Jon Kyte and Daniel Smith Win Final Aussie Millions Event
Norway's Jon Kyte and New Zealand's Daniel Smith banded together to win the 2018 Aussie Millions: Event #26 A$1,150 Shot Clock Team event for A$10,931 ($8,654) each.
The event was new on the schedule and also represented the final tournament of the festival. It proved to be popular with 79 teams or 158 players participating to generate a A$80,975 prize pool.
The team was an unlikely matchup with Kyte being part of a band of Norwegians to head over for the Aussie Millions.
Kyte had a breakout year including many wins with the most notable being a victory in the partypoker Nordic Poker Championships €2,200 Main Event for €240,000. He has amassed nearly $350,000 in live tournament cashes in his blossoming poker career and is also well-known for his strong skills in cash games, winning the first-ever Cash Game Festival trophy in London in September before breaking a record for the most feature tables won when the festival returned to the British capital in January.
Meanwhile, Smith, who Kyte had never met before the event, had only three cashes before this event for a total of slightly more than $4,000.
The match-up became a matter of chance because of celebrations that took place after Norway's Espen Solaas took third place in the Aussie Millions A$10,600 Main Event for A$1,177,103 ($951,332).
"So my Norwegian friends and I were celebrating Espen's third-place run in the Main Event," Kyte shared with PokerNews after his victory. "They were too hungover to play, so I asked a friend if she knew someone who wanted to play this event! She knew about one guy and I said yes. So I’ve never met Daniel before the event and we started playing and it was just like destiny."
The Action
A total of 10 teams cashed for a minimum of A$1,215 in the event. When it was down to just four teams, it was Kyte's turn to play a blind level and he hit lightning in a bottle.
He shared that he single-handedly eliminated each of his foes during that blind level. The final hand took place against United Kingdom's William Overmire, who was teamed up with Australia's Luke Martinelli.
Kyte began the match with a 5:3 chip advantage and extended it to a more than 2:1 advantage when the final hand took place. Kyte limped on the button with ace-five and Overmire raised with ace-nine. Kyte then jammed all-in and his opponent called with two to three seconds left on the shot clock.
A five spiked the flop and Overmire was unable to catch up on the turn or river, and his team was eliminated from the tournament. Overmire and Martinelli each collected A$7,288 for their runner-up performance.
Earlier in the festival, Kyte took third place in Event #23: A$1,150 No Limit Holdem Turbo Shot Clock for A$24,810. It was a tough field with WSOP November Niner Kenny Hallaert winning the event and Poland's most successful poker pro Dzmitry Urbanovich finishing in second place.
Despite winning more money against a tougher field, the winning of the last ANTON ring of the festival in Event #26 meant more to the Norwegian poker pro.
"The turbo I got third in was a bit harder than the team event," Kyte explained. "More pros in that one, so it was definitely harder to get a third-place finish there. But the win means way more to me, definitely considering how I dominated when I played from four down to one."
Aussie Millions Event #26 A$1,150 Shot Clock Team Final Table Results
| Place | Team | Countries | Prize in A$ | Prize in US$ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jon Kyte and Daniel Smith | Norway and New Zealand | A$10,931 | $8,654 |
| 2 | Luke Martinelli and William Overmire | Australia and United Kingdom | A$7,288 | $5,770 |
| 3 | Bridges Roe and Joshua Abadi | Australia and United States | A$4,859 | $3,847 |
| 4 | Peter Ingerson and Jacqui Thorby | New Zealand and New Zealand | A$4,048 | $3,205 |
| 5 | Andy Zarro and Michael Gregurek | Australia and Australia | A$3,239 | $2,564 |
| 6 | Shane Warne and Jackson Warne | Australia and Australia | A$2,834 | $2,244 |
| 7 | Jesse Maxwell and Sean Ragozzini | Australia and Australia | A$2,429 | $1,923 |
*Prizes listed per player, not per team.
