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Michael Addamo Wins Australian Poker Open Main Event

James Guill

The inaugural Australian Poker Open concluded on Saturday and Aussie poker star Michael Addamo closed out the series by winning the $100,000 AUD Main Event. Amazingly, he was the only Aussie to win an APO event all series. Addamo also finished the series with the most money won by a player.

Despite his big win, he did not take down the APO Championship awarded to the top player in the series. That honor went to Stephen Chidwick who just barely won the title after a fourth-place finish in the Main Event.

Michael Addamo Wins APO Main Event and $1.28 Million

The Australian Poker Open was capped on Friday and Saturday by the $100,000 AUD Main Event. The tournament drew a field of 28 entries, which was solid considering the buy-in. The problem with such a small field is that only the top four players received a payday.

This meant that when the final table was reached on Friday, one player would go home without a payout. The final table started with Michael Addamo holding more than a 2 to 1 chip lead over the rest of the field. In second place was Alex Foxen who was the only player that started with a healthy stack.

The rest of the field was rounded out by Aaron Van Blarcum, Stephen Chidwick, and Australian high roller Kahle Burns. Burns came into the final table as the short stack. Early on, it appeared that he might make a run to the money as Chidwick slipped to the short stack.

Unfortunately, Burns was knocked out on a cooler when his pocket kings were outdrawn by the Q-8 of Addamo. Addamo flopped trips to send Burns to the rail on the bubble. Soon after, Stephen Chidwick hit the rail in fourth place for a min-cash of $280,000 AUD.

Despite starting the day in second place, Alex Foxen only managed a third-place finish, earning $448,000 AUD. This led to heads-up play between Van Blarcum and Addamo. However, Addamo had a dominating chip lead heads-up and quickly knocked out Van Blarcum to win the title.

Addamo earned $1.28 Million AUD for his first APO title. Of the win, he stated, “It was a pretty smooth ride, I was pretty fortunate.”

Stephen Chidwick Wins Australian Poker Open Championship

One of the biggest stories being watched heading into the Main Event final table was whether Stephen Chidwick could cash. He needed 120 points to catch Andras Nemeth on the APO Championship leaderboard and a min-cash would guarantee at least 140 points.

Ultimately, that’s exactly what Chidwick managed to earn as he finished in fourth place. The 140 points allowed him to move up to first on the APO Championship leaderboard, earning him the APO Championship. The title earns him the APO Championship trophy along with a winner’s prize of $50,000 USD.

After winning the APO Championship, Chidwick said that it felt great to win the title and that he would like to “complete the collection.” Chidwick won the US Poker Open in Las Vegas in 2018 and just missed on winning the British Poker Open last year.

The online casino and online poker superstar won the APO Championship on the strength of three cashes in the series. He finished runner-up in Event #3 to Timonthy Addams and then won Event #5 after defeating Erik Seidel heads-up. His fourth-place finish on Saturday gave him just enough to take down the coveted title.

The Australian Poker Open is the latest poker series from Poker Central. All final tables streamed live on PokerGO and the series proved extremely popular amongst players. The US Poker Open will return in March, running from March 19-31 at the PokerGO Studio at the ARIA in Las Vegas.