Notable players who made it through were Grant Levy and Emad Tahtouh (Melbourne).

Tomorrow over 30 players will be joined by Eric Assadourian and Celina Lin and our own ‘downtrou’, all gunning for that final table.

With the crowd in Queenstown growing every day, you can be sure the bars will be packed this week!

ANZPT Queenstown

From the 20-25th of July, Quenstown’s Sky City will be hosting the first ever ANZPT Queenstown tournament with over 70 international poker players competing for a prize pool of over $450,000!

Players from Canada, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America will all be flying in to the adventure tourism capital of the world for what is going to be one of the best PokerStars events ever!

Several players from the PokerNZ community were playing for satellites into the event and our very own ‘downtrou’ managed to win a seat! I caught up with him earlier this week and asked him about the event….

downtrou

PNZ: This was a hotly contended prize package, so just how hard was it to win this seat?

downtrou: Well, um… It is probably easiest to tell you how it came about. I entered at hyper turbo satellite, short-handed (300 chips only and 3 min blinds) for US$44 on PS. There were some 30 entrants with about 5 x $215 tickets to the ME satellite, this game was on about 30mins before the ME satellite started. I scored in this game and then sat in for what i hoped would be a long session.

The ME satellite had around 29 entrants which meant there was only one package on the line. Long story short.. I played tight, was average to below average in chips throughout. Approx 3.5 hours in I hit the final table, last in chip stack count and within one hour had taken out the game! Stoked, especially since it was the first satellite PS had put on for this event, nice to have it locked away early which meant some serious planning could begin – bring on the boarding!

PNZ:
We’ve been hearing that there are some amazing add-ons that were added to your prize package, what were they?

downtrou: Yea, this has been sick, the guys at PS have out done themselves. There were Tourism add-ons available which included fly-in, cruise, fly-out day trip to the Milford sounds, lunch etc OR fly in Heli ride then white water rafting, lunch etc and also an evening meal & gondola ride. The other option was a Snowfileds package…

It was a tough, tough decision, but over the past couple of months they added more to these options and eventually (as a keen boarder) I chose the snowfields option. This includes; 4 day passes for Coronet Peak and/or the Remarkables, transfers to/from the Mountains (lessons if needed) AND a limited edition PS ANZPT QT branded snowboard, bindings and bag , lunch is included too. There is also a gourmet BBQ they are putting on up at Coronet Peak on the Thursday night, 4 courses.. I just hope one of teh courses is a liquid one, good times, can’t wait

PNZ: Now you also won a seat to the Adelaide event earlier this year, what do you think you learned from that tournament that might apply to this one?

downtrou: You can’t beat bad nor dumb luck! As usual, I am going to play my game, the cards and the situations that I face and hopefully lady luck will be kind!

We all wish downtrou the BEST of luck and if you want to get in on the action, you can buy a piece of his stake through this link at ChipMeUp.

If you haven’t got an account, use this link to get an account at PokerStars, one of the most preferred poker sites for Kiwi players online. This link will give you $50 when you deposit $50.

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/

downtrou wins a Queenstown ANZPT qualifier

With the ANZPT kicking off in Sydney soon and further out, Queenstown, we know there are a lot of Kiwi’s trying their luck to win a place at both events.
Ultimate dream packages are being offered by PokerStars for the Queenstown Event including 7 nights accommodation, $750US spending money and some amazing tourist packages thrown in (click here http://www.anzpt.com/news/), so the competition has been fierce.

But luck was on point for PokerNZ’s own downtrou (check his profile on this site) in the first Queenstown Sattelite, held Monday night 10pm. With only 26 entrants there was just the one package up for grabs and after a determined 3h43m downtrou is on his way to Queenstown – best of luck and bring it home mate!

“Yeah, pretty stoked, yet another excuse for a holiday and what better place in the world to have an event – only problem is I’m gonna be torn between Poker and Snowboarding not to mention the partying, gonna be so cool seeing everyone and coming home!

As usual there were a heap of Aussies in the Sattellite so always good to win out over em but when it came to heads up it was “konspirator” from Los Angeles, with an even chip stack I knew I was in for a battle. The breaking hand was about 10mins in to the HU session where my A9 spades came good with the nut flush on the river and with 23K chips left I bet half into the pot to which he folded, this left him on 21K and me on 57K, from here it was a real cat n mouse race. As we all know, anyone can win in this position so I was extra cautious, some 30mins later I had him thinking he knew my game and then when I underplayed my pocket Queen’s he went all in, he had Js9s and when an entirely red board came, AJ3A10″ it was in the bag, gg!!

Hope to see SampleOG, Matt Wall and few other local crew in Queenstown as well as some of the Aussies I’ve been rubbing shoulders with in recent months at these events!”

PokerNZ will be attending the Queenstown ANZPT in full force again with a team of supporters and hopefully a few more familiar faces on the felt.
Check out www.anzpt.com for more information about the upcoming tournaments.

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.

The Croc and downtrou

It was certainly noticable how tight people were playing today, after 4 hours there was only 10 players eliminated compared to yesterday’s field that had shrunk considerably at the same time. Perhaps flight 1 had set the level, so competitors were playing tight and conservative all day long.

Around 4:30 sadly, Kiwi hero Graeme ‘Kiwi G’ Putt was elimnated leaving only a few Kiwis left in the game.

As the tournament drills down, I’m thinking that tonight’s game could go longer and as the players head to dinner shortly, the prize money has been announced. 1st place will take home over $190,000AUD and the top 18 people will be in the money.

With blinds going up every hour, it was going to be a long, slow and steady game but already some of the tables had people going all in within the first few hands.

Grant checks his cards

Kiwi player Grant Kearney was off to a good start but then after 2 1/2 hours was forced to go all in with what seemed like a dead cert. After the turn came, Kearney held the nuts - a full house (5′s full of 2′s) but was taken out by a higher full house after a King came on the river and his opponent showed up pocket Kings, putting an end to his day on the felt.  Kearney had won his seat through a PokerStars satellite, so despite being knocked out, was greatful for the experience. 

Matt Wall at the table with Joe Hachem

Fellow La Vida Poker player Matt Wall was another Kiwi who had won his seat through a satellite and was looking good, staying alive for almost four hours. Sadly he too was to be called and taken out, putting an abrupt end to his tournament. Matt was playing at the same table as Joe Hachem and said “it was great just to be able to play along side him”.

So at the end of the day, there were only 37 players left with day 2 kicking off shortly, let’s hope some of our other Kiwis (including Poker NZ’s own ‘downtrou’) can bring home the bacon.

downtrou wins a seat in ANZPT

Following on from an epic week of poker with the Aussie Millions and Auckland online players ‘sampleOG’ and ‘magicNZ’ winning satellite seats to the ANZPT in Adelaide, we didn’t think it could get much better. But on the eve of Australia Day, Melbourne based Kiwi ‘downtrou’ has just secured one of the last PokerStars satellite seats in the ANZPT in Sky City Adelaide in February.

With  final table dominance having been in last position for over 3/4 of the tournament, left little doubt once he hit the final table. As the chip leader with 30% of all chips in play (over 210,000), he was obvious for at least a 6th place berth.

He will be joined by a huge support crew and as someone who witnessed his game from hand 1 to gaining a final table seat with the highest chip stack, I can confidently say he will definitely be one of the dark horses to watch.

Poker NZ will be at the ANZPT blogging all the results as they come to hand.

Congrats to downtrou, sampleOG and magicNZ, you lads go make us proud!