tilted behaviour

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.

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!

The sun had finally decided to make a strong showing, and about time as we took to the final day of the PokerStars.net LAPT Florianopolis Main Event!

The Costao de Santinho, in conjunction with the LAPT and PokerStars, did a fantastic job of structurally organising the make-shift tournament room so that it felt both accommodating for the players and media, but also like a real poker room. On one side of the room was a huge stage that housed the feature table where filming had been taking place over the past couple of days, as well as throughout the duration of the Final Table.

Unfortunately for us media members, we weren’t allowed up on stage like many other tournaments, and although it didn’t bother some of the other media sites, it meant that our PokerNews coverage was going to be jeopardised in the way our followers had become accustomed to; such as quality photos and detailed hands. When you throw in the Spanish-speaking, but uber-yummy Eva Mendes lookalike Costa Rican announcer (who was actually one of our PokerNews’ reporters sister), we knew it was going to be a frustrating day.

We were told that all the important hands would be repeated in English, but when perfectionists such as Donnie and I are working, we like to put in as many hands as possible – but unfortunately it wasn’t to be on this occasion!

Four and a half hours would be all that Matthias Habernig needed to hoist the trophy high in the air as he became the first Austrian LAPT Champion. It was a fairly dull final table, but I wrote the full recap for PokerNews, and it can be found here; PokerStars.net LAPT Florianopolis Day 4: Habernig Rides Chip Lead to Victory.

Trophy, Final Table, The Crowd, Rudy Blondeau, Miguel Velasco, Chips, Matthias Habernig, Dayan Vardanega, Matthias Habernig, Robson Vinicious Kozan

With only twenty-eight eliminations needed until we reached a final table, Day 3 of the PokerStars.net LAPT Florianopolis Main Event was always going to be short and sweet for the penultimate day of a tournament.

After a 20-minute delay to proceedings, there was a flurry of eliminations as Matthias Habernig captured the lead to be back in a similar position to the one he was in for the majority of the first two days. The action really started to get interesting when there was only sixteen remaining as players began to see how serious the event was, and consequently began taking an eternity to act on each decision. After moving all in, they would stand up and start to pray, before eventually collecting the pot and flashing whatever they risked their tournament life with. It was unbelievable the amount of times they would show their cards – virtually every hand!

Inevitably after six levels of play and nearly thirty eliminations, the final table would be set with Habernig amassing a stack amounting to nearly half the chips in play and four-times the amount of his closest rival.

Jorge Pereira, Alessandra Correa Dos Santos, Miguel Velasco, Jorge Arias, Matthias Habernig, Paulo Rink, Engelberth Steve Varela Moreno, Marco Caicedo Jaramillo, Matthias Habernig, Richard Gui, Andre Sa, Homero Ribeiro, Rudy Blondeau

Returning for Day 2 action of the PokerStars.net LAPT Florianopolis Main Event, we were always going to be in for a long day with the 183 returning players expected to play down to just 24!

The prizepool was announced with R$1,624,200 – or approximately US$923,892 – being spread amongst the final forty-eight players with whoever could sit atop after four days of poker earning R$435,000 or US$247,441.

Action was fast and furious in the early going as players continuously made their way to the rail as only 54 players managed to make it to the dinner break. On return, one table only featured one player, and although he could only pick up a few rounds of blinds and antes, it underlined the laid-back nature of Brazilians. We quickly found ourselves on the bubble with the short-stacked Wallacy Marcal attracting all the attention with his diminishing, and barely two big-blind stack. Marcal doubled, then tripled, before sneaking into the money when Alexandre Fracari’s Jacks were outdrawn on the flop.

A few more eliminations fell before play was paused for the night after twelve levels with Canadian Rudy Blondeau leading the final thirty-six; all ensured a guaranteed US$4,619 payday.

For the first time in nearly I year I had the job of writing the PokerNews wrap on the website; PokerStars.net LAPT Florianopolis Day 2: Blondeau in Control.

