It's not often, when a tournament that only attracts 24 total players really makes a difference, but that's what happened recently at the 2010 Aussie Millions $100,000 challenge.

The 24 players that competed in this highest of high roller events, were some of the richest and/or most talented players in poker, yet only five of them would end up money earners, leaving the other 19 nothing but $100,000 Australian Dollars poorer.

Some of the well known players who found themselves in that particular unfortunate position included Jeff Lisandro, John Juanda, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Gus Hansen and Howard Lederer, who made it all the way to the final table before falling out in eighth palce.  Yet even "The Professor's" run paled in comparison to PokerRoad's own Barry Greenstein, who got closer than all of the above, before eventually cruelly bubbling in sixth place.

With the departure of "The Bear," only five players remained, bad boy Tony G, Dan Shak, Tony Bloom, Bill Jordanou and 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event final tablist Phil Ivey, who needed only to make it into the final four spots in order to overtake his old friend Daniel Negreanu, as the All-Time Tournament money winner- according to most tournament tracking sites like TheHendonMob.com.

Fourth would have earned Phil Ivey $200,000 AUD- or about $180,595- putting him above Negreanu by about $10,000, but luckily for Ivey- who would probably like to have a slightly better margin than that- he made it all the way into heads-up play before finally bowing to Shak.

Ivey earned $600,000 AUD for that run, putting his career total winnings above $12.8 million- well above Phil Hellmuth, Negreanu and even Jamie Gold.

By taking out Ivey, Dan Shak claimed the title and added an impressive $1,200,000 to his own tournament coffers- by most accounts a pretty good score for a weekend of work.

The payout* positions for the 2010 Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge were as follows:

1st.  Dan Shak- $1,200,000

2nd.  Phil Ivey- $600,000

3rd.  Billy Jordanou- $300,000

4th.  Tony Bloom- $200,000

5th.  Tony G- $100,000

*All payouts expressed in Australian Dollars.

For more information on the 2010 Aussie Millions including updates, photos and chip counts, visit PokerNews.com.


Story by Mark Anderson