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Australia has been the home of an active and vibrant poker and casino community for many years. However, the country has only become a major international tournament poker and high roller destination in the last decade.
Many well-known poker players have called Australia home but it was Joe Hachem who helped ignite the Australia poker boom when he captured the World Series of Poker Main Event championship in 2005.
In addition to more local players making their way to the various poker rooms, or testing their Australian online pokies skills at home, Australia is now the host of some of the world’s most prestigious poker tournaments including The Aussie Millions, The WSOP-Asia, and the Australia-New Zealand Poker Tour; all drawing huge international fields. The high stakes cash games at several of Australia’s casino have proven to be a favourite destination for international players, especially high roller Chinese business executives.
In addition to be the home of poker pros like Hachem, Mel Judah, Jeff Lisandro, and Billy “The Croc” Argyros, Australia is also the home of two of poker’s top female players.
Marsha Waggoner
Marsha Waggoner is one of the most influential players in Australia’s poker history. Marsha is one of the “old school” players and has been playing for over three decades. Tournament poker is dominated by younger players, but Waggoner has proven that she can hold her own against today’s younger pros by making two final tables in the 2012 Aussie Millions poker festival.
Like many poker players, Waggoner got her start as a poker dealer. While dealing stud in Sydney, she decided she was more skilled than the players at the game and decided to pursue poker as a career. To date she has more than $900,000 in tournament earnings and ranks 27th on the all-time Female Money Winners list.
Jackie Glazier
Jackie Glazier is one of the newer Australian poker superstars and has only been playing professionally since 2008. In that short time she has amassed more than $1.2 million in tournament earnings and a World Series of Poker bracelet. She was also the last woman standing in the 2013 WSOP Main Event.
Glazier’s first exposure to tournament poker was a$20 buy-in tournament at a friend’s home game. She found she enjoyed the game and began to play low-stakes cash games at Melbourne’s Crown Casino. She also began to enter some of the casino’s poker tournaments. She told an interviewer that “the buy-in was about $80 and I was so nervous. It was at this time that I decided I preferred tournament poker to cash games. I continued to play cash games to try and build a bit of a bankroll to try satellites and enter more tournaments. In 2010, I started playing more tournaments and by 2011 I was playing full-time tournament poker.”
Even though her tournament success is well documented, Glazier said she almost quit poker. She said “I started playing full time poker way too early. It’s a very steep learning curve and it is hard to survive when you are making so many mistakes at the table. I tried a lot of coaching with various players to fast track my skills in the game but just before WSOP in 2012, I was ready to quit.”
She decided that unless she had good results at that year’s Melbourne Championship she would pursue other interests. Fortunately she made a final table along with winning the main event. She used those results to enter 2012 World Series of Poker, where she had her largest career tournament cash to date as well as a deep Main Event run.
Gamble Responsibly. If you think gambling might be a problem for you please visit Problem Gambling Australia for free help, advice and assistance.