New South Wales Wins State Of Origin At Crown Poker

Posted at 09:00 2012-10-26 by Matthew Pitt

The ANZPT Melbourne festival is in full swing and one of the most eagerly anticipated events has been completed – the State of Origin. The very best players from each state of Australia, plus a few from New Zealand too, ditched their friendships and battled it out at the Crown Poker felt.

In the opening tables three of the New South Wales team gained maximum points, captain Grant Levy, ANZPT Queenstown champion Dave Allan and Aaron Benton getting their state off to the very best of starts.

When all the other results were in, including wins for Aussie Millions champion Oliver Speidel and Jarred Graham, the final table was set. New South Wales were the team to catch, but their 36,500 chips were only narrowly in front of South Australia’s 35,000.

2012 State of Origin Final Table

Seat	Team	Chips
1	New South Wales	36,500
2	Queensland	28,500
3	Western Australia	13,000
4	Victoria	20,000
5	South Australia	35,000
6	New Zealand	28,000
7	Tasmania	27,000

Thanks to the blinds starting as low as 50/100 there was plenty of room for manoeuvre – even Western Australia’s 13,000 stack held 130 big blinds. This meant the captains had time to rotate their team in the early stages, ensuring everyone got a fair crack at the whip.

The first team to be sent to the rail were the pre-game favourites Victoria. James Broom committed his stack with and Jarred Graham made the call with a pair of eights. The snowmen stayed ahead, busting Broom and leaving Victoria to pick up the proverbial wooden spoon for last place.

One by one the teams started to fall by the wayside. Following Victoria were Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and then Western Australia, setting up an intriguing clash between New South Wales and New Zealand for the honour of being the State of Origin champion. The one-on-one encounter saw some great poker played and New Zealand would have claimed the victory had the river not being so cruel to them on more than one occasion. New Zealand would ultimately become the runners-up when Slava Sheynin’s could not beat the of Grant Levy and with that New South Wales scooped top honours.

2012 State of Origin Results

Position	Team	Prize
1	New South Wales	$35,000
2	New Zealand	$15,000
3	Western Australia
4	South Australia
5	Tasmania
6	Queensland
7	Victoria

Individual Winners

Name	Team	Prize
Jarred Graham	South Australia	$2,500
Aaron Benton	New South Wales	$2,500
Grant Levy	New South Wales	$2,500
Oliver Speidel	Victoria	$2,500
Joe Cabret	New Zeland	$2,500
Dave Allan	New South Wales	$2,500
Charles Caris	Queensland	$2,500
Josh Barrett	Queensland	$2,500

_{Lead image courtesy of Crown Poker, whose information was used in producing this article.}

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