tilted behaviour

Finally arriving at the ANZPT Queensland Main Event Final Table was something to look forward to a the table was stacked with some quality players!

Two super online players in Scott ‘Punty’ Smith and Joel ‘StrongPlay’ Dodds, along with fellow Sydney-sider Danny Joukhadar, and once you add in the aggressive Kiwi in Phillip Willcocks – things were always going to be tough for the other four players.

Dodds soared to over 40% of the chips in play while Willcocks also climbed as Joukhadar slipped to the bottom of the pack.

Ex-White Sox pitcher Paul Gibson exited along with Joukhadar to see Dodds lock up third placing in the PokerStars.net ANZPT Sponsorship Points race as good friend Smith exited.

Third would be as far as Dodds was reached when he was two-outered by Willcocks to see the first Kiwi / Australian heads up battle of the tour.

Willcocks took a seven-two-chip advantage into heads up play with Star City dealer Scott Kerr, and after a dominating battle mixed with some luck, skill and poise, Kerr would come out on top taking down the title as ANZPT Queensland Champion and $168,075 in prize money.

With Heath and Kirsty already returning to Melbourne to cover an event and Duffy retiring to bed, I headed upstairs and wrote a quick article for PokerNetwork before heading downstairs to get some food before making my way to the cash games.

I bought in for $200 on the $1-2 NLH table and was quickly town to $120 and forced to top up another $100 after missing every flush and straight draw that I flopped and have every pocket pair and preflop open totally fluff the flop.

Just like the previous night – these guys were again atrocious!

But of course I could get none of it.

I flopped bottom set in one hand on a Broadway flop and got one street of value on the river from an underpair (see what I mean), but otherwise nothing.

After slipping down to around $55 I straddled all in dark and got some action from a player with a pair of deuces. My seven-five was the nuts when a seven flopped, and after doing it again the next hand from the big blind I was up to over $110.

A few hands later I open-shipped dark from the button and my Q♣ 8♦ some how didn’t get there!

Off to bed and off to pack for my 8:30am flight tomorrow morning!

Another day behind the computer at the ANZPT Queensland Main Event and another day of tournament poker.

Heath ‘TassieDevil’ Chick was in the field today, and consequently, after missing out on a piece of his 100k collect in Melbourne, I bought a small 4% share for $100.

The field was fairly stacked with the likes of Lee Nelson, Graeme ‘Kiwi G’ Putt and Celina Lin playing, but rather than going through some of the ways the above mentioned players took down pots with Aces, I thought I’d share with you a hand I wrote that I found rather amusing.

(Not a bright day for the Tasmanian!)

It is quite obvious that the current players on Table 9 didn’t follow the ANZPT Melbourne coverage when Heath ‘TassieDevil’ Chick earned the moniker of Heath ‘No Set No Bet’ Chick.

Currently struggling on just above his starting stack, Chick recently opened to 800 and found one caller in Derek Cheung to see a flop of 7♣ 4♠ 6♠.

Chick fired out 1,250, only to have Cheung raise to 3,000 to prompt a near insta-fold from Chick.

With Chick’s previous range during his runner-up finish in Melbourne being a set plus, it can only be inferred that Cheung held 5♠ 8♠ . . . ballsy play from the Hong Kong native!

Heath, Kirsty and myself wondered down the road to find a place to eat, and after searching for a while we found a place where there was a $12 steak night special.

We all ordered a steak and a beer . . . and they both went down perfectly!

With Cold Rock across the road, there was no way we could resist and walked home enjoying some ice-cream as the weather began to cool.

Another day and another flight somewhere . . . the life of a PokerNews Blogger!

It was an afternoon flight to the Gold Coast to see me touchdown around 5:30pm and after getting into contact with Heath, I told him I was on my way to the hotel.

As the taxi took off I expected to be at the hotel fairly soon, but alas, 15 minutes had passed and we were still driving along the highway.

I kept looking out for signs to see if we were actually driving to Brisbane just in case I had told the driver the wrong thing.

The taxi ticked up to the $40-mark and I messaged Heath to see if it cost him the same amount. Once informed that I was indeed on the right track, I settled back to finally arrive at the Conrad Jupiters Casino and Hotel only $55.30 out of pocket.

I met up with Heath and Kirsty at a nearby shopping centre where we sat down at a seafood restaurant for a relatively early dinner.

