tilted behaviour

I arrived a little later than normal – as expected – and was greeted with some puzzling looks from the majority of the PokerNews crew before settling into another day behind the computer.

APPT Macau Day 1c Level 1-3 Updates
APPT Macau Day 1c Level 4-7 Updates

It was a fairly standard day with some of the bigger names taking to the felt including Tony Hachem, Aaron Benton, Brendon Rubie, Steve Yea, Dinh Le, Nam Le and Quinn Do.

Rubie finished up near the top along with Darren Judges and Ralf Westphal, but to read a decent recap of the day, check out how Simon Young saw it from alongside me.

With everyone wanting to have a quiet night, I decided to head downstairs to play some HK$10-20 NLH.

In my first major hand I was dealt A♠ J♠ in the small blind and bumped it up to 170 after a few limpers. Only two players made the call and I fired out 320 on a J♣ 10♣ 6♣ with both of them making the call before we checked down the Q♠ and 7♦ to see me rake in the pot and move up to HK$2,900 from my HK$2,000 buy-in.

There was a donk on the table that was calling every preflop raise and at least a bet on the flop with complete junk. I was unable to catch any cards while he was at the table apart from having my A♣ A♥ and it’s accompanying 60-chip raise from early position go uncalled by anyone – even from the donk in the big blind!

Late in the session I won a flip with 9♦ 9♠ against Ace-King to double my stack only to over HK$4,100 only to have it slip down to just over HK$3,500 before I turned in for the evening.

Reaching the final day of tournament as a blogger is a great feeling because you know that only nine eliminations stand between you at your computer and you at the bar!

Main Event Final Table coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Main Event Final Table coverage (PokerNews browser)

Since the final table was located outside of the poker room it meant that we had no wifi and consequently had to resort to a shonky mobile internet connection which put us all in a bad mood from the start.

Losing Tri Nguyen on about the sixth hand helped ease our pain and Cale Maclean about half an hour later made it even better. We then witnessed some incredibly strange hands that gave us amateurs hope of one day being on an ANZPT final table!

Angelo Hanataj called off 606,000 at 12k-24k with just 5♣ 6♣ to double an opponent up before taking them all off him just a few hands later. However it was the way that Michael O’Grady virtually threw away the tournament that amazed me the most. Min-raising preflop and min-betting flops to miss value and then calling off chips when he didn’t have it saw O’Grady just slip from hand one to see him bow out in a disappointing but expected fourth place.

With the crazy Angelo holding a little over a two-to-one advantage over stalwart Mike Ivin it was expected that the heads-up affair would be a pretty short battle with Angelo continuing his ballsy aggression, however Ivin firstly slipped before clawing his way ahead only to have Angelo summon the ANZAC spirit and fight back to eventually take down the title and $219,432 first prize.

After rushing to the buffet to grab a quick and free bite I hit the poker room and sat on a $1-2 NLH table.

I gambled in a hand early when I opened 6♣ 3♣ to $10 over a limper only to get min-raised to $20. The limper called and I called to see a 9♣ 8♠ 2♣ flop fall. The re-raiser fired out $20, one fold, and I shipped for $100 and he insta-called tabling Ace-King, but thankfully I dinked the 10♣ on the river.

I flopped quad tens and won a small pot with a bet on the river, had Aces a couple of times, but otherwise it was a rather uneventful session which still saw me win over two buy-ins during several hours of play.

The only real highlight was having Jesse move to my table from his fairly dead $5-5 game so as to stay sane and have some fun with me.

That fun turned into some ridiculous prop betting where on each hand one of us would have either red or black, over or under 7 as the middle card on the flop and a pick of three consecutive numbers for a bonus. We eventually added Lodden Thinks type questions to the mix and stuff like what nationality the dealer was, what size bed they had at home, how old the Polish waitress was and how many people she lived with. Unfortunately for me Jesse ran super hot and whipped me for about $20 when we were only playing for a $1 a point!

