Bart Ruyter winning poker at Foster Golf Club on Jan 26th, 2021

Poker returns to South Gippsland

After a lengthy break of nearly a year due to Covid-19 poker made a start at Foster Golf Club on Jan 5th. Since that day, a further 4 events held weekly have been run and last week the Exchange hotel also cam back online in the real world with its first event for 2021.

The turnout is lower than pre Covid-19 as some players take a cautious path towards a post Covid-19 world.

Events have attracted around a dozen players to date down from the usual crowd around 30 regular players, but this is expected to grow as people start to gain confidence to attend events as the year unfolds. 

Several new faces are also evident with a group of three young men now playing regularly at the two South Gippsland venues. Winner of last week’s event at Foster Golf club was Bart Ruyter. Bart was confident in his play and congratulations are in order. Bart celebrated the win by going for a long walk the next day and enjoying the great outdoors in our region.

The Exchange hotel at Foster also came back last week with 14 players making the return. Muted exchanges of greetings were made without the usual handshakes and hugs-poker crowds are friendly places! Event tournament director Trish England explained that organisers had implemented practices to keep players safe such as cleaning chips, playing cards and having sanitiser available on each table. 

Players were glad to meet friends not seen in a year and it felt good to be hanging out in a nice venue with some great locals.

The winner of the evening was David England.