tilted behaviour

The Melbourne Poker Championships have been around since 2007 with Haibo Chu taking down the title only to be followed by James ‘Jabba’ Broom last year.

However with the Main Event still a few days away we have just wrapped up one of the feature events, and new addition to the schedule with the $2,700 PokerStars.net ANZPT Melbourne Main Event.

With Heath ‘TassieDevil’ Chick qualifying online it would be just me undertaking the blogging duties when this star-studded field sat down; which included the likes of online whiz kids CNT_CRUSHER, xMONSTERxDONGx, Adgee and Seabeast as well as live specialists Steve Topakas, Gary Benson, Emad Tahtouh, Eric Assadourian and Billy ‘The Croc’ Argyros.

However all the above would fall by day one’s end with Chick leading the charge along with Tino Lechich, Peter Aristidou. Sam Youssef and Jarred Graham all trailing closely.

Day two flew pretty quickly with Heath continuing his hot run good streak while forming an image of set-plus only as the final table would up as the following:
Seat 1: Heath ‘TassieDevil’ Chick (283,000)
Seat 2: Rodney Burles (168,000)
Seat 3: Sam Khouiss (354,000)
Seat 4: Chris Levick (969,000)
Seat 5: Jie Gao (517,000)
Seat 6: Ben Savage (682,000)
Seat 7: Gregory Shillig (190,000)
Seat 8: Peter Aristidou (432,000)
Seat 9: Kristian Lunardi (713,000)

My heart should have obviously been behind Heath, but it was so hard to really pick someone I wanted to win. I’ve been friends with Kristian for a few years now, and we’ve played countless of home games together. Peter Aristidou was one of the first Crown regular’s I became friends with, and due to some personal circumstances I really wanted him to take it down too. Throw Chris Levick and Ben Savage into that mix and it leaves one of Australia’s most loved / hate (depends how you see him) players in Sam Khouiss.

Khouiss is loud, arrogant, always portrays the image of a broke degenerate, but is a character worth paying too watch. All in all it was Khouiss for the win followed by an Aristidou, Chick, Lunardi chop in second . . . well in the perfect world anyway!

The final table went fairly smoothly apart from having to blog and assist the six-handed event as our other blogger had fallen ill; along with taking photos it was always going to be tough for a while!

The rail filled up with everyone’s cheer squad increasing as hands continued to play out. Heath’s fiancée Kirsty flew down to lend her support and was a bucket full of nerves as she sweated him over his left shoulder, while Hux came down to pen Heath’s new nick name . . . Heath ‘no-set-no-bet’ Chick!

Players kept falling while both Heath and Chris slowly accumulated, and it was fitting to see them both make heads-up play. Heath started at a seven-to-two underdog and slipped further behind until he spiked a three-outer for a double up and then made a flush with 9♣ 7♣ all in preflop against the Ace-Queen of Chris.

With Chris getting visibly frustrated it all came to and end when his A♥ J♥ out flopped Heath’s Q♥ Q♣ to take down the title and $158,050 first prize as Heath was left to ponder how close he came.
Still, his $103,550 payday should make him feel a little better, but I guess the lesson learnt here is that no PokerNews employee should ever play Queens when at the crossroads of a very important poker highway!

Congratulations to Heath ‘TassieDevil’ Chick for capturing second and taking the cake as the better tournament player . . . for now!