New Zealand's top poker players will this week converge on Auckland's Sky City casino, looking to bet, raise and bluff their way to an Auckland Anniversary Deep Stack Championship title.
Sky City's eight-day tournament series culminates in a $1100 buy-in Main Event tournament which starts today and allows players to enter more than once, if they are eliminated on day one.
The Deep Stack series will feature five events among multiple satellite tournaments including a $230 buy-in Pot Limit Ohama event, $230 Ladies event, $230 No Limit Texas Hold'em Turbo Deep Stack and a $200 Super Turbo Deep Stack.
The Anniversary weekend tournament series has been running since 2007, when the Main Event buy-in was $250 and since then Sky City casino has seen a few ebbs and flows in poker's popularity.
"During the tighter economic times of the last couple of years numbers decreased but we are steadily seeing an increase in the last 12 months," said Sky City Auckland Table Games Manager Radha Vellanki.
Late last year 224 players ponied up $2,500 to enter the Main Event at Sky City's Festival of Poker series, which generated a whopping $506,250 prize pool, eventually won by Australian pro Minh Hau Nguyen for $111,600.
The Auckland Anniversary series drew 182 entrants across three events last year, and a similar number of entrants are expected this year.
For the full list of tournaments, dates and buy-ins, click here.