Ken Demlakian Outlasts Record Field To Win APL Millions 2024 Jackstar Super High Roller ($266K)

The Australian Poker League Poker Tour – APL Million 2024 has been running at Southport Sharks Gold Coast, Australia, since August 9. Featuring a staggering 83 events and an estimated AUD 10,000,000 ($6,700,000) in prize money, the series will run until August 26, 2024. The highlight of the festival is the AUD 1,500 ($1,005) buy-in APL Gold Coast Main Event, which boasts a massive AUD 3,000,000 (~$2,010,000) in estimated prize pool. This main event, featuring an impressive 10 starting flights, has already completed 9 flights, with the flight 9 drawing over 807 entries, pushing the total count past 2,300 entries. With one more remaining, the main event is well on its way to surpass last year’s turnout of 2,496 entries. Survivors from the ten completed flights will advance to Day 2 tomorrow, which will be followed by Day 3 on August 25, and the final Day 4 on August 26.

In terms of results, the series has already crowned over 65 champions so far, including more than half a dozen women winners. Among the standout performances, Sydney’s Ken Demlakian leads the pack with his victory in Event 56: JackStar Super High Roller at the APL Million 2024. Demlakian, who entered this $1,500 buy-in event with more than $1 million in live earnings, emerged victorious from a record-breaking field of 999 entries. He claimed his second JackStar Super High Roller title by defeating Quan Dinh (runner-up for $164,265) in a thrilling heads-up showdown. Demlakian’s first JackStar Super High Roller at Southport Sharks came in June 2021 when he bested a field of 108 entries to take home A$34,400.  With a field almost ten times as large, the prize pool for this event scaled up drastically this time with a massive $1, 298, 700, which was shared by the top 117 finishers.

The largest share of this whopping prize pool went to Demlakian who took home a hefty A$266,135 for his second SHR victory, trailing his career best score of $223,185, which came last year for a runner-up finish in the $ 1,440 + 160 No Limit Hold’em event at The Wynn Summer Classic, Las Vegas.

APL Milliosn 2024 Jackstar Super High Roller Final Table Action

The final table of the event kicked off with nine players, with Demlakian (20,675,000) in lead and Richard Borgonon (16,175,000) second in chips.

Unsurprisingly, Patrick Furlong, who entered the final table as the shortest stack, was the first player to be eliminated from the final table. He shoved his jack-ten, only to run into the ace-king of Richard Borgonon to exit in 9th place. Another short stack from the start, Chad Awerbuch, was eliminated in 8th place. Eliminations continued with Jackson Young,  Armon Van Wijk  & Michael Maljanek hitting the rail in 7th, 6th and 5th place, respectively.

The field narrowed down to the final three players when Jay Brayden shoved his pocket kings into pocket aces of Quan Dinh and found no help from the board to exit in 4th place. Later,  Borgonon shoved his 20 million stack with ace-ten against the pocket kings of Demlakian who flopped a set to bust his opponent and enter the heads-up with a massive lead holding 62 million chips against 15 million of Dinh.

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Although Dinh managed to win the first few hands and increased his stack to 21 million, he couldn’t maintain the momentum. In the final hand, Dinh moved all-in with pocket kings, and Demlakian called with ace-jack. The board came 9-10-5-K-Q, giving Demlakian a straight and securing him the pot and the title.

APL Milliosn 2024 Jackstar Super High Roller Final Table Results (AUD)

Meanwhile, the APL Millions 2024 Event 65 Mini High Roller champion has also been crowned. The event attracted an impressive 472 entries, generating a massive prize pool of A$188,000. The largest share finally went to Daniel Embleton, another pro from Sydney, who defeated Kaiwne Wu in a thrilling heads-up to take home A$42,000, along with a $100K Invitational Seat. This victory marks Embleton’s second APL title. He finished fourth in last year’s APL Millions Gold Coast Main Event, winning a career-high A$187,265. His first APL title came in May 2021, when he won the Deep Freeze event at APLPT Sydney.

APL Millions 2024 Event 65 Mini High Roller Final Table Results (AUD)

Image Credit: APL Facebook Page