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.