tilted behaviour

I have witnessed a handful of final tables both here in Melbourne and abroad, but the one that I’m fortunate to blog today stands above them all.

We have hit day 8 of the Aussie Millions, and since my last post we have seen Mel Judah take out the Omaha Hi/Lo title in a marathon final table, Zach Gruneberg capture the limit hold’em and Jarred Solomon grind Van Marcus down to win the H.O.R.S.E. Yesterday saw a highpoint on any tournament schedule with Event #6:$1,150 No Limit Hold’em with Rebuys event attracting 126 runners which resulted in 457 rebuys and a prizepool of over half a million dollars!

Rebuy Madness!

With so much poker talent in the Crown Poker Room it was no surprise to see a final table form with such a strong assembly of raw poker talent. It was no surprise either when you look at who else cashed; Grant Levy (16th), Nic Lackovic (15th), Michael Guttman (12th) and Steve ‘stevoL’ Leonard (10th).

Today’s final table has the following line-up in seating order:
Sorel ‘Imper1um’ Mizzi – 131,200
Clark Hamagami – 95,700
Tony ‘Bond18’ Dunst – 120,900
Mark Kassis – 124,200
Rayan ‘rkruok’ Nathan – 38,700
Larry Karambis – 79,900
Jonathan ‘xMONSTERxDONG’ Karamalikis – 153,000
Richard ‘Chufty’ Ashby – 83,400
Peter Rho – 49,400

Now Sorel Mizzi, Tony Dunst, Rayan Nathan, Jonathan Karamalikis and Richard Ashby all have a record anyone would be proud of; but let’s take a look at some of the others. Clark Hamagami is a young Canadian poker player who has a few tournament cashes, but supposedly he beats 25-50 NLH regularly. Mark Kassis has three previous Aussie Millions cashes including a 13th placing in last year’s Main Event for $100,000. Larry Karambis finished a gallant third in this same event last year behind Michael Pedley and Robert Wang for over $50,000. Finally Peter Rho is in the travelling entourage with Kelly Kim out here from California and has a bunch of cashes including five WSOP and two WPT cashes.

Will this be touted as the greatest Aussie Millions final table ever? Will an Aussie such as Dunst, Karamalikis or Nathan be able to cement their live play? Or will Betfair and Full Tilt Pro Sorel Mizzi and Richard Ashby and yet another notch on their belt?

Only time will tell, so make sure to log on to PokerNews to catch all the action of what I believe will be the best No Limit Hold’em final table for years to come!

Yesterday was probably the longest day I’ve had covering event since the early stages of last year’s WSOP! With a 102 runners in the $1,100 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo a 6am finish was also a chance, but a reality shocked me!

As Mel Judah finally took out Rainer Quel holding single-suit Kings for a deserved title and gold ring I ran out of the Crown Poker Room to jump straight into my bed. However after only having five hours sleep I’m up and wide awake on a day off set aside to do some packing before vacating my apartment at the end of the month. But before I do, there is something I want to share with you.

Being a regular reader and contributer on PokerNetwork there has been a lot of discussion recently regarding Russian poker ‘teams’. Now I know this may be very political talking about an issue that may or may not be fairly sensitive, but I feel that the more is known about it, then the likelihood of it being eradicated is more of a possibility.

Following strong Russian results at the Aussie Millions, WSOP, WSOPE and other European-based tournaments last year it appears team members are now training teams. The team operators have worked out a strong edge when playing as a team, and consequently only pay the winners a fraction of the prize money they have actually won. Operators are now branching out and forming youth teams to tackle tournaments so they can increase their edge over the long run.

Ivan Demidov, Sergey Rybachenko, Alexander Kostritsyn

Now I’m not saying that the above three players are part of a Russian team, but either way, three are here already and who knows how many more are on their way to the 2009 Aussie Millions. I think it is very important that poker players understand that there are teams out there, and it is a serious issue that needs to be resolved. I have no idea how it can be done, or if it will ever be stopped, but knowledge of the issue is one step in the right direction!

Due not to start work till 4:30pm today I was hoping to enjoy the comfort of my bed for as long as possible, but even a late night due to a re-watch of the movie Juno couldn’t prevent my 9am wake-up. Alas I decided to head into Crown to help out the rest of the team by jumping on the floor until the remaining 110 players reached the money bubble of 72nd place.

