 David Boyaciyan $15,000
54 Bill Jordanou $15,000
55 Adam Schmidt $15,000
56 Yifan Zheng $15,000
57 Stephen Goodridge $15,000
58 Craig McCorkell $15,000
59 Kish Kumar $15,000
60 Jamie Beer $15,000
61 Omar Nanai $15,000
62 Didier Guerin $15,000
63 Ryan Hong $15,000
64 Elliot Smith $15,000
• If there was an award for player of the series, Russia’s Igor Kurganov would have been an unanimous choice. In a repeat of the heads-up match from the EPT London High Roller in 2011, Kurganov defeated Philipp Gruissem to claim victory in the $25,000 buy-in Challenge.
In addition to the $275,000 he won here, Kurganov had already cashed for $610,000 as runner-up in the $100k Challenge and $500,000 for his fourth-place finish in the $250k Challenge.
Gruissem pocketed $187,000 as runner-up, Erik Seidel added another $125,000 to his decorated Aussie Millions record for third with Niklas Heinecker (fourth, $85,000) and Fabian Quoss (fifth, $51,000) the other players to cash.
• Special thanks to Crown Poker for supplying information used in this report and throughout the series, photography Shannon Morris – 2013 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
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