Back in 2012, Phil Ivey topped a field of 16 entries to win the LK Boutique $250,000 Challenge for AU$2 million, and two years after that he'd win it again by outlasting a field of 46 entries to capture the AU$4 million first-place prize.

Aussie Millions 250k Challenge 2016

Phil Ivey Defends LK Boutique $250,000 Challenge Title to Win AU$2,205,000. Mike McDonald Eliminated in 2nd Place (AU$1,592,500) Doug 'WCGRider' Polk Eliminated in 3rd Place (AU$1,041,500). Aussie Millions 2016: Steve O’Dwyer wins the LK Boutique $250k Challenge! Aussie Millions 2016: LK Boutique $250,000 Challenge Live Updates. Ari Engel wins 2016 Aussie Millions Main Event. Aussie Millions 2016: Final Table Live Updates. That means the three largest cashes of Ivey's career have all come from the Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge. This year, Ivey conquered a field of 25 total entries, which climbed from Day 1's 23. The final day of the 2016 Aussie Millions will bring the conclusion of the largest buy-in tournament of the series - the LK Boutique $250,000 Challenge. Yesterday saw 15 entrants in this event and a short day of just six levels would reduce that to just 12 players.

Those were impressive feats, but now Ivey has done the unthinkable by defending his title to win the prestigious event for the third time in four years, not to mention the AU$2.205 million top prize. That means the three largest cashes of Ivey's career have all come from the Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge.

This year, Ivey conquered a field of 25 total entries, which climbed from Day 1's 23 thanks to one late registrant, Brian Rast, and a reentry from Isaac Haxton. That created a prize pool of AU$6.105 million that was distributed to the top five finishers.

$250,000 Challenge Payouts

The day began with a flurry of action at Table 10. In fact, the first three hands of the day resulted in three eliminations. The first to go was the short-stacked Ole Schemion, who shoved with the and failed to overcome the of Doug 'WCGRider' Polk. On the next hand, Igor Kurganov got it in with sixes only to run into Polk's pocket sevens, and one hand after that Rast shoved with the and lost to the of Haxton. That meant Rast, who finished fifth in the Aussie Millions Main Event the day before, got to play three hands for his AU$250,000 buy-in.

Aussie Millions 250k Challenge 2016 Results

After Jason Mo ran the into the of Scott Seiver to bust in ninth, the final table of eight was set. From there, Dan Smith fell when his failed to crack the of Ivey, and then Ivey got lucky with the to eliminate Isaac Haxton, who held the , in seventh place.

Not long after, the bubble burst in Level 11 (12,000/24,000/3,000) when Richard Yong, who two days prior topped a field of 70 entries to win the $100,000 Challenge for AU$1.87 million, three-bet all in for 307,000 over the top of Ivey's open to 55,000. A call was made, and the cards were tabled.

Yong:
Ivey:

Yong was ahead, but Ivey was drawing to two live cards. The flop kept Yong in the lead, but then the dealer burned and turned the to pair Ivey. Yong needed an ace on the river to survive, but it wasn't meant to be as the bricked. Yong left empty-handed in sixth place while the remaining five players were guaranteed at least AU$551,000.

Aussie Millions 250k Challenge 2016 Leaderboard

Former $250,000 Challenge champ Erik Seidel was the first in-the-money elimination after getting his short stack in with the only to run into the of Polk. The board ran out a clean , and Seidel was out in fifth.

It took a little while for the next elimination to occur, but it happened when Mike 'Timex' McDonald made a flush on the turn to knock out Seiver, who had fired three bullets into the event. That means with the AU$735,000 prize Seiver received for his fourth-place finish, he only lost AU$15,000.

In the first hand back from the dinner break, Polk three-bet all in with the only to have McDonald four-bet all in over the top with the . Ivey, the initial raiser, got out of the way, and the flop came down . Even though McDonald flopped top pair, Polk picked up a flush draw and a pair of his own. Polk had two pulls to get there, but ultimately he was left wanting as the blanked on the turn followed by the on the river.

Heads-up play began with Ivey holding 3.61 million in chips to McDonald's 2.64 million, but the defending champ was able to whittle away his opponent before getting lucky to finish the job, which Ivey acknowledged in his winner's interview. The final hand happened when McDonald raised to 100,000 and then snap-called off for approximately 1.3 million when Ivey moved all in.

Ivey:
McDonald:

McDonald was in a great spot to double, but then the flop came down . Ivey paired his king, and suddenly McDonald was in need of either an ace, jack, or some other lucky runout of the cards. The turn wasn't what he was looking for, and neither was the river. With that, McDonald finished as runner-up for just under AU$1.6 million, while Ivey successfully defended his LK Boutique $250,000 Challenge title. It also moved Ivey into third place ahead of Dan Colman on the all-time money list.

That does it for PokerNews' coverage of the 2015 Aussie Millions, but our PokerNews Live Reporting team is currently in France covering the European Poker Tour Deauville, which you can follow by clicking here.

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Aussie Millions 250k Challenge 2016 Winner

Steve O’Dwyer cannot be stopped.

In 2015 he made 10 final tables and won 4 titles, cashing for more than $4.5 million. In just the first month of 2016 he made four more final tables, capturing two titles and cashing for $2,820,030 along the way. The most recent of those title runs came in the 2016 Aussie Millions LK Boutique $250,000 Challenge. O’Dywer topped a field of 16 entries in the quarter-million AUD buy-in super high roller event to win $951,960 AUD ($744,829 USD).

As a result of this latest win O’Dwyer has moved to 14th on the live poker tournament all-time money list, overtaking Michael Mizrachi with his new earnings total of $14,863,825.

In addition to the money O’Dwyer also scored 600 Card Player Player of the Year points for the win. With fourth place finishes in the WPT Philippines $200,000 super high roller and the Aussie Millions $25,000 high roller as well as wins in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $50,000 high roller and this event, O’Dwyer has surged into second place in the POY standings. He has already accumulated 2,178 points in just the month of January. That’s nearly a third of the points earned in all of last year by reigning POY winner Anthony Zinno, who had an incredible 12 months on the circuit.

Only the top three players were slated to cash in this high stakes small-field event, but the final four of O’Dwyer, David Peters, Connor Drinan and recent Aussie Millions $100,000 challenge winner Fabian Quoss agreed to make a deal that distributed the prize pool between them, leaving only $100,000 AUD, the title and a championship ring to play for.

In the end it came down to O’Dwyer and Peters for the title. O’Dwyer began the battle with the lead and still had a slight advantage when the final hand arose. With blinds at 20,000 – 40,000 O’Dwyer raised from the button to 100,000 and Peters defended from the big blind. The flop brought the Q63 and Peters checked. O’Dwyer bet 115,000 and Peters made the call, prompting the dealer to roll out the 10 on the turn. Once again Peters check-called, this time to the tune of 230,000. The river brought the 7 and Peters checked for a third time. O’Dwyer moved all in for Peters roughly 1.4 million, having him covered by a few hundred thousand. Peters quickly called with the Q7 for two pair, only to get shown the Q10 for a higher two pair for O’Dwyer.

With that Peters was sent to the rail as the runner up and O’Dwyer captured his latest high roller title.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded in this event: