tilted behaviour

Finally the biggest day of the poker calendar has arrived with the Day 1a of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event!

1,125 players took to the felt which was a slight nine player increase from last year. There was no real stories that came out of the day apart from when the two chip leaders; Kevin McGowan and Tyler Smith, were seated together. Combining for over 313,000 in chips at the 150-300 blind level, both of these players could potentially play an amazing 1,045 big blind pot with each other!

Only 762 players managed to sneak through to a day 2a berth, but one that was unable to bag any chips at the completion of play was basketball star Shawn Marion.

Once an avid basketball follower, the past ten years or so have seen my interest in the game decline, but one aspect of the game that I’ll always keep close to my heart is the arcade game NBA Jam!

Although Shawn Marion was never featured in the original game, I personally tried to use every NBA Jam comment that I could – whether it really worked or not.

When Marion was rivered with a straight, I used the heading Marion Slam-a-Jamma’d, and when he doubled up I used, Marion’s Heating Up, and when he was unfortunately eliminated I used, Marion Puts Up A Brick!

Looking at the schedule at the start of the series, one event that I was blogging caught my eye.

The $5,000 Ante Up For Africa Celebrity-Charity Poker Tournament!

Covering the event with F-Train, we were all about the colour in this event since the play (mainly due to the structure) was never going to be amazing.

Headlining the celebrities included Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Montel Williams and Evander Holyfield while some of the pros in the field included Phil Ivey, Joe Hachem, Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson as 84 players turned out to participate in this charity tournament.

One of the players that reached the final table – Alex Filatov – was asked by Phil Gordon when play was three-handed how much he was going to donate since it is expected that the full prizepool is donated back to the Ante Up for Africa charity.

Filatov replied with just 10% to get an awkward reaction from both Gordon and Shannon Elizabeth as well as many members of the media. The MC for the latter part of the event; Ali Nejad, then spiked a subtle sucker punch towards Filatov by announcing who the previous winners were and how much (100% for the record) they donated.

Luckily however, Filatov exited next as Gordon bested Elizabeth heads up to claim the $130,641 first prize, which thankfully went all back to the Ante Up for Africa charity just before we ticked into hour five of the tournament.

Although we had a slight delay in leaving the Rio courtesy of a false start to the Tournament of Champions, me and Greg eventually found our way back to the Hard Rock before stopping into Mr. Lucky’s for some dinner.

We caught up with Chad before Greg convinced us to head to Terrible’s Casino across the road so that we could degen it up.

Hitting the Blackjack table first, the dealer forced me into a Phil Hellmuth-esque explosion when she thought my waving of a hand for a stand was a hit, and busted me. The dealer rolled a 20 anyway, so hitting didn’t change anything, but that wasn’t the point as I was now officially tilted.

I quickly lost my last $50 – for the record I lost all ten hands I played – before heading over to the Craps table and plonking $200 down on the table.

I had never seen it before, but there was this fire bet where if you could hit five points in a row you would receive 150-1 on your bet, and six in a row meant 300-1. Either way it made the game so much more exciting as we sat on four (30-1) for ages as we just kept missing the point by a dimple here and there.

Randomly upping my bets, both Chad and another shooter started hitting some points and my numbers as I finally managed to hit some Craps run good and eventually turned my initial $200 into $850 as Chad also made a little money on the same table while Greg was playing bingo somewhere before we ventured home for the night.

After covering day three of Event 13: $1,000 No Limit Holdem yesterday I managed to somehow sneak another day off into my schedule.

With GG out of down and Donnie at work, I wasn’t able to head to their house to do my washing so consequently ventured across the road to the laundromat around lunchtime and put through two loads of washing. It only cost me $1.50 for each machine and $1.25 to use the dryers for just under half an hour, which – although I’ve never paid to do washing – seemed fairly cheap.

Jane swung by in the late afternoon and we headed to Fashion Show Mall to both get a haircut before going on an adventure to find her some sparkly silver shoes to match her blue dress. Let me tell you . . . shopping with Jane is a long and tiring adventure (punishment?) that took nearly three hours until we hit that pot of gold and found those shoes!

Since she was heading to some club opening (the reason behind the shoes of course), I got dropped off back at the Hard Rock to join the PokerNews Cash Game for some degenerate limit holdem action!

Kristy, Parvis and a bunch of the Deuces Cracked guys were there along with a few randoms as we decided to reduce the game to just $2-4 Limit Holdem. Kristy and the Deuces Cracked guys had to leave early, but Chad and Ben soon joined us along with some noobs to juice the action up further.

Sitting with $400, we all began juicing the game up as I announced that I would cap it wherever possible if Parvis – ie my boss – raised or bet. The chips flew back and forth between everyone, but cracking his set of Aces with a gutshot straight made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside while he slumped back with a what the fuck do I have to do to catch a break look on his face as he was down something ridiculous like $300.

Parvis left around midnight while we decided to switch the game to Dealers Choice spreading Stud, Stud Hi/Lo, Razz, Pot Limit Omaha and 2-7 Draw Lowball.

I inherited Parvis’ run bad and saw my $400 stack slide all the way down to just $160, but at least I managed to enjoy a $100 massage with one of the Rio massage girls named Stef – which coincidently is one of the ones I think is the cutest over the past few years.

We ended the night around 3am and made our way to Mr. Lucky’s 24-7 to have a late-night snack before Ben and I dragged Chad along to the Craps table.

I went on a pretty good roll to be up around $80 and once I hit the point I upped all my bets . . . of course I instantly set another point and then crapped out before running out a $200 loss for the night on top of my poker loses and massage expenses!

After waking up early this morning I headed into town for a walk to grab a drink and have a look at some of the souvenir stores before making my way to the casino for Day 2 action.

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

Needing to only reach the final table to end the day it was always expected to be a quick one. With so many good players still in the field it was unfortunate to see Simon Watt, Yann Pauchon, Aaron Benton, Constantine Harach, Eric Assadourian, Dennis Huntly and Michael Pedley all fall short of making the final table both entertaining and highly skilled.

Seat 1: James Honeybone (57,100)
Seat 2: Richard Lancaster (107,000)
Seat 3: Alfred Saliba (129,800)
Seat 4: Soren Eriksen (129,400)
Seat 5: Mike King (33,600)
Seat 6: Michael Spilkin (210,400)
Seat 7: Joseph Allis (213,100)
Seat 8: Cole Swannack (161,600)
Seat 9: Andrew Middleditch (48,300)

As I was packing up, a few of the boys invited me out to dinner at the Japanese restaurant across the road – where funnily enough I had ordered take-away the previous two nights – and I gladly accepted.

Basically the dinner was in honour of Michael Spilkin who everyone thought was a lock to take the Main Event out. Eric Assadourian, Tony Hachem, Aaron Benton, Michael Pedley, David Borg and Shane Ogier were in attendance when I got there as we all ordered a couple of drinks.

That’s when the problems started.

Since everyone there is a poker player, they like things done their way and quickly. Unfortunately the lovely lady that was running the ship got a few of the orders wrong and consequently a few of the boys got upset.

Apart from that little dilemma the food was still fantastic, the company even better and the stories the icing on the cake. As the NZ$500 bill arrived I reached for my wallet so as to opt out for the credit card roulette the boys were going to do, but both David and Peds offered to cover me and Peds ended up putting up an additional credit card to cover me.

We chucked them all in my hat as I started to slowly pull one-by-one out. In the end it was down to Peds – well actually my card – and Michael, but when Michael’s card was the last one out the final tablist covered the bill much to the relief of Peds.

The boys were heading to a bar or a strip club, but I had some work to do and parted ways at the hotel.

I wrote my article and had a quick shower before decided that my crap run of cards couldn’t continue as I decided to try my luck on the felt again.

Once I finally got a seat there were two people that had over $1,500 on the table while the rest were a combination of drunk fish, tight old timers or complete noobs.

Wanting to take on the two big stacks I decided that the way I had been playing – which aligned to my online strategy – was doing no good here and consequently I decided to gamble it up. It was no more evident when after raising to $12 on the button (for value el oh el) with 6♣ 5♣ after five limpers, there was an all in from the small blind for $50, a raise to $150 from one of the limpers and an all in from another limper, I decided to ship my $150 into the middle.

The board ran out A♠ 3♣ 8♣ 9♥ 2♠ to see me brick out my monster draw. The small blind had Kings, the limp-re raiser had Kings too and the other limper had sevens. It didn’t bother me too much as I shelled out another $150, but would soon see that go too.

I chipped up to over $230 before opening to $12 with 10♣ 10♠ and found five callers to see a 3♠ 6♣ 7♣ flop and my bet of $45 only called by one of the big stacks who had been calling three streets with middle-pair and worse. The turn landed the K♠ and I checked only to be faced with a $100 bet. As stated previously, this guy had been pretty bad and consequently I decided to commit my last $175. He took his time before calling – now feeling that I was good – to see the 2♦ land on the river. I tabled my tens, but he slowrolled is 4♦ 5♦ for a flopped straight as I quickly vacated my seat.

