tilted behaviour

The final day of the Victorian Poker Championships Main Event was upon us with a final ten remaining.

Jackson Zheng and Mishel Anunu fell early before local players Cliff Lee and David Gorr, along with Michel Bouskila, would each suffer their ill-fate eliminations at the hands of Michael Egan. With a chance of going coast-to-coast, Martin Comer held onto the chip lead tightly before eventually releasing it only to bust fellow old-schooler Antonis Kambouoglou to hold over forty percent of the chips in play.

Youngster Josh Barrett was gifted the lead by Comer – and nearly half the chips in play – before the remainder of his stack was shipped to him as shot-stack ninja Karib Karib was unable to pull another miracle from his hat as he exited in third to leave online guns Barrett and Egan to battle it out.

With Barrett holding a slight four-to-three advantage, he pushed that out even further with some aggressive early heads up play before Egan managed to fight back and then double when his pocket nines held true. Barrett slid further behind – eventually down to a near six-to-one deficit – only to double and then chip up to snatch the lead back. Barrett however would return to that deficit when his dominated ace failed to improve, and just several hands later would see his tournament come to an end against Egan’s favourite 10♦ 7♠.

Besting a small, but high calibre field, Michael ‘ITSOVER9000′ Egan displayed a mix of aggression, patience and determination to capture the $160,700 first prize, large coveted trophy and title of 2010 Victorian Poker Championships Main Event Champion!

Antonis Kambouroglou, Michael Egan, Karib Karib, Dane Jensen, Michel Bouskila, Mishel Anunu, Trophy, Josh Barrett, Martin Comer, Jackson Zheng, Michael Egan, Josh Barrett, Chips, Cliff Lee, Josh Barrett, Chips, David Gorr

97 players returned for Day 2 of the Victorian Poker Championships Main Event with hope of being one of the final ten to bag their chips at the end of the day.

James Obst, Julian Cohen, Jonathan Karamalikis, Steve Topakas, Benn Skender, Jarred Graham, BIlly Argyros and Joe Hachem were just a handful of the talented players that succumbed to the rail over the course of the day. Jason Mann earned the unwanted title of bubble boy after being bumped to the rail in a three-way mash.

The remaining twenty-seven was one of the strongest ever to run this deep in a Main Event, but Mitchell Carle (27th), Chris Evans (26th), Peter Peeters (23rd), Trung Tran (21st), Ricky Kroesen (18th), Andrew Demetriou (17th), Sean Keeton (16th), John Dalessandri (14th) and Grant Levy (12th) would all exit to the rail as the final table was formed.

Final Table Line-Up (average stack 672,500)
Seat 1: Michael Egan (1,036,000 in chips)
Seat 2: David Gorr (176,000)
Seat 3: Karib Karib (174,000)
Seat 4: Mishel Anunu (202,000)
Seat 5: Cliff Lee (291,000)
Seat 6: Jackson Zheng (476,000)
Seat 7: Antonis ‘Toothpick Tony’ Kambouroglou (1,220,000)
Seat 8: Michel Bouskila (908,000)
Seat 9: Josh ‘jbrhythm’ Barrett (919,000)
Seat 10: Martin Comer (1,335,000)

Martin Comer again led the charge amongst fellow old-school tournament veterans that included David Gorr and Antonis Kambouroglou. while young guns Jackson Zheng, Michael Egan and Josh Barrett, along with local tournament stalwarts Karib Karib and Cliff Lee all stood within grasp of the $160,700 first prize and title of Victorian Poker Champion for 2010!

Martin Kozlov, Grant Levy, Sean Keeton, Nathan Goodall, Karib Karib, Dave Lee, Mark Blechman, Jason Mann, Joe Hachem, Benn Skender, Jarred Graham, Mitchell Carle, Jackson Zheng, Mishel Anunu, Nali Kaselias

Always a favourite tournament of mine, it was good to see the Victorian Poker Championships Main Event roll around once again with Day 1 upon us.

269 players anted up $2,700 to take to the felt at lunchtime looking to emulate the feats of past Champions Albert Amato (2009) and Jay Kinkade (2008) of navigating through a highly skilled and talented field. Although the numbers were down on previous years, many of Australia’s best players made the trip down to Melbourne as tournament stalwarts Gary Benson, Sam Khouiss, Leo Boxell and Tino Lechich, online phenoms Brendon Rubie, Michael Guzzardi, Dean Nyberg and Joel Dodds, and local favourites Peter Aristidou, Amanda De Cesare and Tony Hachem all took to the felt.

