ANZPT Gears Up For Final Farewell In Melbourne

The Amaya owned company, Global Poker Tours Limited, which helps organize both the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) and the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT), announced in September that both brands would be merged into one consolidated force under the APPT banner. First stop on the new tour will be the Melbourne Crown Casino where the Aussie Millions will be held starting January 13, 2016, but before then the very same venue will also host the ANZPT’s final farewell between October 8th and 20th.
Last year, the ANZPT Melbourne Main Event attracted a field of 516 players to create a prize pool worth $1.03 million, a record for the ANZPT. The AUD $2,300 buy-in tournament was eventually won by Edison Nguyen, who collected $217,500 for his hard-fought efforts, and this year organizers have chosen to maintain the same freezeout format which has proved so popular in the past. Expressing his hopes for the final ANZPT send-off, ANZPT and APPT president, Danny McDonagh, stated:
“I hope ANZPT Melbourne at the fabulous Crown Melbourne complex can set a new prize pool record as ANZPT’s final event, beating the million dollar prize pool achieved just last season.”
Despite last year’s impressive turnout, however, combining the ANZPT with the APPT makes perfect sense as the tour has found increasing difficulty organizing events, and this year featured just three stops, compared to the eight offered in past years. The APPT, on the other hand, continues to grow with its tournaments popular all over Asia, including Macau, Seoul (South Korea), Manila (Philippines), as well as various locations across Australia. In fact, experts have predicted that the latest merger will only serve to boost the APPT’s popularity going forward, and help it develop into the biggest tournament organizer for the whole region.
In the meantime, Danny McDonagh is preparing his final farewells for the ANZPT, and reflecting on the past stated: “I have been very proud to be a part of the ANZPT. There have been many memorable stops including Darwin, Gold Coast and Queenstown together with the big city venues such as Sydney and Melbourne.”