tilted behaviour

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!

With a day off between the two previous day two’s and the upcoming day three there was a Dream Team Media freeroll held for anyone that worked in the media.

Marc Hodge, Mat Pater and I teamed up to form team Tilted Behaviour. We joined several PokerNews teams in a battle to be the longest lasting to win a seat into the $1,680 Dream Team Main Event in a few days time.

I busted early when I shoved Ace-Six with my short-stack and was snapped off by Ace-Nine. However both Marc and Mat would hold the fort down and see us take down the longest-lasting trophy and $1,680 freeroll!

A few hours later we all combined once again to take part in the PokerNews Freeroll!

Everyone had a random bounty on their hand to go along with the prizepool, and before the cards were in the air, Garry and I revealed our t-shirts.

GG had both DK and Mel on his team with pictures of me and the words of Sometimes . . . me and my mates . . . we just like to grind, while Donnie, Eric and Mat were on my side with a picture of GG’s mug on it and the slogan of Who the f**k is Garry Gates?. Everyone’s t-shirt however had an alternative slogan on the back with mine saying Mate Ditcher, Mat’s saying Plzzz Mate and Eric and Donnie’s saying Pay Forgetter.

Our T-Shirt Battle

I was out of the freeroll fairly early when my Ace-King was outran by Marc’s Queen-Jack. The flop fan out King-Queen-Queen, but no improvement would fall on the turn and river and I handed over my bounty to Marc. However, I quickly grabbed it back so I could read what it would be . . . Tim Duckworth owes the holder of this card $20!

Unveiling my bounty

WTF! I had to pay my own bounty . . . firstly rival t-shirts and now I lose out in a freeroll . . . so ridiculous!

Melissa and F-Train went heads up in the freeroll and chopped the money, but Melissa would officially take it down as we now all prepared for one of the greatest party’s in the world . . . the PokerStars Player’s Party!

With a few hours to kill before the party kicked off, a few of us grabbed some food at the Rio before making our way to the Palms at the Rain Nightclub.

We made the most of the open bar as Donnie and I ventured into the Hachem VIP area to mingle for a while. We paced the dancefloor bumping into a pro here, a media member there and a fellow colleague everywhere else before we waited round for Nelly to come on to the stage at midnight.

He performed a bunch of songs, and soon after we walked out the door to witness some degen gambling by nearly the whole PokerNews crew that remained – apart from the wiser and stronger Aussie boys!

Back to work tomorrow, but here is a rough video I put together of Nelly performing (note – the sound quality on this camera is fairly terrible, so I cut it out and just added some recorded tracks).

Having to start at 5pm was an absolute blessing after the late night / early morning that we had endured, and what made it better was that Donnie, Mickey and myself were all working the same event – Event 37 – $10,000 World Championship Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo.

Being a World Championship event, the coverage was always going to have to be word-class and by having Mickey and me, along with Marc Hodge on the floor there was no doubt about it!

You probably already know that Stud Hi-Lo is one of the most boring games to blog / report on, and consequently I’m not going to endlessly bore you either. Instead, I’m going to include this funny clip that was launched around the NBA playoffs time.

I find this video absolutely hilarious and when I first saw it on TV I cracked up!

Even if you don’t like this one, there are a bunch more on YouTube featuring puppet Kobe and LeBron as well as Lil Dez.