tilted behaviour

Over the past month or two I’ve really missed playing live and consequently I’ve sadly looked to pub poker to cure my fix when I’m down in Geelong.

One of my mates from the cricket club – Anthony – recently turned eighteen and wanting to get into poker I thought this would be a good way for him to ease into without blowing his weekly pay checks. Plus it also saved me a trek to the casino with more financial disaster then the cost of a couple of beers!

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday’s 888PL ran events where the latter two are normal free events, while Tuesday’s event was a $15 Terminator.

This week we headed to the Tuesday event for the first time and I continued my 888PL run bad by being the second to be eliminated when after the break my 9♦ 3♦ in the big blind on a A♠ 9♣ 3♥ was no good against Ace-Nine. Anthony was still in so I decided to head to the pokies room where Anthony had showed me his favourite machine- 5 Dragons – before losing a grand total of $4.

I’ve never been a huge fan of pokies, but the main lure of this game was hitting three gold coins on a spin then getting an option of gambolling your bet by picking a black or red Ace a total of five times. Pick it once and you get even money on your bet, twice in a row is twice the bet, three in a row is four times your bet and so forth. So I chucked in $20 and gambolled on a black, black, red, black and then red Ace to see me turn that $20 into $40 before heading back into the makeshift poker room to see Anthony bust and us return home for the night.

Wednesday saw us head to White Eagle House in Breakwater where Anthony had registered some points the previous week. We grabbed some food before taking our seats only to see me bust early yet again when my Ace-Eight was no good against Tens and Eight-Six. I managed to play the bad beat table but busted on the first hand when my set was run down by a gutshot.

With Anthony looking in good shape I headed to the faithful 5 Dragons machine and as I was about to deposit $20 into it, saw that it had 60 cents credit. I spun up and hit some kind of bonus to shoot me up to $2.50 while gaining ten free spins. I hit the gamble button and I hit another bonus and fifty free spins as the credit slowly climbed up. I was busy on my phone as the music kept ringing and the credits kept climbing to eventually stop on a whopping $67!

I lost $7 pretty quickly and cashed out the freerolled $60 before returning to see how Anthony was fairing. Since he still had chips I headed to the pool and dart room and found a seat in front of the three TV’s to kill my time before he busted in the points again in 14th place out of 100 or so runners.

He runs deep in the tournaments and I run good on the pokies . . . not sure what I would really prefer!

Once Mike Ivin committed with his dummy straight to Angelo Hanataj’s second-nut straight, another ANZPT Champion was crowned.

This visit up to the Harbour City for the second ANZPT Sydney event was my first since the Star City redevelopments that saw the poker room relocated off the gaming floor,; and consequently here is my continued tournament recaps with The Eight Points of Enlightenment: ANZPT Sydney.

1 – Schedule: The ANZPT Main Event is always going to draw good numbers, but the key is to get players in town early for the preliminary events – and the case of this year’s ANZPT Sydney – Debra Rillo and Jason Wicks have done a great job at organising a fantastic schedule. From a deep-stacked Opening Event to a Semi Shootout and Six-Handed along with a Pot Limit Omaha, High Rollers, Heads-Up and Teams, there was an event for everyone in the near two week schedule with affordable buy-ins and good structures to match.

2 – Great Numbers: 446 players formed the $892,000 prizepool to see the ANZPT Sydney Main Event hold top spot in tournaments around Australia with a similar buy-in. With a slight hiatus from tournaments, it was no surprise that many made the trip to the Harbour City to compete as a warm up to the upcoming Melbourne Poker Championships and – more importantly – the 2010 World Series of Poker. If the ANZPT Sydney can retain this date for the next few years then it will no doubt see the numbers increase to a point where a $300,000 first prize is a reality.

3 – Cramped Up: With the recent move (well to me anyway) upstairs off the main gambling floor, the one thing that frustrated many has remained – the cramped nature of the tables. Now I understand that space is limited and that this is only a temporary move, but it is still very difficult to navigate in between tables while covering tournaments – but I suppose this isn’t a major problem for poker players as they are expected to stay seated for hours at a time. Maybe just a personal pet peeve then.

4 – Rail?: However the issue of no spectator railing is an issue that effects most players as spectators – whether wanted or not – can creep right up to the players. Unlike the previous poker pit where a rail existed surrounding the tables, one has not been implemented in the new room. More than just a few times the supervisors on duty had to ask players to take a step back as they sweated the big game, and if I was a Jarred Graham or Sam Youssef I think that that would bother me substantially.

