tilted behaviour

Probably the best thing about the Aussie Millions is without doubt the series ending Farewell Party!

It is a time for dealers, media and players to let their hair down and party hard on Crown’s wallet . . . and year after year that wallet gets pushed to the edge.

Driving up from Crown I met up with Heath as we made our way into Fusion and quickly grabbed a beer from one of the gorgeous waitresses. Surrounded by dealers we eventually found some common friends before the rest of the PokerNews clan rolled in along with some fellow poker buddies.

Basically the night revolved around lots of drinks, heaps of photos and conversations about poker before the bar-tab eventually ran out and people started shuffling elsewhere.

With the night still fairly young – 2am – me and Alex decided that we would pay a visit to the Teak Room to cash in a $25 free play voucher that I had received in the mail. Alex had a smoke, and I couldn’t resist the lure of the Baccarat tables and decided to gamboooool it up for a little.

Maybe thirty minutes later and up $150 we headed down to the poker room to continue our sobering-up by taking a seat on the $0.50-1 PokerPro table. Alex ran hot, I got rivered seventeen times and took by beat-up negative $100 ass to the real felt of a $2-3 NLH table.

I never got anything going but still managed to profit $40 on the table which meant I finished up for the night before eventually feeling sober enough to drive home.

With my lone Team 888Poker member Pierre Aoukar unfortunately busting within the first twenty minutes of the today’s play, I was left with a whole day of nothing to do.

Consequently I strolled downstairs and walked around doing nothing for a while before making my way over to Heath’s place to write an article and chill for a while.

After writing a few 888Poker articles me and Heath suited up to play some tennis. The previous match saw Heath and Kirsty lose 2-6 to me, but this time it would be just the boys. I took a 4-1 lead at one point, only to go down in the first set 7-5 before losing the next one in even quicker fashion when it finished 6-3 in Heath’s favour.

We both had a shower and made our way over to a suite at the Crown Towers where Lynn was throwing GG a ‘leaving PokerNews party’ for all his friends and co-workers. When we arrived only a few guys were there eating dinner, and before too long, I was cutting down chips and dealing a home game!

It would never be a great idea running a sizeable game, so we chose a rotation of NLH and PLO with blinds at 5c-10c . . . big stakes ey!

I bought in for $10, while most people bought in for $20, $30 and even $50, and once Jonno, Mike and some random others strolled in, the game got out of control with pots of $50+ playing out in both the NLH and PLO orbits.

But like most home games / hotel party’s / going away party’s things started to get out of hand with drinks being spilt and ridiculous room service orders being placed.

Eventually security came knocking and we warned to shut-up or ship out! The food eventually came, and I took a step away and began cashing everyone out as I knew things wouldn’t last too much longer . . . and I was right as we were soon on our way home!

Thanks to Lynn for hosting a kick-ass night of fun and degeneracy!

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 was an unfortunate day on the cricket pitch today.

Well personally anyway as we locked up first innings points by bowling out last year’s premiers for 100 and making the score and a further 40 by the end of play. There is no need to talk about my dismal performance at the batting crease . . . let’s just say I should be back in the seconds soon enough if I continue to play this bad . . . 0*, 80*, 32*, 31, 0 (* = not out).

Afterwards I met up with my cousins for a family get together as my cousin Scottie and his girlfriend were in town visiting everyone.

Now this might not sound like a big deal, but back when we grew up our cousins were always closer than any of our friends, and as we were all close in age we spent holidays and weekends together. However with most of us growing up and going our separate ways in terms of living and working, it’s always hard to just randomly meet up for a catch up even though there are fourteen of us just on Mum’s side of the family!

Dinner was at an Indian restaurant in town, and after a quick stop off at Cold Rock for some much needed dessert, we headed back to Adam’s house to continue a recently started tradition of playing video games all night!

Last time it was Buzz, but this time Adam had a new toy with DJ Hero and we all took shots at becoming DJ Jazzy Jeff all night long!

DJ Hero follows the same concept of Guitar Hero and has a controller based on a turntable. There are three buttons to activate accented beats while you scratch away and adjust their crossfade between songs. There are over 80 remixes of two different songs from a selection of over 100 songs across numerous genres; for example Daft Punk megamixes, Vanilla Ice mixed with MC Hammer and even Jackson 5 mixed with Third Eye Blind!

This is simply one of the greatest games I’ve played in ages, and being able to mix some old school classics with new pop songs, some corny but cool graphics and great songs and music quality nearly – actually – does beat a night out at the club . . . once you minus the drunk randoms, overload of guys and cramped space.

Just check out this sample from the game with Kid Cudi’s Day N Nite mixed with the Black Eyed Peas Boom Boom Pow.

Today I made a decision that will most likely change my life forever.

Correction.

It will change my life forever!

Today I decided that I will be purchasing a . . . wait for it . . . a Nintendo Wii Console!

Yes the picture is large . . . but that is to reinforce the dramatic nature of such a huge decision!

Now you all might be thinking how the hell is buying a Wii such a big life-changing decision? So let me break it down for you.

Beginning my gaming days with a Super Nintendo before moving on to a PlayStation and then a PlayStation 2 – combined with a GameBoy here and a few PC games there – my inner Asian nerd wouldn’t be satisfied until I took the next step and evolved my current gaming situation.

With currently three superior gaming platforms on the market –XBox 360, PlayStation and the Wii – it was always going to be a tough decision about what platform would be next in line to drain my brain cells of precious life and continue my evolution to an albino due to lack of sun.