With Jesse looking a little worse for wear he headed up to our room to get some sleep while I hit the bar with an already intoxicated Dale Marsland, Nik Lackovic and Danny McDonagh to grab a few beers (since they had been cut off at the poker room) before calling it a night as the sun was rising on the day I return home.

Day 2 was fairly unexciting when it came down to the Main Event.

Main Event Day 2 coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Main Event Day 2 coverage (PokerNews browser)

209 players started the day, but only 59 remained with only five eliminations needed until play hit the money with the highlight (lowlight?) being another Emad Tahtouh blow-up from chip leader to busto before the money.

While sitting just below the chip leader, I offered everyone on the media desk $1.05 that Emad wouldn’t cash because his luck in the ANZPT is completely opposite to Tony Hachem’s! Nearing the end of play Emad ran into a flopped set and then Peter Aristidou’s Aces to fall just short of the money.

Once the day was wrapped a few of us hit the Garden Buffet and scoffed down as much food as possible before parting ways.

After tidying up the event and writing an article for PokerNetwork I decided to head down to the poker room to play some cash.

I jumped on a $1-2 NLH table and quickly needed to top up an additional $25 before opening to $6 holding A♣ 5♣ and two callers from the blinds came along to see a J♠ 10♣ 6♠ flop fall.

We checked it round to see the 6♣ land and the big blind fire out $12. I called and the small blind folded as the 2♦ fell on the river. Thinking for a few moments, the big blind fired out $26, and after deliberating for a minute or so made the call basically just not believing him. I was spot on as he tabled his Q♥ 7♥ and I was up to around $140.

A few orbits later I flopped a set of fours and check-raised the flop before getting my opponent to call off his stack on the turn with just Ace-high to see me chip up to $240 and leave at time.

After two tough days previously, it was great to be back to a normal eight hour day on the floor.

Main Event Day 1b coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Main Event Day 1b coverage (PokerNews browser)

The night previously I was asked by Jai Kemp and Joel Dodds if they could be reported on under the name of Grant Levy. The reason behind it was that another Grant Levy – not the APPT Sydney Champion one – was the overnight chip leader in the ANZPT opening event before finishing third to create a wave of confusion amongst avid tournament followers. Consequently Jai and Joel thought it would be funny to take the piss on Grant, while also sending a pregnant wife into hysteria at the prospect of several Grant Levy’s in the chip counts.

Tim Horan, Ali Khalil and Dean Nyberg also jumped on the Grant Levy bandwagon and I assigned them all a number so as to distinguish them from one another. When writing up some of the hands that they were involved in, I attempt to portray an image of the person so that the ‘Grant Levy’ code could be broken.

Ali Khalil
Grant Levy5 opened to 400 from early position and was called by a player from the small blind.

Levy5 just shrugged his shoulders and collected the pot once his opponent folded.

Tim Horan
Twirling chips in one hand while staring blankly at the board, Levy6 took his allotted time before folding his hand.

Dean Nyberg
Grant Levy4 has had a fairly tough day so far.

Levy4 however – through some convincing – would like to give a shout out to his Mum back home who has bought countless of litres of Farmers Union Iced Coffee for him to keep him powering through those online sessions.

Joel Dodds
Grant Levy2 opened under the gun to 1,500 only to be shoved on from the button by an opponent for his last 21,500.

The board ran out 10♠ 6♣ 3♥ 5♣ Q♣to see Levy2′s Kings cracked to slip to 18,000 in chips.

All the Grant Levy’s ended up busting apart from Joel – who after the above mentioned hit – finished the day on over 48,000. The story of the day however would be the fact that Tony Hachem sat fifth in the counts to be in great shape at collecting his seventh cash from eight starts on the ANZPT.

Jonathan Karamalikis, Jai Kemp, Grant Levy, Stewart Scott, Yann Pauchon, Dan Sing, Andrew Meldrum, Van Marcus, Sally Snow, Jeff Lisandro, Ali Khalil, Tyron Krost, Jackie Glazier, Tony Hachem, Adam Monaghan

With the day wrapped up, me and Yann decided to head out to dinner somewhere, and after bumping into Vincent ‘Wonky’ Wan and Adam Monaghan (who also bagged chips) we all decided to have a joint dinner somewhere around Darling Harbour.