5 – Food and Beverage Service: The waitresses that worked the poker room were the most gorgeous ones that have ever graced an Australasian casino in years! Some were local, some from Eastern Europe, but all provided great service whether it was prompt drink delivery or something to gaze aimlessly at. The addition of food service was also something lacking around the country, and although the range was fairly limited (a few variants of pizza and panini’s), having an option of a quick snack was great for those not wanting to leave the table.

6 – Where Can I Get Some Food?: Unfortunately pizza and sandwiches can get pretty boring after a while, and one of the problems I encountered while at Star City was the fact there was no place to get something quick. They had a fairly decent buffet and a great noodle place down on the gaming floor, but if I wanted to get something quick the only option seemed to be the overly-priced convenience store. I suppose having the luxury of the Crown Casino food court makes my standards a little harder to be reached, but I do think something along those lines is necessary if Star City want to compete with Crown.

7 – No Name Final Table: As we approached the money in the Main Event some great and interesting players were still alive to make a potentially exciting final table for us to watch / blog on. Unfortunately they all fell to the rail too short of our needs / wants / expectations as a final table full of no names was reached. Mike Ivin was the only real notable and has a long and impressive record but has been unable to continue his flourish since the poker boom. Although on the day it made for a very dull few hours, it does do one thing . . . and that is potentially encourage new players to hit the tournament scene as they may too have a chance of walking away with a slice of poker glory.

8 – Angelo Who?: Continuing on from the previous point, Angelo Hanataj would have evoked an Angelo who? response from most of the poker community – and maybe still – before his $219,432 win. However having an average Joe take down the top prize will definitely prompt more players to give tournament poker a go. The only question is whether or not Angelo will continue to play the tournament circuit or disappear into oblivion.

With that final hand dealt it means the end of my trip to Sydney and a return back home to the sleepy hollow that is Geelong.

I’m not quite sure what is next on the cards for me and Tilted Behaviour, but you and I will soon find out (or I already know and am keeping it a secret hehe)!

Reaching the final day of tournament as a blogger is a great feeling because you know that only nine eliminations stand between you at your computer and you at the bar!

Main Event Final Table coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Main Event Final Table coverage (PokerNews browser)

Since the final table was located outside of the poker room it meant that we had no wifi and consequently had to resort to a shonky mobile internet connection which put us all in a bad mood from the start.

Losing Tri Nguyen on about the sixth hand helped ease our pain and Cale Maclean about half an hour later made it even better. We then witnessed some incredibly strange hands that gave us amateurs hope of one day being on an ANZPT final table!

Angelo Hanataj called off 606,000 at 12k-24k with just 5♣ 6♣ to double an opponent up before taking them all off him just a few hands later. However it was the way that Michael O’Grady virtually threw away the tournament that amazed me the most. Min-raising preflop and min-betting flops to miss value and then calling off chips when he didn’t have it saw O’Grady just slip from hand one to see him bow out in a disappointing but expected fourth place.

With the crazy Angelo holding a little over a two-to-one advantage over stalwart Mike Ivin it was expected that the heads-up affair would be a pretty short battle with Angelo continuing his ballsy aggression, however Ivin firstly slipped before clawing his way ahead only to have Angelo summon the ANZAC spirit and fight back to eventually take down the title and $219,432 first prize.

After rushing to the buffet to grab a quick and free bite I hit the poker room and sat on a $1-2 NLH table.

I gambled in a hand early when I opened 6♣ 3♣ to $10 over a limper only to get min-raised to $20. The limper called and I called to see a 9♣ 8♠ 2♣ flop fall. The re-raiser fired out $20, one fold, and I shipped for $100 and he insta-called tabling Ace-King, but thankfully I dinked the 10♣ on the river.

I flopped quad tens and won a small pot with a bet on the river, had Aces a couple of times, but otherwise it was a rather uneventful session which still saw me win over two buy-ins during several hours of play.

The only real highlight was having Jesse move to my table from his fairly dead $5-5 game so as to stay sane and have some fun with me.

That fun turned into some ridiculous prop betting where on each hand one of us would have either red or black, over or under 7 as the middle card on the flop and a pick of three consecutive numbers for a bonus. We eventually added Lodden Thinks type questions to the mix and stuff like what nationality the dealer was, what size bed they had at home, how old the Polish waitress was and how many people she lived with. Unfortunately for me Jesse ran super hot and whipped me for about $20 when we were only playing for a $1 a point!

