Aussie Millions Champ Walks With Cool $2 Million

MELBOURNE, Australia --  The new king of poker was crowned this evening, when Australian Stewart Scott won the No-Limit Texas Holdem 'Main Event' at the 2009 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
  held at Melbourne's Crown Casino.

At the opening day of the event 2005 WSOP Champion and Crown Ambassador Joe Hachem threw down the challenge gauntlet to all of his fellow countrymen that entered this tournament 'I think it's about time an Aussie took home the title,' said Hachem. 'Get your acts together!'.

Stewart Scott must have taken that to heart. He hung around in the middle of the pack for the first three days of this tournament, using the best of his survival skills. In the last two days, when it was time to make a strong push, he rampaged through the field to take home the title of 2009 Aussie Millions Main Event Champion.

After playing a marathon session at the Final Table that lasted 12 hours, 36-year-old Scott from Northern New South Wales, walks away with a cool AUD$2 Million for his efforts, the largest prize ever awarded in a live poker tournament in the Southern Hemisphere.

Stewart Scott outlasted an incredible field of 681 players who anted up the AUD$10,500 buy-in for the 'Main Event', creating a prize pool of AUD$6.81 Million. The 'Main Event' at Melbourne's own Crown Casino was the culmination of the 18 individual events, which this year generated more than AUD$18 Million in the total prize pool.

After the final, life-changing hand, Scott scooped up all of the cash on the table and let it fall through his fingers. 'Yeah!' he shouted. His wife was let onto the set. Scott picked her up in a long embrace, spun her through the air, and gave her a kiss!

American Peter Rho played amazing poker and held his own against some of the best players in the world, busted out in second place winning a tidy AUD$1 Million.

'We congratulate Stewart Scott on his tremendous accomplishment,' said David Courtney, Crown Casino's Chief Executive Officer. 'He played superb poker over a prolonged period against a record field that included virtually every top professional and hundreds of talented amateurs from Australia and around the world.'

Finishing third and collecting AUD$700,000 was 21-year-old Elliott Smith from Vancouver.

The remaining players at the final table were:

4th place: Rajkumar Ramakrishnan - $400,000
5th place: Sam Capra - $300,000
6th place: Zach Gruneberg - $210,000
7th place: Richard Ashby - $150,000
8th place: Barny Boatman - $100,000

A little bit of trivia about Stewart Scott - he has a 'Dream Chart / Wish List' hanging on the back of his bathroom door, and on top of the list is the 'Aussie Millions Champion Title', along with a new kitchen for his wife and 6-month old daughter, along with other items and various words of encouragement!

Following on from the enormous ratings success of the US screening of the 2008 Aussie Millions 'Main Event', Crown and Fox Sports Net (FSN) will be partnering up for another year that will again see the Aussie Millions filmed for broadcast internationally from March 2009 as a episode series with a reach of over 100 million homes.

A coup for Australian Poker, Crown's collaboration with FSN further consolidates the prestige, recognition and credibility of the Aussie Millions, particularly in America, the home of Texas Holdem and a country that widely considers poker its national game.