tilted behaviour

As you can see by the (unconfirmed) advert placed in the local paper the other day . . . Phil Ivey is looking for love!

Well he might not be looking, but he is available after both he and his wife Luciaetta successfully filed for divorce just a few days before Christmas. Both were high-school sweethearts who tied the knot back in May of 2002 and have no children together.

For Ivey, his divorce puts a dent in his spectacular year on the felt having won two WSOP bracelets along with being a ‘November Niner’ and winning copious amounts both online and live.

He might not be lucky in love, but he sure is lucky on the tables!

I only slept three hours thanks to a long – and profitable – night sports betting and watching the soccer, but now the time has come to wake up, freshen up and get ready to head to the second day of the Boxing Day Test!

With a carload full of mates from the cricket club, we made our way up the highway before parking the car at Crown and catching a tram to the MCG.

Finding an empty row three from the fence at cover / mid-wicket, we lathered on the sunscreen as the sun began to beat down while we slumped back into our chairs for the preparation for an exciting day of cricket.

However . . . we would be disappointed.

Six wickets fell and 258 runs were scored with the only real highlight of the day being a streaker that virtually made it across the whole MCG before a security guard tripped him up just fifteen metres shy of potential freedom.

And to make things worse . . . I barely got a tan!

Christmas (kri-smăs) noun. festival celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ annually on December 25th.

or as I see it

Christmas (kri-smăs) noun. a time to catch up with family, sharing laughs and presents, while devouring as much food as humanly possible before collapsing on the couch like a stuffed . . . turkey!

Wherever you are in the world spending Christmas, I hope it was a day full of fun and joy for you and your loved ones. I confidently expect that Santa paid a visit and that you all received what you wished for . . . because I did when my Nanna stepped up to the plate to deliver the goods by completing my Seinfeld DVD collection!

From everyone that has contributed to Tilted Behaviour over the year, and especially me, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Since I can remember I have been a complete sports nut, but the one thing I have never really explored is sports betting . . . well . . . until now!

While watching the third test between Australia and the West Indies, I decided to follow up on one of the ads that flashed up during play and logged on to Betfair.

After looking round the site I found one cool niche – or what I assume to be a niche in the sports betting field because I haven’t bothered to look anywhere else – where you can actually bet on a result not occurring and bet during play.

Taking the example from above, you can back a result occurring such as Australia winning at 1.78. However if you want to bet on a result not occurring then you may lay money on a particular outcome such as Pakistan not winning at 5.60. The way you do it is by laying the amount you wish to win. Say you want to win $10, then you lay $10 on at 5.60, and if Pakistan do win then you have a liability of $56 (including your original $10 bet) to Betfair.

I don’t think it’s too complicated, and on the weekend I decide to deposit and make a few small bets to see me record a small but enjoyable profit after winning the majority of my bets placed over the cricket and six English Premier League matches.

Then today I received a Betfair package in the mail that included forms to verify your account if you want to deposit large sums of money or withdraw funds. Also included is a handy guide on everything you need to know to place a bet on the site and a personalised Betfair wallet card listing your Telephone Account Number, Username, BPAY payment information and important phone numbers to make placing a bet anytime extremely easy.

So if you want to bring some excitement to even the most dull sporting events – whether it’s a soccer match between two relegation bound clubs or even a draw-bound test match – then click the banner below or the one in the sidebar to begin some happy punting!

Growing up in Australian surrounded by Australian friends, there was never a doubt that footy code I would pick up as a little part-haired kid would of course be Aussie Rules Football . . . but times change!

Although I’m still – and always will be – a passionate Western Bulldogs supporter, recent times have seen me switch codes to soccer, or football depending where you live.

This is mainly due to my mates and fellow indoor teammates James and Mat who are huge soccer fanatics and Manchester United fans. Now having them sweat matches as they loyally support the Red Devils, made me get thinking that maybe I should support a team since I tend to follow the sport more regularly nowadays.

When I was younger I use to like Liverpool because Harry Kewell (since he was Australian and all) played for them, but due to him moving to Galatasaray at the same time my interest in the game began to increase, it doesn’t seem appropriate to support them.

