tilted behaviour

Today was the start of the PokerStars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau Main Event for 2009.

On a small desk we were expected to sit four bloggers, a photographer, camera-man and TV girl . . . no chance. Instead, Craig and Lynn were sent to another room to prep for interviews etc, and with a field of over 100 expected, I decided to work as a reporter for the day.

Arguably the greatest player of the modern era – David Steicke – was in the field, and consequently no one stood a chance, even Johnny F**KING Chan who bowed out on the way to Steicke amassing a count to sit second in chips behind Brandon Demes.

Lynn produced an interesting video with Celina Lin about the difference between English and Mandarin on the poker level. Also if you look close, a pop up in the background!

Another day in Macau and another glorious sleep in!

Today we all checked into the Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16, but before I did, I decided to have a shower in the six-headed master bedroom shower.

Once I finished, Van returned to the room on a serious case of tilt! After losing in the cash games, he dumped a shit load on Baccarat and consequently loaded up four PLO tables on Full Tilt.

After getting changed I walked over to sweat him, but he asked me to leave as he doesn’t like people sweating him when he plays really high – obviously due to the fact that he was a little tilted.

A few minutes went by before he called me back into his room to check out a hand. Van held 10♠ 8♠ 8♥ 2♥ on a flop of 8♦ 5♠ 2♠ and got his whole stack in against TREX313 or Urindanger (can’t remember) with him drawing to just one out holding red Kings.

Van vacated his chair and started pacing the room waiting for the outcome.

”Tell me what happens Timmy . . . one time hold up!”

As I sat staring at the screen, the cards lagged before it went brick brick to see Van ship the 100k pot to be unstuck for the day . . . and have me in awe!

I checked into room 1135 at the Sofitel and everyone, minus Lynn and Craig as they were doing some preliminary filming, all met in my room to discuss what our plans were. With happy hour being free for GG, Heath and Kirsty due to their booking, we decided to head upstairs to chat about the hot topic at the moment – the transformations at PokerNews.

Basically we came to an agreement that I would be taking over next year, but I thought it would be better if I sat at the bottom of the hierarchy, and basically turned it down.

GG, Heath and I decided we needed to scratch our gambling itch and found a three card Baccarat game where it plays the same as normal, but instead you receive three cards and there is no draw. Also there is no tie, with the high card winning, and everyone that plays a box gets a hand.

I sat out (wisely) as GG and Heath lost HK$1,000 each before heading to a real Baccarat table.

GG began an epic battle with an old Asian guy by betting the opposite to whatever he would. GG started on a losing streak before betting player and squeezing out a natural eight and slamming it down. The Asian guy slowly squeezed out his cards before looking up at GG and saying, “bye bye” and rolling over natural nine.

It would be an understatement to say that GG was mad!

Eventually GG would be in for HK$6,000 on this HK$100 table, but after finding some run-good he would break even and retire to the room along with Heath. I quickly lost my HK$3,000 in a matter of three hands and joined Heath for an intense heads-up match . . . at least I won that!

Expecting to sleep in, I was surprised to find two random girls in our hotel room at the seemingly early hour of 9am.

Of course Troy and Kevin were to blame with both of them bringing them over after a night of clubbing to play some pool. The girls eventually left while the boys, along with Van, headed for a spa.

After falling back asleep, I eventually woke up and headed to Galaxy Starworld to see how the final table was playing out. I arrived with play at three-handed, and once JC Tran busted, Inwook Choi soon followed to see Adrien Allaine crowned champion.

With the night being wrapped up early, Heath decided tonight would be a good night to hit the felt together.

Sitting down at the HK$10-20 table at Starworld, I was soon forced to rebuy only half an orbit into play. I followed the limp-train holding J♣ 10♣, only to have the big blind make it 150 to go. Everyone called, as did I, to see the K♣ Q♣ 6♥ flop drop. Checked to a middle-aged Asian who pushed out 500 odd, only to have me ship it all in for about 1,800. After everyone folded the middle-aged Asian took over five minutes before calling and turning over 6♦ 6♠ . . . yes I did say five minutes!

