Husband Replaces Wife At Aussie Millions After Premature Labor

The Aussie Millions is Katrina Sheary’s favorite poker tournament, with six out the local lady’s eight tournament cashes having taken place at the Melbourne based competition. Despite being heavily pregnant, there was therefore no way she was going to miss this year’s series at the Crown Casino, as her baby was not expected for at least another few weeks.
However, her baby had not read the script and after entering the third flight of Event #1: $1,150 No-Limit Hold’em, Sheary then went into premature labor, and had to be taken to hospital while the tournament was reaching its final play of the day. This then resulted in a dilemma for tournament officials, as Katrina Sheary still had a stack of 16BB when she was forced to abandon the action through no blame of her own.
The following day, Katrina Sheary had given birth and rather than allowing her stack to blind off, husband Pete offered to continue playing in her place, which was subsequently agreed upon by the tournament director. As poker tweeter Kevin Mathers wrote:
“She played Flight 3 (of 4), premature birth the next day, husband takes over day after that.”
Needless to say, not everyone was happy with the late substitution, and a number of competitors decided to air their views, including Liv Boeree, who tweeted:
“surely fairest solution for all involved is to pay out the ICM value of her stack?”
Nevertheless, any concerns were soon dispelled after Mathers pointed out the rule that had already been put in place by tournament officials to deal with any such unexpected eventuality, and as he subsequently wrote:
“At the discretion of the Tournament Director, a Tournament entrant may transfer his/her entry to another person, provided that person is entitled to enter the Tournament in accordance with clause 2.2 and he/she has not already entered the tournament.”
Meanwhile, perhaps riding a wave of euphoria after the birth of his baby boy, husband Peter then went on to finish the event in 25th place for a payout of $6,495. So congratulations to Katrina and Peter Sheary on the new addition to their family, and having a poker story no one will soon forget.