Mike Azzaro, who is also known as ‘MikeyCasino’ online, is having a very good time on the virtual felt of late on New Jersey poker site, NJ.Partypoker.com, which of course was founded in partnership with the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa.
Even though PartyPoker only recently started offering big Sunday majors for players in New Jersey, hosting a huge $50k GTD to kick things off on the first Sunday of December, Azzaro has remarkably won the the first two $200 buy-in Sunday tournaments held at NJ.partypoker.com.
The poker pro, who resides from Yonkers, NY, had spent most of his time prior to NJ online poker regulation, grinding the live circuit, mainly in Atlantic City and Pennsylvania. However, once regulated online poker was launched in New Jersey, he made the trip to NJ to play in the $50k guaranteed event hosted for New Jersey players.
As Azzaro explained to PokerNews, the first tournament he took down at Party since the NJ regulation was a “real grind to the money.” During the Dec 1 event, he was fortunate in doubling up on the money bubble, which gave Azzaro an above average stack heading into the final table, after which he ran good in several big pots.
The first Sunday GTD paid out a bit more than $8k for the first place prize money, and things worked out really well the next week, when he collected another $7k after taking down the same event. It should go without saying that Mike will be going for a third consecutive win when he plays in Sunday’s $50k weekly guaranteed at Partypoker.
Considering the $400 that he invested for both tournament buy-ins to date, the ROI for this event has been nothing short of phenomenal. Understandably, Azzaro, who has been on a rollercoaster ride over the last few weeks, is giving serious consideration to relocating to New Jersey. Not being from New Jersey, he is considering a move to the Garden State so he wouldn’t have to travel every time he played an online tournament or cash game on NJ.partypoker.com and other New Jersey licensed poker sites.
“I’m looking at some places near Atlantic City right now, but nothing is set in stone.” If he can maintain this ROI then traveling expenses won’t eat into his profits a great deal, but even though Azzaro would hope otherwise, obviously that would be fairly unrealistic.
And as you would expect, given the enormous success that Azzaro has experienced playing at the PartyPoker New Jersey site, he will be calling this poker room his primary home for online poker when playing in New Jersey, at least for a while.
Partypoker’s big flagship tournament is obviously a huge reason for New Jersey online poker players flocking to the site. Even though Partypoker pulled out of the U.S. market after the UIGEA was passed in 2006, the poker room’s software is well designed, and assuming there is enough action at the tables, it’s seen as a solid option for playing poker online for those who reside in NJ.
According to poker traffic site PokerScout.com, NJ.partypoker.com was quick out of the gate and immediately became the top player in the New Jersey online poker market, already boasting around half of the market share, and 200+ real money cash game players actively playing on the tables on average over the past week. The next closest competitor, WSOP.com, has had about 150 cash game players active at the tables over the same time period. This is good news for online poker players in New Jersey, regardless of whether you’re a tournament or ring game player, there is enough traffic to guarantee action at most tables and stakes.