As of Sunday, it was official: New Zealand has a new king of cards—And what a king 30-year-old, Lower Hutt native Daniel Craker is! A plasterer by trade, Craker turned around a pair of pocket deuces at 6 a.m. Sunday to wrest gold from 305 other players at the Skycity Festival of Poker Main Event.

The tournament—New Zealand’s first major poker match—drew amateurs from Australia, Britain, Singapore and even Finland and boasted a host of headliner participants, including Team PokerStars pros Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem as well as New Zealand’s own Lee Nelson.

More than half of those who entered the main event were kiwis like Craker, and with each of them came a sizeable $3,000 buy-in, pushing the final prize pool for the four-day event well over $850,000.

Craker came out a cool $257,040 ahead, which he says he plans to spend on a new house. What’s more, his spot atop the South Pacific’s poker heap has bumped out former Aussi champ Matthew Konnecke and earned him a seat in the Asian Pacific Poker Tour Grand Final. This next tourney will take place in Sidney at the end of December and will net its winner a whopping $1 million.

For his part, Craker seems undiminished by the size of such sums despite his workaday background. His winning play at Skycity’s nine-man final table, in fact, was to go all-in with $1.7 million in chips on the lowest hand in the game.

Some poker stalwarts might question the ace’s move as just plain brazen. But, then again, it’s hard to imagine a man who won his way into the tourney via satellite games doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“It was heads-up, and I had pocket twos,” Craker said. “I was pretty tired, and my strategy was to play aggressive and I raised it. He re-raised. I went all-in… and (the twos) held up.

”I just felt something was just telling me—before I’d even started—that I was going to have a good go of it.”

Nor does it seem that his new status as one of the Pacific’s poker gods has gone to Craker’s head. After the match, he dedicated his win to all his poker pals back in Wainui and even promised to finish the bit of work he’d set aside while he was off turning the poker world on its ear:

“I’m actually in the middle of a job at the moment,” he said, addressing his employer in an interview with New Zealand’s Channel 3 News. “I’ll get to that job eventually.”

Bruce King, who came to support Craker, said he was on edge for his friend up to the very last moment.

”It was pretty intense,” King said. “My heart was racing—and I wasn’t even playing.

”Wainui is buzzing, and the boys are buzzing around here. He’s just done a great thing, really, and I can’t wait for him to get back and see him on the table and beat him.”

Auckland hotel and casino Skycity also seems pretty pleased at their debut tourney’s results. Skycity’s executive manager Ejaaz Dean said the event was a huge step forward for tournament poker in New Zealand and called the final table “sensational.”

“The crowd participation and the quality of the players and the quality of the hands was second to none,” Dean said.

“We more than doubled the prize pool of any previous tournament in this country… (and) we look forward to building on the success of the inaugural Skycity Festival of Poker with an even bigger prize pool and greater number of players next year.”

Skycity Festival of Poker Final Standings

1. Daniel Craker—New Zealand ($257,040)

2. Matthew Konnecke—Australia ($162,791)

3. Wang Che Jung—New Zealand ($85,680)

4. Dan Sing—New Zealand ($59,976)

5. Luke Stanford—New Zealand ($46,267)

6. Nathanael Seet—Singapore ($34,272)

7. Jani Karke—Finland ($24,704)

8. Michael Marianis—Australia ($19,706)

9. Wai Kwan Yuen—U.K. ($14,565)

A Sitdown With the Champ

See "Kiwi King” Craker’s interview with New Zealand’s Channel 3 News.

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