The 2012 Aussie Millions is underway at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia and, right off the bat, a PocketFives member is making waves. Brendon Rubie (pictured), known as BrendonR here on the site, won a $1,000 + $100 AUD No Limit Hold’em event, the opening tournament of the annual festival. Rubie outlasted 945 entrants to win an Aussie Millions gold ring and a cash prize of $200,000 AUD (approximately $207,000 USD).Rubie began the final table in second place and was one of just three players with over a million chips. Leading the way was Scott Wilson with 2.68 million, followed by Rubie with 1.62 million and Rob Angood with 1.38 million. With the blinds and antes at 10,000/20,000/2,000, Wilson’s million-chip lead was significant, but this is poker and things can change quickly.
The final table didn’t start smoothly for Rubie, as he lost about one-third of his stack on a single hand when the tournament was down to eight players. Shortly thereafter, however, he got it back, and then some. Rubie opened pre-flop for 48,000 and three opponents came along for the ride. On the flop of 8c-5s-9s, Rubie bet 110,000 after the others checked, only to see Naz Sibaei check-raise him to 260,000. The other two players bowed out, but Rubie made the call.
When the 2h was dealt on the turn, Sibaei once again check-raised after Rubie bet 220,000, this time moving all-in. Rubie snapped-called all-in with pocket eights, while Sibaei immediately knew he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, as he had just Kh-Jc. The river was meaningless, Sibaei was crippled, and Rubie scooped a 1.3 million-chip pot to take his stack to 2.4 million.Rubie’s stack remained in the two-million chip range for a while after that until he made a major move in a hand against Angood, who had already victimized Rubie for big pots more than once at the final table.
After some raising and re-raising, both men got their chips into the middle pre-flop. Similar to Sibaei, it looked like Angood was caught trying to make a move, as he had just As-9d. And unfortunately for him, he was staring down the barrel at Rubie’s pocket aces. The board was unkind to Angood and Rubie used the 2.6 million-chip pot to rocket up to 4.4 million, good for the chip lead. Rubie finished Angood off a while later to go into heads-up play against Wilson with better than a 2-to-1 chip lead, 6.3 million to 3.1 million.
Wilson made a game of it, even doubling-up a few times after seeing his stack fall to 300,000, but Rubie never let him get close. Eventually, with just under two million chips remaining, Wilson moved all-in over the top of Rubie’s 150,000-chip bet on flop of Ts-4d-Qs and Rubie made the call. Wilson was alive, but in bad shape with 3c-4c for bottom pair, while Rubie held Qc-Jd, good for top pair. Rubie hit a queen on the river for good measure to win the hand and bank $200,000 AUD.
Rubie goes by the handle brendon1717 on both PokerStars and PartyPoker, where he has won over a million dollars combined in multi-table tournaments. He also won over a million bucks on Full Tilt Poker, where he went by Brendooor when that site was operational.The Sydney, Australia resident currently stands at #24 in the PocketFives Worldwide Rankings. He had many online tournament victories, with his largest tracked payout coming in Full Tilt’s $1K Monday event back in May 2009 for $93,000.
His live tournament record is rather limited to this point, as Rubie has concentrated his efforts online. Prior to this Aussie Millions victory, he had earned $279,558 in live tournaments, although does have several first place finishes in small events.
The 2012 Aussie Millions consists of 26 events featuring a variety of games. The $10,000 + $600 AUD Main Event begins Sunday, January 22nd with the first of three Day 1 flights and concludes on Saturday, January 28th. The entire Aussie Millions will wrap up two days later with the final day of the No Limit Hold’em Semi-Shootout event.
Good luck to all PocketFivers competing “Down Under.”
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