Stuck in the hole quite a bit from this trip I decided that I would turn to my old favourite/nemesis/destructor of bankrolls in Baccarat.

I changed over the last of my money to see me sit down at the $25 squeeze table with $675 needing to turn that into over $1,400 to get even for the trip (including expenses etc).

There isn’t much to say about my Baccarat experience apart from the fact that I was lame enough to keep a scorecard. Maybe it was due to this, or the fact that I just flipped well to see me turn that $675 into $1,250 by betting in $25 and $50 units with just the occasional $75.

My Christchurch Casino profitable Baccarat experience

With my wallet more padded, and some relief that I was only down a marginal amount I called it a night vowing not to hit the poker tables again while in New Zealand!

I think nearly everyone in the world has seen Michael Jackson’s 14-minute music video for Thriller, but it has been years since we’ve seen anything as good . . . until now.

Lady Gaga has finally released her music video for Telephone and not only does it live up to the quality of the previous videos she has released, but it also is a mini-movie in itself.

It is a continuation of one of her previous songs – Paparazzi – and plays for just over nine-minutes. One thing to note is that Gaga does her best to displace the rumours that she is a man by showing as much of herself without the video being deemed a porno at about the 1:09 mark . . . you be the judge!

So back in 1986 Argentina won the FIFA World Cup, the movie Aliens was released and Mike Tyson was crowned the youngest world heavyweight-boxing Champion . . . and on this day in that year . . . I was born!

Yes today is my birthday, but I don’t really feel the need to celebrate as I’m soooooooo old!

Instead I’ve decide to let everyone that frequents this site an opportunity to peek into the early photo albums of the Duckworth household and most likely have a laugh at the young me.

Enjoy, and thanks to everyone for the well wishes!

Most people are aware of the devastation that hit Haiti on January 12th of this year.

Just like the case twenty-five years ago when USA for Africa released ‘We are the World’ to support African famine relief, another super-group of musician’s have teamed up together to lend their voices to the Haiti earthquake appeal by releasing the charity single ‘We are the World 25 For Haiti’.

Composed by Quincy Jones and Lionel Ritchie, the song features solo’s by artist’s such as Jennifer Hudson, Josh Groban, Tony Bennett, Mary J. Blige, Miley Cyrus, Wyclef Jean, P!nk, Usher, Celine Dion, Lil Wayne, T-Pain and many more, along with a rap by LL Cool J, Will.I.Am, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes and Kanye West.

There have been mixed reviews about the song, but the only way to voice your opinion is by checking it out.

Courtesy of my Malaysian heritage, my family and I tend to celebrate Chinese New Year more heavily then the conventional calendar New Year, so Kong Hei Fat Choi to you all!

Now most people believe that when you say Kong Hei Fat Choi (or the various derivations of the term) that they are wishing the receiver a ‘Happy New Year’, but in fact they are saying ‘Congratulations and be Prosperous’.

2010 is the Year of the Tiger – and since I am one – I feel that I should take a closer look to what it might entail for not only me, but everyone.

According to Chinese astrology, this year is one of the Metal Tiger, and people who like to talk about wealth will say that 2010 is a Golden Tiger year. However, when you look at the five elements, the colour representing metal is white therefore meaning that 2010 can also be regarded as Year of the White Tiger which can be considered to be bad as the White Tiger is connected to the symbol of jinx in Chinese history.

All very confusing.

Looking at your Chinese horoscope can definitely confuse you as there a countless explanations of how your year may pan out – but in comparison to the twelve Zodiac signs – it is something I tend to look into a little deeper.

Anyway, here are just two horoscopes for the Tiger for 2010.

The Tiger
Magnetic, passionate and grand! When the Tiger does anything, it’s noticed! Indecisiveness and stubbornness can mar the sparkle of the Tiger personality. On the one hand generous, on the other hand a little mean, it’s sometimes hard to know where one stands with the Tiger. Flexible, honest and truly entertaining, one has a friend for life with a Tiger.

The Fire Tiger (1926 and 1986)
Eccentric and dramatic, Fire Tigers are aglow with passion and verve. They are outgoing, expressive and look on the bright side of things. They have the Tiger’s natural ability to lead others and are able to excite others simply with their own gift of enthusiasm. They can be funny and have great senses of humour. Tigers are powerful speakers and have the ability to command and persuade crowds through speech. Their own seemingly endless supply of energy can make them appear a bit dramatic, and it may make them more sensitive to cautious or down-to-earth approaches in others.