Sam’s the man at Dawn of the Million

Antonius Samuel won the maiden Dusk Till Dawn Party Poker Grand Prix Million from 22-25 May, topping a field of 7,250 runners to scoop his biggest poker payday.

The Dusk Till Dawn regular pocketed US$100,000 after seeing off a final table that included Kuljinder Sidhu, Daniel Harwood, Nadeem Ali and Tasos Grigoriou.

Facing a hefty deficit against Stacy Coore at the start of heads-up play, Samuel found the poker gods smiling. A couple of unlikely double-ups put him right back in contention and he took control after finding pocket aces against Coore's pocket sevens.

It was all over moments later. Coore looked set for a welcome double-up holding A-2 against Samuel's 10-7 but a 10 on the river gave Samuel the title.

Despite being hit with a huge US$275,000 overlay, DTD chief Rob Yong will be taking another crack at a US$1m guaranteed event later this year. "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," said Yong. "Whoever came up with this one-liner must have caused a lot of pain over the years. We finished on 7,250 entries, 2,250 more than any other Grand Prix in our history, it is probably some sort of record. Everyone involved has contributed their blood, sweat and tears, so delivering improvements in the format and execution second time around is an opportunity to strike this 10,000 target off everyone's bucket list."

The next $1m Grand Prix Million is provisionally scheduled for 14-20 December.

DTD Grand Prix Million
1st Antonius Samuel $100,000
2nd Stacy Coore $65,000
3rd Tasos Grigoriou $45,000
4th Nadeem Ali $35,000
5th Vlad Lazariciu $26,350
6th Daniel Harwood $19,000
7th Kuljinder Sidhu $13,500
8th Patrick Sunter $10,000
9th Bartosz Przewiezlikowski $8,000