Things got underway at around half past twelve today as the first group of players took to the tables in the SKYCITY Festival of Poker Main Event. Certainly no shortage of caps, hoodies, headphones and sunnies as the field got down to business.

Massage was the preference for many to ease away early tournament nerves.

Auckland DJ Sam Hill has his first hand pocket K’s busted by a set on the river, sits back and ponders the poker gods.

Tony Hachem and Eric Assadourian (looking to keep his nose clean until tomorrows sitting)

Brooke Howard Smith host of NZ’s Celebrity Joker Poker always a tiger at the table

The Dealers let their fingers do the work as the cards began to fly and the chip stacks began to change shape

Other local faves Dan Singh and Mike King were also in action in the early session, keep an eye out for more pictures.

CELEBRITY – noun, a famous or well known person.

CELEBRITY POKER TOURNAMENT – noun, a chance to see who out of selected NZ celebrities has an ounce of game at the Poker table.

The SKYCITY Celebrity Invitational gets underway on Tuesday night at 6.15. A stellar field of around 150 entrants from all walks of life will take to the tables for the most part to enjoy the occasion but don’t be fooled by the smiling and handshaking, there is more at stake here than purely bragging rights. That’s the great thing about our game, almost everyone fancies themselves as a contender and you can be sure the tension levels will be high come the business end of this event.

Here is the just a sample of the ‘talent’ this tournament has attracted and what could be better than to watch your favourite celebs making calls they should never make and taking down pots the experts tell them they have no rights to be in. Just imagine the fun with some of these potential head to head battles.

Ian Smith & Mark Richardson, Mark Sainsbury & Paul Holmes, Hamish McKay & Neil Waka, Richard Loe & Allan Whetton, Siobhan Marshall & Fleur Saville, Vicky Lee & Aja Rock, Savage & Mareko, Kathryn Powely & Kylie Bailey

So as the SKYCITY Festival of Poker rolls on, get a crew together come up to Level 3, grab a drink then sit back and watch the best live drama there is – POKER !

Sorry folks, it’s been one of those weeks.

I came back from Adelaide, unfortunately without any Kiwis in the money. Both PokerNZ sponsored players Grant Kearney and ‘downtrou’ were knocked out on their opening days and a few other Kiwis who had ventured over were also out of the money.

I did have some great photos of the last few days but unfortunately my memory card was wiped (NEVER trust it when they say X-Rays won’t damage them!).

Overall though, the ANZPT Adelaide was a huge success with 215 players registering and a total prize pool of $586,950 up for grabs, making it one of the largest ever 1st time stop on a Season 1 Pokerstars.net tour.

The Adelaide casino was a grand place for such an event and I’d like to make a special thanks to David Galpin, who helped sort me out with Media Passes and giving me access to the Poker Zone with my camera. The whole Adelaide Casino staff and PokerStars team were so helpful and friendly, even to a little old blogger like myself. I look forward to visiting again next year.

So what’s next for Poker NZ?

Later this week I’ll post an interview with Toni Quedly, Poker Manager at Auckland’s Sky City. I was fortunate enough to meet with Toni a couple of weeks ago where she told me all about what’s happening up at Sky City, the history of poker there and what we can expect up in the Poker Zone over the next few months.

Also I’ll be introducing some new contributors to Poker NZ, with so much happening around the country, I can’t keep up by myself! If you’d like to be a contributor to Poker NZ, please contact me through the site.

With the NZ Poker Champs coming up in March and the Sydney ANZPT in April, there will be plenty of satellites available so I’ll keep you posted as to how and when to enter these.