Sam Greenwood Wins ANTON Jewellery $50,000 Challenge (A$116,400)
The Aussie Millions ANTON Jewellery $50,000 Challenge at Crown Melbourn got off to a late start, but it proved to be an early finish.
That's because the tournament drew just four runners, and the players didn't waste much time before knocking each other out, wrapping things up in less than six hours. In the end, super high roller veteran Sam Greenwood was the last one standing and booked a win after doing a quick deal heads up with Jan Schwippert.
Greenwood pocketed A$116,400 while Schwippert banked A$77,600 for outlasting Alex Foxen and Koji Fujimoto.
The tournament got under way two hours late as players couldn't be lured in when just Greenwood was registered early and in his seat at the scheduled start time of 1:10 p.m. They agreed to reconvene a couple of hours later, but only Foxen and Schwippert ponied up the cash while a number of other players loitered around uncertainly, waiting to see if more runners would appear.
The battle got going, and the players certainly didn't waste much time or play deliberately slowly in an attempt to give others a chance to fire. After a short feeling-out period, the three pros started three-betting and four-betting each other aggressively, but nobody could open up a significant lead.
After the first break, Koji Fujimoto sat in, but that wasn't enough to draw anyone else's interest and populate the table. Four-handed play, along with raised blinds, proved to be a catalyst for action. Pots swelled quickly and Foxen became the first to fall when he took a beat at the hands of Schwippert, kings failing to hold preflop against ace-jack.
Fujimoto found basically no success and followed Foxen out the door minutes later after losing the last of his short stack.
Greenwood and Schwippert each had about double the starting stack and had a choice: lock in the prize pool now and play heads up to finish it or play heads up and allow registration to remain open, with an elimination meaning the tournament would be over and someone would claim the whole prize pool.
They opted for the former and Schwippert raced out to a 3-1 lead early before running fives into sevens and allowing a Greenwood double. It was essentially all Greenwood from there as he hammered Schwippert down to about 10 big blinds before allowing a couple of doubles.
However, the Canadian stopped the bleeding from there and ended the tournament when he check-raised on a bluff and backed into a flush while his opponent backed into a straight after missing his own flopped flush draw.
That put an end to a short $50K Challenge, and things will be focused all on the Main Event here for the next few days.