Australian Poker Hall of Famer and Aussie Millions ambassador Van Marcus certainly made his presence known at this year’s Aussie Millions, enjoying a profitable time at both the tournament and cash game tables and spending plenty of hours walking the floor and catching up with old friends.
Of the eight events he played during the 2026 Aussie Millions, Van cashed in seven, including two third-place finishes, before joining the PokerMedia Australia team in the live stream commentary box for much of the Main Event final table.
In this article, Van runs us through three key hands he played in various events throughout the Aussie Millions, breaking down his strategy and thought processes along the way.
HAND 1: AUSSIE MILLIONS $1.5K MYSTERY BOUNTY
“This hand was played while deep into the Mystery Bounty with about four tables left. I have already pulled some of the bigger bounties of $10,000 and $25,000, so I’ve got some good money in the bank. I’m in early position when I am dealt:
A♦6♦
I raise 2x, the button calls and the blinds both fold. I have the button covered.
Flop: 2♣3♦9♣
I continue betting for one-third of the pot. This is not always a c-bet, you can check here, but then what are you going to do when they bet? If you had a hand with more equity like A4 or A5 where you have a gut shot, an overcard and a backdoor flush draw, I think checking is better. But with a hand like mine, you don’t have as much equity when you check-call and it is hard to determine how to play post-flop once you check. So, I bet and the button calls.
Turn: 10♦
I have options here. I could bet again which might be a better option than checking, but I decided to check this time to keep the pot small because I didn’t want to bet and get raised and have to fold my hand with the nut flush draw. The button bet about half-pot and I called.
River: 9♠
I checked again and pretty quickly, within about 10 seconds, the button announced he was all-in. I’m in a tough spot here but at the same time what he is representing on the river with such a big bet is a very, very nutted hand or a very weak hand. In poker, we call this a polarizing bet: he is polarizing his range into a nutted hand or a bluffing hand.
He can’t really make this play with pocket 7s, pocket 8s or a hand like KT because I can easily have JJ, QQ, KK or AA. I can have those hands whereas he can’t have them based on the action so far. When he shoves the river, his range is nutted hands like 22, 33, TT, 9T-suited or 89-suited, and even if he had 89-suited he would probably check back the turn.
So, now he is pretty much saying he has a full house or nothing and the hands that are nothing might be 78-suited, QJ-suited, and all hands with flush draws like KQ-suited which are very much in his range.
In the end I made the hero call and I was right – he showed K♣Q♣ … very nice!”
Editor’s note: Van finished 3rd in this event for $66,075 plus another $44,000 in bounties.
HAND 2: AUSSIE MILLIONS $5K POT LIMIT OMAHA
“This hand was played while the re-entry period was still open, so players that busted could still buy back in. I had Joe Hachem on my right and we played pretty much from the beginning of this tournament together. This hand was against Joe and a few other players.
I like to approach PLO events very passively pre-flop. I try to get a lot of money in when I have, for example, AAxx or double-suited aces, otherwise I just call and take flops, or I limp, because limping is a much better strategy in PLO than in No Limit Hold’em where in PLO equities run so close pre-flop.
In this hand there was an UTG raise to 3.5x, Joe called in the cut-off and I called the button with A♠A♥Q♠9♣. I could have 3-bet this hand but we were 300 big blinds deep and I wanted to play a little bit more cautiously but a little tricky.
The was a small blind in the hand who was short-stacked with about 12 big blinds so if he found a hand he was willing to go all-in with I could back-raise and put a lot of money in pre-flop. And that’s exactly what happened.
The small blind shoved his 12 big blinds, the big blind somehow called, the guy who opened called and Joe called. Now, I just go ahead and pot it, putting a lot of money in. The big blind called off the rest of his stack, the UTG player folded and after tanking for a bit Joe decided to call pre-flop. He and I still had chips behind, so it was between he and I, heads-up.
Flop: 10♠7♦2♣
Now, there were a huge amount of big blinds in the pot and I pretty much already knew that the rest was going in on the flop because Joe had maybe 60% of a pot size bet left. Unless the flop was just horribly bad for him, the rest was going in. And for me, if he checks I’m shoving and if he shoves I’m calling. There were just so many chips in the middle and it’s still the re-entry period so it’s not so bad. I have the over-pair and the backdoor spade draw, so that’s enough equity. Joe open shoves and I make the call.
Joe turns over 6♠6♣7♥7♣ for the flopped set and I remember one of the blinds showing a KKxx hand. Fortunately, I got really lucky in that hand with running spades for the nut flush to win a huge pot.
From an analytical point of view, this hand shows that you don’t necessarily have to 3-bet AA pre-flop; you can also play them passively until you get an opportunity to get a lot of money in. Most 3-betting hands in Omaha are AAxx hands and you really don’t want to let your opponents know that you have Aces when you’re deep stacked and put your hand face up. I prefer to play deceptively, especially when the people behind me have shorter stacks that might move in and allow me to re-squeeze.