Finding a quiet place where some other poker players had also taken a liking to we all ordered dinner and discussed everything poker.

Afterwards Yann met up some mates while the three of us headed to the poker room where Wonky and Adam decided to stake me in the $5-5 NLH game with an 80/20 deal in their favour. They shipped me two buy-ins – or $1,000 – and told me just one thing . . . WIN!

My first major hand came when I three-bet a hi-jack raise of $20 to $65 from the button holding A♠ 10♣. My continuation bet of $90 on the Q♣ J♣ 7♠ was met with a re-raise to $220 and I smacked myself in the head for betting a flop that nearly always hits his range before folding.

I topped up and about an hour later of holding King-rag, Queen-rag and the occasional weak Ace, I over-limped holding A♥ 3♥ to see a flop of 5♥ 4♥ 2♥ flop fall . . . yep that’s right . . . the STEEL WHEEL!

All seven players in the hand checked to see the 6♣ land on the turn and after three checks to me, I bet out $15 and was lucky to get a call from one of the fishy players on the table. The river fell the 7♠ and I was stuck in a spot of not really knowing what to deal. Eventually I decided with an overbet amounting to $150, and was lucky enough to get a call to see me push back to even.

On one of my final hands I raised to $35 after a limper holding Q♠ Q♣ and was called by an opponent on the button before the big blind tossed out a $100-denomination chip saying raise. The dealer however – although the player was in seat one – didn’t hear him and marked it as a call before dropping the 9♦ 7♠ 2♣ flop. The big blind fired out $100 and I opted with a raise to $275. The button passed and the big blind went into the tank muttering stuff to himself before folding his K♦ K♠ face up! I showed my Queens and the conversation afterwards revolved around the fact that because I was starring at the board so intently, he figured that I had flopped two pair. Phew!

I ended the night up only $49 after spewing some money to Ali Khalil and some other players on the table, and Wonky and Adam were kindly enough to let me keep the small profit instead of taking a cut as we ended our session at around 2am.

The New Zealand Poker Championships Main Event was expecting to draw a 100-plus field, but when only 72-players turned out for both the combined day ones, everyone was a little disappointed.

Day 1a coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Day 1a coverage (PokerNews browser)
(there were some problems with the PokerNetwork layout, so I decided to include both reporting views)

2007 Champion Eric Assadourian, 2009 Aussie Millions Champion Stewart Scott, 2009 APPT Auckland and Sydney Champions Simon Watt and Aaron Benton, SKYCITY Auckland Champion James Honeybone and the most experienced player in the field, Graeme ‘Kiwi G’ Putt, all amongst the 35-player day 1a field.

The play was fairly standard for a small tournament as players jostled for position, but it was an interesting conversation I had with Eric Assadourian and a few of the players in the tournament that was most interesting.

Basically Eric stated that at the end of the day the most successful poker player is the one who has won the most money. Eric – and a few others – would prefer to win $1 million straight up and nothing else instead of grinding a multitude of events to amount to that same $1 million – which I would prefer. Thoughts?

Day 1b coverage (PokerNetwork browser) / Day 1b coverage (PokerNews browser)

A slightly larger field – albeit by two – that included previous Champions Soren Eriksen and David Borg along with last year’s High Rollers Champion Dennis Huntly and tournament veterans Leo Boxell, Michael Pedley, Tony Hachem and Martin Cardno.

It was a fairly mundane day of poker apart from the 2008 Champion and 2009 Runner-Up David Borg doing something unusual. After doubling on one of the first few hands with Aces, the second last hand saw Borg push all in dark and win the blinds and antes after showing 7♠ 3♥. Then on the final hand he did so again but this time got felted at the hand of Cole Swannack’s Kings.

39 players are heading into Day 2, but until then, it’s time to play some cash!

I sat down on a $1-2 NLH table but was unable to get anything going with my first buy. I topped up an additional $50, but when that was depleted to around $100, I decided not to top-up once again and try to gamble it instead. However when I check-raised all in with a flush draw and over card, I was forced to rebuy when it bricked out.