Unfortunately the above mentioned, along with previous Champions Amato and Kinkade, 2010 Aussie Millions Champion Tyron Krost, WSOP Bracelet holder Simon Watt and resident PokerNetwork blogger Heath ‘Tassie Devil’ Chick all became casualties.

Only 97 players survived with Martin Comer leading the charge with 252,200 in chips. Snapping closely at his heels was David Gorr (192,300), Antonis Kambouroglou (185,000), Jim Giannoukos (179,200), Jarred Graham (175,600) and Michael Egan (168,500) as everyone still held an equal chance of capturing the $160,700 first prize and coveted trophy.

Tyron Krost, Chips, Joe Hachem, Jonathan Karamalikis, Benn Skender, Ricky Kroesen, Tony Hachem, Tom Grigg, Gary Benson, Chips, Heath Chick, Martin Comer

One of the great events to work on the local calendar, I happily made the trip down to Melbourne to cover the Event 13: $10,200 High Stakes Holdem from the 2010 Victorian Poker Championships.

The reason I find these high roller-esque event great is because the field that assembles is always going to be made up of some of the best players in town. Unfortunately only twenty-four players took their seat, and once I arrived for the night shift, only eleven remained.

That number was cut down by two once Gary Benson and Aleks Brkovic busted to leave us at a final table of nine.

Final Table Line-Up
Seat 1: Billy Jordanou (56,000 in chips)
Seat 2: Grant Levy (77,000)
Seat 3: Vesko Zmukic (37,000)
Seat 4: Aaron Benton (94,000)
Seat 5: Ali Ghezelbash (14,000)
Seat 6: Shane Warne (55,000)
Seat 7: Jonathan Karamalikis (42,000)
Seat 8: Pierre Aoukar (18,000)
Seat 9: James Obst (65,000)

Ali Ghezelbash, Billy Jordanou and Vesko Zmukic exited early as Jeff Fenech and the rest of the 888Poker peeps arrived to sweat Shane Warne as Pierre Aoukar made his way out the door in sixth to leave the remaining five players in the money.

Grant Levy exited in fifth when his K♦ Q♦ went down to Jonathan Karamalikis’ A♣ K♥, before Warne captured the lead after winning a race against Karamalikis’ treys. Karamalikis however would find lightening on the river just a few hands later when he rivered a two-outer holding 8♠ 8♣ against Warne’s 10♥ 10♠. Karamalikis swiftly dispatched of Aaron Benton in third before Warne would finally see his deep run end in third for a $40,000 as two South Australians; Karamalikis and James Obst entered heads up play with not much splitting the two online guns.

Obst chipped away, eventually capturing the lead and extending it before being crippled by Karamalikis’ Q♣ J♥ against his A♥ 3♠ when a Queen spiked on the turn. Obst doubled, then doubled again, and then doubled one last time before his K♣ 6♣ couldn’t overcome Karamalikis’ A♣ 9♣ to fall shy of his maiden live tournament victory.

For Karamalikis, this is his fourth live tournament victory, and third in Melbourne following his recent Aussie Millions Bounty Event and ANZPT Sydney High Rollers victories. Earning himself another $100,000 payday, sees Karamalikis’ career winnings climb well over the half a million mark – yet again justifying his recent appointment of a Full Tilt Poker Red Pro and stature of one of the best players in Australia.

With the mini-UBOC 5 running on Absolute Poker and cash games on PKR, it really got my drive to play some live poker going. As the Victorian Poker Championships are in full swing, I decided to make the drive down to play Event 8: $550 8 Game Mixed Event.

Taking my seat I found David Steicke to my left and Daniel Neilson and Dean Francis at the opposite end of the table. I lost a few pots early before making a six-five in Razz to chip back over my starting stack before taking a nice pot of Steicke when he folded sixth street with my board showing (A-2)-3-7-K-4, before making Aces-up in Stud against Francis’ lesser two-pair to climb to 13,000. Steicke would win round two when my (8-8)-9-2-7-6-(8) was run down by his (6-6)-A-5-8-9-(7) as I made the first break with 12,925.

