No Repeat $100,000 Challenge Title for Sam Trickett

Team Titan’s Sam Trickett was unable to repeat his success at last year’s Aussie Millions. He was eliminated in 7th place in the $100,000 Challenge, a position that awarded no cash prize.

After an extensive period of heads-up play, American Dan Smith knocked out Russian Mikhail Smirnov to win the high roller tournament. With a pair of twos, Smith beat Q 6 of hearts to take first prize of AUD$1,012,000. Smirnov had to make due with second place prize, worth AUD$616,000.

Former WSOP Main Event champion Joe Hachem finished in 3rd place for an AUD$330,000 payout and Tony G finished in 4th place to win AUD$242,000.

Eight out of the 22 entries into the 2012 Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge survived the first day of play. Going into the final day of play, Sam was short-stacked with a stack of 73,000 chips, far behind table leaders Gus Hansen and Joe Hachem.

Vietnamese- American professional poker player Nam Le was the first to be eliminated, when his pair of tens fell victim to Hansen’s jacks.

Just a few minutes later, the Danish poker star also knocked out Sam. Hansen forced Sam into an all-in situation. Sam was holding pocket sixes, but they weren’t good enough against the Great Dane’s A 9 when a second nine appeared on the flop.

Despite his early successes, Hansen was eliminated by Mikhail Smirnov in fifth place, just short of the money.