There's something you do not want to have at the opening day of the APPT Auckland Main Event...a hangover.
Waking up a little bit sore and sorry is also something that's part and parcel of the APPT, but with a 10:15am start time this year, a pounding headache is something that no player desires to maintain today.
The coffee is robust this morning with around 50 players rolling away from bed and taking their seats on Day 1a of the APPT Auckland Main Event. Most seem pretty proud of the early start and with eight levels to be played today, they'll be out of here by about 6:30pm tonight to enjoy a feed and a quiet beverage or two within the city.
The reasoning behind the early start time is very simple, as APPT President Danny McDonagh explained to us.
"With a limit at the selection of tables within the poker room, we brought the beginning time for the hole flights forward, to liberate tables in order that the money games and side events don't start too late," explained McDonagh.
"It's only at the opening flights, because the field can be reduced sufficiently small on day two that it won't affect the side events to run them concurrently. So players will only be affected for one day."
It's the earliest start time for an immense championship that we will recall, but McDonagh informed us that it's actually not the primary time a 10am start has happened at the APPT.
"Back in 2007 in Sydney, we had an enormous field and a three-day tournament so we started at 10am, but that is the just one I WILL BE ABLE TO recall," added McDonagh.
For Macau-based McDonagh, it is a time shift that may give anyone a marginally of jetlag. Just over per week ago, the Asia Championship of Poker had days starting at 6pm local time that's effectively a 12-hour swing when you think about the time zones. The overall day of that championships finished at 8:30am local time, this means that event finished later than today's flight even started.
The excellent news is that players don't appear to mind. Some of the online pros in this side of the sector are used to waking up with the birds to play online majors. The early start hasn't dulled the amount of Oliver Gill who's here chatting away with great vigour, with other notables on Day 1a including Angie Fitzgerald, Dean Francis, Dean Blatt, James Honeybone and Australian Poker Hall of Famer Leo Boxell.
Stay tuned to the PokerStars blog for stories from the APPT Auckland Main Event while the live reporting feed provided by PokerNews are available here.
Heath "TassieDevil" Chick is a contract Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com]
No comments:
Post a Comment