There’s something in the air tonight.
We’re not talking about the odours emanating from the blogging desk, but an immeasurable quality of excitement and anticipation that can’t be easily defined. Most opening days of tournament have that same quality, but here in Sydney at the start of the ANZPT Main Event, that feeling has certainly been heightened as a star-studded field take to the felt of The Star for Day 1A of ANZPT Sydney.
Perhaps it’s a feeling of being in the harbour city. They don’t do things by halves up here in Sydney. So when the ANZPT rolls into town, it not only attracts professionals who follow the tour, but many recreational players and even a few former regulars who have dusted off the old card protector to be a part of this major event.
It’s the sort of event that you can’t afford to miss.
In the minutes leading up to the start of the day, our desk was a popular stop for players on their way to taking their seats, and it was great to catch up with so many familiar faces.
Ken Demlakian, Ricky Kroesen, Phil Willcocks, Ash Mason, Peco Stojanovski, Stevan Chew, Andrew Dales, Sam Capra, Jackson Zheng, Jesse McKenzie, Robert and Luke Spano, Ashton Cartwright, Matt Wakeman, Octavian Voegele, Daniel Neilson, Asia poker starlet Percy Yung, 2010 Aussie Millions champion Tyron Krost, previous APPT Queenstown winner Dave Allan, former ANZPT Sydney champion Dinesh Alt and Australian Poker Hall of Famer Jeff Lisandro are some of those we’ve spotted on our first orbits of the room and perhaps we’ll even see a few more latecomers to add to the current 175 entrants.
We’ve also spotted Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang making an appearance here in Sydney. Huang is a big fan of Australia and after a strong start to the year, will be hunting valuable points in the ANZPT Player of the Year race.
When the big game rolls around the cream usually rises to the top, so it will be interesting to see if any of our notable players make a deep run or Sydney will unveil a new poker star of the Australian poker scene.
The excitement in the air can also be attributed to a full and bustling poker room. At one end of the room, the ANZPT High Rollers Event is down to a final table, while a Pot Limit Omaha Event is also in full swing. Any spare table in the room is consumed by cash games which are expected to produce some monster pots this week.
We’ll be playing seven levels in the Main Event this evening which will take us through until around 1:45am tonight.
Stay tuned into the PokerStars Blog throughout the evening for the stories from the ANZPT Sydney while PokerNews deliver the hand action in the live reporting section of the blog.
Heath “TassieDevil” Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.
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