tilted behaviour

Waking up to a barrage of emails regarding our Visas for Brazil, both Brett and I decided to make an unexpected trip back to the Rio to the PokerNews office.

I had to fill out an online application twice since the first one decided not to work, before Brett and I were finally free so as to enjoy his last day in Las Vegas. Venturing over to the Miracle Mile shops, we walked round there for an hour or so, not really finding anything until the very last store; Urban Outfitters.

I found about a dozen t-shirts that I instantly fell in love with, along with a couple of cool jackets, but decided to hold off until later in my trip before I leave. Mickey wanted to join us for dinner, and since we had around $120 in Hard Rock comps, we decided to eat at Johnny Smalls. Johnny Smalls is a really nice restaurant located at the back of the casino that serves tapas-styled food at a semi-reasonable price. With the three of us being joined mid-meal by Brett’s friend Jess, we ordered over twenty dishes while – since we’re all degenerates – playing nine-card Omaha flips as the bill totalled a little more than we expected.

With nearly every media member that was still in town heading to the Gold Coast for some midnight dollar bowling, the four of us made our way there.

As the beers began to flow freely, the cards came out once again as we played an intense hand on nine-card Omaha where Mickey flopped middle set, Elissa top and bottom set, Brett a straight flush draw and I a gutshot and nut-flush draw along with an overpair. I dinged an Ace on the turn to take the lead and leave everyone drawing dead apart from Brett who held the one-outer draw . . . of course it was delivered on the river as I spat chips and made a hasty exit from the bar to hit the bowling lanes.

Brett and I both valued ourselves as decent bowlers and decided to play 25 cents a pin, 50 cents a spare and $1 a strike, while also spotting Mickey fifteen pins to make the game even. Unfortunately for Brett and I, we bowled like complete dogs, and although we still beat Mickey, the fifteen pins we spotted him hurt our pockets. The next game I managed to convince both Mickey and Brett to spot me the fifteen pins. Mickey bowled roughly the same score of around 125, Brett bowled something in the 150s, while I bowled worse then an epileptic salmon and struggled to even pass 100 as I shipped the moolah to both of them!

I opted out of the last game as I decided that I wanted to bowl left-handed. Originally I tried to get a line off Brett at bowling over 75 pins, but he wouldn’t give it to me. He must have sniffed something as I came out and bowled a whopping 147 left-handed while he still managed a strong 170 and Mickey a standard 124 as we called it a night and headed back to the Hard Rock.

Brett and I decided to play some late-night cash as a send off to his Vegas trip as we both found ourselves on separate $1-2 NLH tables.

Brett scooped a huge pot just as his table broke to see cash out a rack and change as he called it a night as his flight left in a few hours, while I tried to stick it out to try and make some money. Finding myself all in preflop with Kings against an online kid’s Ace-Queen seemed good until an Ace found its way on the flop and I made my way up to the room to try and get some sleep before checking out tomorrow for Donnie and GG’s place.

Waking up to catch the Netherlands vs Spain World Cup Final, I was partly sweating it because I laid a bet at the start of the World Cup for Spain to win.

With the game locked up at half time, I decided to head to the Strip so that I could get some of the pieces needed for the prank I was going to pull on my boss Matt at the freeroll later on in the day.

My plan was to get a t-shirt printed that read Matthew Parvis Direct To You In 20 Minutes 702-340-MATT – which turned out perfectly – while also getting a photoshopped photo of Matt printed off and stuck on some girls direct to you-esque cards (thanks to my buddy Carey who did the photoshopping for me).

On my return to the Hard Rock, I quickly raced upstairs to the room to shower and change before wondering down to the poker room to munch away on the nibbles that had been prepared for us. A total of thirty-two PokerNews employees were in attendance of the annual WSOP freeroll as I danced round for the first dozen or so hands attempting to get this prank sorted.

With plans of getting an extremely hot female to walk into the room, give Matt a huge kiss and then get him to sign the picture before she would take the t-shirt off and give it to him while also slipping him a room key, was difficult. For over ten minutes no one decent walked past until Kirsty managed to find someone willing to help us out.

The result . . . plenty of laughs, a red-faced Matt and pure satisfaction on my behalf!