Buying in for my second $150 I was extremely card dead for the next few hours and was about to leave until four drunk players sat down. Two of them had never played, and I thought no time was better than the present to remain on the table although the clock was ticking up to the 2am mark.

Unfortunately for me I was unable to get any of their alcohol-induced chips as some local regular got them all . . . well until about 4am when I called a bet on a 4♣ 2♠ 9♣ flop with 5♥ 3♥ to see the A♠ fall on the turn. We got it all in with him drawing dead holding just an Ace as I finished only down $40 for the night

I caught up on some sleep this morning and was up around 10am contemplating what I may consume for breakfast.

The problem when you’re on the road is that food can get expensive as you tend to eat out for every meal. Consequently I went to the corner store and bought some supplies – and as you can see – I enjoyed a very standard breakfast in a rather unusual make-shift bowl.

After knocking back two cups of Nutri-Grain and some apple juice before a long hot shower, I decided to take a walk into what I believed to be was the city – or Cathedral Square as it would become known to me.

I stumbled round checking out the market stalls and the goods that they were offering while enjoying the half-dozen or so buskers that were spotted round the square singing their way for a few bucks. I then came across a giant chess square about three metres squared that featured red and black pieces about two-feet high. I took a seat amongst the few onlookers as a game played out.

It seemed as though this one old Asian man with frail chicken legs and a crooked smile was the guy to beat as he continually crushed anyone that challenged him. Then at this one point his opponent asked an onlooker for some advice only to receive the biggest broken-english tirade that Tony G or Phil Hellmuth would be proud of from the old man.

The old Asian man ended up winning anyway, and instead of staying on to take on the next challenger he sulked off over to the bench and brought out his own chess set to play one of his friends.

I’ve never been a huge chess player, but I couldn’t believe who enthralled I was in these matches and when I realised I had been sitting there for nearly three hours I decided to make my way back to the hotel and then the casino to get in on some action.

Finding a seat on a new $1-2 NLH table it was funny to find Mina also taking a seat on my left, only this time to be joined by one of her friends to her left.

Early on I kicked over the $200 mark when I three-bet a $12 open to $43 with Ace-King and we checked down a rather wet board with my Ace-high being the best hand. I squeezed Ace-Queen on the button after seventeen callers a couple of times but always bricked the flop and was forced to throw it away. I then made a $40 river call holding Jacks in a raised pot on a final board of Ace-King-4-4-2 and was good when my opponent mucked without showing.

For the first time of the trip I was dealt Aces and called a player’s preflop shove but ran into his monstrous 5♥ 6♠ as he made a straight on me. My bad luck continued when I flopped the nut-straight holding K♣ Q♣ but some banana spiked his flush on the turn after calling half his stack on the flop.

The table then became short-handed and as a consequence my Q♣ 2♣ looked like the nuts when the small blind raised to $6 and I made the call to see a Q♠ 8♣ 5♥ flop and another $6 bet follow. I called with a plan to raise the turn, and when a $10 bet followed the 2♠, I made it $35 to go. The small blind then moved all in and I made the call for my $106 total as he rolled over his A♠ 8♠. The river blanked out and I was back to even and called it a night with the Main Event set to kick off at lunchtime tomorrow.

I managed only a couple of hours of sleep last night before having to wake up nice and early to make my way to the airport.

Heath and Kirsty were arriving into town to prepare for their upcoming weekend wedding and consequently needed my car to get round. I was happy to lend it to him and as I arrived at the airport we did a straight stop as they took the keys and I made my way to check-in.

After I made my way through immigration I stopped by Duty Free and pondered buying a DSLR since we wouldn’t have one for New Zealand and the fact that I would definitely be putting it to use. I was looking at the Nikon D3000 ($899), Canon EOS1000d ($999) and the Canon EOS450d ($1,199) which all came with twin lenses as well as the fact that the salesman was willing to take some more off the price.

