To be honest I’d planned more pomp and ceremony around the announcment of The 2010 PokerNZ.com Awards. As we’ve been saying here since the beginning: To build poker we have to build the culture of poker and that includes rewarding exellence. A big party with promo girls and actual girls would have been great and for a while one was planned. But Stars decided not to throw a party this year {Luckily for them as the 4 hour heads up would have seen to that anyway}. So with very little ceremony at all we handed 2010′s Poker Player and Rookie Of The Year their PokerNZ.com Awards – Which look a lot like bottles of Tequila. I’ve come to terms with how sedate this all was. Poker is young in New Zealand, and PokerNZ.com is young. We were stretched on cash to buy the big bottles of Tequila {And we know Cole drinks like a 6 year old girl} so we got them the half size bottles. When you look at the photo it’s fun to imagine the bottles are full size and Simon is the size of Shaq. So here are the results:

Custom made Tequila gives you the exact same hang over... Photo Phil Crawford, Thanks to SKYCITY

Poker Player of the Year:

Over 300 people voted and Virtually everyone but Simon’s close friends and Mike King Voted for Simon Watt for 2010 Poker Player of the year. We can tell when someone votes for them self Mike.

Rookie of the year:
This started out close but in the end Cole Swannack pulled away for a clear victory. 2009-2010′s been a stella year for the upstart. I like to think of him as the Justin Beiber of New Zealand poker. Baby, Baby, Baby…

Cole (left) & Simon (right) pose for a photo. Photo Phil Crawford, Thanks to SKYCITY

Poker League of the year:
This is one we thought would be closer. With all the players playing in the NPPL, Jackpot Poker, the APL and The Kiwi Poker League I would have thought that one of the Auckland nominees would have won but instead PokerFun from the central North Island took it down. Look out for these guys, they seem to be doing a good enough job to inspire over 200 people to vote for them!

Poker Host Administrator of the year:
Almost everyone that voted for PokerFun also voted for Gerry Keating, PokerFun’s main man. He seems to be beloved down that way and should start to think about running for mayor after the support he got in our awards! For his hard work Gerry will receive a night in a luxury King hotel room in Auckland. Congratulations.