Melbourne, Australia. Tuesday 24 January 2017. Event 14 of the 2017 Aussie Millions, the Australian Poker Hall of Fame Classic, was a special one. While all the tournaments in the poker room of the Crown Melbourne have been packed and action-filled so far this poker festival, this event had a twist, which resulted in even more spectacle. Members of the Australian Poker Hall of Fame namely bought in without having to pay rake. On top of that, ‘HOF’ members buying in got a AUD$500 bounty on their head.

A total of 123 players signed up for the event, resulting in a prize pool of $126.075. Six Hall of Fame members participated in the event; Jason Gray, Graeme Putt, Joe Cabret, Leo Boxtel, Gary Benson and Marsha Waggoner quite literally had a target on their back. Knocking them out would be worth half the buy-in of the event for the other contestants.

That was reason enough for most players to go gunning for them, hunting season was officially opened as the tournament got underway at 2:30 p.m. Their bounties were in high demand by the other players, resulting in all six of them getting knocked out before the money stage of the tournament commenced. Twelve players would cash, but no hall of fame members were amongst them.

While there were no ‘HOF’ members amongst the finalists, the final table did have a very local touch as eight out of nine players were from the region. Just a single Kiwi and a German distorted the otherwise totally Australian final table. In fact, the top three players all came from the city of Melbourne.