This summer in Las Vegas, the World Series of Poker wasn’t the only game in town. PartyPoker brought its big game to Sin City for a tournament right at the end of July to run through the day before the WSOP Main Event began.
It was the first stop on US soil for PartyPoker MILLIONS, and it landed at Aria on the Las Vegas Strip.
In the end, after multiple entries and several days of high-action live poker, it was a high-stakes poker pro who took down the tournament. Tom Marchese won a tough final table to claim $1 million in prize money and to see his name engraved on a massive gold trophy.
Building a Big Prize Pool
The first starting day of the $10,300 buy-in tournament at Aria was the first of two starting days, and it attracted 222 entries. The second of those starting flights brought in another 221.
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Day 1A showed 143 players surviving the eight levels, and Day 1B brought 136 players into Day 2. But registration remained open until the start of Level 11 on Day 2, and with players allowed one entry per day, it left the final numbers open for many players.
Ultimately, nearly 100 entries came in in the last few levels of registration, providing these numbers:
Total entries: 536Total prize pool: $5,360,000Paid players: 79Minimum payout: $20,000Winner payout: $1 million
Day 2 finished with 83 players still hoping to make the money, with Jeremy Pekarek in the chip lead holding 2.56 million chips.
Day 3 saw many big names exit the tournament, including Maria Ho, Mohsin Charania, Joe Cada, Faraz Jaka, Kitty Kuo, Olivier Busquet, Lauren Roberts, Anton Wigg, Joao Simao, Tony Miles, Taylor Paur, Daniel Alaei, Mustapha Kanit, and Sam Grafton. Frank Stepuchin held the chip lead when play ended that night with 11,725,000 chips, and Tom Marchese was in a distant second with 5,805,000 chips, followed by Jeremy Ausmus and his 5,625,000 chips.
Day 4 brought back 13 players, but players like Stepuchin fizzled out very quickly. He busted in 10th place, leaving a final table of nine.
Final Table Action
Marchese took control of the final table and eliminated Chris Moneymaker in ninth place, but Ana Marquez stepped in to oust Tobias Duthweiler in eighth. Marchese took out Rainer Kempe in seventh, and Ausmus put Conor Beresford on the rail in sixth. Marchese took care of perpetually short-stacked Sergio Aido in fifth place and then Freddy Deeb in fourth.
Ausmus then doubled through Marchese to thin the latter’s lead. Marquez couldn’t find much momentum during three-handed play and was finally busted by Ausmus.
Marchese took 31.2 million chips to heads-up play against the 22.4 million of Ausmus. It was Ausmus who started the duel strong but quickly lost ground, though once down to less than 10 million chips, Ausmus did double up. He climbed back up above 20 million but fell again, finally pushing all-in with K-10 against the A-J of Marchese. The board only brought an ace, and that gave Marchese the win.
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