Gold Coast local Mishel Anunu has added yet another trophy to the cabinet and picked up the biggest payday of his poker career after taking down the Opening Event at WPT Australia.
Anunu, who enjoyed a breakout year in 2023, topped a high-quality field of 408 runners at The Star Gold Coast to take home a hefty $109,754 first prize – comfortably exceeding his previous best score of $72,980 from winning the Jackstar at APL Queensland in January.
It wasn’t easy though, with Anunu first having to overcome a stacked final table boasting the likes of rising star Tom Hully, long-time Aussie circuit star Tom Grigg, Western Australia’s Dale Marsland and of course Sean Ooi.
The lovable local recently fell just short of a big score at the WSOP in Las Vegas despite cashing in three events – including a deep run in the $600 Deepstack – but this result more than makes amends. Anunu has also won a $6k WPT Prime Championship package, giving him the opportunity to head back to Vegas for the WPT World Championship in December.
MORRIS NO MINOR
Also scoring by far his biggest live felt payday was Matthew Morris, who outlasted a field of 425 runners to take home $68,102 after a heads-up deal with Ash Gupta ($76,404) plus another $19,000 in bounties.
He wasn’t the biggest winner of the event however, with fifth-place finisher Nathaniel Hutton taking home more than $120,000 after collecting a massive $102,500 in bounties. Bert Perry in third and Shem Goltz in fourth were among the other names on the Mystery Bounty final table in an event that keeps growing in popularity each year.
LUONG WAY HOME
There was a third player celebrating a $100k-plus score in the first few days of WPT Australia as David Luong took down the $5k 8-max Action Clock for $101,720. Luong, from Melbourne, outlasted arguably the toughest final table of the series so far, including mixed game specialist Daniel Mayoh – fresh from his runner-up finish in the WSOP’s $1,500 H.O.R.S.E event – plus Matthew Wakeman, Sean Ooi with yet another final table, Yoon Kang, Romain Morvan, Cooper Feltham, Luke McCredie and Jess Pigntaro.
We also note some big international names are already in town for WPT Australia, among them Ethan “Rampage” Yau, 2022 WPT Prime Championship winner Stephen Song and high stakes specialist Joey Weissman.
This year’s WPT Australia festival features a total of 23 events, up from 16 in 2023, with a record nine WPT World Champion ship pathways packages up for grabs across the two weeks.
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