There were two things that I want to share with you about that event. Firstly I witnessed one of the worst beats in a tournament since the WSOP! Fellow Crown regular Paul Rochford called a player’s all-in holding Q♠ Q♥ and looked like chopping up against Mark Jacobson’s Q♦ Q♣. The final board however read A♠ 3♠ A♥ J♠ 8♠ sending Jacobson to the rail and propelling Rochford to a 4th place finish for $51,170.

Something that I just found odd was a player by the name of Andrew Mercaldi. It wasn’t to do with the way he played, or acted, but the way he dressed! Yep, thats right, the way he dressed. You see many players wear poker-affiliated gear whether it be of an online poker or training site, local card room, blog or whatever, but I’ve never seen conflicting attire.

Andrew Mercaldi during Day 2 play of Event #1

You see Mercaldi is wearing a PokerStars t-shirt . . . which is fine, and is also wearing a PartyPoker hat . . . which is also fine, but together . . . a big NO-NO!!! Maybe this is just a personal opinion but I don’t think competing brands should be mixed when it comes to dressing to hit the felt.

After helping the team out for a few hours I headed over to cover Event #2: $1,050 PokerPro No Limit Hold’em. It started well with a stellar field including Emad Tahtouh, Jamie Pickering, Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad and eventual winner Mitchell Carle. However it was extremely hard to look pass the soaring temperatures in the PokerPro area which weren’t being helped by the low-lying roof, bad ventilation and heat being produced by the computerised PokerPro tables.

8 bottles of water later and a newly crowned champion I was outta there to get some rest so I could tackle the most exciting and action packed event on the 2009 Aussie Millions program . . . Event #3: $1,100 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo. With a long day ahead of me tomorrow I’m going to try and get some interviews out of the way including Van Marcus, Billy “the Croc” Argyros and the Australian Poker Pentagon!

The team and I have just necked down a beer and a bite after completing Day 1a and 1b of the 2009 Aussie Millions Event 1: $1,100 No Limit Hold’em.

Setting a guarantee is always dicey, but Crown eclipsed the $500,000 mark by over $730,000 and are paying the top 78 with a first prize of $150,000. 112 remain of the 731 starters with local cash game player Dean Blatt leading them into Day 2 with a tidy 145,300 in chips. However what I really want to share with you is a hand I wrote near the close of play to see Blatt surge to the chip lead.

care of PokerNews
Steicke Eliminated As Blatt Confirms Chip Lead
Dean Blatt opened to 5,000 from under-the-gun and with it folding round to David Steicke in middle position he popped it up to 15,000. A short-stacked player in the small blind moved all in for his last 4,400 and then the action was back on Blatt.

Blatt stood up from his chair and hesitated slightly before announcing, “I’m all in” for a total of 82,000 and some change. Steicke sat there looking Blatt up and down from under his colourful pink hat. As a waiter delivered him a beer, he took a big sip never taking his eyes off Blatt. Following a chant from a fellow tablemate of “Skull, skull, skull”, Steicke responded with, “Might have to soon”. He glanced back down at the remaining 28,600 he had in front of him, and then back at Blatt before announcing, “All right, I call”.

Blatt quickly turned over A♥ A♠ and perched his hands on his head in anticipation of taking the chip lead into day 2. Steicke tabled J♠ J♣ and the unknown player turned over A♦ K♣.

The flop came down 2♦ 9♠ 9♦ still leaving Steicke with two-outs and the unknown player a runner-runner draw to out-draw Blatt. The turn of the K♦ changed things slightly, but with the 6♠ falling on the river the pot was awarded to Blatt.

With the unknown player headed straight to the rail, Steicke finished off his beer as he pondered what could have been as Blatt stacked his chips up to over 130,000.

David Steicke Before Elimination

David Steicke is one of my favorite players on the circuit not due to his skill, but just the way he goes about his poker. He is seen as an Australian poker icon and cult hero with quotes of, “You don’t run like God, God runs like you” directed at him and his unusual style of play. Basically when he re-raises with a gutshot, gets there and then eliminates a player, he will shrug his shoulders in a response of, “Well isn’t that how you’re suppose to play the hand . . .???”. Consequently this is why I love him, and had to hold back the tears as I wrote his bust out hand.

Before I go I would like to send out a huge thank-you to my mate and fellow colleague Heath Chick for helping me iron out some of the little glitches Tilted Behaviour had before launching. Check out his blog at Tassie Devil Poker for a glimpse into the life of a poker player traveling the world and working for PokerNews.