The XBox 360 is the older of the above mentioned platforms, but that doesn’t mean it lacks an edge in the gaming market. I believe that the XBox 360 is the leader in online gaming, and since I don’t have any real need for that, it was ruled out early on.

For the past few months I have had my eyes locked firmly on purchasing a PlayStation 3 after testing it out at a few different friend’s houses. The graphics were phenomenal and the game play was unbelievable – and in reality there was no doubt about it – the PlayStation 3 was what I wanted! The only problem . . . the cost . . . but that has now been solved with prices plummeting downward so that the plebs of society (myself) can now afford one.

So you must now be thinking how does the Nintendo Wii even get a mention? Technically the PlayStation 3 may be far superior, but I believe that the Wii offers more than it’s Sony counterpart. Games that interest me; such as FIFA 09 and FIFA 10 and the soon to be released FIFA 11, are all available on Wii with the same capabilities as on the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 versions. Combined with the ability to alter controllers into guns, steering wheels and tennis racquets to play the vast range of non-FIFA games is a massive plus. Throw in Wii Sports, Sports Resort and Wii Fit and my inner Asian nerd may actually get off his fat ass and bowl some strikes or hit a home run.

Considering that I’m starting to get old, the need for a gaming console that could entertain a more mature group of friends that don’t spend their time cracking level 17 on Super Mario Kart or playing ten tables a day for fifteen hours was also a positive. This is where the Wii Sports and other such interactive games push the Wii into the number one spot in my search for a new gaming platform!

I hope now you can understand that choosing a gaming platform is truly a life-changing decision that shouldn’t be rushed, but heavily thought about, so that the inner Asian nerd in everyone can be completely satisfied when his or her eyes turn square!

After checking out the Crown Tournament Calendar last night, I noticed a tournament that sparked my interest . . . a $50 with $25 rebuys Pot Limit Omaha tournament.

Down the highway I went and registered for the tournament before heading upstairs with Peter Aristidou to kill some time before we started. A hot chocolate (me) and coffee (him) later and we took our seats both on the feature table and both directly next to each other – myself in seat six while Peter took seat seven.

I gambolled with one hand holding just one-pair against an obvious pair of Aces in the hole when I flopped a pair and multiple backdoor draws. I bricked out and the Aces held as I was forced to rebuy. In the next major hand I held A♦ K♥ J♣ 10♣ and got it all in against Peter’s Queen-Nine-x-x and another opponent’s K♦ 2♦-x-x on a flop of J♦ 10♣ 6♦. The turn blanked, but the river fell the K♠ to see Peter scoop the pot and me rebuy once again.

Once through the rebuy period I added-on to see me in for $150 as I made a prop bet with Steve Topakas. With twenty-six players remaining and Topakas holding a 24,000-chip stack, I bet him $50 that he wouldn’t finish in the top six, and after a few minutes of umming and ahhing he decided to go ahead with the bet.

A few hands after we resumed I busted when my J♦ 9♣ 8♣ 6♣ was unable to improve on a flop of 9♦ 8♣ 6♦ against two players holding a straight, and one with the nut flush draw.

(Topakas would end up finishing in 7th place . . . ship the $50!!!)

I drove over to Mat’s house and we ate some lunch before heading to watch Melbourne Victory versus Sydney FC in an A-League soccer match at Etihad Stadium with Brendan.

Sydney FC defeated Melbourne Victory 3-0

After just 19-minutes Sydney had the game locked at 3-0 and it was funny watching the die-hard Victory fans either sit there sulking and abusing their players or up and leave.

Once the game was wrapped up we made our way to Crown as had a few hours to kill before heading to a friend’s going away party.

We opted to play some 50c-$1 PokerPro and all bought in for the minimum of $20. The PokerPro tables at Crown have recently undergone a software upgrade, and on our table you could live straddle and rabbit hunt – the rabbit hunt was obviously rigged, but we did take advantage of the straddle option throughout the night.

Mat couldn’t win a pot, Brendo played like an idiot and was lucky to have any money in the end, while I was able to turn my $20 into $120.75 as we had a drink and exited the Poker Room.

The reason we were heading to Platform One was to celebrate Kim Ayles’ going away party as she was leaving Crown to teach English in Nepal for a few months.

We grabbed a few drinks while catching up with James and Rob and had a huge night having some fun with Kim and some other friends we knew from Crown in a venue that we would probably never normally visit.

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!

With the WSOP now wrapped up and mostly everyone still in here we all wanted to get together to hang out and see everyone off. . . however nothing had been planned (rolls eyes at GG) in comparison to the poker, BBQ and karaoke day from last year!

Once we were all up and ready, we made our way to GG’s to find everyone seated round his poker table like we were the ones holding them up.

Mat put the cards in the air and our 10-handed, 5,000-chip starting bank, $50 sit-n-go was kicking!

Mickey ran Queens into Aces and like a junior Phil Hellmuth, started ranting and raving at how bad he runs. People busted left, right and centre until I eventually perished in fourth place as F-Train finished third while Donnie couldn’t overcome the power of Marc Hodge heads-up.

With GG heading out on some prior obligations, we were left to fend for ourselves and decided that the best option was a friendly HORSE game; in which I took the dealing duties.

I made around $15 in tips before we called it a night.

After DK and myself finally arrived back at the condo following a little directionless driving, both me and Mat decided to join him in seeing the movie Bruno along with Melissa and Eddy.

Having no idea what the movie was about, we grabbed some popcorn and found some seats to find out that it was basically a Euro-version of Borat but with more male nudity . . . up close!

The movie was funny, but very disturbing at times and I only recommend it if you enjoyed Borat and prepared for a plenty of close up male nudity . . . I think you get the picture!