With Jesse looking a little worse for wear he headed up to our room to get some sleep while I hit the bar with an already intoxicated Dale Marsland, Nik Lackovic and Danny McDonagh to grab a few beers (since they had been cut off at the poker room) before calling it a night as the sun was rising on the day I return home.

Not too many tournaments of this buy-in amount head to a day three without being at a final table already, but in the case of the ANZPT Sydney Main Event, at least we know the exact stopping point of the day . . . a final table!

Main Event Day 3 coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Main Event Day 3 coverage (PokerNews browser)

Supernova Elite player Tian Shou became the bubble boy as everyone was $3,568 richer before Michael Tran (52nd), Joel Dodds (48th), Lee Nelson (47th), Antonis Kambouroglou (43rd), Ricky Krosen (34th), Peter Aristidou (32nd) and Vincent Wan (31st) all fell short of the final table. Amazingly however it would be Tony Hachem’s seventh cash in the ANZPT when he was downed in 28nd place to see his year begin with one win, two final tables and three cashes.

Just over seven and a half hours of play saw us hit the final table with Mike Ivin being the only notable sitting in third chip position behind the previous day chip leader Michael O’Grady.

Chips, Bernard Gabriel, Peter Aristidou, Chips, Bradley Bower, Vincent Wan, Quoc Nguyen, Angelo Hanataj, Ka Ming Fang, Tony Hachem, Mike Ivin, Chips, Shannon Chapman

With a relatively early night ahead of us my plan was to watch an exciting night of English Premier League soccer. The game I was looking forward to was between West Ham United and Wigan Athletic who are both logged down the bottom of the table . . . the reason being . . . it was bound to be exciting.

The result . . . West Ham 3 (30, 45, 76) defeated Wigan 2 (3, 52) . . . a lot better than some of the other boring matches that were televised!

Day 2 was fairly unexciting when it came down to the Main Event.

Main Event Day 2 coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Main Event Day 2 coverage (PokerNews browser)

209 players started the day, but only 59 remained with only five eliminations needed until play hit the money with the highlight (lowlight?) being another Emad Tahtouh blow-up from chip leader to busto before the money.

While sitting just below the chip leader, I offered everyone on the media desk $1.05 that Emad wouldn’t cash because his luck in the ANZPT is completely opposite to Tony Hachem’s! Nearing the end of play Emad ran into a flopped set and then Peter Aristidou’s Aces to fall just short of the money.

Once the day was wrapped a few of us hit the Garden Buffet and scoffed down as much food as possible before parting ways.

After tidying up the event and writing an article for PokerNetwork I decided to head down to the poker room to play some cash.

I jumped on a $1-2 NLH table and quickly needed to top up an additional $25 before opening to $6 holding A♣ 5♣ and two callers from the blinds came along to see a J♠ 10♣ 6♠ flop fall.

We checked it round to see the 6♣ land and the big blind fire out $12. I called and the small blind folded as the 2♦ fell on the river. Thinking for a few moments, the big blind fired out $26, and after deliberating for a minute or so made the call basically just not believing him. I was spot on as he tabled his Q♥ 7♥ and I was up to around $140.

A few orbits later I flopped a set of fours and check-raised the flop before getting my opponent to call off his stack on the turn with just Ace-high to see me chip up to $240 and leave at time.

After two tough days previously, it was great to be back to a normal eight hour day on the floor.

Main Event Day 1b coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Main Event Day 1b coverage (PokerNews browser)

The night previously I was asked by Jai Kemp and Joel Dodds if they could be reported on under the name of Grant Levy. The reason behind it was that another Grant Levy – not the APPT Sydney Champion one – was the overnight chip leader in the ANZPT opening event before finishing third to create a wave of confusion amongst avid tournament followers. Consequently Jai and Joel thought it would be funny to take the piss on Grant, while also sending a pregnant wife into hysteria at the prospect of several Grant Levy’s in the chip counts.

Tim Horan, Ali Khalil and Dean Nyberg also jumped on the Grant Levy bandwagon and I assigned them all a number so as to distinguish them from one another. When writing up some of the hands that they were involved in, I attempt to portray an image of the person so that the ‘Grant Levy’ code could be broken.

Ali Khalil
Grant Levy5 opened to 400 from early position and was called by a player from the small blind.

