2 Comments The Eight Points of Enlightenment: Melbourne Champs - 06/2/09
When Steve Topakas pushed all in holding just ten-high on a board reading J♥ A♣ 5♠ 2♠ 3♣with Tudor Kondevski making the call holding A♠ 7♠ we saw another champion crowned.
As the Melbourne Poker Championship wrap up for another year, here is my continued tournament summary with The Eight Points of Enlightenment: Melbourne Poker Championships.
1 – Affordable: Having affordable side events is a must so as to attract the small-stakes tournament grinders such as myself. Similar to the Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series, side events were on the very affordable side ranging from the $120 Morning Series to $175, $230 and $340. Basically being able to get a taste of tournament poker without breaking the bank is a must in any local championships series (in my opinion).
2 – Side Events Too Long: I’m not sure if the structure was too good or if the players had improved, but all the side events ran way into the early hours of the morning. With all events playing down till just one remained, maybe returning the next for the final table would have been a better option than the 5am finishes.
3 – Big Names Not In Attendance: The one thing that let the Melbourne Poker Championships down (if any) was the lack of attendance by some of the big names of Australian poker. Jay ‘Seabeast’ Kinade, Joel ‘StrongPlay’ Dodds, Dean ‘dinhjo’ Nyberg and Jarred ‘FlopNutsOnYou’ Graham were just a few that played the ANZPT Feature Event only not to play the Main Event. A few other notables that didn’t partake in either included Michael Pedley, Joe Hachem and Jason Gray.
Now it is understandable that some would miss out due to the World Series of Poker kicking off on May 27th, but instead of having to choose maybe scheduling the Melbourne Champs a week earlier would open the door up for a few more players to make both trips.
4 – Secondary Feature Event: Over the past few years Jonno Pittock and Crown have always implemented a Feature Event into the championship that is separate to the Main Event; the 100k Challenge, State of Origin and now the PokerStars.net ANZPT Melbourne. Having this $2,700 buy-in event attracted a great array of poker players and satellite winners from around the country.
I think this not only boosted the class of the Melbourne Poker Championships but also reinforced that poker is still going as strong as ever even through the tough economic conditions.
5 – Morning Series: The Morning Series is a series of four events during the first week where you gain points to play a qualifying freeroll for a seat into the Main Event. With a buy-in of only $120 and Holdem, Omaha Hi Lo, Mixed Stud and Crazy Pineapple on offer, everyone gets a chance at playing a wide variety of games.
The prizepools may be small but the players that turn out are there for some fun knowing that a four-figure collect is unlikely, but a few hours of fun and laughs is more probable!
(it also gains a bonus mention as I made the Mixed Stud final table!)
6 – Main Event Structure: The Main Event structure was different to anything I have seen before. Apart from it being a repechage; which helps boost the prizepool, the structure was different to anything I’ve seen before. Day one played nine 40-minute levels, while day two switched to 60-minute levels, and once at the final table they were extended again; this time to 75-minutes.
I thought this was interesting as I think it benefits the better player as the tournament goes on. As I previously said however, I think I would have preferred day one being extended so as to reduce the day two starting field – but when it comes to tournament structure . . . no one is ever happy!
7 – Mad Ass Huge Trophies: Crown always produce really nice trophies and for the Melbourne Poker Championships it was no exception! They stepped things up for this series by increasing the size of them – no joke, these things were absolutely massive and for the ANZPT feature event they even had two for the winner!
8 – Tudor Who?: Unlike previous Main Event’s that I have covered for PokerNetwork we always knew that the money would remain in the local poker industry. However with Tudor Kondevski capturing the $150,000 first prize we have no idea if he’ll use it to ‘stimulate’ the poker landscape like others before him or tuck it away in his home safe.
With another successful series on home turf, all the attention can be turned to the Mecca of poker tournaments with the World Series of Poker just a flight away.
So make sure to stay logged on to Tilted Behaviour as the updates are going to flow hard and fast with plenty of action from the Rio coming your way!
