888’s own poker pro James “Welcome Back” Potter captained the 888poker Australian Poker Team in its quest at the Battle of the Nations at the Asian Poker Tour (APT) 2009 in Macau.
Representing one’s country is unquestionably a big honour. My good friends at the Asian Poker Tour contacted me and asked me to captain the Australian Team at the Battle of the Nations in Macau. I was honoured and incredibly excited by the opportunity.

First of all I needed a sponsor so who better than the best internet poker site in the world, 888poker? 888poker already had Aussie legends like Shane Warne and Jeff Fenech on the books and they said he would love to sponsor the team. ‘888poker Team Australia’ was ready to roll.
I needed to find six players which wasn’t going to be hard. I wanted to get a good balanced team, of proud Aussies that would take it seriously. I first lined up Aussie Millions Main Event Champion Stuart Scott. An obvious choice – he’s one of Australia’s biggest names in poker and he has two million reasons to suggest that he is a true gun. I then went to Andrew Scott, one of the world’s biggest pro blackjack players and recent convert to poker. I needed calm head and I knew he wouldn’t be phased by the pressure. Big and loud Dennis Huntley is as Aussie as a meat pie and sauce so he was a no brainer. Ben Savage a former race car driver, who has been burning up the felt instead of the bitumen in recent years and was a good bet considering his recent record. Lastly I grabbed internet young gun from Adelaide Jonathan “Monster Dong” Karamalakis. He is quickly becoming one of the big names in poker both in Australia and internationally. With this line up I’d chosen a good mix of talent, experience and most importantly a shared ambition to do the best we could for our country.

Qantas got my trip off to a flying start pandering my ego as national captain with an upgrade to business class. Now Macau is really somewhere you want to put on the agenda. Forget Vegas, this little island is situated off the mainland of China and is a short 40 minute ferry ride away from Hong Kong. Macau turns over more gaming revenue than Las Vegas and Atlantic City put together, so when it comes to gambling, drinking and partying this is the only place you want to be. Our hosts the Asian Poker Tour really looked after us when we were there and I also got to meet 888poker players that had won their way to the APT Macau Main Event on 888poker including Canadian superstar Papa Jack

The ‘Battle of the Nations’ is a new event for the APT. Team poker is the next big thing in poker. Although tournament poker is traditionally a very individual pursuit, if you tweak the rules a bit it makes for an exciting team based event. This can be a little tricky but thankfully all APT tournaments are run by none other than Matt Savage the undisputed champion of tournament direction. So with the integrity in place it wasn’t hard to attract some of the world’s biggest names in poker. Johnny Chan, Nam Le and JC Tran were just a few of the superstars making up the 14 international teams to compete.
The American and the Korean teams were very strong but the Aussies were generally considered the next biggest danger. We were all realists, we weren’t striding out onto to Lords wearing the baggy green or lining up to face the Haka against the All Blacks but we were six proud Aussies flying the flag. I am not the most sentimental bloke in the world but this was the chance of a lifetime and I have to say my normal cold hard poker exterior was replaced with childhood excitement as we sat down to play.

Unfortunately in the end there was no happy ending to the dream and the Koreans came away with the title. We did at least easily beat the Great Britain side and landed a nice side bet which stopped them gloating about the Ashes for a few minutes. We finished mid field after struggling to find the hands we needed. Gutted, 888poker Team Australia headed to the bar vowing that future redemption was a mere formality. The Aussie team will be back, make no mistake about that and we will be looking to bring the trophy back down under. You can also make your way to interesting poker locations all around the globe by playing affordable satellites in the comfort of your own home at 888poker. Thanks to my loyal team mates, the wonderful people and our fantastic sponsor 888poker.