It was mid-2008 when the germ of an idea around a “Sydney Poker Championships” was first born, but little did the executive team at The Star Sydney – then known as Star City – realise just what an institution this annual poker series would become.
As former Poker Manager at Star, Debra Rillo, recounts, the Sydney Champs were created in response of the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) coming to Sydney, with the team keen to offer a tournament series for the local player base.
In 2009 that dream became a reality when the inaugural Sydney Champs kicked off in a makeshift poker space located alongside what is now the Sports Bar.
A total of 324 players took their seat in the Main Event and when the dust had settled, it was none other than high-stakes crusher Jarred Graham – who would go on to win a WSOP bracelet in his preferred PLO variant – that emerged victorious, taking home a $121,500 first prize.
The following year, The Star Sydney relocated its poker room to another temporary home, located upstairs and away from the main gaming floor, with local Andrew Capelin going all the way to take down the $136,942 top prize.
However, this reporter has fonder memories of a small side event called the “Jarred Graham Flipfest” – named in honour of the inaugural champ. The “Flipfest” concept saw blind structures completely flipped with blinds starting eye-wateringly high but gradually decreasing as the tournament went on.
Kene to further promote the series, Star had the idea of buying this reporter into the event in order to write about the experience afterwards.
By the time play heads-up, the remaining combatants were each around 400 big blinds deep under the unusual structure and as fate would have it, I was one of them – facing off against a kid from Sydney’s western suburbs named Daniel Neilson. You may have heard of him.
Still, keen not to spend all night chipping away at impossibly deep stacks, we managed to get it in with Daniel holding AJ against my AK. My AK managed to hold in what to this day remains the obvious highlight of an otherwise unremarkable poker career, taking home a massive $9,310 in the process
Daniel, in the meantime, has gone on to fame, fortune and untold riches … so it seems he recovered pretty well from that unfortunate moment in time!
One of the more memorable editions of the Sydney Champs came in 2011, when Errolyn Strang, a casual player from Wollongong with no major tournament experience to speak of, stunned the field to win the Main Event trophy and $119,542 in cash.
Strang recalls that she entered the 2011 Main Event still so raw to the game that she didn’t know what a three-bet was.
“It was like they were speaking a foreign language,” she laughs in hindsight, having since become a regular on the local circuit.
“And I remember when I made the final table, it was a really long day – we finished quite late at night – and I hadn’t brought anything with me other than a change of clothes and some deodorant. I didn’t have any accommodation booked either, although I ended up staying at The Star.
“When I went and booked a room, the guy said, ‘You have to check out at 10am’. I told him, ‘No I need to stay longer because I’m on the final table of the Sydney Champs’.
“He said, ‘Oh okay, you can check out later … but you don’t look like a poker player!’”
For Strang, winning the Sydney Champs as a mum of two young kids and with a mortgage was life changing, and to this day she remains the only female to have won the Main Event.
Asked if she feels like a trailblazer for female poker players in Australia, Strang says, “I suppose I was but I never really hung in those circles, you know? I didn’t go to the poker parties. I went to one or two and I was like, ‘I don’t really fit in here’.
“But I remember having the support of other women at that final table – there was a little grandstand of nine or 10 of them they built at the end of the table and few of them came up and introduced themselves to me. Julie Adams was one and we’re still friends today.
“It was good to have those women there especially because they told me, ‘You’ve got this girl … but please take you earrings off because when you’ve got a big hand they are shaking!”
On what that week back in 2011 means to her today, Strang explained, “I still really like [poker] and I think it provides a real opportunity for anyone who wants to take it seriously. Manage your bankroll, do all the other things you’re supposed to do and it can be life changing.”
The poker room at Star Sydney has called at least five different locations home in the 15 years since it debuted, and for a brief while could be found down the opposite end of the main gaming floor to its current home, near Rock Lily. This proved challenging on a Friday and Saturday evening when the deafening volume of whichever band was performing at the bar that night made it impossible to hear yourself think.
But that didn’t stop Daniel Laidlaw from adding another notch to his impressive belt in 2013 and another rising star in Martin Kozlov taking the title in 2014.
Kozlov is another who has since gone on to win a WSOP bracelet – not to mention his runner-up finish in the WPT Australia Main Event at The Star Gold Coast in 2023 – but was already showing his class in 2014 with one of the most dominant final table performances ever seen as he knocked out all but one rival on his way to the Sydney Champs title.
He saw victory coming a long way before then, however.
“When there were two tables left, I was talking to Suzy Khoueis during a break and I remember telling her ‘I’ve got this tournament in the bag’. I don’t know why. It wasn’t like I had a dominating position or anything like that, I just had a strange feeling that this was going to be the one. Sometimes you get that feeling and it turns out to be correct.
“The funny thing about was that two of my best friends from poker were also on that final table – Jarred Graham and Daniel Neilson – and I knocked both of them out as well so that was good fun!”