There are a lot of players that I enjoying watching in the English Premier League, and picking a team was really difficult, but when Lucas Neill signed with Everton to join fellow Australian Tim Cahill, I found it completely appropriate to latch on and support Everton. Throw in the fact that their star player is Australian and also named Tim, and that my dad lived near their home ground when he was a kid and that their major sponsor is a Thailand beer company . . . did I really need any other reasons to support them?

I may only know a handful of players, and may even get some names wrong (thanks to James for the corrections), but I enjoy watching a team that I can now say I support and consequently can get passionate about.

However saying you support a team is one thing, but wearing their colours proud is another!

Consequently I jumped online the other day and had a look around the Everton Online Store. After spending the good part of half an hour looking at every item for sale, I decided to grab just two items.

Firstly a blue Everton Training Vest to slum around when the weather heats up or use for heading down to the beach or cricket training and secondly a black Everton Training Top to wear on a casual basis. Expecting them to arrive in another week or two, I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see a package on my desk containing two wonderful gifts!

Although they may not be the most highly sought after gear for Everton supporters, I feel that I’ll get the most wear out of these two items . . . and anyway . . . I’m still a noob supporter, because who knows what we’ll see in the future . . . maybe a personalised DUCKWORTH #10 will soon be on order!

Covering tournaments around the world over the past few years has re-ignited my school-boy crush on photography, and consequently, I have been in the market for a high-end DSLR for some time now.

With a new one rather pricey, I have decided to sit tight on making a rash purchase, but when I stumbled across the website Bid Rivals, I thought I might be able to grab a bargain!

Wrong.

Flicking over the numerous pages on ongoing auctions I found a Canon EOS 50D with lens available, and began some research on the camera. With a retail price of around $2,500, the chance to grab this high-quality camera locked my attention to the site, and how exactly it works.

Basically each product listed on the site is placed in an auction-type sale where people can bid on the product, and if you are the person with the highest bid when the time expires then it’s all yours. However, when the timer is in the last 15 seconds, if someone else places a higher bid then the timer re-sets another 15 seconds and so forth. Each bid raises the price of the product by only 2 cents, but each bid costs the bidder 80 cents . . . that’s obviously the catch.

They also have a function called a Bid Agent where you can list the maximum amount of bids and price you are willing to spend on the auction, and even if you are not online, the Bid Agent will bid for you once the timer ticks down to 4 seconds if you aren’t the highest bidder.

Now getting back to the camera in question.

Previous auctions of the $2,500 Canon EOS 50D had sold for just over $100 and I therefore bought a bundle of bids to hope I could grab a bargain when everyone else had spent too much.

Waking up this morning I logged on to the site to find the camera at just over $105 with five Bid Agent’s battling it out against each other. There of course was no point bidding now as I would be just wasting my valuable collection of bids and therefore decided to just monitor the auction very closely. My plan was to wait until there were only two bidders’ left and then switch all my attention to the auction knowing that each bid was costing the Bid Agent’s 80 cents a click, and that no one in their right mind would be putting aside 3,000-odd bids for this camera.

I waited and waited and waited until it was time to go to cricket training and decided to set my Bid Agent up with the current price at around $135.

After running around rolling the arm over and hitting some balls round the nets I expected that there would be a message on my screen basically

“Congratulations! You out-smarted all the other Bid Agents and are now the proud owner of a bargain fully sick $2,500 camera for just the price of $145.12!”

Once again. Wrong.

The auction was unbelievable still going with new bidder’s clicking away 80 cents at a time!

Once the auction was finally over – 43 hours and 14 minutes after it started – and lintonfarm was the proud owner of a new Canon EOS 50D DSLR camera after wagering 1,554 bids for a final price of $242.80, I decided to take a closer look at the whole auction.

242.80 / 0.02 = 12,140 bids x 0.80 = $9,712 + $242.80 = $9,954.80 – $2,500 = $7,454.80 profit for Bid Rivals

No doubt Bid Rivals made a killing of us fools . . . but what makes it worse is that the same Canon EOS 50D sold for $18.40 and $110.08 over the next two days!

Following hits such as Give It To Me, The Way I Are and Apologize, Timbaland’s third solo studio album Shock Value II has hit the stores!

After Shock Value was such as success, it was great to finally see Timbaland release the highly anticipated second volume – and it seems as though his fellow artists have lent their full support with every track bar one having a feature artist lending vocals.