Fish, calamari and squid were our choices, and after discussing everything from LA to Lebanon, PokerNews to PokerNetwork we were on our way back to the room so that Kirsty could finish off the latest edition of our PokerNews magazine while me and Heath battled it out heads-up.

He won the first two matches pretty quickly and easy and after flirting the idea for what had seemed like eternity we decided to play the Out-of-Position Game.

Basically it is heads-up where Heath always has the button and both blinds are the same. It all came about when we were discussing hands etc and I stated that I enjoy playing out of position and feel that I can play it fairly effectively.

The battle began, and after a few check-raises here and bluffs there I took down the first match. The second match started and I crippled Heath early on with my top-pair versus his overcards and diamond-draw. I switched gears right up and played extremely aggressive three-betting all in with weak holdings like Queen-Three and actual hands like Ace-X and pairs.

Finally Heath called off his remaining chips to be in terrible shape against my pocket tens, and when he was unable to improve I would indeed be the Out-of-Position Champion!

We played some Chinese poker before calling it a night as I was planning on heading to the poker room early tomorrow just in case of any difficulties . . . the final stop of PokerStars.net ANZPT begins tomorrow with Queensland running two simultaneous events in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

The day had finally arrived to see me vacate Las Vegas for another year.

I packed what was left of my belongings before heading to the Premium Factory Outlets for one final time (I think this makes it four or five visits). I picked up some BOSE headphones for Kirsty while getting two-pairs of American basketball shorts . . . American you may ask? Well basically all our shorts back home don’t have pockets, while the ones purchased here have pockets as they are more for casual wear than play (unless you’re allowed to play with pockets in the States).

I returned to the Golden Nugget and ordered a shuttle to the airport to arrive nice and early at the United check-in. I had to pay a baggage fee, but was quickly on my way to Los Angeles.

It took me a while to find the Virgin Australia terminal, and after they also slapped with a US$100 excess baggage fee I was finally through to our gate where I sat there twiddling my thumbs for several hours.

Like normal I fell asleep straight away after being granted my request of the centre row left aisle and was fortunate enough to have a spare seat between me and a striking 20-something brunette.

After snoring my way to Sydney I nearly (along with many others) nearly missed our connecting flight to Melbourne, but after packing a transfer bus and rushing through the terminal I was only one flight and one bus ride away from home.

I rushed through Melbourne airport as I knew I only had a slim chance of catching the bus down to Geelong – otherwise I would have to wait over an hour for the next one.

I made it on time and was on my way home after another enjoyable stay in Las Vegas (and partly Lebanon) that lasted one day shy of two months.

GG Las Vegas and Lebanon . . . see you both soon!

So we finished another successful tournament in Melbourne, and after a quick bite to eat I took the boring drive to Geelong to pack my bag for Las Vegas and the 2009 World Series of Poker.

My Godparents drove me to the Gull Bus (a bus service from Geelong to the airport) as Dad had an appointment. He ended up arriving to do the old father-son goodbye of “Be safe son . . . yeah yeah Dad” and straight to sleep I went once the bus took off.

I arrived at Tullamarine Airport and sat around listening until tunes before Heath and Kirsty arrived. Kirsty headed back to Tassie while me and Heath boarded our first flight to Sydney before making our way to Los Angeles.

We flew the new Virgin Australia airlines; and since it was our first time on the new carrier our expectations were low.

However we were blown away by the service in general – good food, awesome in-flight entertainment and fairly comfortable seats (for economy). I managed to find this poker game and crushed a ten-player sit-n-go making quad deuces and a straight flush while Heath lost thousands on the blackjack game.

Poker should be this easy!

I pretty much slept the whole flight to put me in sync for the states, while Heath struggled most of the way. We touched down in Los Angeles and sat round a little before our flight to Las Vegas.

Chris Boncek was supposed to pick us up, but after around 25-minutes we thought that they may have forgot about us Aussie boys. I quick call to our boss Garry Gates and we were told Boncek was on the way. 10-minutes later we were in his car and off to the grocery store to pick up some supplies before settling in for the night.

While Heath had to work, I had the day off, but I still ventured into the Rio to catch up with the guys and do some other things.

I took to the cash games playing some $1-3 No Limit Holdem, and after about an hour I profited $107 and made my way back to the Amazon room before me and GG decided to play the 11pm $200 nightly.

Donnie and Heath bought $50 each of both me and GG and we took our seats in the tournament which had a ridiculous structure and only a 3,000-chip starting bank.

