tilted behaviour

The two flights on the Gold Coast merged today to see day two action get underway in the ANZPT Queensland Main Event.

Chris Levick fell early to see Tony Hachem crowned the ANZPT Points Champion before he too fell to the rail. Heath ‘TassieDevil’ Chick was unable to get much motoring today and exited to the rail courtesy of running tens in to Aces, soon to be followed by Emad Tahtouh as Scott ‘Punty’ Smith surged up the chip counts.

At the end of the day, Punty would lead the remaining 40, but still have to contend with Joel ‘StrongPlay’ Dodds, Tim ‘LuckyShades’ Horan hot on his tail.

Andrew Meldrum, Techni-Colour Chips, Julian Cohen, Linda Tyler, Scott ‘Punty’ Smith, Graeme ‘Kiwi G Putt, Putt’s Chip Stack, Tim ‘LuckyShades’ Horan

Once the tournament was wrapped up for the night, I headed upstairs to watch the Ashes with Heath as Kirsty was meeting up with some girlfriends for a few drinks and a good night out.

As our room service arrived, I was sent a text message that my $1-2 NLH table was ready, and after polishing off my Chicken Parmigiana I headed downstairs.

It was weird taking my seat at the table, because I had played a live cash game since heading to Lebanon – nearly three weeks ago – a gap that is very rare for me!

I bought in for the minimum of $100, as I just wanted to have some fun and not donk off too much before heading back to Melbourne and then off to Macau. I check-called top-pair with K♠ 9♣ out of the small blind, and then when I tripped up on the turn, I check-called another pot-sized bet before being shown a King and weaker kicker on the river to take the pot down.

My biggest hand came up when I opened K♣ J♠ from early postion to $7 and was met with four callers. The flop fell down A♠ K♠ 5♠ and I fired $27 at the pot. The tight player on my left called, and I went into shutdown mode unless a King, Jack or spade fell as I had this guy on just an ace. Brick, brick and I mucked at the sight of his A♥ Q♦.

I reload another $100 and after a few orbits of boring nothingness I flat $10 with 6♥ 6♦, two callers before there is a min-raise to $20 and an all in for $25, I call the extra $15 and five of us see the flop of 4♣ 7♥ 8♦ land. I check-call $10 (WTF?) from the min-raiser and when the 5♠ lands on the turn I ship it in, only to have both the remaining active players muck. The all in player folds his Kings in disgust as I move back to $180.

My final hand see me call down a solid player with 5♥ 5♦ on a four over-card pot, and when I table my hand on the checked river he mucks his double barrel.

Up $11 and I head back to my room to play some HORSE with Heath.

Of all the pots we play, at least 94% of them are against each other and with an average of three-bets on each street! We also start up a sit-n-go, in which I dominate to third as he bows out in sixth.

2am rolls round, and I decide to call it a night as I’m up $30 from the sit-n-go and two 25c-50c HORSE tables and the Aussies are unfortunately in control of day one of the fourth test.

After four stops, we have finally reached the last stop of the inaugural PokerStars.net ANZPT with the Queensland Main Event kicking off today.

Duffy was based in Brisbane while I took up base at the Gold Coast where we were greeted with 62 entrants to take today’s day 1a field up to 116.

We had a fairly strong field mixed with tournament enthusiasts from around the country such as Eric Assadourian, Emad Tahtouh, Danny Joukhadar and locals Stewart Scott, Richard Holmes, Lisa Walsh and Jamie Pickering.

Quads, one-outers and Jack-high squeeze plays were the norm, but instead of running through a few hands of the day, I thought I would post some of my favourite photos from the day.

Emad Tahtouh, Jamie Pickering, The Buck, Conrad Jupiters Dealer, Chips and the Shoe, Richard Holmes, Stewart Scott, Andrew Hinrichsen

To check out the rest of the photos from the day (and upcoming days) check them out here.