I tried contacting some of my in-the-know photography friends before boarding, but was unable to get hold of them and consequently decided against buying one.

The three-hour plane ride was spent with me mostly wriggling round in my seat trying to get comfortable while occasionally nodding off. We experienced some heavy turbulence over the last few minutes of the flight, but still managed to land safely in Christchurch as the driver greeted me a little on the late side that dropped me off at the Millennium hotel in town. Unfortunately my hotel reservations had been stuffed up and they had moved me over to their sister hotel called the Copthorne Durham which was located just across the road from the casino.

Once there I was checking in and was told that they had upgraded me to a suite. I grabbed my key and headed to my room.

Walking in my first reaction was, “this ain’t no f**king suite” as I looked into a normal room featuring two double beds and a standard bathroom. That was until I opened the door next to the bathroom and found a huge master bedroom featuring a king-size bed. I settled in and had a hot shower before deciding to make my way to the casino.

The casino was probably smaller than the whole Crown Poker Room combined!

Nine poker tables, a dozen or so table games but plenty of slots were spread room a fairly un-organised and confusing floor, but I headed straight to the cash game registration to see what was on offer.

$1-2 NLH (buy-in $75-$200), $1-2 NLH/PLO ($100-$200), $5-5 NLH ($200-$500) and $5-5 NLH/PLO ($200-$500) seemed to be the major games on offer with a few interest lists for 3-Card Manila and satellites.

With a tournament running it seemed like I wouldn’t get on a table for a little while and decided to sit on a $5 Blackjack table with $100 – which with the exchange rate worked out to be like $80 or so.

I played for around an hour and won a total of six hands. I wasn’t hitting on 20 or standing on 5, I was just playing basic sound strategy but getting owned by the dealer. For some reason however I managed to increase my bets at the right amount and finished only down $50 bored as all hell. Over to the Baccarat table I went and after losing $25, then winning $25, then losing $50 I went and grabbed a steak before my cash game opened up.

Yann decided to take half my action in the $1-2 NLH game as I sat down on a new table with $150 (weird set buy-in amounts of $80 – $150).

Without going through all the boring details of my session, I was extremely card dead but still managed to profit $90 (well really only $45) on a table full of fish who had no real idea what they were doing. The only upside was sitting on the right of a cute Asian girl called Mina. Although her boyfriend was sitting at the other end of the table – and paid her no attention at all – we spent the whole session chatting, and after she went busto, we decided to play one card each in a hope to get out of the run of cold cards that I was having. It didn’t work and I cashed out at around 3am after paying Yann his share of the stake.

I made my way back to the hotel and called it a night with a plan of getting out and exploring Christchurch the following day.

But in the meantime, check out this video that makes me el oh el about New Zealand . . . gotta feeling I’ll be watching it countless of times while here!

It had been well over three months, but I was finally on my way back to Melbourne for a home game to catch up with a bunch of my poker buddies.

I began Saturday with a trip into town to watch a few hours of my cricket club’s Grand Final (which we eventually lost) before making my way up the highway to Crown. I said hello to some friends I hadn’t seen in ages before making heading to Mat’s house to help set up the home game.

Mat has a bungalow out the back of his house, and now that it has been cleared out, we set up a table in there in preparation for the night.

We had a full table of nine players as we sat down around 8:30pm to play some 25c-50c NLH. I chipped up to around $90 in the first hour before hitting a very cold run of cards for the next several hours. I was pushed out of a few pots to slip back to around $65 before opening with a raise to $1.50 from under the gun with 8♥ 5♥. It was called round to Oatsy on the button who made it $6.50 to go with about $70 behind him. I called, as did three others, to see a flop of A♥ J♠ 8♣ fall and action check round to Oatsy who continued with a very small bet of $7.50. Now I had to decipher what exactly he had.

I had bluffed him on a few occasions and knew that he was capable of folding a hand to me as he is more than solid when it comes to cash games. Also he had been stealing a few pots to accumulate some chips after losing a buy-in early. In this spot there is a good chance that he flopped huge like Aces, Jacks or Ace-Jack or flopped well with Ace-King or Ace-Queen. However I believed his range was more skewed to weaker and more marginal holdings like weak Aces or underpairs and decided that I could successfully win the pot by running an educated bluff.

