tilted behaviour

Expecting to sleep in, I was surprised to find two random girls in our hotel room at the seemingly early hour of 9am.

Of course Troy and Kevin were to blame with both of them bringing them over after a night of clubbing to play some pool. The girls eventually left while the boys, along with Van, headed for a spa.

After falling back asleep, I eventually woke up and headed to Galaxy Starworld to see how the final table was playing out. I arrived with play at three-handed, and once JC Tran busted, Inwook Choi soon followed to see Adrien Allaine crowned champion.

With the night being wrapped up early, Heath decided tonight would be a good night to hit the felt together.

Sitting down at the HK$10-20 table at Starworld, I was soon forced to rebuy only half an orbit into play. I followed the limp-train holding J♣ 10♣, only to have the big blind make it 150 to go. Everyone called, as did I, to see the K♣ Q♣ 6♥ flop drop. Checked to a middle-aged Asian who pushed out 500 odd, only to have me ship it all in for about 1,800. After everyone folded the middle-aged Asian took over five minutes before calling and turning over 6♦ 6♠ . . . yes I did say five minutes!

Of course it bricked it out to continue my run-bad and another HK$2,000 was on the table. Heath played fairly solidly, and after a quick trip down to a Baccarat table to make HK$1,000, I returned only to have Heath turn it in for the night with a little bit of profit in his hands.

The table got short-handed quickly, and although I was able to win eighty percent of the pots I was unable to win anything great and eventually left down that original buy-in for the night.

I choose to stay away from poker today and instead hit the Galaxy Starworld Baccarat tables.

The lowest limits I found were HK$300, and consequently bought in for HK$3,000. It was a pretty standard session, no big runs, just grinded a profit of HK$2,000 out before heading upstairs to catch up with everyone.

Both Lynn and GG arrived already dressed for the APT Party, but being just a tad early, combined with the fact that the Main event hadn’t reached the final table yet, lead them to occupy themselves for a while

Once the final nine was set, Heath, Kirsty and I headed back to their hotel to get changed before we made our way to the highly anticipated Asian Poker Tour Invite Only Private Party!

We found Lynn and GG chilling at the hotel’s whisky bar, and once they sipped down the last of their drinks and polished off the last few satay sticks, we were all heading upstairs.

Greeted by plenty of gorgeous woman, poker players and most importantly and open bar, we were most surprised by the two Baccarat tables that had replaced the bed from last year since the Presidential Suite had now been transformed into a junket room.

JC Tran, John Juanda and many others occupied the two tables, while the majority of the crowd sipped on a Corona and ogled the beautiful models . . . along with Melyssa Grace and Marie Kim providing everyone with a great photo and drool opportunity.

As the night slowed up, GG somehow cracked the shits (must have been the fact that the models above were starting to put clothes on) and left. We didn’t care, and headed to D2 to continue the party without him.

Lynn best summed up the way we were all feeling about him.

“We don’t need him to have fun . . . he’s just a sook!”

Once we worked our way to the dancefloor, we bumped into the rest of the Australian contingent and partied with them a little before heading upstairs to find David Saab and Jeffrey Haas hailing us over to join them in their private booth.

Test-tube and chocolate shots along with Johnnie Black and Heineken were on Saaby, and following a few drinks and a dance, we vacated D2 for the night . . . well early morning!

Well I busted the tourney and headed straight to the Rio while listening to 30 Seconds To Mars looped (really emo, self-hating, wanna slit your wrist stuff) with the volume booming so loudly my BOSE headphones were close to bursting!

Once back at the Rio I moped round telling anyone I could my bad beat story, and after coping the frankly I don’t give a damn expression from GG he asked me if I wanted to head Downtown to be wing-man for Dave King. I choose to join the fight to get DK hooked up, and Donnie also joined us.

We arrived at the Golden Nugget and walked through the carpark, pass the pool and then to the middle of the casino floor to hit a crossroad of what to do. Donnie wanted to play BlackJack, GG wanted to play Craps and I (obviously) wanted to play Baccarat. Since Donnie didn’t want to play craps, and either didn’t know how to play baccarat we all sat down at our own blackjack table.

I have no idea why I even sat down at the table because it is definitely –EV for me as I have no clue on any strategy. Donnie and GG just told me what to do and I followed; eventually returning to even after an early down swing. I quit, Donnie continued to grind and GG got stacked.

Over to Craps we went.

Me and GG started our roll pretty well with us both banking some profit before meeting up with some friends as DK had messaged that he would have to ditch us because the girl wanted to ‘stay in’.

We met up with Melissa (our camera girl) and her boyfriend Eddy at the roulette tables and I grinded a small profit before we threw $2 each on the number ten as Donnie quickly slammed down $75 on black.

”Number 10 for the PokerNews crew!”

Bang! The ball bobbled into the ten and we all banked a nice win while we headed back to the Baccarat room so that I could grind the $10 shoe as GG went back to BlackJack. He won what he was losing all back . . . and then lost it all again while I pushed my profits up to the $200 mark. Donnie and GG decided it was time for some old fashioned poker and they sat down at an uncapped $1-2 No Limit Holdem table.

Donnie and GG in action

I railed them for a while before returning to Craps to take my profit up to $350 for the night as we rolled past 4am. Back to poker I returned to see GG playing like a complete nutter as Donnie grinded a steady profit. After GG pushed all in dark for around the 100 bb mark and won some and lost some he cashed out to head to craps. I sat with Donnie for a little bit more before heading to join GG.

We stood near the craps table for nearly three minutes waiting before GG walked over to us.

”I’m done”
“Ok, craps it is then”
“No . . . I mean I’m done!”

With GG dropping the last of what he had in just eight hands of Blackjack we made our way home just as the sun was starting to rise. I booked a $350 win, Donnie was even to up and GG . . . well GG advised me not to repeat how much he had dropped . . . so let’s just say it was between $5 and $5000 . . . I’ll let you be the judge!