Levy5 just shrugged his shoulders and collected the pot once his opponent folded.

Tim Horan
Twirling chips in one hand while staring blankly at the board, Levy6 took his allotted time before folding his hand.

Dean Nyberg
Grant Levy4 has had a fairly tough day so far.

Levy4 however – through some convincing – would like to give a shout out to his Mum back home who has bought countless of litres of Farmers Union Iced Coffee for him to keep him powering through those online sessions.

Joel Dodds
Grant Levy2 opened under the gun to 1,500 only to be shoved on from the button by an opponent for his last 21,500.

The board ran out 10♠ 6♣ 3♥ 5♣ Q♣to see Levy2′s Kings cracked to slip to 18,000 in chips.

All the Grant Levy’s ended up busting apart from Joel – who after the above mentioned hit – finished the day on over 48,000. The story of the day however would be the fact that Tony Hachem sat fifth in the counts to be in great shape at collecting his seventh cash from eight starts on the ANZPT.

Jonathan Karamalikis, Jai Kemp, Grant Levy, Stewart Scott, Yann Pauchon, Dan Sing, Andrew Meldrum, Van Marcus, Sally Snow, Jeff Lisandro, Ali Khalil, Tyron Krost, Jackie Glazier, Tony Hachem, Adam Monaghan

With the day wrapped up, me and Yann decided to head out to dinner somewhere, and after bumping into Vincent ‘Wonky’ Wan and Adam Monaghan (who also bagged chips) we all decided to have a joint dinner somewhere around Darling Harbour.

Finding a quiet place where some other poker players had also taken a liking to we all ordered dinner and discussed everything poker.

Afterwards Yann met up some mates while the three of us headed to the poker room where Wonky and Adam decided to stake me in the $5-5 NLH game with an 80/20 deal in their favour. They shipped me two buy-ins – or $1,000 – and told me just one thing . . . WIN!

My first major hand came when I three-bet a hi-jack raise of $20 to $65 from the button holding A♠ 10♣. My continuation bet of $90 on the Q♣ J♣ 7♠ was met with a re-raise to $220 and I smacked myself in the head for betting a flop that nearly always hits his range before folding.

I topped up and about an hour later of holding King-rag, Queen-rag and the occasional weak Ace, I over-limped holding A♥ 3♥ to see a flop of 5♥ 4♥ 2♥ flop fall . . . yep that’s right . . . the STEEL WHEEL!

All seven players in the hand checked to see the 6♣ land on the turn and after three checks to me, I bet out $15 and was lucky to get a call from one of the fishy players on the table. The river fell the 7♠ and I was stuck in a spot of not really knowing what to deal. Eventually I decided with an overbet amounting to $150, and was lucky enough to get a call to see me push back to even.

On one of my final hands I raised to $35 after a limper holding Q♠ Q♣ and was called by an opponent on the button before the big blind tossed out a $100-denomination chip saying raise. The dealer however – although the player was in seat one – didn’t hear him and marked it as a call before dropping the 9♦ 7♠ 2♣ flop. The big blind fired out $100 and I opted with a raise to $275. The button passed and the big blind went into the tank muttering stuff to himself before folding his K♦ K♠ face up! I showed my Queens and the conversation afterwards revolved around the fact that because I was starring at the board so intently, he figured that I had flopped two pair. Phew!

I ended the night up only $49 after spewing some money to Ali Khalil and some other players on the table, and Wonky and Adam were kindly enough to let me keep the small profit instead of taking a cut as we ended our session at around 2am.

Just like yesterday I was expecting it to be another tough and gruelling day with the completion of both the Tony Hachem Feature and High Rollers Events as well as the commencement of the Main Event.

Main Event Day 1a coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Main Event Day 1a coverage (PokerNews browser)

I think the $2,200 buy-in amount is perfect for this kind of tour, and consequently it was no surprise to see 164 players take to the felt for Day 1a action. One thing that wasn’t surprising was the rapid rate of players hitting the rail within in the first level due to a combination of coolers, willingness to gamble and the fact that $2,200 isn’t that much too some people.

Only 71 players snuck through to Day 2, but what stood out to me was the fact that players called off their chips so lightly. Todor Kondevski got his stack in the middle in the first level with a straight and flush draw on the turn against the nuts and of course dinged it on the river. Nik Lackovic flopped a set and managed to get an opponent to call off his chips with just a gutshot which spiked on the turn.

