We’ve found our seats at the blogging desk in The Star poker room, which will be our home for the next five days, and I must say, this new poker space here at The Star is rather impressive. We’re at the other end of the casino to where the poker room has been situated previously, extending almost 360 degrees around the Rock Lily lounge.
The poker room here at The Star has previously struggled from a lack of foot traffic, cramped space and competing with pokies on the main gaming room floor, but the new space has a real feeling of luxury. There’s a heap of space between tables, which will be fantastic for reporting, and while we’re in a separate area from the main gaming floor, we’re still attached to nearby gaming areas which should see plenty of passers-by wander in throughout the week.
There are around 30 tables in action and most of those will be in use as Day 1A of the $2,200 ANZPT Sydney Main Event has just kicked off.
So what does it feel like sitting down for Day 1 of a Main Event? Well, let’s compare it to one of Sydney’s greatest landmarks.
The journey ahead for our players is a long one. They’re standing on step number one, and when they look up there are 134 metres and 1,332 steps ahead of them to climb the bridge all the way to the top.
Some of our players won’t make it. They’ll tire along the way and their journey will be brought to an early end, but for those who make it to the top, the experience will be well worth it.
Reaching the ANZPT final table in such a huge field is a cherished moment, but for one player, they’ll climb higher than them all, raising the trophy high above Sydney as our eventual ANZPT champion.
That moment is still five days away as the climb has only just begun. We’ve heard that we’ll be playing a full eight levels tonight, which means we won’t be out of here until 2:45am tonight. We hope you’ll stick with the PokerStars Blog throughout the evening as we bring you the stories both on and off the felt while my esteemed colleague, Joshua Bell, brings you all the hand action in the live reporting section of the site.
Heath “TassieDevil” Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.
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