The World Poker Tour heads to Australia for the first time with the coordinates for The Star Gold Coast typed into its GPS.
If you’re the type of person who refuses to wear makeup because of the chemicals, thinks a yeast infection is akin to developing bubonic plague, and turn the Internet router off nightly, afraid that WiFi will give you cancer of the brain then you’d better give Australia’s Gold Coast a miss.
Gold Coast leaders want to turn their home into the leading digital city by 2021, and to kickstart the revolution, they are implanting the vastest LoRaWAN network in Australia, with more than 600,000 sensors and real-time management tools prime to make your decisions for you.
I turn my router off at night, but the folks at the World Poker Tour (WPT) aren’t worried about brain cancer type things. For the first time in the tour’s illustrious history, they are setting sail for Australia, and the Gold Coast will be their home.
Adam Pliska and the team will marry The Star Gold Coast to put on a 10-event festival from Sep 27 – Oct 7 with buy-ins ranging from AUD 330 – AUD 5,000. The sun in this solar system is an AUD 2,500 (USD 1,730) buy-in WPT Australia Main Event on Oct 4-7.
The Star Gold Coast recently underwent an $850 million refurbishment, including the installation of a 56-suite hotel. Geoff Hog, The Star Gold Coast’s MD, called the partnership ‘monumental’ before going on to say that, “Australia is one of the top nations for poker in the world and this event further establishes The Star Gold Coast as a leader in the industry.”
It may be the first time that the WPT will touch Australian soil, but it’s not their first foray into Australasia. Last June, Nauvneel Kashyap topped a 360-entrant field in the inaugural WPTDeepStacks New Zealand Main Event at the SKYCITY Casino in Auckland, and at the time of my rattling the WPT’s team is back in that beautiful resort hoping to host an even better festival.
WPT ARIA Summer Championships edges into day 3; Yilmaz, Schwartz and Zinno in hunt for POY Award
Back to more familiar ground, and there are 37 players left in the $10,000 buy-in WPT ARIA Summer Championships, and two of them could still win the Season XVII Hublot WPT Player of the Year.
Erkut Yilmaz still holds the lead, but after hitting the rail on Day 2, Jake Schwartz and Anthony Zinno can eclipse him to take the award. Schwartz would have to finish fourth or higher to claim his first WPT POY award, and Zinno would have to conjure up an even more incredible run—winning the thing—to secure his second WPT POY title, and fourth WPT Main Event title.
Here are the top five chip leaders, and the final table payouts.
Chip Leaders
1. Igor Kurganov – 612,500
2. Chance Kornuth – 517,500
3. Seth Davies – 492,500
4. Yan Shing Tsang – 432,000
5. Kevin Eyster – 408,500
Payouts
1. $443,475*
2. $285,650
3. $209,980
4. $156,220
5. $117,640
6. $89,685
*Includes a $15k seat into the Baccarat Crystal WPT Tournament of Champions.
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