Dion Mavrangelos Wins The $1,500 Deep Freeze for $83,620
Adelaide, Australia's Dion Mavrangelos took down the 2016 Aussie Millions Event #20 $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Deep Freeze title inside the Crown Poker Room on Monday.
Mavrangelos earned $98,635 in prize money and an LK Boutique Aussie Millions championship ring, ultimately defeating a field of 323 entries over three days.
The final table kicked off just after noon Melbourne time Monday and German Dietrich Fast was the first to exit, running a big ace into Elliot Smith's kings.
Michael Wang ran nines into Andy Chong's jacks to go out ninth and short stack Milton Trickey busted eighth getting it in with king-high and failing to improve versus Smith's ace-high.
Wing Sang Lee started the final table with the chip lead, but seemed determine to bluff it off, first handing heaps to Sarah Bilney when he called off a five-bet shove with king-high versus ace-queen, then ultimately getting unlucky with eights versus Smith's rivered set of sevens to say goodbye seventh.
Bilney couldn't hold on to those chips, however, busting fifth after Andy Chong was eliminated in sixth.
Smith flirted with the lead at several points throughout the final, but could do no better than fourth and although Japan's Takuya Yamashita had about half the chips in play three-handed, he paid off Graham Jamieson in a big pot and got trapped by Dion Mavrangelos in another, eventually busting third.
Heads-up play between Jamieson and Mavrangelos started about even and they chopped up the prize money, taking $78,000 each and leaving $5,620 and the ring to play for.
Mavrangelos took a 2:1 lead winning a battle of full houses, but Jamieson struck back, taking a 2:1 lead of his own with a full house over a flush. Mavrangelos soon evened things up and kept the pressure on, chipping away at Jamieson with big bets and all-in raises until he had a better than 5:1 lead.
Although Jamieson doubled once, getting it in bad with five big blinds and finding a flush, he couldn't manage it a second time bowing out with queen-high versus king-high to give Mavrangelos the title.