My favourite track is the third released single called Carry Out featuring Justin Timberlake which you can listen to below, but in reality, you should listen to every song as they are all great!

1 – Intro (by DJ Felli Fell)
2- Carry Out (with Justin Timberlake)
3 – Lose Control (with JoJo)
4 – Meet In Tha Middle (with Bran’ Nu)
5 – Say Something (with Drake)
6 – Tomorrow In The Bottle (with Chad Kroeger and Sebastian)
7 – We Belong To The Music (with Miley Cyrus)
8 – Morning After Dark (with Nelly Furtado and SoShy)
9 – If We Ever Meet Again (with Katy Perry)
10 – Can You Feel It (with Esthero and Sebastian)
11 – Ease Off The Liquor
12 – Undertow (with The Fray and Esthero)
13 – Timothy Where You Been (with Jet)
14 – Long Way Down (with Daughtry)
15 – Marchin On (with OneRepublic)
16 – The One I Love (with Keri Hilson and D.O.E)
17 – Symphony (with Attitude, Bran’Nu and D.O.E)

It had been a while since I’ve been up to Melbourne – and with a going away ‘party’ and a friend’s 21st – there was no reason why I shouldn’t journey up the highway.

I say ‘party’ because it was actually my mate Oatsy’s farewell APL Tournament at the Veneto Club in Bulleen where he has been the Tournament Director for the last few years.

Driving up to Melbourne I planned to meet James in the city at around 6pm before waiting round for Mat to finish work at 7pm. I found a park on Spring Street and met James at Parliament station before we headed down Collins Street to meet up with James’ new Bec.

We grabbed Mat outside of his work and made our way in peak hour city traffic to the Veneto Club a little late, but thanks to the huge turnout, the event was behind schedule.

James, Mat and I were all bounties for the night and Oatsy introduced us – along with the other few bounties – as we took our seats at our assigned tables.

Luckily for me us bounties started with a 5,000-chip starting bank compared to the other players 3,000 as I got stacked early on. With a few limps ahead of me for 50, I made it 325 to holding A♠ A♥ and was called by both the blinds. The flop fell down J♠ 8♥ 3♥ and I made it 775 to go. The lady in the small blind check-called as the big blind folded to see the Q♠ land on the turn and a check from both of us. The river fell the 2♥ and she fired out 2,000. I shook my head threw in two chips and called out to the Tournament Director for a rebuy as I held my rebuy card up in the air. The lady turned over J♥ J♥ to rake in the pot as I topped up another 2,000.

Mat was out shortly after the first break when he found the old King-high and made his way home to get changed, as I got moved to a table to take up Bec’s seat. I shoved dark a few times before eventually calling off my chips in a three-way all in pot after sweating just the 8♠. My 2♠ to go with it did me poorly after one of the all-ins flopped top set of Jacks as I exited the tournament to now go and sweat James.

We poked and prodded at his continued folding until he finally called off his chips with a dominated A♥ 2♥. Everyone shared a shot with a very wasted Oatsy as we made our way to the city to hit up our 21st party.

Mateusz Pater, Andrew Oataway, Bec Hoult, James Bernard and Brendan White

The original plan was to meet one of my fellow poker friends Michael Palti at the Red Hummingbird on Russell St, but due to some dress code complications, Palti and his entourage were forced to move to the cocktail bar Mai Tai’s just down on the corner.

We began our night with all of us ordering a surprisingly strong mix of Long Island Red Bull’s and Long Island Ice Tea’s as we did what everyone does when consuming alcohol . . . talking shit!

Palti was busy entertaining his friends, but eventually found some time to come talk to us before leaving us to continue chatting on about everything and anything. Another round of cocktail’s followed as Palti and some of his mates headed to Maccas for a late-night snack. We eventually finished our drinks before deciding that Stalactites was our answer to some hunger!

Bec and Mat had never been before, and a fantastic garlic-covered souvlaki later, they had been broken in the Stalactites way!

We called it a night, and after driving Mat and Brendo home, I drove the two lovebirds to the station where James had left his car, and I made my way back to Geelong at the healthy time of 4am . . . now to catch a few hours sleep before cricket!