tilted behaviour

Probably the best thing about the Aussie Millions is without doubt the series ending Farewell Party!

It is a time for dealers, media and players to let their hair down and party hard on Crown’s wallet . . . and year after year that wallet gets pushed to the edge.

Driving up from Crown I met up with Heath as we made our way into Fusion and quickly grabbed a beer from one of the gorgeous waitresses. Surrounded by dealers we eventually found some common friends before the rest of the PokerNews clan rolled in along with some fellow poker buddies.

Basically the night revolved around lots of drinks, heaps of photos and conversations about poker before the bar-tab eventually ran out and people started shuffling elsewhere.

With the night still fairly young – 2am – me and Alex decided that we would pay a visit to the Teak Room to cash in a $25 free play voucher that I had received in the mail. Alex had a smoke, and I couldn’t resist the lure of the Baccarat tables and decided to gamboooool it up for a little.

Maybe thirty minutes later and up $150 we headed down to the poker room to continue our sobering-up by taking a seat on the $0.50-1 PokerPro table. Alex ran hot, I got rivered seventeen times and took by beat-up negative $100 ass to the real felt of a $2-3 NLH table.

I never got anything going but still managed to profit $40 on the table which meant I finished up for the night before eventually feeling sober enough to drive home.

I really enjoy playing home games, but it’s been real hard recently while living down in Geelong.

However, thanks to Brendo, we have got a regular Tuesday night game up to keep our home game shenanigans kicking on!

Last Tuesday after hitting the set of the Australian Poker Hero we played a 50c-$1 No Limit Holdem cash game. It was fairly short-handed with only Mat, James, Stefan, Joe and another Brendan coming along.

I ran my $50 into about $90 with no real hands of note except a huge bluff I pulled against Stefan holding K♦ 9♦. I opened to $2.50 and the whole table called – as was usual – to see a 10♣ 5♠ 3♦ flop fall and a bet of $4 follow from Stefan out of the big blind. I made it $8 to go and when it folded back to Stefan he made it $16 total. I really felt I was ahead in the hand and he was in fact bluffing me, or that he held something really weak like bottom pair. Consequently my only move was to push back and announced all in for an additional $42 and change.

Stefan sat in the tank for eternity before I started exchanging friendly banter before beginning to fire every bullet I held in my arsenal. Eventually he reluctantly folded bottom pair, I tabled my bluffed, and I then raked the pot in.

He is a solid player and I’m hoping that I can use that hand to my advantage next time I flop a set or something against him.

That night I finally won the Australian Poker Hero satellite that I had been playing two to three times a day everyday since they started. I’ve ran deep in so many of them, but I finally won one . . . the only problem was that it was under Brendo’s account – but if he does go the whole way I do have 20% of him.

I just can’t believe the run I’m having in those APH satellites as well as other ones I’ve been playing – just getting unlucky while still running deep etc for no result.

On a side note, I made my first online Royal Flush the other day while playing 200-400 Limit Holdem on PokerStars . . . sigh it was just for play money!

The game got up again the following week minus Joe but with the addition of Shayan and Tim.

I lost just under two buy-ins running terrible, but I guess I used all my good luck on one of the first hands against Tim. He opened to $2.50 from early position with K♠ K♥ and I made it $7.25 with A♠ J♠before he made it $13.50 to go. I really wanted to five-bet all in but had about $42 behind, so I think a call can be justified. The flop fell down K♦ Q♠ 9♠ and he fired out $15 before I moved all in for $35.

After deliberating for a few minutes we decided to run it twice, and on the first board saw it run out 10♣ and the 3♣ while on the second saw it fell 4♣ and 3♠ to see me win both.

I pretty much leaked that stack and got into some really crappy spots where I had to fold after being turned or rivered.

Oh well, the home game circuit is back, and I can’t wait to keep grinding away the live micro-limits!