“Mikey D” announced his presence on the tournament scene in a big way last year, when he added his name to the WPT Champions Cup at WPT Rolling Thunder. He nearly grabbed an even more prestigious title less than two months ago, when he finished third at WPT Five Diamond for a career-best $752,196. The Las Vegas-based pro made his first trip to Aussie Millions this year and has had a wild ride going from massive chip leader to shortest stack on Day 4 and now back to around average heading into the final table.
Twitter: @3kingme3
At just 28, Lewis is the class of this final table in terms of live tournament earnings with over $3.2 million in cashes. The British pro was grinding €300 tournaments in 2009 until a huge win at EPT Vilamoura in 2010 for $594,568. Since then, he has posted final table finishes at several EPT and WPT events, most recently getting fourth at PCA in 2016 for $267,340. He said after playing and constantly talking poker to learn the game, he isn't playing quite as much nowadays, but he made his first final table in Australia count after notching several smaller cashes at Crown Melbourne over the years.
Twitter: @810ofclubs
A recreational player based here in Melbourne, “Charlie” Park works as a “tradie” – Aussie slang for a skilled worker – and learned the game playing with friends, and he said he still plays only casually. He has $24,000 in cashes all from small tournaments under A$400, so this Aussie Millions Main Event final table means “Super Soju” has already booked by far the biggest cash of his poker career. Put Crowded House on the karaoke if you want to get him going.
Huber is based in Zurich and said he learned poker through “friends and sunny beers.” Judging from the makeup of his loud, heavily-imbibing rail, some of those friends must have been German. Nowadays, Huber can be found “wherever life takes me,” sometimes playing poker to the tune of $1.3 million in live cashes. A good chunk of that goes to the charity he co-founded, Raising for Effective Giving, which has raised more than $3 million toward good causes worldwide.
An Aussie playing poker abroad for a living – he currently resides in Hungary – Richardson has over $400,000 in cashes, much of it coming in his home country at Aussie Millions, which he called the “best in the world.” He has three previous final tables here, including a sixth-place finish in the A$1,150 Opening Event a couple of weeks ago for A$40,990. He's not a high-volume player, as Richardson said he only plays about twice a week. One thing "Oppositeland" has going for him is the support of the local crowd, as he had plenty of cheering fans gathered to compete with the German contingent as Day 4 drew to a close.
Twitter: @oppositeland