While chatting to Kozlov for this article, the topic of the 2026 Sydney Champs – scheduled to run from 18 to 31 March at The Star Sydney – naturally came up with the former champion admitting he wasn’t even sure when it was taking place.
Yet his interest was quickly piqued upon discovering the series is just around the corner. Asked if playing the Sydney Champs has brought back good memories in the past, Kozlov replied, “Yeah, you’ve convinced me. I’ll book the trip in and have a bash.”
He added, “Every win feels special, right? I was always mostly a cash game player, so for me I treated these tournaments like a bit of a lottery ticket, but every time I won it felt good for sure.”
The Sydney Champs ran for 11 straight years without hiccup until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic saw the series put on hold for three long years following popular Kiwi Hamish Crawshaw’s 2019 victory.
But it returned with a bang in 2022 with the biggest field in Sydney Champs history (1,277 entries) seeing Queensland accountant Qi Xu claim a massive $382,973 payday.
But arguably the most popular win of all came a year later when Sydney local and Star Poker regular Kenny Wang played out his own version of the famous “chip and a chair” story to win the 2024 title and $344,416.
Sitting on the final table bubble, Wang looked certain to become the dreaded bubble boy with just one big blind in front and forced all-in from the big blind. But he tripled up in that hand, doubled in the small and doubled again on the button to breathe new life into his campaign. Twenty-four hours later the trophy was his.
As a poker player, I believe in mindset, mental strength and the law of attraction,” Wang told PMA.
“Before that Main Event started, I had a strong feeling I was going to win the tournament and take the trophy. Maybe you don’t believe it, but from the very beginning I felt like I could win the whole event. In my mind, I had already seen that moment happen countless times.”
Of course, it didn’t quite start that way.
“I played Day 1A and my form was really bad,” Wang recounted. “I was playing very loose and my hit rate was terrible – basically every flop had nothing to do with me. But I still didn’t believe it and kept wanting to see the flop no matter what hand I had. Of course, you can imagine the result.
“When I got home that day, I closed myself off and reflected on my mistakes, so I didn’t play Day 1B. My friends asked me why I wasn’t going and I told them I was staying home to reflect on what I did wrong on Day 1A. In the end, I played Day 1C, and it went very smoothly.
“The other thing I remember is the heads-up battle [against Ljudevit Marinic], because we only played one hand. He shoved all-in with AT and I instantly called with AQ. Then the tournament was over – one and done. You could say it was very smooth; I won the tournament in about one minute.
“It was a very magical journey. As a poker player, I believe we need skill, which is the most fundamental weapon for being profitable, but at the same time we also need physical strength and mental strength. You could say that none of these three can be missing.”
On winning the Sydney Champs on home soil, Wang explained, “I was born in The Star Sydney poker room. I mean, the very first time I played live poker was there going back to around 2007 and 2008. I played cash games in that poker room for many years, and it means a lot to me.
“Many of the old dealers feel like old friends to me. Every time I walk into that poker room, it feels very familiar and welcoming. So, being able to win the Sydney Champs Main Event in that poker room means a lot to me. It’s like the place that has witnessed my real growth over the years.”
Today, some 17 years after it was first held and heading into its 15th edition, the Sydney Champs holds the distinction of being the longest-running home-grown tournament series in NSW – a vestige of what many still consider to be poker’s glory days.
But with Main Event fields bigger than they’ve ever been and a first-place prize expected to be in the range of $300,000, what better time than now for a new name to be added to the impressive list of Sydney Champs winners.
Running from 18 to 31 March, the 2026 Sydney Champs will feature a full schedule of 27 events, up from 23 last year, including the addition of two new large-stack events in The Dominator with its 100k starting stacks and the Bondi Super Stack with 75k starting stacks.
The series will also see starting stacks for the $1,150 Opening Event increased from 40,000 to 50,000 in 2026, and also in the $2,000 Main Event from 40,000 to 50,000.
The series provides players with a range of buy-in levels from $350 for several events to the $5k High Roller Challenge, with player favourites including the Mystery Bounty and Monster Stack returning.
| Year | Winner | Prize |
| 2009 | Jarred Graham | $121,500 |
| 2010 | Andrew Capelin | $136,942 |
| 2011 | Errolyn Strang | $119,542 |
| 2012 | Dean Yuen | $127,133 |
| 2013 | Daniel Laidlaw | $165,000 |
| 2014 | Martin Kozlov | $171,080 |
| 2015 | Ben Jee | $200,634 |
| 2016 | Kahle Burns | $297,203 |
| 2017 | Henry Tran | $300,000 |
| 2018 | Neb Blanusa | $314,265 |
| 2019 | Hamish Crawshaw | $352,800 |
| 2022 | Qi Xu | $382,973 |
| 2024 | Kenny Wang | $344,416 |
| 2025 | Zheming Zhu | $289,427 |
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