The innovation of using two venues is creating plenty of interest early on day 1A of the PokerStars.net ANZPT Queensland Main Event. There are plenty of SMS messages, phone calls and MSN pings going back and forth between Conrad Jupiters on the Gold Coast and Conrad Treasury in Brisbane, which are situated 70 kilometres apart.

ANZPT kingpin Danny McDonagh is on site in Brisbane, where Landon Blackhall reports that the atmosphere was edgy this morning as preparations were finalised for the first major tournament ever played in the casino.

Shortly after the first player hit the rail on the Gold Coast, the action was also thick and fast at the Treasury. The money was all in pre-flop between Chris Browne holding [as] [ah], only to have the table erupt as Ryan Xuy rolled over [ah][ac].

"Are we going to see a sweat?" asked one player. Yep, we sure did - the flop came down [2h] [4h] [10h], sending the table into a frenzy. Browne slammed his palm on the table, begging the turn and river to blank, which it did [9c] [6d]. Chop, chop.

A few hands later, there was some heavy betting between Brendan Rubie and Serge Mazza pre-flop. Eventually Rubie moved the last of his stack into the middle and Mazza snap-called, turning over pocket aces against Rubie's kings. The board ran out [5s] [6h] [4h] [10s] [10h] to leave Rubie, one of Australia's brightest online talents, crippled. He departed just minutes later.

Three more players have left the tournament area at Jupiters, but those seats have been filled with eager alternates, including Julian Cohen who joins his brother Hugh in today's field.

We've noticed a couple of other interesting points about the Gold Coast venue - it's one of the few poker rooms from where you can see daylight, and the dealer button is called a buck. Why?

We've asked three different people and received three different answers, but by far our favourite response was "blame Brisbane". Big brother syndrome is alive and well in the Sunshine State. That's passing the buck if ever we've heard it!