Mario Masciotro, Cinthia Escobar, Matthias Habernig, Wallacy Marcal, Claudio Baptista, Felipe Ramos, Andre Luiz Scaff, Chips, Veronica Dabul, Rudy Blondeau, Carolina Costa, Leo Fernandez, Angel Guillen, Dan Frank, Guillermo Montero, Rodrigo Sirichuk

It is always fun working a tournament in a place where you have never been, but with that tingling excitement of being somewhere new comes plenty of obstacles to stand in your way.

Walking into the Costao do Santinho, and the subsequent ballroom where the tournament was being housed, the first concern Donnie and I had was where to sit. With two long desks next to each other, we decided to take the one closer to the action to allow easy access to the floor, however this prime location would be ruined . . . but more on that later.

After some internet issues were resolved and the opening posts were written, I went for a stroll around the hotel. I found a lobby-esque store and purchased some gum and mints to satisfy our fondness for fresh breath. On return to the desk I found two Brazilian media guys seated within a few centimetres of my laptop. Why would I be annoyed at this? Well instead of basically sitting in my lap there were five other seats vacant on the opposite side of the desk, but instead had chosen to cramp up the right hand corner.

Obviously annoyed, I shot a look at Donnie which blatantly read if these guys don’t move I’m probably going to punch them in the face! Regardless of the amount of times I tripped on their bags, or slide their computer over when they weren’t there or even plonked the camera in between us, they never budged.

Oh well, we had a tournament to cover with the inaugural PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour Florianopolis Main Event kicking off!

One of the major issues that became apparent once the cards hit the air was the language barrier. We spoke English while the majority of the field spoke Spanish or Portuguese and about half a dozen English words. But like the professionals we are, we battled through as the 364-starting field was reduced to just 183.

A handful of PokerStars.net Team Pros bite the dust including Andre Akkari, Alexandre Gomes, Christian de Leon, Gualter Salles, Humberto Brenes, reigning World Champion Joe Cada and two-time back-to-back LAPT Champion Jose Ignacio Barbero. However, it would be Austrian Matthias Habernig that would lead the field that still included Felipe Ramos, Angel Guillen, Brandon Demes and Veronica Dabul.

As for Donnie and I . . . the end of the night would see us grab some dinner and tackle a bout of online tournaments and cash games!

Starting table, Matthias Habernig, Maridu Mayrinck, Angel Guillen, Leo Fernandez, Joe Cada, Dan Frank, Felipe Ramos, Jose Barbero, Andre Akkari, Chips

I couldn’t really be bothered playing online today, but Donnie was back in his grinding shoes . . . and it paid dividends!

He managed to finish 3rd/2,451 in the Full Tilt Poker $9,500 GTD Rush Rebuy. The buy-in was only $2.20 and he re-bought nine times, but walked away with $2,200 for his third place . . . nice run sir.

With Lynn heading to the gym and me and GG doing nothing, he happily(?) drove me to this place called Too Hotties to get my hair cut. As you walk in there were maybe six or seven hairdressers who were stunningly gorgeous and all young. There was a pool table, flatscreen TVs, massage chair, PS3 and XBox 360 all for the patrons or guests to enjoy.

“Do you guys want a drink?” asked the receptionist.

“I’ll grab a beer!” and extremely excited GG added.

As GG sipped on his Bud Light while getting a chair massage, a petite brunette named Lacey began on my hair. We exchanged normal haircut banter of work etc, and I found out that even though she is only 20-years old, she has never been out of the country! This shocked me, because at the same age I already had been to eight different countries with nearly twenty trips to Asia to holiday or visit family.

Ending the haircut with an awkward but enjoyable face massage, I was extremely pleased with the result, as nothing beats your personal hairdresser back home . . . and for $23 it felt like a bargain!

With GG and I a little hungry, we ventured next door to Firehouse Subs where I bought us some late lunch / early dinner before picking up Lynn on the way home.

We decided a few days ago that we were all going to play the Green Valley Ranch weekly $45 HORSE tournament, and tonight was the night for us to check-raise some senior citizens and have some fun!