I eliminated a guy early holding K♣ 10♣ on a K♥ 10♦ 7♠ 5♠ 6♣ board against his Ace-King. A few hands later I opened K♣ Q♠ and was met with five callers. The flop fell down Queen-high with two diamonds and the big blind open-shoved for 4x pot with a flush draw – I called and he got there – aarrghh!

My stack slowly dwindled down to nothing when the blinds went up to 200-400 with a 50 ante and after a raise to 800, raise to 1,200, raise to 3,750 all in, I shipped my 3,275 stack holding K♣ K♥ and both the retarded min-raises folded.

Of course when the board ran out 7♠ 2♥ 7♥ A♠ 6♦ the other all in player tabled A♣ 10♦ and I was out in 80th place of the 136 starters with GG to follow shortly after.

Another early start and I was off to the airport to head to Adelaide for the ANZPT. After meeting up with Kirsty at our gate, we were soon joined by Tony Hachem and on our way to the city of Churches via Qantas.

Once on land, we all split a cab to the Hyatt Regency and checked into our rooms before Tony informed me of the $450 Pot Limit Omaha SkyCity Adelaide Championships event that was on in less than 20 minutes. Off we went to register and before we knew it we were getting dealt four cards.

With 30 minute levels and a 4,000 starting bank I started off playing tight until around level three where I loosened up (for no real reason mind you). Faced with four limpers ahead of me I potted to 750 holding A♣ A♦ 4♦ 7♣ and found four callers including Matt, a crown HD in the big blind, who open-jammed on a flop of J♦ 8♦ 5♣. Steve Topakas threw in his last thousand and with the action back on me I gambled and slid the last of my 3,000 in.

With Matt tabling J♣ J♠ Q♦ 9♦ and Steve some rubbish, Eric Assadourian stood up and stated to me, “Watch . . . you’ll win this!” and like a lightning bolt the A♠ fell on the turn and 8♣ on the river. Raking in the pot to send me up to around 13,000 Eric offered a swap of 5% even though he had nearly twice as many chips as me. Similar to how quick that Ace fell, I agreed . . . Me – Omaha donk, Eric – Three Omaha titles . . . pretty fair IMO.

weeeeeeee final table here we come!

I grinded away for a while before doubling up with a turned full-house and then against Crown supervisor ‘Dutchy’. I potted under-the-gun with A♠ 8♠ 8♣ 6♣ and found three callers including Dutchy. He open-shipped on a flop of J♦ 7♣ 5♣, and after 60 seconds or so of looking at my stack and the 25 players that lay ahead of me before a winner would be crowned I pushed all in with Dutchy calling an additional few thousand. I was in absolutely terrible shape against his A♣ A♦ 4♣ 2♥ but would find bingo on the river seeing the 8♦ landing to see me double into a great position as we approached the final table.

Tony got moved to my right and we had some fun until I offered a deal of taking $400 off first and slapping it to the eleventh place bubble boy. With all in agreement we slowly but surely made the final table where action was quick and fast losing three players before the first level was complete. Tony would fall in fifth place but a swap of 5% with each other kept him interested until a very interesting hand came up.

ANZPT Adelaide Pot Limit Omaha final table

With blinds at 2,000 – 4,000 the chip leader limped in under the gun and Raemin ‘The Moose’ Alexander potted to 16,000 from the small blind; leaving himself 15,000 or so behind. I look down at A♣ K♣ K♦ J♦ and am put to a real decision. Now I think that 70% of the time here I’m up against aces and I’m pretty sure that the limper might even have some of my outs. Even though I have a strong hand and sit second in chips with around 60,000, I eventually muck my hand.

The under the gun limper flashes his hand which contained the K♠ and Alexander proves to me I made a great fold by showing A♠ A♦ K♦ 3♠. Whether or not this fold is correct or not four-handed, it made me a further $800 when a player was knocked out a few hands later.

Tim Duckworth eliminated in third place for $2,970 (just taking a dig at how I write bust-out captions for PokerNews and PokerNetwork)

I would go on to finish 3rd for $2,970 before paying out my swaps with Tony and Eric to see me record my first Pot Limit Omaha tournament cash as well as my first cash for 2009. Feeling good about tournament poker it also puts me in the lead of, The Race to 10k; a competition between me and Heath ‘Tassie Devil’ Chick to see who can reach AUD$10,000 in tournament cashes. There may only be $100 on the line, but pride stands between the both of us.

Current Standings
thkcduckworth – $2,970
Tassie Devil – $896.60