Biggest table on the cards for poker aces

James Anderson, left, and Martin Cardno keep their cards covered at Sky City's poker championships. Picture / Greg Bowker

Martin Cardno has a secret weapon in a card game where it's not so much about the cards as the way you play them.

"It's the number four. I find it hard to fold on a pair of fours."

So when the New Zealand champs for Poker: No Limit Texas Hold'em began on Saturday, Cardno was delighted to find himself in seat four on table eight.

Even better, when the finals began, he had the fourth biggest stash of chips.

But when the tournament at SkyCity Casino ended, Cardno's good luck number had halved - he came second, winning $6000.

The winner was James Anderson, a wily Scot who had gone into the finals with only the seventh biggest lot of chips.

Anderson, 27, won a package that will take him to the biggest table on the poker calendar - the World Series of Poker: No Limit Texas Hold'em in Las Vegas in July - a prize worth nearly $40,000.

The number four wasn't Cardno's only weapon.

Of the 10 players around the table at the finals, Cardno was the only one fully frocked out in a cap and dark glasses.

Others said caps and glasses were for wimps.

"People with glasses suck," Mike Catty said. "It usually means they're no good."

Catty came 42nd.

James Honeybone - who got a place in the tournament by winning the Hamilton Casino competition - said: "I stare. I've got a nice stare. It scares people."

Honeybone's stare got him to 22nd.

Winner James Anderson's only frills were nerves of steel: "I don't wear anything. I just go in and play."