Of course it bricked it out to continue my run-bad and another HK$2,000 was on the table. Heath played fairly solidly, and after a quick trip down to a Baccarat table to make HK$1,000, I returned only to have Heath turn it in for the night with a little bit of profit in his hands.

The table got short-handed quickly, and although I was able to win eighty percent of the pots I was unable to win anything great and eventually left down that original buy-in for the night.

I choose to stay away from poker today and instead hit the Galaxy Starworld Baccarat tables.

The lowest limits I found were HK$300, and consequently bought in for HK$3,000. It was a pretty standard session, no big runs, just grinded a profit of HK$2,000 out before heading upstairs to catch up with everyone.

Both Lynn and GG arrived already dressed for the APT Party, but being just a tad early, combined with the fact that the Main event hadn’t reached the final table yet, lead them to occupy themselves for a while

Once the final nine was set, Heath, Kirsty and I headed back to their hotel to get changed before we made our way to the highly anticipated Asian Poker Tour Invite Only Private Party!

We found Lynn and GG chilling at the hotel’s whisky bar, and once they sipped down the last of their drinks and polished off the last few satay sticks, we were all heading upstairs.

Greeted by plenty of gorgeous woman, poker players and most importantly and open bar, we were most surprised by the two Baccarat tables that had replaced the bed from last year since the Presidential Suite had now been transformed into a junket room.

JC Tran, John Juanda and many others occupied the two tables, while the majority of the crowd sipped on a Corona and ogled the beautiful models . . . along with Melyssa Grace and Marie Kim providing everyone with a great photo and drool opportunity.

As the night slowed up, GG somehow cracked the shits (must have been the fact that the models above were starting to put clothes on) and left. We didn’t care, and headed to D2 to continue the party without him.

Lynn best summed up the way we were all feeling about him.

“We don’t need him to have fun . . . he’s just a sook!”

Once we worked our way to the dancefloor, we bumped into the rest of the Australian contingent and partied with them a little before heading upstairs to find David Saab and Jeffrey Haas hailing us over to join them in their private booth.

Test-tube and chocolate shots along with Johnnie Black and Heineken were on Saaby, and following a few drinks and a dance, we vacated D2 for the night . . . well early morning!

After the unfortunate news from back home, I decided to continue my plan of playing some cards.

This was a bad idea . . . maybe something Karma-based behind it!

I headed to the Galaxy Starworld poker room and took my seat on a HK10-20 NLH table (roughly AU$1.50-3 NLH) with a 2,000-chip stack.

My first hand of note (and first stacking) came when I got jammed in the middle holding Q♣ 10♣ on a 3♥ J♣ 9♠ 7♦ board against a set of Jacks and sevens. The river bricked in the 7k pot and I was forced to rebuy.

I slowly built my new stack up before my 5♣ 4♣ ran into 8♣ 6♣ on a Q♣ J♥ 10♣ 9♣ 4♥ board after he tanked called a twenty percent pot bet on the river.

Our table broke and I once at the new table I had my Kings cracked by three-deuce off before this hand came up.

I looked down at A♠ A♥ under the gun and opened to 140 – nearly double to what I had normally been opening to. Five callers later and a flop of K♠ 9♠ 4♠ saw me fire out 600 only to get raised all in. I threw in my last 2,000 and when the turn came the 9♣ and river the 2♥, I re-bought for my last 2,000 when shown J♠ 10♠ by one of the Skandi’s on the table.

3am ticked round and my A♦ J♦ was unable to improve against Kings on a two-diamond board to see me head home stuck HK$5,000.

After a good night’s sleep I made my way over to Galaxy Starworld to catch up with Heath, Kirsty and F-Train.

Once there, I grabbed some food and made use of the free water and soft drinks after barely having any liquids over the past 30 hours or so.

Then I got the phone call that I had prepared myself for, but had been dreaded for many weeks and months . . . it was my Mum calling to inform me of the bad news that my dog Goldie had passed away.