Zane Ly, Octavian Voegel, Rennie Carnevale, Brendan Edmonds, David Borg, Scott Smith, Michael Tran, Todor Kondevski, Antonis Kambouroglou, Simon Watt, Donna Ciric, Bradley Bower, Graeme Putt

However the priority for the day was always going to be the two final tables commencing later in the day.

Tony Hachem Feature Event Final Table coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Tony Hachem Feature Event Final Table coverage (PokerNews browser)

High Rollers Event Final Table coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / High Rollers Event Final Table coverage (PokerNews browser)

The Tony Hachem Feature Event final table was set to begin at 4:00pm but the remaining contestants were under the impression it didn’t resume till 6:00pm and consequently it was delayed.

The first few eliminations fell fairly quickly as I juggled all three events at once before the remaining players settled into some sort of rhythm. My mate Jesse McKenzie was still on the final table and wasn’t in the healthiest chip position but changed gears in effort to pick up some chips making some good moves and taking calculated risks.

Eventually Jesse managed to reach heads-up play with a three-to-one disadvantage, and after deal negotiations fell through, he clawed into the lead. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be his day as he fell in second place for a nice $12,648 collect to pad the bankroll nicely as Michael Levy walked home with the goods.

Over in the High Rollers Event it was the xMONSTERxDONGx show as Jonathan Karamalikis owned the table from the get go!

When the final six were on the agonisingly long bubble, Karamalikis pounded with relentless aggression to pick up blind-after-blind and ante-after-ante to hold half the chips in play. Michael Guttman became the unfortunate bubble boy and a quick trail of eliminations followed him to see Grant Levy enter heads-up play at a six-to-one disadvantage.

Levy scrapped a double, but Karamalikis would swiftly end the deal to add another title to his impressive poker CV that boasts over $400,000 in live earnings alone!

I spent the majority of yesterday catching up on some much needed rest, but I did manage about thirty minutes of poker that resulted in a loss of a buy-in when flopped trips were no good and the nut-flush draw bricked.

The main reason I spent the majority of the day and night in the room was because today was going to be a long one with two events needing my one-man-wolf pack coverage!

Tony Hachem Feature Event Day 1 coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Tony Hachem Feature Event Day 1 coverage (PokerNews browser)

High Rollers Event Day 1 coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / High Rollers Event Day 1 coverage (PokerNews browser)

The $330 Tony Hachem Feature Event saw 273 entrants take to the felt with every table featuring a $300 bounty. My coverage tailored off slightly as the High Rollers got underway, but the day finished with a final table being formed with my mate Jesse McKenzie sitting fifth in chips as play wrapped up around 2am.

Josh Cunningham, Chips, Sam Capra, Andrew Jeffreys, Jim Ghobrial, Nik Lackovic, Aaron Benton, Liam O’Rourke, Yann Pauchon, Tony Hachem, Michael Spilkin, Jymmi Briggs, Chips, Trung Tran

Twenty-nine of some of the country’s best players handed over $10,200 to take part in the ANZPT Sydney High Rollers Event.

Jeff Lisandro, Lee Nelson, Grant Levy, Van Marcus, Peter Aristidou, Jason Gray, Tyron Krost, Jay ‘SEABEAST’ Kinkade, Jonathan ‘xMONSTERxDONGx’ Karamalikis and Jarred ‘FlopNutsOnYou’ Graham were just a few of those taking part as the cards hit the air at the delayed time of around 7:00pm.

Aleks Lackovic and Lisandro both copped bad beats to see their stack dwindled down to just a few thousand, but Lee Nelson would still fall before them. The highlight of the long night however was this conversation between Van Marcus, Emanuel Seal and Jarred Graham after Marcus gave some chips to Seal.

“You’re a nice guy anyway Curly . . . you can go buy another Lamborghini” stated Marcus as Seal just nodded in an agreeing fashion.

Marcus paused for a moment before saying, “can you get sick of blowjobs?”

It got to around 2am and I decided to call it a night since two full tables remained with plans to play through until just eight remained. Throw in the fact I had been there for nearly fifteen hours and was due back at midday, it made sense to take an inconvenient (for those following at home) break to get some rest.

Jay Kinkade, Antonis Kambouroglou, Peter Aristidou, Tyron Krost, Jeff Lisandro, Grant Levy’s chip stack, Grant Levy, Van Marcus, Matthew Kirk, Jonathan Karamalikis, Emanuel Seal