If you live in Australia and New Zealand, apart from benefitting from the pleasures of sunshine and summer right now, you also stand to benefit from the newest edition to the PokerStars calendar, the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour.

This unique series of events, which kick off next month, come amid the growing popularity of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour which includes the APPT Sydney event which has proven one of the highlights.

Searching for the next poker star the ANZPT will stop by the region's best casinos with a league-based series of events that awards points to the number of events players and the position finished.

The tour runs through to July but begins in Adelaide's SKYCITY Casino in Adelaide - the home of Australian poker, the place where Texas Hold'em was first reaches Australian shores, introduced to the county in 1987. It will feature as part of SKYCITY Adelaide's Hold'em Championship, running until February 7.

"Following the success of the second season of the APPT earlier this year, we are excited to be expanding poker further throughout this region" said ANZPT spokesperson, Danny McDonagh. "The ANZPT will provide Australian and New Zealand poker players with a professionally executed tour in their own backyard."

As you'd expect, some of the game's finest, including PokerStars.net Team Australia members Grant Levy, Eric Assadourian, Celina Lin, Tony Hachem and Emad Tahtouh, will grace the tables for the PokerStars.net ANZPT in up to six locations.

What's more nightly freerolls from Monday to Saturday will take place on PokerStars.net each week in the lead up to the February kick off, with the top 20 players
qualifying for a Sunday evening final. The winner of each Sunday final will receive a package to ANZPT Adelaide. It's your chance to be part of poker history -see you in SKYCITY.