In regard to Joe’s hand, I’m not sure calling so many big-blinds pre-flop with 6♠6♣7♥7♣ is a great idea but once he does and he flops a set or any kind of straight draw he has to go with it. It’s not terrible though because it’s multi-way, it’s the re-entry period and sometimes gambling early on and trying to build a monster stack is the best way to make a really deep run and try to win the tournament.
Editor’s note: Van finished 25th in this event for $10,210.
HAND 3: AUSSIE MILLIONS $10.6K MAIN EVENT
Whenever I sit down at a new table, I try to suss out very quickly the people that I’m playing with and whether they are recreational or professionals. I watch how they sit, how they talk and the way they shuffle their chips to try and get any type of external read on their behaviour and how they think about the game.
When I sat down at this table on Day 2 of the Main Event, it was all pretty tight and solid for the most part. Then we had a young lady join us. Right away she looked at me, we smiled and I asked her, “Where are you from?” She told me she was Japanese, that she was really into poker and did some poker hosting so straight away I knew she had a background in poker. She was also shuffling her chips better than I was and doing all sorts of tricks with her thumbs, so my senses were heightened and I knew I needed to pay more attention to her.
One thing I observed within the first hour was that she was very active and had raised a number of hands from different positioned and even opening hands like K♠9♠ UTG. So, I already know she was wider than most and was going to mix it up.
In this hand I was about 28bb effective and the girl had me covered. She opened 2x from middle position and it is folded to me on the button with A♥J♣. Usually against tight, solid players this hand is a fold because you don’t want to be dominated when they are opening in early or middle position. With those types of players, their range is much stronger than AJ so if your opponent has QQ and it comes J-high you are in a lot of trouble.
That means it is a fold unless I want to turn it into a bluffing hand by 3-betting, knowing that I can fold if I get 4-bet. But against this lady I felt that I was 3-betting A♥J♣ for value because I had seen her open wide and I had position on the button. I can also squeeze out the blinds, so even if she calls I get to go heads-up with position. I 3-bet to 6.5x and she called after thinking briefly.
Flop: A♦K♥6♠
The girl checked, which is the obvious play because that board hits my 3-betting range very hard. I can have all the AA, KK, AK hands whereas if she had them she would have 4-bet pre-flop.
When it comes to a board this high, you can use different bet sizes. You can bet really large because your range is so strong, or you can go so small. Because this is a tournament format, I prefer to go small because we’re not so deep whereas if I decide to go big, I am pretty much committed. If I run into a monster hand, I can’t really manoeuvre very well.
So, on these kinds of boards you can bet really small to find out what kind of hands your opponent is in there with. If your opponent calls pre-flop in this spot with 99, it is going to be difficult for them to continue no matter what your bet size is, so there is no need to commit much of your stack. You can just bet a third of the pot, 20% of the pot or even less.
On this occasion there were close to 16 big blinds in the middle and I bet 4.5x, which is around 25%. I could have gone smaller but I thought that was okay.
The girl tanked for a little while before calling, so she could have a weaker ace, an AJ or maybe a hand like KQ-suited.
Turn: 4♥
Now there was a flush draw on the board as well. The girl checked, there were about 25 big blinds in the middle and I had around 17 big blinds left. I contemplated checking back the turn and then going for value if she checked the river because it would be difficult for her to put me on a hand with an Ace and I might get paid. I also thought that by checking back the turn I could induce her to bluff the river if she had called the flop with like a hand like JT-suited or QJ-suited.
That’s the great thing about poker – you’ve got all these different options around how you can play a hand and bet sizing – but after thinking about it I decided to bet 6.5x. Again, a very small sizing and leaving me with about 10bb behind – there’s no need to go big.
I actually wasn’t sure what I would do with those 10bb if she called. Would I check back the river? After all, there is a chance she has AQ and played it a little more passively. And what if she raised me? Well, after thinking about it, she did raise and put me all-in.
This is a really, really tough spot and a terrible situation to be in because I am supposed to have all the big sets and AK here, not her. Going through all the hands she could have, I thought A6-suited was a likely holding. Pocket 6s was also a very likely hand, as was A4-suited. If she has A6 or A4 I almost have the price to call because I could hit a K or a J. If she has pocket 6s I’m gone.
The thing about poker is that you’re not always going to play your best game, and sometimes you will play fine but everything just runs against you. This was one of those very frustrating days where I couldn’t make anything happen, ran into some huge hands and felt like I was in a constant grind.
In some way, a little frustration got the best of me and I called it off knowing I was probably behind, just because there were so many chips in the pot and because I had seen her get out of line a few times earlier. Plus the thought of folding for 10bb here with 40bb in the middle and being wrong was too much.
I made the call and she showed A♠4♠. The river bricked and that was my Main Event done.”
Van Marcus will be back at Crown Melbourne as an ambassador for the upcoming Victorian Poker Championship, running from 12 to 27 October 2026.
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