Lynn didn’t really want to play due to her lack of knowledge in the games, but that still didn’t stop Donnie, GG, Jane and I donating our money as the $45 entry got us a 2,500 starting bank. Unfortunately the Tournament Director was a bit of an idiot – and although there were four tables in operation – they still managed to seat Donnie, me and GG in the one, two and three seats respectively on the same table. Throw in the fact that we were nine-handed and played each game for a fifteen minute level instead of eight hands, really underlined the quality we expected.

“So what order does the games go in?”

“What exactly is hi-lo . . . razz . . . or stud?”

These were just a handful of the comments that we heard in the first few minutes of the tournament as we all just gave each a look of Oh My GOD!

I chipped up pretty easily in the Holdem orbit, but then played a terrible Razz hand where my made 8-7 perfect was rivered by a guy after I bet every street in a mult-way pot. I managed to pick up some chips though, and finished the first break with 4,600.

With the blinds climbing every game, I tried to play tight in the stud games, but when we returned to Holdem I won about nine pots to get my stack up to 6,500 and then 11,000 by the Razz orbit.

Reaching the final table of eight with 11,200, I was sitting third in chips (chip leader had 33,500) with Stud being the game with an ante of 100 and betting limits of 500-1,000. My stack slipped a little as we lost just one player before I managed to win a hand in Stud Hi-Lo with two-pair against two lows; one of which was the losing hand of Donnie’s.

With only five people getting paid, once we lost seventh, we made a deal for the bubble boy and chuck in $10 each so that he would at least make some profit. Once he exited, I had 14,500 during the Omaha Hi-Lo orbit with blinds 500-1,000 and was sitting on the button.

The remaining four players then started talking deals of chopping the prizepool five-ways for $220 each. The player on my left only had 8,500 and Donnie 6,500 in the big blind, while the two players on my right had 25,000 and 18,000. I felt that I had a great enough skill edge to keep playing, and running ICM equities saw that I should earning a little more. I obviously was beaten into submission and took the deal as we made our way home.

Not having played online all day, I decided to load up a couple of tourneys on Full Tilt Poker to fill in some time before doing some work.

I busted a Rush tourney quite early, but was also playing a $3 PLO Six-Max Rebuy tournament. Although I was in for five rebuys, I had a better than average stack after the rebuy period was over with Donnie also still in. We ended up being seated on the same table for quite a while which was pretty funny as I held the chip lead with 45 players remaining of the starting 77. Once there were about 29 players left, I lost a couple of big pots here and there and slipped back to around fifth only to see Donnie exit when I guy – that I proceeded to berate afterwards – called off a pot raise preflop and then a pot-sized shove on the flop for 80% of his stack with just a straight draw for the wheel.

With only eight players cashing, I doubled a couple of short-stacks up when we were twelve-handed, and consequently had to grind the short-stack on the bubble. I then managed to find two massive double ups after flopping the nut full twice against two players and doubling in the first before eliminating the guy that busted Donnie in the second to take the chip lead into the final table with 40% of the chips in play.

Unfortunately after losing one, I played a massive pot holding K♥ K♠ 9♥ 4♦ against A♥ A♠ J♣ 8♠ after I raised, he potted, and I put him all in. The board ran out 6♥ 9♦ 9♣ Q♠ 10♠ to see the suck, re-suck cost me a chip stack of well over half the chips in play.

Not letting it deter me, I still continued to open fairly regularly to pick up the blinds while also making some sneaky check-raises in blind-on-blind battles with the virtual nuts. I still managed to lose some crucial pots to prevent me returning to my once powerful stack, and consequently when I reached heads-up play, I was nearly a three-to-one underdog in chips.

I managed to take a few dints out of his stack, but he pushed back a couple of times to see my slip back to a three-to-one underdog before this final hand occurred.

