While obviously known more for cricket, Shane Warne has recently become quite involved with poker and charity.

Just one week from now marks the beginning of one of the year’s biggest tournament’s, the 2012 Aussie Millions. Based at Crown Casino in Melbourne — Aussie Millions features not only a prestigious $10,000 buy-in Main Event, but a multitude of compelling side events. Action kicks off on Thursday the 12th, with opening event offering a $1,100 deep stack tournament, with three available “flights” on separate days. The tournament plays like a “3x-chance” in the sense that it offers players three chances or “bullets”, enabling them the ability to re-register each new day independently regardless of whether they busted a previous day.  With a structure that features longer levels as day 2 begins, and a more workable buy-in, this is a great opportunity for many up and comers to make their mark in the live scene.

The next event on offer at Crown is the 5th annual “Joe Hachem and Shane Warne Charity Poker Tournament”, which features a $1,150 buy-in. Presented by the Shane Warne Foundation, the tournaments primary goal will be to raise funds for ill and underprivileged children all across Australia, and will feature an impressive array of both pro’s and well-known celebrities. There will also be live music, and an auction with major items available, with some of the proceedings also going to the charity. Continuing on, the following Monday — the 16th, introduces even more events. These include mostly buy-ins around $1,000, with Pot Limit Omaha, a NLH Shootout and a 6-handed no limit event available. Since side events occur in a similar fashion throughout the event, if you need specifics, the best place to look is at the Aussie Millions website, where a schedule can be found here.

The 2011 final table of Aussie Millions Main Event

Outside of the smaller side events, what many would call the ‘real action’ begins on Sunday the 22nd with the first of 3 flights involved in the $10,000 Main Event. The attraction of the Main Event has grown from year to year, with 2011 putting forward 721 entrants, and offering up a $2,000,000 first prize. To make matters more interesting, the final table in 2011 was shot inside a film set called “Studio 3″, which offered seating for more than 500 spectators, and a delayed live stream on the internet for those at home to watch the action. It seems that in this regard, Aussie Millions is following suit with the World Series of Poker, which was ablaze with discussion this year after live streams were made available online. Whatever the case, you can be sure that the action available this year will be top notch, and we’ll be sure to follow the progress of any kiwi players.

Like many other series of its like, Aussie Millions also offers a High Roller and Super High Roller tournament; catering to those who love high stakes action. The first of such events offered begins shortly after the first flight of the main event, with the “$100,000 challenge” scheduled for 2 p.m. on the 22nd. Following roughly a week later the series rounds off with the $250,000 challenge on the 27th of January, which sets players out with 250,000 chips, and blinds which start at 500/1000.

All in all, January is going to be a huge month to kick off poker in 2012. Whether it’s the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure or the Aussie Millions, or perhaps the resurgence of the online poker market, there is something on offer for everyone. Stay tuned to PokerNZ as we bring you the best of kiwi progresses in the coming months.

After some late nights and long days of play a final table resulted and looked like this:

ANZPT - Melbourne Champion Levick

Seat 1: Heath ‘TassieDevil’ Chick (283,000)

Seat 2: Rodney Burles (168,000)
Seat 3: Sam Khouiss (354,000)
Seat 4: Chris Levick (969,000)
Seat 5: Jie Gao (517,000)
Seat 6: Ben Savage (682,000)
Seat 7: Gregory Shillig (190,000)
Seat 8: Peter Aristidou (432,000)
Seat 9: Kristian Lunardi (713,000)

Some 9 grueling hours later, it was PokerStars.net qualifier Chris Levick that won out over regular and pokernews’ own blogger, Heath ‘TassieDevil’ Chick. Levick took home AUD$158,050 for 1st place and the inugural ANZPT – Melbourne Championship Trophey.

Next on the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour is ANZPT Queenstown. It is a 5 day, NZD$2,500 buy-in event held at Skycity Queenstown from July 21-25. Qualify at PokerStars now and receive $50 free with your first deposit by clicking the banner below:

]]> http://www.pokernz.com/archive/anzpt-melbourne-ps-qualifier-levic-goes-all-the-way/feed/ 0 http://www.pokernz.com/archive/melbourne-poker-champs-downtrou-just-outside-the-bubble/ http://www.pokernz.com/archive/melbourne-poker-champs-downtrou-just-outside-the-bubble/#comments Sun, 24 May 2009 07:56:31 +0000 Admin http://www.pokernz.com/?p=362 After an intense tournament at the superb Crown Casino, it was  Xiao Cui who took out event 7 of the $230 No Limit Hold Em 100k Guarantee.

PokerNZ’s own ‘downtrou’ was in the race and looking good early on when he busted out Paul Taylor with his QsQh against Taylors AsQd. The 3d5d7s flop didn’t help either of them, nor did the 8h turn, but the 4h river sealed the deal and Taylor busted out, not far from the money. downtrou moved up the table with just over 30,000 in chips and was looking good to make the bubble.

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, as a few hands down it was Adam Brown who moved all in with his JhJd, downtrou calling with AcAd! Both were still looking good as the spread came out 10d, 10h, 6h, 4d and then…..Jc! Brown roared with delight and downtrou was forced to leave the table, just outside of the bubble. An unlucky break, but showing that even the best hand can be beat.

