On one hand I can count the amount of times I’ve drunk myself to the point of sickness . . . and last night I added another. I only had around 4 Corona’s but the vodka to red bull ratio in each glass Nik Lackovic and Andrew Scott were pouring definitely outweighed what is normally expected in a standard mix!

Waking up feeling absolutely terrible I slowly made my way down to the Grand Ballroom to set up my computer in preparation for day 2 of the Main Event. F-Train, looking surprisingly fresh, looked up at me with that look of, “You look dreadful” . . . and boy did I feel it!

I stumbled round the floor as play began catching up with some of the Aussie boys from the night before. I approached Nik and stated to him, “I hate you” after he was the main culprit when it came to the quadruple-strength vodka mixes at Myama only several hours earlier. It took me a few hours to get back to a normal working level, and a bottle of Gatorade and a banana delivered by Heath definitely helped.

Nik Lackovic
Bubble Boy Nik Lackovic

Play was quick as we hit the money with Nik Lackovic bubbling, and once the dinner break was upon us we ventured up to the FHM Player’s Party to enjoy a few free drinks and nibbles. In comparison to the Macau player party, this one was definitely at the other end of the scale being fairly lame apart from the open bar and being able to stare at Riza Santos in a beautiful red dress.

F-Train and I returned to tournament floor to see another Aussie fall on the bubble with Michael Pedley falling one place short of a repeat Asian Poker Tour final table when Pedley’s A♦ 2♦ was unable to stay ahead against Neil Arce’s K♠ J♥ when a King fell on the flop.

Michael Pedley and Liz Lieu
Michael Pedley enjoying day 1b play with Liz Lieu

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With the final table being formed before midnight I headed back up to the party to snack on some food and enjoy a non-alcoholic beverage before persuading Heath and Damian Oborne to come down and play some cards.

We sat down on a new 50-100 table with a couple of guys down from England and Heath found a double early while Damo lost a couple of buy-ins. Another English guy sat down fresh off a 300,000-plus peso win on a higher-limit table and wanted to have some fun with his mates. He bought in for 20,000 pesos everytime and chipped up the table – especially Damo who benefited by chipping over and over through him.

It wasn’t a good session for me getting my Aces cracked all in on the flop against a straight draw. Then I slow-played queens terribly and was cracked by 10♥ 6♥ with all the money going in on a board of 6♦ 6♠ 9♠. Now in for 15,000 pesos I slowly grinded until the table broke to four-handed. With heath fairly drunk and tired he couldn’t leave because of his love for short-handed play. Soon play was down to three-handed between a visibly tired Heath, a very-awake me, and some German dude.

After half an hour of play the German finally realised that we were slowly grinding his money away and decided to leave. So now it was what the both of us wanted . . . a heads up battle!

We played at least 100 hands with me having a definite edge over Heath who was falling asleep as the clock ticked past 6am. After slowly grinding back some of the money I had lost in the full ring the final hand came down where I rivered trips on a four-flush board with 10♥ 8♣ against his K♥ K♦. As he saw me table my trips he stood up and went straight to the cashier to cash out to return to bed.

If you’re wondering if I feel bad for taking advantage of Heath . . . nah, not really, because he probably has the edge most days . . . so it’s only fair!