Finally being able to return to the freeroll, there was cash prizes (minimum of $50) on offer, but the major prizes were the five iPad’s up for grabs. I managed to knock out Greg when in a limped pot against Mike I flopped bottom set of sevens against Greg’s top two and the board bricked out. I really started to get things going when we were down to the final two tables as I accumulated chips a lot easier through simple preflop raises since everyone was playing so tight for the iPad. Once we lost Sarah on the bubble, I had accumulated a top three chip stack as the final table was formed.

Seat 1: Ben Conoley (blogger)
Seat 2: Chad Holloway (blogger)
Seat 3: Matthew Parvis (da boss man)
Seat 4: Kristy Arnett (presenter)
Seat 5: Andrew Bogner (marketing director)
Seat 6: Adam ‘Snoopy’ Goulding (blogger and master of puns)
Seat 7: Tim Duckworth (blogger)
Seat 8: Elissa Harwood (blogger)
Seat 9: Alex Villegas (field reporter)
Seat 10: Adam Brown (cameraman)

The pros to this final table was the fact that Matt and Andrew were ineligible for the iPad which meant that we really needed to lose only three players, and since I didn’t want one, there was a good chance I could do a deal to get money instead.

We lost Adam and then Elissa to leave us with eight players as I began the negotiating. I managed to score $75 from the five eligible iPad players along with some of the leftover money which meant at least $375 plus between $100 or so on top. Once we all agreed, I went on a tear chipping up at ease before knocking out both Alex and Andrew in one hand. There is some background in this hand where Alex pushed me off a pot I was expecting to check down with him since we had Elissa all in. Chad then folded for his last chip in the small blind – while holding an Ace – because Andrew would be all in the next hand on the big blind and they were both involved in the last longer.

Consequently I attempted to double up Andrew by smooth-calling 4,000 only to have Alex move all in for 15,500. I told him that this was payback and called with the powerful 4♣ 2♥. Andrew tabled his 9-5 while Alex slowrolled us with his Kings. Justice prevailed as I dinged two fours on the flop to BOOM-SHAKA-LAKA his ass!

I then eliminated Parvis with Kings against Ace-King before dispatching of a short-stacked Snoopy as Ben and I went heads up with me holding a roughly 70,000 to 25,000 chip advantage with blinds at 2,000-4,000.

We probably played fifteen or so hands before he limped for 6,000 (after the blinds went up) and I checked my option with 4♣ 5♦. The flop fell down 4♠ 7♥ 8♣ and all the money went in with Ben well in the lead holding Queens. The turn blanked out, but the river landed the 4♥ to see me spike another set of trip fours; but this one being for the title of 2010 World Series of Poker PokerNews Freeroll Champion!

Congratulations to Tim Duckworth, Winner of Event 58: PokerNews Freeroll ($to be decided)!

Unfortunately the PokerNews team was unable to shell out for a diamond-encrusted gold bracelet, but the victory and some cash on the side eased the pain as we all ventured home and to our rooms upstairs to prepare for the PokerStars Player Party in just a few hours time!

Brett, Ben, Chad, Martin and I all split a cab to the Rio to look for some people as well as picking up Brett’s phone charger before we waltzed into the Palms just before the doors opened at 9pm.

While waiting in line, Ben and I decided to go on a Maccas run to grab some cheeseburgers as Brett called on us to bring him one to. Once we returned to the line, Martin, Chad and Brett were no where to be seen, and after a few phone calls, we discovered that they had decided to enter ahead of us!

Once inside, the beers flowed freely . . . but not for me . . . as I was sticking to water since I was starting to feel slightly better for the first time in a long time.

The newbies to the PokerNews team: Brett, Ben and Chad

Rich, Donnie, Remko, JonBon, Me and GG

Snoop Dogg’s support act Esthero came on at around 10pm or so, and she wasn’t that bad at keeping us entertained – even swigging a bottle of Jagermeister mid set to the cheers of everyone on the dance floor.

Since my plan was always to go home earlier then everyone else, I made my way back to the dance floor at around 11pm to wait patiently for Snoop Dogg with Ben and Brett. People slowly trickled onto the dance floor making it extremely squishy as I vowed to wait for Snoop just so that I could say I’d seen him perform from a few metres away – although I had no real interest in him or his music.