Brown later busted out in 5th place taking home $8,000 for his efforts.

The Melbourne Poker Champs runs until June 17 and all details can be found on the Crown Poker website

http://www.crownpoker.com.au/

One exciting new addition to the already packed 2009 schedule is the third leg of the ANZPT (as covered in the article above).

Last year’s Main Event winner James “Jabba” Broom took home a healthy $134,602 in prize money and is sure to be returning to defend his title.

You too could go down in Australasian poker history and with satellites starting from just $2 + 20c at 888 Poker why not start today? If you don’t already have an account at 888, use this link to get 100% Bonus up to $400

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Click here to view the full schedule of tournaments, good luck and see you in Melbourne!

Stewart Scott $2m richer today

Unfortunately the final table had to shift into a TV studio, so the general public was unable to witness the final table in the flesh, but those who did get to view it certainly got their fair share of poker excitement.

Heading in to the final day it didn’t take long for the first player (Barney Boatman) to fall. He did start off short stacked and Zach Gruneberg despatched him in 8th place, giving him $100,000 for his troubles.

The Brit, Richard Ashby was next to fall only moments after Boatman and joined him on the rail following a battle with Rajkumar Ramakrishnan, putting $150,000 in his pocket.

Zach Gruneberg, the young American freeroller who won his seat from a Cake Poker satellite was next to hit the skids, ending a profitable journey Down Under adding $210,000 to his $35,000 win from Event #4.

Sam Capra was another player who won his seat in a $320 satellite, leaving in 5th place with $300,000.

Rajkumar Ramakrishnan busted out in 4th place to pick up $400,000 after an enduring battle that saw half of the final table’s hands played between the four players.

Just before midnight Elliott Smith went down, taking away $700,000 and leaving Stewart Scott and Peter Rho to go heads up. Rho’s stack of 2.9 million against Scott’s 10.7 million soon took a walloping and Rho walked away with $1m while Australian Stewart Scott took away the bracelet, the $2m and the pride of his nation as he managed to do what Joe Hachem tried to, and bring the Aussie Millions back home.

For full hand by hand run-down, visit PokerNews.com

Zach Gruneberg with his ultimate poker face

When I first came into the poker room, I don’t know what it was, but something about this kid just shone out to me.

His crew were supportive and humble, hes a solid player and it’s going to make a great story! Zach Gruneberg, the youngest in the field that’s left and he goes out tonight with a high chip stack.

Here’s how they finishd up at the end of the day:

Seat 1: Zach Gruneberg – 1,355,000
Seat 2: Barny Boatman – 349,000
Seat 3: Elliot Smith – 1,120,000
Seat 4: Richard Ashby – 658,000
Seat 5: Stewart Scott – 4,520,000
Seat 6: Peter Rho – 2,420,000
Seat 7: Rajkumar Ramakrishnan – 2,050,000
Seat 8: Sam Capra – 1,161,00

The cameras were flying around the room as everyone waited for the bubble to burst.

For those that don’t know, the ‘bubble bursting’ is where the last player who is NOT in the money gets knocked out of the tournament. Once this happens, the bubble has burst and the remaining players are all in the money.

In the case of the Aussie Millions, the top 64 players walk away with at least $15,000.

So with the bubble now burst and the final days ahead of us, you can bet the poker room at Crown will really start to fill up as spectators scramble to see the action.

As Day 3 closed, here’s the top 10 chip stacks

Antonio Casale – 1,513,000
Nico Behling – 1,306,000
Dane Lomas – 1,158,000
Max Pescatori – 1,082,000
Robert Akery – 940,000
Peter Mobbs – 908,000
Maximilian Bracht – 837,000
Michael Chrisanthopoulos – 803,000
Robert Holster – 770,000
Erik Seidel – 752,000

Day one of the H.O.R.S.E. event had the finla table like this:

Seat 1: Joe Meissner — 43,000
Seat 2: Jarred Solomon — 65,000
Seat 3: Van Marcus — 123,500
Seat 4: Leo Boxell — 104,500
Seat 5: David Morton — 38,500
Seat 6: Michael Guzzardi — 98,000
Seat 7: Kerry Stead — 81,000
Seat 8: Anthony MacNamara — 34,500

Mitchell Carle

Using the new PokerPro automated poker tables, event 2 of the Aussie Millions was staged at Crown Casino on Monday with Brisbane player Mitchell Carle taking out the 2nd ring of the series.

Carle is no stranger to the event, taking out 3rd place in the PokerPro event in 2008.

PokerPro’s automated ‘dealerless’ poker tables suit online players better as it’s very much a ‘singular’ game, with less opportunity for spotting ‘tells’.

Each table has 10 players and the smaller field and faster pace of the game meant that it took 83 players less than 8 hours to finish the whole tournament.

Carle got to the final sitting up against Daniel Neilson but was still going head to head with a 3:1 chip stack.

It only took a few hands and Carle emerged victorious, picking up the $25,000 prize with Neilson taking home a handy $16,600 for his troubles. For full play by play coverage of the game, please visit pokernews.com.