I would then find a virtual double once the No Limit Holdem orbit came around. With a limp of 200, Francis made it 625 to go and found one caller before I bumped it to 1,750 with 10♦ 10♥. The blinds, limper and Francis folded before the smooth-caller shipped it, and I made the call to be up against 9♠ 9♥ as I moved to 20,625 in chips.

Our table broke, and I found myself seated on the direct right of Kerry Stead – before donking off some chips to him in 2-7 Triple Draw. My revenge of Stead would be better as I delivered his knockout blow in Stud after he found himself short. But that sweet feeling of having chips would soon turn sour as I had an opponent all in for a pot worth in-excess of 15,000 with (K-9)-K trailing my (A-K)-A. He found deuces on both sixth and seventh street to see me return to my starting stack of 10,000.

As the structure crept up on us, I was forced to ship nine-big blinds with J♠ 10♠ from the button and was isolated by the small blind with A♣ 10♣. The flop fell 9♠ 8♥ 4♠, but even with that many outs, I obviously bricked out to bust in 26th of 48 players.

Late last night, Heath and I decided to play the $200 Teams Event at the Victorian Poker Championships, and consequently I made the boring drive up the highway to donk off.

I arrived early to take care of some things before Heath and I decided to grab a few drinks and some food at Lagerfield. We discussed work, poker and all of the above before being joined by Kirsty, Landon and a few of his mates.

Eventually we decided to make our way downstairs to tackle the gauntlet of the teams event, with me taking the first rotation. Unfortunately the 2,500 starting stack I had received was soon chopped into half as Heath took his seat and topped up another 2,500. I would lose us some chips, he would get us a double; that was the order for the night, which funnily enough was the opposite to the way it happened when we first played a teams event together back in 2008. Nothing went right for me, and inevitably it would be Heath that would bust us when he shoved over Aces with Ace-Jack – and although flopping a Jack – failed to improve to see us bust in about 60th place of the 214 starters.

However, I spent the majority of the night when not playing discussing the upcoming State of Origin, and how it should be fixed for 2011. Consequently, here are my suggestions for how the 2011 State of Origin at the Victorian Poker Championships should be conducted.

State of Origin Committee
Over the past few years, there has always been an issue with the exact formation of each side. Justification for an inclusion or exclusion is always the biggest talking point, followed by the selection of the captain.

To make the State of Origin a premier feature event on the local poker calendar, something has to be done to ensure that the teams selected are not only fair, but also a true justification of the best in the state.

Consequently I believe a Committee should be formed that will pick the squad through mutual decision by sorting through live and online tournament results both in Australia and overseas.

The next point is exactly who should be on the Committee? Well firstly, the members that form the Committee must be unbiased and impartial to the event, and have no chance of being selected themselves. They must also have a sound knowledge of the game, and possess an even greater knowledge of the Australian pool of poker players. I don’t believe that the Committee should be too large either as this will create even more difficulty when coming to a conclusion on final teams.

My vote for who should head up this Committee? Firstly – although I may be a little bias – I would cast a vote for myself. I have yet to meet anyone with a greater knowledge of players in the country, am also independent to the event, and am at nearly every tournament around the world that would influence the team selection; whether it be an Aussie Millions, APPT, ANZPT or WSOP.

My next vote would be for Jonno Pittock who has the influence in the event, as it is in his poker room where the event is run. Finally I believe that Tony Hachem should stay involved in the Committee by the pure fact that it is his creation, but by doing so, he would have to rule himself out of possible selection to remain fair.

Selection Criteria
Obviously the toughest part of the event, I believe I have come up with a simple solution that should please everyone.

First of all Captains will pretty much remain as they are from this year, as most of them are true figureheads in their states. However it is a question of how the seven other spots should be filled, that gets everyone scratching their heads. With a Committee in place, they organise a few hours where they can sit down and discuss the teams. With the State of Origin concept being pitting the best in the state against the best in other states, then that is simply what you do. Taking live results both at home and abroad, online rankings and past form from the period of the 2010 Victorian Poker Championships to before the 2011 Victorian Poker Championships, you should be able to pick the best team.

The Committee will firstly select the six players they believe are the best in the state over the past twelve months and then provide a further four alternates. This list is then handed to the Captain who must contact each of the six players to see if they are available. If not, the first alternate will take his/her place and so on until six available members have been chosen.