As the clock ticked past midnight, Brett was on about his sixteenth beer and decided that it was time to punch me in the face a couple of times. I didn’t even feel the urge to punch the kid back, since he was so wasted, and consequently just shrugged it off and continued to wait not so patiently for Snoop.

Finally at 12:30am Snoop came on and erupted the audience into cheers as the smell of weed that had been floating in the room for the past hour started to get stronger and stronger. Three songs into his set I pulled the pin and headed upstairs to say goodbye to the rest of the bunch before making my way back to the Hard Rock to get some rest.

Having a day off, I managed to get a nice sleep in before deciding to wake up and find a suitable lunch option.

Not wanting to head to far from the hotel room to eat, I decided to head across the road to grab a sandwich from Capriotti’s.

As the temperature lingered around the 110-degree mark I eventually made my way to the Capriotti’s door, and before I could even reach for the handle it slowly opened. I reached for it to hold it open for whoever was leaving the store, and to my amazement it was none other than Daisy Marie.

Daisy who? Well Daisy Marie is the first person that I have seen face-to-face in Las Vegas over the past few years to make me absolutely star-struck! For those of you playing at home and wondering if it actually was her or maybe a Latino of similar resemblance . . . well as she brushed past me to leave the store with my eyes fixed on hers, she broke the eye-to-eye contact and turned to walk away revealing her cherub-inspired back tattoo.

Not really hungry courtesy of the weakness in my knees, I looked up at the menu, before quickly doubling back to see if she was still there or just a mirage due to my sickness that I’ve encountered over the past week or so . . . no mirage but just Daisy as I ordered a rather now-boring sandwich.

With lunch taken care of and some TV watched, I caught up with Chad as we decided to head to the Strip to take a look around. Once there we wondered into a few shops and casinos before making a last-minute decision to see Predators.

There was no Arnie, but still plenty of carnage as Brett continuously bugged me with texts during the movie trying to organise a game back at the Hard Rock. Of course both me and Chad obliged as we grabbed a taxi immediately after the last extraterrestrial life was killed off by Royce and Isabelle (the main stars obviously).

Once back at the Hard Rock we organised a $50+10 sit-n-go with a 4,000-chip starting bank (it was going to be 1,500, but through my pure awesome negotiating powers, we convinced them otherwise). Greg, Mickey, Brett, Chad and I were joined by three randoms, but the sit-n-go was a bit of a blur – I still think due to Daisy Marie – and this is how Brett detailed my play:

“I three-bet you three times and you folded like a fucking nit!”

Brett was pretty much right as I opened A♣ 4♣ and he three-bet Ace-King before I three-bet him with Q♥ 8♥ and he four-bet jammed me. The final hand saw me call all in from the big blind with K♦ 3♦ to dominate Chad’s 10♠ 3♠ in the small blind. But since it was Chad – and he runs really really really good – I spike my King and he flushed me on the river to send me out the door and to the cash games as Greg bubbled in third and Brett proved victorious for a nice $260 payday.

On my first I squeezed to $17 with 10♣ 9♣ in the cutoff over a straddle and a couple of calls as four of us saw a 8♣ 5♠ 3♦ flop. The straddler led out for $10 and I made it $47 to force him and the others to fold as I kicked off my start to the $1-2 NLH table.

An orbit later I Hard Rock straddled the button to $4 as the straddler from the previous hand made it $10 to go with both me and the big blind calling. The flop fell down A♠ 2♦ 3♠ and the raiser led out for $20 as I made it $48 to go with 4♠ 5♥. The big blind folded as we went heads up to the turn of the 7♥ with my opponent donking out for $60. I put him all in for his last $100 and he painfully mucked after about a minute of deliberating as I climbed to $393.

I then lost Queens to 9♥ 5♥ on a 9♦ 8♥ 7♥ 6♦ 8♣ board to slip to $278 before playing one of the worst hands of my life!

After a straddle to $4 and two calls, I made it $22 to go holding K♠ 10♠. The blinds, straddler and the callers all called to see a Q♥ J♦ 3♠ flop fall. One of the callers fired out $65 and I called as the 8♣ landed on the turn and he fired out $70. I made another bad call as the K♦ landed on the river and I called $75 to see him reveal A♦ Q♦ as I scooped the pot to move to $556 before ending the night up $341 in the cash game and $281 overall.