Seat 1: tRaMSt0p (90,516)
Seat 3: molchun17 (305,984)
tRaMSt0p posts the small blind of 5,000
molchun17 posts the big blind of 10,000
The button is in seat #1
Dealt to tRaMSt0p 8♥ J♥ 7♣ 7♥

tRaMSt0p raises to 22,500
molchun17 calls 12,500
*** FLOP *** J♣ 7♦ 9♠

molchun17 checks
tRaMSt0p checks
*** TURN *** J♣ 7♦ 9♠ 4♠

molchun17 bets 22,500
tRaMSt0p raises to 68,016, and is all in
molchun17 calls 45,516
tRaMSt0p shows 8♥ J♥ 7♣ 7♥

molchun17 shows 9♣ 7♠ 5♠ 4♥

*** RIVER *** J♣ 7♦ 9♠ 4♠ 9♥

tRaMSt0p shows a full house, Sevens full of Nines
molchun17 shows a full house, Nines full of Sevens
molchun17 wins the pot (181,032) with a full house, Nines full of Sevens

With the final hand occurring around 5:30am, I was fairly disappointed not to take it down and top off a good day, but will take the $159 for 2nd/77 players.

As I mentioned in my last post, I would hopefully have something interesting to post here related to poker . . . and now I do!

I recently made a deposit on Absolute Poker to take advantage of 30% rakeback and supposedly soft players. With a fair chunk of money on PKR, it sucks because I can’t play on that site while I’m still over in Las Vegas – and not wanting to play on PokerStars or Full Tilt – I decided to choose Absolute Poker for some low-stakes cash game grinding.

Starting at just 10NL and 25NL to get use to the software and the players, I’ve noticed that the players are incredibly weak-passive, with the majority of them being terrible short-stack players. The one adjustment I have made in my game is opening my range when entering the pot with a raise, because it is so easy to pick up the blind, and if you eventually get some action, you can easily outplay them on the flop or turn. As for the short-stackers, I’ve noticed that they will often call off a good percentage of their stack preflop and simply check-fold to the majority of c-bets. When they shove over your open however, it is normally the nuts!

With Donnie playing a heavy MTT schedule, and GG moving over to sit-n-gos, they both managed to lure me back to the tournament grind also. I had back-to-back cashes in the Absolute nightly Sniper 3k GTD KO, where I finished 61st yesterday and 40th/667 tonight when I shoved my Aces from the small blind for 12k (at 500-1,000) over the under the gun’s open of 2,275 with J♠ 10♠. He called it off (el oh el) and flopped a straight draw, turned a pair then rivered two-pair. First was $800-ish, so it was pretty disappointing to bust for a virtual min-cash.

Donnie, Me and GG grinding online . . . degens we are!

I ran deep in a PLO rebuy, but got bounced a few levels from the money when my A-A-Q-J was all in on the flop of 10-9-3 against Q-J-10-7 and K-Q-J-2. The turn landed an Ace and the river a 7 to send me crashing out in a pot that was for the chip lead! There is a $11 Rush 135-player tournament that we’ve all been mucking round with, and I final tabled one of them the other day; but was denied a win when my 7♦7s couldn’t hold against Ace-10. However it was the $10+1 $9,500 KO GTD today that really broke my spirits!

After winning a huge pot when my A♠ K♠ made a flush against Kings, I began playing a Carter Phillips-esque poker of raising nearly every hand to build a stack, before taking down this pot.

Then a few hands later, I made a straight on the turn, but my opponent bet-folded from the blinds before this hand went down a few hands after that.

As we approached the money (189 of the 1,875), I was looking to improve my already top-ten chip stack so I could have a good crack at the $3k-plus first prize. Unfortunately, I would play this pot out – which if I won – would have lauched me to the chip lead with a five-time average stack!

I did manage to sneak into the money and eventually bust in 81st place for a $32 payday (courtesy of a few KOs) after my 6♥ 2♥ went down to 10♠ 6♠ on a 6♣ K♠ 6♦ 10♥ 8♦ in a blind-on-blind battle after all the money went in on the turn.

Although I’ve been wanting to focus on cash, playing tournaments with the boys have got me back into the grind that so many people seem to love.

I’m not sure if I’ll continue with it on a full scale effect, but probably will dabble a little when the cash games are running on the low side . . . don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated on all the bad beats I deliver and am delivered in return!