Poker in Sydney

Pavement

Heading over to Oz in a number of weeks and was looking for some Poker tourneys in Sydney ~ 50 quid buy in. Any know of some good venues?
Nothing listed on the Star City site
I know I shouldn't be playing but u cannt beat a game for a few hours

Norwich Fan Rob

theres a huge casino is sydney harbour afaik.
i heard the standard is low, but the rake is very high.

ionapaul

Looking into it, doesn't seem that Star City offers poker tournaments at all, or live games (info seems a few months old). I'm gonna be based in Sydney for 5 or 6 months from early November, gotta get my live poker fix from somewhere though!

peeko

I've just bought a house and will be moving to Australia early next year, so hope the rake isn't as bad as I've heard, or I'll never get my live game going

spectre

I'll be there from November onwards as well so if anyone knows or hears of any potential tournament/cash game action out there, please post it.

BrokenArrows was living in Sydney for a while he told me that there is 5/5 NL Holdem game with a fixed buyin of AU$200 on in Star City. Also available is the not as popular but bigger 5/10/10 NL with a fixed buyin of AU$500.

The rake sounds shockingly high I'm afraid - they take $1 per hand from each player for the cash games.

EDIT: This structure cash game sounds horrible, tough to have much of an edge with the stacks being so shallow and rake so high.

The casino hosts poker tournaments every now and then but the structure tends to be pretty crap. Apparently, a lot of pubs around the place advertise pub tournaments as well.

RasTa

Dont hit the Roulette tables in that Star City Casino, they are evil!

Tinytony

As far I can remember Star City used to run a big tournament every Sunday, not sure if it's still in operation though.

Johnster

Hey,

Im new to the forum so Hi.

I am living in sydney. I havnt played live yet cos I play mostly online but i'll try find out about tourneys. I think they do a $200 game every week. Live cash every night but it is a $1 per hand rake. No idea of standard but i'll try and find out.

Later.

Pavement

Cheers folks !

accensi0n

I'll be over there from the start of november as well.

Doesn't sound like there's any good value games there so far...

ionapaul

But we can get a nice home game going, don't ya think?! 4 of us going to be based there from the start of November...

accensi0n

There's two others going with me that play poker as well.

We can all put our savings together and start a good poker room.

bohsman

Ill see you all in Melbourne in January for the Aussie millions so.

ionapaul

Apologies for resurrecting old thread but as I now live 5 minutes from Star City casino and have purchased a laptop, I can report on the situation there.
They have a very big tournament coming up in mid-December and all their tournaments at the moment are satellites for this (I think it is a $5,000 buy-in, $600k prize pool). They run a $150 or so Monday sat (starts at 12 noon), a more expensive Wednesday sat (starts at 6pm I think) and a super sat each Sunday ($650 buy in I think, maybe starting at noon?). They have advertised payout structures for each of these, it looks guaranteed based on a max number of runners (between 120-150 I think) which they must be confident of getting. The blind structure isn't great (20 minute blinds levels, blinds increase in standard format) and only Sunday do you get a decent starting stack. They also run 1 table sats throughout the day based on demand for tickets to the Sunday super sats - if you win a ticket, you must play the following Sunday, you can't defer to a later date. Haven't played one of these yet.
With regard cash games, these start at 12 noon, with interest for the different tables registered from 11.30. I have only played the $80 game, which is a $1/$2 no-limit game, buy-in is $80 (no more no less), top-ups when you are under $80 are again to $80 no more no less. After a few hours many on the table will be sitting with $300+ while new entrants start off hoping for a quick double up to compete. Fee is $5 per hour, plus 10% of each pot up to a max of $8. From my limited experience, the game is very very soft, players know what they are doing but are extremely loose, play semi-tight for an easy $200. Lots of other bigger limit tables, 5/5 and 5/5/10 games, some Omaha and Manila.
Anybody else (who still checks into boards!) find out any info on other games across the city? See lots of pub poker tournaments advertised but have heard they are not much fun for someone used to well-run or structured live tournies.

spectre

PM sent ionapaul

therealzuppy

I'm in Sydney too lads and have played on the aforementioned $80 NL cash table. My name was on the waiting list for 3 hours and I was there at 2pm. Queues are horrendous. Standard isn't that good. Sydney has gone poker crazy though and there are tournaments on in the RSLs and pubs everyday throughout the city. I've play pub games at home and they are absolutely awful. They're better in Sydney. I play on Tuesdays in Paddington RSL. It's a good atmosphere and a good bunch a lads so a decent night out. $20 buy in freezeout and the company that runs it takes no rake. They're paid by the venue. The standard is horrendous and so's the tournie structure tbh but as far as I can tell so far, that's the best you can expect over here. From what I've seen, the aussies play for fun, they've no real interest in learning about the game or improving. Yep, standards pretty bad. If anyone can point me to a decent live tournie, I'm mad for it!

accensi0n

Havn't gone to Star City yet.

