/ Editor / 04 October 2007 /

Extreme Poker (hanging over Sydney Harbour). Who on earth thought of that?

You cannot alleviate all risk. Whatever the insurance agent or that new betting system DVD tells you, you cannot. What you can do is minimise the odds based on experience and cotton wool.

Mindful of this, the Poker Anorak learns of the Extreme Poker Final, an Australian poker game that gives "new meaning to high-stakes gambling".

As it says here, six "high rollers" (geddit?) are sat 90m above the ocean on a platform erected over Sydney Harbour's North Head bluff. They are playing a knock-out game of Texas Hold 'Em.

To the winner, one Hugo Asenjo, a seat at the Extreme Poker Final in St Kitts. That event is to be held underwater. Indeed, dear reader, the risk of wet cards and a, er, rivering cannot be overlooked. But this is extreme poker. And if the cards get soggy then so be it. Such are the risks.

Says the winner: "It was really hard to try and concentrate on the game when the entire time you're just thinking, don't look down."

It will be harder still in the final, when Asenjo is wearing a rubber suit and tethered to the seabed.

As such this is unlikely to be the new face of poker, and go the way of Extreme Backgammon (aka Landmine Meat), Russian Roulette and Topless Darts.

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