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Muhammad Asad ships 2019 Aussie Millions Opening Event

The 2019 Aussie Millions began on 15^th January and will be in the books by 4^rd February 2019. The series, underway at the Crown Casino, Melbourne, has concluded its AUD 1,1500 Opening Event, the first tournament in the series’ line-up. In addition, Ari Engel won his 2^nd Aussie Millions ring at the series in the Mix-Max event.

The Opening Event had a total of 5 starting flights till 19^th January and the total turnout came to a good 1,752 entries, making it the biggest AUD 1k tournament in the southern hemisphere. Australia’s Muhammad Asad overcame this staggering field to finish 1^st for an awesome AUD 219,980 (~INR 1.11 Crores). Asad made a 3-way deal with fellow countryman Jason Pritchard (2^nd) and UK’s Matt Edwards (3^rd) to claim the lion’s share out of the prize pool.

After his win, Asad reacted by saying, “It hasn’t really sunk in. I focused on taking it one hand at a time, so I haven’t really thought about it too much. Today I was really calm. I felt more confident going into today than yesterday. I knew that if I got through Day 2, I’d have a good chance on Day 2. I just played my game and stayed confident. There were sometimes where I ran really good. You need to run good, and it all worked out!”

Play had resumed on the final day with only 15 players remaining. By the time the Final Table was reached, Pritchard was the chip leader with about 4 million chips. He even made the first elimination at the FT, busting Taiwan’s Tou Ta Wei in 9^th place.

After a few eliminations, the top three players agreed to an ICM chop after much deliberation, each wanting a different deal, but after some talk between the three, the final deal was made which left extra AUD 14,908 for the winner along with the ANTON Championship Ring.

Asad said, “Initially, I didn’t really want to do a deal; I was feeling pretty confident. But at the same time it’s easy to get coloured, and there goes $70,000. We spoke about it for a while, and it took a long time for us to get a deal done.”

The following gameplay saw Edwards bust first at the hands of Asad with King-Eight against the eventual winner’s pocket Twos. Edwards had flopped trips but Asad rivered a deuce and made a set. In the final hand, Asad shoved with a flush draw against Pritchard’s top pair and open-ended straight draw. The turn was indifferent, but the river gave Asad the flush he shoved for and sealed his victory a little after 10pm in the night.

Conclusively, Asad commented on the overall series experience by saying, “It attracts all the best players from around Australia and around the world. Everyone feels the atmosphere here, with the pictures [of past Main Event champions] on the walls and everything. You definitely feel the history of the game here. You don’t get that here often as much as you get in Europe. So when you do get the opportunity to come and play; it’s special just being here.”

Final Table Pay-outs:

1. Muhammad Asad – AUD 219,908 (~$158,334)
2. Jason Pritchard – AUD 285,000
3. Matt Edwards – AUD 195,000
4. Didrik Mantok – AUD 93,920
5. Pierce McKellar – AUD 62,493
6. Kim Macnaught – AUD 44,535
7. Ning Zhang – AUD 37,173
8. Justin Bernstein – AUD 31,785
9. Tou Ta Wei – AUD 26,398

Keep reading GutshotMagazine.com for upcoming Aussie Millions updates and results as well as for your daily dose of poker news from around the world.

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