As for the final spot, well that will be the Captain’s Exemption. If the captain believes that a player who missed out on the team should have actually made it, then they can be called up for that final eighth spot. They believe that they are a great player for the format of the event or were unfairly passed over, but either way, they have a chance to influence the team in a possibly winning way.

Although New South Wales have persisted with it, I believe that satellite winners shouldn’t be allowed in the State of Origin. I have no major argument for it, apart from saying that the event should be the best of the best from each state, therefore meaning that a satellite winner – regardless of how well they ran in the satellite or in the State of Origin – wouldn’t be in the best otherwise they would have already been selected. The only way this concept would work is if every team decided to have one satellite winner, but in all honesty, I don’t think this would happen.

Event Format
The Shootout format is a perfect way to run the State of Origin, but some tinkering needs to be done so that when the final table starts, it isn’t already game, set, match for a particular side.

Keeping the Shootout format points system of:

1st – 60

2nd – 50

3rd – 40

4th – 30

5th – 20

6th – 10

7th – 0

8th – 0

Like normal, you play down until there is a winner as each team is allocated the appropriate points for where they finished on each table. Each set of 10 points earns your side 10,000 tournament chips, and when you return the following day for the final table, each state will sit down with the equivalent amount of tournament chips in relation to their accrued points (ie 240 points equates to 240,000 in chips) plus the day one starting stack of 20,000 (in case a team fails to accrue any points during the shootout). Consequently when the final table begins, everybody still has a realistic chance of winning the title.

Now for the next twist. The final table will begin with the Captain playing, but at four separate occasions they will be allowed to make four substitutions. Any team member can be subbed in, and team member can play multiple times, and the subs do not have to be used if the Captain wishes so.

Not only will this format make it a little more exciting, but will also mean that for both days of the State of Origin, there is not only a crowd smothering the rail, but also every team member in attendance as they all still have an equal chance of winning.

In all honesty, none, one or all of these ideas that I’ve come up with could be utilised in the 2011 State of Origin, but only time will tell.

So many people have already contributed thoughts and ideas in relation to selection, format etc, and some are good, and some are bad. Heck, I would love to see a Stanley Cup-esque trophy with the winning team and their members engraved on it created so that the pride of crushing your opposition is more rewarding!

We will have to wait quite a while until we hear changes to the State of Origin, but hopefully those with the power to do so, take in what others have had to say on the issue that is obviously very important in our small and close-knit poker community.

After what feels like a year – but in reality is actually four months – of being on the road . . . I am finally home!

Although I do love traveling the world covering poker tournaments, degening it up and hanging out with mates; there is nothing better than coming home to not only Australia, but my home town of Geelong for some much-needed rest.

Winter is one of my favourite times of the year, and spending the majority of it in the 40 degree-plus heat in Las Vegas, it is great being welcomed home by dark clouds and heavy rain.

Too bad I’ll be back on the blogging trail soon enough with the Victorian Poker Championships just around the corner!

The land of beautiful woman, gorgeous beaches and the beloved game of soccer was the next stop on my poker calendar as an Austrian hoisted the trophy and US$247,441 first prize when he bested a 364-player field courtesy of a two-pair over two-pair cooler last hand.

With Florianopolis being the fourth stop for season three of the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) – and my first – I am delighted to write my first tournament recap from South America with The Eight Points of Enlightenment: LAPT Florianopolis.

1 – Costao do Santinho Resort (Part I): Being able to cover tournaments in exotic occasions means that you are privy to five-star hotels and fantastic resorts. With this leg of the LAPT being located on the island of Florianopolis, the Costao do Santinho was the ideal resort for the tournament with its many villas and prime beach-side location. Although the resort was somewhere Brazilians would journey to to escape the city life, in comparison to some of the places that poker players have accustomed to, it doesn’t quite fit the bill. Each room was more like an apartment with a laundry and kitchen, and was pretty average in all departments – especially the heating – which was quite a disappointment.
One of the other problems we were having was terrible internet connection. Although it allowed us to connect momentarily, it would randomly just disconnect and not allow us to re-connect at any point during the night. This was a major problem for us when we either had to do work or play online; and who knows how the poker players staying at the resort would have felt – especially since it was mid-FTOPS!

