With the Aussie Millions over, it now leaves me more time to play, and consequently I decided to stay down in Melbourne for a few extra days to hit the felt.

By the time I had fully recovered from the copious amount of alcohol I had drunk the previous night I eventually found my way into the Crown Poker Room and on a $2-3 NLH table.

It was fairly uneventful as I grinded away for over two hours for $39 in profit before being convinced by friend / ex-PokerNews colleague / Crown’s best dealer / (potentially) Crown’s best tournament director Anthony ‘Slippers’ Molinaro to play the $65 Melbourne Championships.

Just like a typical Crown Step One satellite the structure was fairly fast and I just played a solid game to see the starting 17 quickly chomped down to just a final table. From then on I picked up the aggression and slowly accumulated a stack to see me capture one of the $250 Step Two seats.

I jumped back on a $2-3 NLH table, but started to get a little tired and decided to take my $11 profit and head home for the night.

* * * * * * * *

Heading in early to play the $50 plus single $25 rebuy tournament at 10am I was surprised to see a further 54 players also get out of bed early to make the trip down to Crown.

I chipped up to around 4k from my 1,500 starting stack when I virtually doubled without a showdown holding Kings and took a few pots down on the flop in a raised pot. Just before the first break I opened 425 with blinds at 100-200 holding A♦ J♦ and was flatted by someone a few seats along before the big blind moved all in for 725. I decided to ship it all in and was quickly snapped off after being trapped with Aces.

Left with around 1,000 it was folded right round when I was in the big blind before I kept shoving from the small blind thereafter as the blinds kicked up to 200-400. Unfortunately my 10♥ 9♥ from middle position ran into the Ace-Queen and Ace-King of the blinds and I was out in 32nd place.

While waiting for a cash game I got in touch with Heath and we decided that we would have a hit of tennis or play online from his apartment across the road.

Kirsty needed to head into the city, so we decided to join her as we lugged round the CBD in the sweltering hot Melbourne sun.

Returning to their apartment I eventually convinced Heath to play the nightly $60 Turbo tournament at Crown and we made our way down to the poker room to find fellow PokerNetwork / PokerNews blogger Landon Blackhall and his dad also participating in the donkament.

Heath busted in about three hands while I grinded away before the blinds picked up and I shoved 8 bb’s with pocket fives only to run into Aces to bust out in 70th/98 place.

With Heath tying a noose somewhere, I sat down on a $1-2 NLH table but over the course of two hours ran into Aces, set into overset and a few other disgusting hands to finish down $200 and on my way out the door.

* * * * * * * *

My final session for the first half of the week saw me venture into the poker room in the afternoon.

Sitting down at a $2-3 NLH table full of regular mid-week players, I was fairly card dead before getting involved in the wrong side of a pot to force myself to top-up an additional $150.

It would be a very wise decision because I few hands later I called a $15 raise from out of the big blind with A♦ 8♦ to see a flop of 7♦ 5♦ 4♦ flop fall with a pot of $90 in the middle. I checked, the player in middle position bet out $25 and only the original raiser called before I check-raised to $65. The flop aggressor moved all in, the original raiser folded and I called.

He rolled over his Q♦ 9♦ and that was that as I cashed out $467 after another orbit to register just over $115 in profit for the session before heading to Heath and Kirsty’s to play some tennis.

We played a best of three round robin series, and after nearly pulling a hammy when chasing down one of my drop shots, Heath never stood a chance against either Kirsty or me.

Heath didn’t any of his four matches, while Kirsty went 2-2 and me 4-0 before we called it a night as I made my way back to Geelong.