The only game i've been playing over here is a freeroll freezeout where the top 2 get entry in a tourny that will be held on the 11th of December. The prizepool for that is $4000.

The freeroll tournys are on every sunday and monday downstairs in Cheers on George St.

Have to head to Star City soon.

ionapaul

Just came back from another successful trip to the $80 tables in Star City and was asking a few of the lads about tournaments in town - they said there is no real choice. This in a city of 4 million! Only freeroll/$10 buy-ins in pubs and clubs or the bigger ones in Star City. Someone also mentioned a new card room opened up near Bondi but he didn't have details. Somewhere like the Fitz is badly needed here...
Haven't had to wait longer than 30 minutes or so to sit on that $80 game, but haven't played Saturday or Sunday yet and I arrived before 1pm each of the times I have played so far - I heard that it is really manic late on Fri and Sat nights, they have about 15+ cash tables but that the numbers wanting the play are huge! TBH if you have seen the standard of women out on the town on Fri and Sat nights, you would be forgiven for wondering why anyone would want to play poker with the lads on those nights - no thanks!

accensi0n

ionapaul wrote:

Just came back from another successful trip to the $80 tables in Star City and was asking a few of the lads about tournaments in town - they said there is no real choice. This in a city of 4 million! Only freeroll/$10 buy-ins in pubs and clubs or the bigger ones in Star City. Someone also mentioned a new card room opened up near Bondi but he didn't have details. Somewhere like the Fitz is badly needed here...
Haven't had to wait longer than 30 minutes or so to sit on that $80 game, but haven't played Saturday or Sunday yet and I arrived before 1pm each of the times I have played so far - I heard that it is really manic late on Fri and Sat nights, they have about 15+ cash tables but that the numbers wanting the play are huge! TBH if you have seen the standard of women out on the town on Fri and Sat nights, you would be forgiven for wondering why anyone would want to play poker with the lads on those nights - no thanks!

Yeah, much higher standard of women over here.

I'll be heading to Star City tomorrow, hopefully get there for about 12pm. Gonna play the $80 tables.

spectre

The star city casino makes me miss the Fitz, for a number of reasons:

1) rake is huuuuuuuuge. in the 5/5NL max buy-in $200 game the rake is a dollar per player per hand

2) Etiquette or the serious lack thereof. It is common practise for players not involved in the hand to shout out "CALL HIM, HE'S GOT NOTHING!!!"

3) Simple concepts like the betting line are not understood by anyone (including the dealers). Many times people just stack their chips infront of them (but not over the line) intened as a call.

4) The game structures are a joke. $200 max buy-in for the 5/5NL game, ridiculous.

There are many more I'm sure, I just can't think of them off hand. In short, don't play cash games in Star City

carfax

spectre wrote:

The star city casino makes me miss the Fitz, for a number of reasons:

1) rake is huuuuuuuuge. in the 5/5NL max buy-in $200 game the rake is a dollar per player per hand

2) Etiquette or the serious lack thereof. It is common practise for players not involved in the hand to shout out "CALL HIM, HE'S GOT NOTHING!!!"

3) Simple concepts like the betting line are not understood by anyone (including the dealers). Many times people just stack their chips infront of them (but not over the line) intened as a call.

4) The game structures are a joke. $200 max buy-in for the 5/5NL game, ridiculous.

There are many more I'm sure, I just can't think of them off hand. In short, don't play cash games in Star City

Hi,

Have you checked out the APA http://www.poker-apa.com/Default.aspx?tabid=61

When I was last there these were the only places to play, especially in Sydney.
Star City was a joke but it seems to have come on a little bit with the boom.
Once a few more places start to open up there will be lots of competition and rakes will be reduced.

spectre

carfax wrote:

Hi,

Have you checked out the APA http://www.poker-apa.com/Default.aspx?tabid=61

When I was last there these were the only places to play, especially in Sydney.
Star City was a joke but it seems to have come on a little bit with the boom.
Once a few more places start to open up there will be lots of competition and rakes will be reduced.

Thanks Carfax, I'll definitely look into this.