Now he was never going to fold one of those huge hands, so my bluff would have to see him fold out the top of his perceived slightly weaker range; basically Ace-Ten and worse. One of the players in the hand – Alex – was throwing a huge stare-down at Oatsy like he wanted to get funky with some sort of Ace or Jack so that made me consider a bluff even more.

Taking stack sizes into consideration, I took my time before check-raising to $22 so that if he called it would take the pot to $77.25 and both of us having just on $50 behind (to be honest I really wish I had more so that my turn ship looked more powerful . . . but oh well). Alex took his time before folding before Oatsy spent a minute summing up the situation before calling.

Knowing that he either had it or not, I was looking for a blank on the turn that didn’t improve his middle-tier range so that my shove would force a fold. Now of course if he called I was probably drawing dead!

The turn landed the 2♠ and I moved all in only to be quickly called by Oatsy. I tossed my cards into the muck and announced, “your set is good mate” before he rolled over Jacks. We didn’t even deal a river and I was forced to rebuy another $50 as everyone on the table just looked shocked at what had just gone down.

Money pretty much passed round in circles all night, and I eventually finished even after rivering two-pair with Ace-Ten against Ace-Queen as we called it a night at around 4:30am.

After crashing at Alex’s for the night, I was up earlier then I wished as I was on my way to catch up with a friend at Chadstone for lunch and a movie.

Bec wanted to grab some Yum Cha which I was happy to oblige with although I found it oddly strange not to be eating Yum Cha in Chinatown where I’m use to. Afterwards we decided to summon our inner-child and decided to watch the newly released How To Train Your Dragon in 3D.

Toothless and Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III

Getting use to the 3D glasses took longer than I expected but they definitely worked in some parts of the movie, otherwise it was probably no different to watching it in the normal 2D format. All-in-all I definitely recommend seeing it as it does have an interesting storyline and was pretty funny even if you aren’t a child.

Bec made her way home to prepare for her new job starting tomorrow while I made my way to Crown to play in Event 8: $200 No Limit Holdem / Pot Limit Omaha Teams Event with Alex.

He sat down first to play the NLH orbit while I was due to play the PLO one. We got off to a slow start with not much action from either game before I chipped up on the last hand of my orbit when I raised from the button over a few limpers holding 8♣ 7♣ 7♠ 5♥ and took the pot down with a continuation bet on the 10♠ 3♠ 3♣ board.

During my next PLO orbit I was dealt Aces twice and picked up the blinds with an under the gun raise and then limped in from the cutoff before taking it down on the flop. However – just like the previous orbit – I won a substantial pot on the final hand of the level when after a limp I raised holding Q♥ J♣ J♠ 9♠. The big blind called as did the limper before a flop of 10♣ 7♣ 2♠ fell. The limper fired out for pot and I felt like he had complete air and decided to make the call as the big blind passed. We both checked the 6♠ on the turn before I was faced with another pot-sized bet when the river landed the Q♦. I tanked for about a minute before making the call to be shown a pair of sixes and three cards forming the rest of his air.

Unfortunately for us things would fall apart in the next PLO orbit when the most aggressive player on the table flopped top set of sevens on me and I was forced to fold to his check-raise. A few hands later I called one of his light raises from the button with A♠ K♠ 6h 5♥. Dean Francis – a solid PLO regular player – also called from the big blind and fired out pot on a fairly dry board with an overpair and flush draw as I folded and Alex subbed in.

We wouldn’t last too many more hands when after facing a limp for 1,200 from the hi-jack, Alex jammed for over 7,000 from the cutoff holding Q♦ 9♦. His opponent took his time before calling, only to table a dominating A♣ 9♥. We turned a gutshot but blanked as we hit the rail in about 40th place from the original 118 starters.

Although it wasn’t a greatly successful poker trip up to Melbourne, it was great to catch up with everyone and am looking forward to getting back there next weekend.