2 – Costao do Santinho Resort (Part II): The rooms may have been average, but the one aspect of the resort that was really good was that it was all-inclusive. With two restaurants located on the beach front, we could freely make our way there for a buffet breakfast or dinner, and it was completely complimentary. The breakfast wasn’t flash hot, but the dinner was what we all looked forward to as they had an Italian restaurant where – along with the standard buffet – they had freshly made pizza and pasta for you to order and have delivered to your table. It definitely made our group dinners more enjoyable as we stuffed our faces without a care for the bill.

3 – Timing: One problem that is a good thing nowadays is that the poker calendar is packed with events nearly every week in locations around the world. Understandably, especially with a tour that is PokerStars-based, is that they don’t really want tour stops overlapping with each other so that they have the maximum chance of getting a bumper field size. Unfortunately in Florianopolis, the event not only coincided with Brazil winter, but also a week-long spell of the coldest weather to grace the area in seven years. Nearly every player and media member hadn’t quite prepared adequately for the cold, and many were sporting double and even triple layers as they made their way round the resort. With Brazil being all about beautiful woman and incredible beaches – or so many do believe – why not hold this event in summer or at least not mid-winter? Not only would it attract more players, but make everybody’s trip more enjoyable regardless of their result in the tournament.

4 – Tournament Structure: Virtually all of the PokerStars.net tours following the same tournament structure of blind increases and timing, but one of the unusual aspects here in Florianopolis was the day two structure. The plan – as per the tournament guide – was that day two would see the field play down to a final 24 or as announced. At the start of play as 183 players sat down to battle it out, everyone in the tournament room knew there was no realistic chance of culling the field down to the magical three table mark. The problem is, the tournament staff decided to push for that number anyway instead of ending the night at realistic time. Consequently, with fourteen hours of play and over twelve levels, the final 36 were finally allowed to call it a night.
With only needing to make the final table of eight the following day, the day was obviously a short one, and if the tournament staff working the previous night decided to be realistic and look ahead, they would understand that they could have ended play early so that all days of the tournament were fairly even in length.

5 – Staff: Both the Costao do Santinho and LAPT staff were extremely friendly and helpful with anything that we needed. Whether it was solving internet issues, answering the most random of questions or just making life easier for us, they really did the best to make our lives easy during the stay. As mentioned in a previous blog, some of the media were idiots, but the majority of them were great; especially the ESPN Brazil and PokerStars Blog team, who often shared hands and information between the three of us.

6 – Language Barrier: Although the staff were great, we did have some language issues especially with the hotel staff. At times it was hard to communicate with them whether it be at the restaurant or generally around the resort, but we still did our best to manage. As for the tournament, we always knew that talking to players would be an issue, and at times they would go on a Spanish or Portuguese rant after we would ask their name, and all we could do was nod and smile. Occasionally people would approach Donnie and I with questions, but all we could do was say, “English. English” and they would either laugh and walk away, or speak to us in some form of the broken variety.

7 – Media Room: One of the great things the Costao do Santinho and LAPT staff did was implement a media room so that all media members that didn’t necessarily need to be on the tournament floor, had a separate room to do all their work. Not only did this reduce the clutter on the desks in the tournament room, but also meant that Donnie and I had a place to play online once the day was over, that was both warm, quiet and had a decent internet connection – all of course, in comparison to our rooms! At many tournaments you don’t often see a separate media room, but I think it is a must at some of these bigger tournaments where media is going to consist of more than just PokerNews.

8 – To Be, Or Not To Be Home Grown?: In these new tours, I like to see a local player take it down, because I always feel that it will help encourage the growth of the game in that area of the world. Especially with a place like South America, I truly felt that seeing a home grown champion would be the best thing for the LAPT. Although the numbers were on the low side, I still feel that poker is growing forward in the region, and that for a tour such as the LAPT, we have to start encouraging players that aren’t based in South or Central America to make the trip. Seeing Austrian Matthias Habernig capture the title will hopefully encourage other Europeans to satellite into the LAPT and make the long journey across the globe to potentially make their mark in South America!

With my first LAPT in the bag, it is time to journey back to Las Vegas momentarily before venturing back home.

Next stop . . . the Victorian Poker Championships in Melbourne!