Goldie had been through lots since I got him for my tenth birthday – from knee reconstructions to hip replacements to blindness and a bad case of arthritis – but after all of that he still fought through.

When I returned home from Las Vegas he was getting worse. He couldn’t walk too far otherwise his back legs would give way and he would fall into a half sitting, half lying down position. Although this may sound cruel, I had began preparing myself mentally for the worse, and the fact that he had reached the expected life span of a Beagle didn’t help too much either.

While in Queensland and then at the Vic Champs, Goldie had a cyst removed from his right back leg, and when I was home for a few days he was a billion times better then he has been in years – no falling, no visible pain and no discomfort.

The night before I left, we sat watching TV together for a few hours before I had to drive to the airport – this would be the last time I ever saw him.

The night he passed, Goldie lapped up every bit of his favourite dinner – chicken and rice (unusual for a dog I know) before walking over to his favourite patch of lawn to lie down. With Dad cooking a barbeque, Mum was wondering where Goldie was as his usual routine saw him inside by now. Dad confirmed the bad news to Mum and then to me, and our family dog of thirteen years had moved onto a better place.

I will always love you Goldie.

R.I.P Goldie (October 23, 1995 – August 21, 2009)

Having an early flight at 7:15am from Melbourne was never going to be fun, but to make sure I slept on the flight to Hong Kong, I decided to stay up all night before driving to the airport from Geelong.

I left just before 5am armed with two Redbull’s as I began the drive up the dark and foggy highway.

I dropped my car off at Jetport Parking and headed to the airport to check-in and catch up with Lynn. It was a pretty uneventful flight as we touched down at around 9am and made out way to the International gate.

Here is where the problem starts.

A few days earlier we had received a text explaining that the flight would be delayed by a few hours, but once at the terminal we were informed that the flight had been cancelled.

After speaking to a Viva Macau Representative on the phone we were told to wait round till 11:30am when someone would be able to help us out. Lynn and I grabbed some food, checked out Duty Free and joined a few other Aussie’s sitting around until we were able to seek help.

The basic jist of the situation was that the flight was cancelled due to bad weather and that if we booked a flight on Virgin Atlantic, Viva Macau would refund the cost of the replaced flight.

Along with a bunch of Australian’s that had slowly trickled in from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, we all made our way to the Virgin Atlantic office to book a flight that left in a little over two hours.

After over an hour of waiting, Lynn and I finally got our seats, took our bags back downstairs to check-in and rushed to our gate along with the remainder of the Aussie entourage.

Since we were last to check-in, all our seats were scattered and I wound up sitting next to a some random Asian guy.

The flight was delayed by around an hour due to maintenance issues – it might have been longer, but I was asleep the whole time . . . well until we took off anyway!

Once we were in the air, I didn’t get one wink of sleep and was forced to watch TV the whole time – first of all the movies I Love You, Man and Ghosts of a Girlfriends Past before hitting some comedy sitcoms for the last part of the journey.

After collecting our bags we organised two mini-buses to house all eleven of us as we made our way to the ferry terminal a little past 1am.

We caught the 1:30am ferry, and in a little under an hour we were in Macau. Lynn headed to the Sofitel while me and Van headed to the Grand Waldo where he was kind enough to let me crash with him in the Versace decked out Presidential Suite.

He went out with Troy and Kevin for a massage, while I ordered some food, played a game of pool and had a hot shower before hitting the hay.

Grand Waldo Presidential Suite

Yet another Champion has been crowned in the Crown Poker Room when Albert Amato’s 9♥ 7♥ held true against Kane Sherwell’s underpair.

The Victorian Poker Championships will always have a strong spot reserved in my heart as it was my launching ground for both a blogger (first gig with PokerNews) and player (11th in the Main Event), and consequently I’m proud to present my continued tournament summary with The Eight Points of Enlightenment: Victorian Poker Championships.

