It’s no surprise to many readers that Australian women poker players have it tough. In fact they have it tougher than most women worldwide. There are a number of factors that contribute to making playing poker for the women in Australia a tougher past-time, hobby or job than the majority of other countries.

As per my previous article about the masses of Australian women poker players, one would assume that these women have opportunity to take a big step up alike those in the USA, Canada and the like. Really though it is and has become a very hard task.

In Australia poker players call Monday "gogogo day!" Women around the country wishing to participate in online majors such as 750GTD, 1Mil GTD even 30k GTD have a very early start. Players must set their alarm clocks to wake as early as 3 am for some tournaments. For mothers, ladies that work, or even the female poker professional, this is not an easy task. Sure pushing the buttons on the alarm clock can be done without an issue but dealing with the consequences and the issues that these early tournaments cause is a huge deal and a massive roadblock for Australian women.

If a women has to go to work, she needs to leave her tourney behind. If a woman has to take her children to school the same applies. For women with a profession in the industry it interferes with her daily routines, destroys sleep patterns and makes life a living hell for the next few days - its equivalent to jet lag.

Any wonder we are not seeing Aussie women (or women from New Zealand) doing well in the Sunday (here Monday) major tournamentss. It’s all bout being majorly handicapped merely by being awake at that hour in our lives. While players that are overseas are in the prime-time of their relaxing Sunday, we are sleepy as we are awake when our body clocks disagree. Decision making, focus, stamina and calculations to play our A game, are difficult to say the least.

I have personally altered my preparation for the online major touranments by sleeping until 11 pm Sunday night, then waking and starting my Monday at that hour.  I have found a definite increase in my game performance. The days following though see a downslide in every other activity and duty I undertake as part of my daily routines.

In recent times it has been made that little bit rougher for Aussie females in live tournaments too. Sure there are mixed gender tournaments that a lot of women are happy to play in. When it comes to women’s only events though; it appears they have slid off the agenda of almost every tour.

Pokerstars ANZPT tour started in Adelaide last month with the series kicking off with a ladies only event. Adelaide is one of the smallest ANZPT pit stops when it comes to tournament numbers; the ladies only event saw around 40 women take to the felt. It appears that the rest of the ANZPT tour has excluded ladies only events from its schedule since the Adelaide opening. The idea to move ladies into buy-in tournaments is what these events were orginally made for. At this rate, the increase of Australian women who buy-into tournaments is going to dwindle.
There are a few tournaments on Australian turf that are still providing a stepping stone for the ladies including the recent Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series (JHDSS) where more than 100 women took to the felt to play the ladies night and Star City Casinos Pink Diamond ladies tournament. The JHDSS is an annual event meaning the ladies get a chance to play among women-only once a year. Star City Pink Diamond Ladies tournament is in general run monthly but with some breaks over December through to February.

In the past Australia has been notated as “The Lucky Country”.  It is evident with fewer opportunities through ladies only poker events, that lucky does not apply to women in poker down under.