Buildup to ANZPT Adelaide

Von nzvr4poker, 05.02.2009, 4260 Aufrufe, 61 Kommentare | Kommentar hinzufügen

Hello again everyone. Welcome to South Australia; and more specifically Adelaide. This is my first time in Adelaide and marks the furtherest point west that I have been in Australia so far. I am here of course for the inaugural ANZPT (Australia New Zealand Poker Tour) tournament. I just want to quickly recap the events here so far and also answer a few questions some of you have made in the comments section of the blogs so far.

Two days ago (Tuesday) I arrived here in Adelaide to a scorching heat I have perhaps only felt in Melbourne and Las Vegas. The barometer was showing 38 degrees Celsius and there are rumours that the temperature could break 40 Celsius by the end of the week. On the same mid-morning flight from Sydney was a good poker friend of mine called Eric Assadourian. He is a Pokerstars sponsored player from this part of the world and has a very good poker pedigree and is a genuine all around nice guy. We shared a cab to the Hyatt Regency hotel and then I got some rest as he ventured off to play the Omaha tournament at the casino.

Now, as any of you know who have been to a Pokerstars tournament before, there is a party on the night before the actual event starts. Adelaide was no exception and I found a few of my good mates from Melbourne – Andrew Demetriou (won the Crown Casino’s best player award in 2008), Steve Topakas (came 2nd in an Aussie Millions side event this year) and Billy "The Croc" Argyros (an inductee into the Australian Poker Hall of Fame), and we made the short 50 metre treck down to the Sky City Adelaide casino.

Some other people playing cash games joined us for the party which was a barbecue held in an outdoors area of the casino. I grabbed a beer (low carbs of course) and had a meal with a good poker friend of mine Michael Chrisanthopoulos (3rd in 2008 Aussie Millions main event) and a couple of guys from Melbourne who I didn’t know plus two New Zealander’s – Carl and Steve. Steve is living the poker dream as he is a builder by day and just enjoys poker as a hobby and comes to a lot of the Pokerstars tournaments in this area of the world – APPT (Asia Pacific Poker Tour) and ANZPT. During the week Pokerstars announced two more venues on the ANZPT including Sydney, which is perfect for me as I live there now, from late April into early May, and Queenstown in late July, after the WSOP (World Series of Poker), with more venues to be announced at later dates.

Of particular interest to me is Queenstown. My family has accommodation there and imo (in my opinion) it will become the best venue in the Asia-Pacific region for poker. Queenstown is located in the lower part of New Zealand’s south island and is the adventure tourism capital of New Zealand, and some say the world. It has scenery to die for and many different attractions especially in winter (June-August here in the Southern Hemisphere) . That is one tournament I will be playing for sure.

Being the socialite that I am, I decided to go and hang out with some more of my Aussie (Australian) poker mates at another table. Dennis Huntly and his fiancee Jennifer were there and Gary Benson and his friend were with them. I’m very good friends with both Gary and Dennis and I see them at all the tournaments around this part of the world. We drank some wine and reminisced about all things poker. Tournament director Danny McDonagh (the downunder answer to Matt Savage from the Americas and Thomas Kremser from Europe), came and spoke to us about the ANZPT. Exciting times for all! I had some photos taken with my friends at the party so I will post these when they become available.

Yesterday I decided to relax and watch Day 1A of the main event for a couple of hours before retreating to my room to watch the hand history of my online mate win a seat to EPT Dortmund. I usually prepare for a tournament by going over notes or watching online videos but this time I was fortunate to have a good hand history to look at and query online.

Thankyou for all of your comments on my blog entries so far and some of you have asked some interesting questions. I thought I would take some time to answer them in this blog. Before I took up poker I was a University student. Recently I completed my bachelor’s degree. My degree is in business management majoring in the areas of finance and human resource management completed at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. Next year I plan to do a one year course called a post-graduate diploma in property management in the south island city of Christchurch. I was born in a small town in the north island of New Zealand called Rotorua; a very popular tourist destination. I lived my first 18 years of my life in the sea-side north island town of Tauranga, located about 200 km south-east of Auckland (New Zealand’s biggest city), on the east coast of the north island. I then spent approximately five years of my life in the University town of Hamilton located about 100 km south-west of Tauranga and about 150 km south of Auckland to complete my tertiary education to this point in time.

New Zealand has casinos in five cities across the country. These are Auckland and Hamilton in the north island. Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown all have casinos in the south island. Each of these casinos has a card room allowing people a chance to play Texas Hold’em poker or on the odd occasion Omaha (usually in Auckland and Christchurch only). Auckland has the biggest area for poker with 18 tables and imo is the best place to play poker live in New Zealand, followed closely by Christchurch which has seven tables during poker championships on which to play poker and hosts our national poker event - New Zealand Poker Championships, every year (late March in 2009). Hamilton and Queenstown both only have two poker tables open for play and I’m not sure about Dunedin as I have not ever been there, but I am guessing one or two tables. I would recommend playing live only in Auckland or Christchurch, however Queenstown will be a fantastic venue on this year’s ANZPT. Online poker is legal here in New Zealand, so you will have no problems playing on any site at all, and the best times to play in the timezone there (GMT+12) are from around 7 am to 6 pm and then 1 am to 7 am. All of the major sites have lots of traffic at these times so there is plenty of action available.

Finally some of you want to know which events I plan to play abroad outside of the Asia-Pacific area this year. As I am now a bit more settled in my personal life I won’t be doing such an extensive travel regime like 2008, however I believe I will be around Las Vegas for the WSOP main event. I’m also considering playing in the WPT Niagara Falls tournament in Canada and possibly the BCPC (British Colombia Poker Championship) as I have a lot of friends in Canada and have always wanted to go there. I will attend those tournaments barring a conflict in my busy Asia-Pacific tournament schedule, and they will be late this year. After September, my girlfriend will be finished up her course and we may look to come to Europe to do some more sight-seeing and so I can play some tournaments  If this season’s EPT (European Poker Tour) schedule is similar to next years I could conceivably play in the EPT events in Barcelona, London, Budapest, Warsaw and Prague. Finally, I plan to attend the 2010 PCA (Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure) in the Bahamas as I hear it’s in a beautiful location and could allow me to spend this year’s New Years Eve in Miami which would be totally awesome.

Well now it’s time for me to get in some more last minute preparation before the main event begins here for me. I look forward to sharing some key hands from today and some photos from here in the near future. Talk to you all soon.