Melbourne Poker Championships Main Event Preview

Posted 14 days 22 hours ago by Barry Gallagher

The Melbourne Poker Championships Main Event begins today in the Crown Casino. The $1,000 + $100 buy-in main event will feature three starting flights with re-entry allowed if you bust on a previous starting day. The tournament will finish on Monday when a winner will be crowned and an extremely large payday secured.

The build up to the main event has been warming up very nicely since the start of the festival and the $500 buy-in Joe Hachem Deepstack Event attracted an impressive 475 entries; a very large turnout especially considering there was direct competition from ANZPT Perth. Ron Parsons scooped the trophy and a $49,450 pay day.

However, the main event is sure to be the big draw and a massive prize pool is expected. Practically every Aussie big gun will be town for one of the highlights of the Australian poker calendar. It is not too late to secure a cheap seat as the Crown is running regular satellites for only $65.

The event is celebrating its 10 year anniversary this year. Below you can see a historical summary of the event to date.
From rather humble beginnings in 2002 with just 66 entries, the event caught fire in 2006 with 395 entries off the back of Joe Hachem’s USD$7.5 million dollar win at the WSOP in 2005. Hachem himself finished third in 2006 for $26,860 as he set out to prove his success in Vegas was no flash in the pan. The Crown increased the buy-in to $1,000+$100 in 2007 and numbers continued to grow with a peak reached in 2009 with a $750,000 prize pool.

As always the turnout will be interesting and a bit of a litmus test of the current state of the game and bankrolls Down Under. I’ll set the line at 575. Over or under comment below!

Year	Buy-in	Winner	Prize Pool
2011	$1,000	Scott Peel ($104,500)	$502,000 (502 entries)
2010	$1,000	Brendon Rubie ($118,000)	$590,000 (590 entries)
2009	$1,000	Tudor Kondevski ($150,000)	$750,000 (750 entries)
2008	$1,000	James Broom ($134,602)	$668,000 (668 entries)
2007	$1,000	Hai Chu ($107,760)	$449,000 (449 entries)
2006	$680	Eric Assadourian ($80,580)	$268,600 (395 entries)
2005	$500	Arul Thillai ($26,950)	$82,500 (165 entries)
2004	$450	Stella Coe ($12,915)	$36,900 (82 entries)
2003	$200	David Mahoney ($4,730)	$13,860 (63 entries)
2002	$300	Dr David Szetho ($6,930)	$19,800 (66 entries)

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