1 – State of Origin Success: For the second year running the Victorian Poker Championships played host to the State of Origin. This year the ante was upped by adding both the Territories and New Zealand to the rooster, along with altering the structure and format to make it work and function better along with pleasing both player and railbird.
The one downside for many was firstly allowing New Zealand to participate as they aren’t an Australian state, and secondly seeing them victorious. Overall I think they should be allowed to be part of the State of Origin regardless that they may fly a different flag to us, and if anything is to be changed it should be the weighting of the points system so that a more strategic approach is needed in the first round of the shootout.

2 – Decrease In High Stakes Turnouts: It is understandable that our current economy may not be in the best state, but over the past few years poker has never really been effected too greatly. However, Crown ran two high stakes tournaments – a $10,200 High Stakes Holdem and a $250,000 Challenge – that really didn’t pull the numbers it had in the past.
With only 23 and 8 runners respectively, it was fairly poor to only get this turnout even with most of the poker community in town. I must admit that the cash game action was HUGE to say the least, and this could be the main reason behind the lack of numbers, but I guess we’ll never know.

3 – Bring On The Ladies: I personally think that the Ladies event should be a regular on the Australian tournament schedule. Not only is it an additional avenue to increase the poker playing community, but also reverses the normal trend of WAG on the rail, and now places the male as the silent observer watching on. (On a side note, check out the very interesting thread on PokerNetwork here about this very topic)

4 – Where Were The Mix Games?: The Victorian Poker Championships are supposed to by a championship series, but if that’s the case, where was the variety of events of different poker variants? Only three events were non-holdem ones, with only one of these being Crazy Pineapple to the other two Omaha ones. Gone was the marquee HORSE event that many poker enthusiasts love along with the split games of the Morning Series. Just like the WSOP, I think that any tournament schedule has to include a mixture of poker variants, and even if it can only accommodate for one, then sobeit. Bring back the HORSE and the Mixed Stud!

5 – Weak Final Table Line-Up?: Many may have looked at the final table and just spotted a chipped up Jason Gray and Chris Chronis along with a short-stacked Gary Benson surrounded by amateurs – and especially when you compare this table to last years that included Jay Kinkade, Tino Lechich, Sheldon, Minh Nguyen, Julian Powell, Harris Pavlou, Ben Delaney and Tim Horan. However this table was stronger than you may have imagined!
Dean McIver has been a regular on the tournament circuit for a number of years while Benson, Gray and Chronis’ records speak for themselves. Mick Nolton is a very talented player along with Julian Cohen who has began raking up results in the past 12 months, and when you add in the strongest amateur on the table – champion Albert Amato – you have a table full of talent . . . I guess we’ll have to see where they are all in 12 months because we know what last years final nine have achieved!

6 – Busy Time For Poker: It is always a difficult ask to plan not only a poker tournament but also a championship series ahead of time – and when tournaments are getting announced without too much preparation time – there will always be crossovers. Not only was the ANZPT Queensland (5th – 9th) finale on during the first week, the hugely popular FTOPS (5th – 16th) was also being run to consequently detract some of the online contingent competing over the two week schedule (2nd – 17th). Combine this with the Asian Poker Tour Macau (12th – 23rd) and the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau (15th – 30th) and you have a very busy and expensive month of August!

7 – Main Event Structure: Jonno Pittock and his loyal staff always implement great structures for every tournament held at Crown – and in the case of the Victorian Poker Championships Main Event – it was no exception. For the first time at Crown since I started working for PokerNetwork/PokerNews day three saw more than a final table return to battle it out. This was not because of slow play or an overly huge field, but rather that the structure was just too good to see the field reduced to just one table by day two. Kudos Jonno and his staff!

8 – Money Is Going . . . Somewhere: I’m unsure of exactly where he lives, what he does, or what he plans to do with the money, but I think that Albert Amato will pop his head up around Australian tournaments in the future. Obviously there were crowd favourites going into the final table, but it was great to see a talented by short-stacked player battle hard (with some luck) to take down the $190,050 first prize.

Queensland then Melbourne and now Macau!

Tilted Behaviour is heading back to Viva Las Asia to tackle the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau Main Event and High Rollers . . . while also mixing in some partying, gambling and relaxing in one of my favourite destinations on the planet.

Stay tuned for who knows what may eventuate!