Phil Ivey has successfully defended the Super High Roller event he won last year and in 2012.

Happy New Year Phil, have another $2 million

For the third time in four years, Phil Ivey has started the year with a seven-figure title in Melbourne.

He has just defeated Mike McDonald heads-up to win the $250,000 Challenge for a first prize of $2,205,000.

He won the exact same event last year for $4,000,000, and previously in 2012 for $2,000,000.

Of course each time the fields for these Super High Roller events were relatively small, with just 25 entries this year. However, when you consider they featured big names like Douglas Polk, Erik Seidel, Scott Seiver, Isaac Haxton, Igor Kurganov and Ole Schemion, it was still a very tough event.

That concludes the Aussie Millions this year, which also saw businessman Richard Yong win the $100,000 Challenge for $1,870,000 and Melbourne local Manny Stavropoulos win the $10,300 Main Event for $1,385,500.

The next big event on the poker calendar has already started. EPT Deauville is underway in France and you can catch the live stream of it starting tomorrow right here at PokerStrategy.com.

Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge Position Player Prize (AUD) 1st Phil Ivey $2,205,000 2nd Mike McDonald $1,592,500 3rd Douglas Polk $1,401,500 4th Scott Seiver $735,000 5th Erik Seidel $551,000 Entries: 25

Does this win signal that Ivey is the greatest? Or do these small field Super High Rollers distort the tournament rankings, even if they are full of big names? Let us know in the comments.