tilted behaviour

Recently on PokerNetwork there was a competition launched where people had to blog an entry regarding their poker road from beginning to now.

Here is what I managed to whip up for the good folk of PokerNetwork.

My poker journey began back in the early stages of 2005.

It was my second year of a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Deakin University in Burwood. I had a wonderful girlfriend, an awesome apartment in Hawthorn and was busy coordinating the Deakin Basketball team while studying and partying hard.

One night I was nestled up on the couch studying and decided to put the books down and watch some TV. I flicked straight on to Channel Ten where they were broadcasting some show I had never seen before; the World Poker Tour. I sat there watching intensely trying to pick up what was going on. What was the small blind? The big blind? What was an ante? What is a full house?

Channel Ten then started showing the WPT after the Saturday night football game, and for the next few weeks I was on the couch watching and trying to learn the game called Texas Holdem Poker.

On a day off I hit Mind Games and bought a real basic Texas Holdem Poker set to use at home, and finally after basketball training one Thursday night I invited five of my mates round to play. We all chucked in $5 and played a mini-tournament that ran like any first-time amateur home game would – six players to the flop, small bets and absolutely no idea what we were doing. This however became a regular occurrence as we all were hooked!

Fast forward six months and me and two of the home game regulars decided to that a dull Tuesday night should equate to our first visit to the Crown Poker Room.

We stood in the Las Vegas Room with no idea what we were doing. A future good friend of mind – Frank Bianco – was manning a whiteboard writing and calling names while cracking jokes. We walked up and got a quick run through of what was going on as he pointed us in the direction of a $1-1 NLH game.

Both my mates went broke, but the two hands I played were very memorable. The first saw me holding A♠ 5♠ and I called a bet on the k♠ 4♠ 9♥ flop hoping to dink a spade. The turn landed a 2♥ and I called another bet, but when the river landed the 3♦ I quickly folded to another bet only to be shown the pocket Kings of an opponent. I shook my head and looked and my depleted stack before realising that I just folded a wheel without even realising it! My mates were eager to head back to Hawthorn, so looking down at Jack-Five – the only hand I knew the name of at the time thanks to Mike Sexton and Vince Van Paten – I moved all in and doubled against Ace-King as I quickly made my way out the door with some profit in the pocket.

Fast forward to the start of 2007 and I had just completed an internship at Coles Myer while completing one final unit over Summer before graduating. I picked up a job coaching cricket at Wesley College, and when I wasn’t there or studying, I could be found playing $1-2 NLH at Crown after playing solely weekends in the last few months of the previous year. Although my skills had improved I was still an amateur and was learning all the time and every profitable session was followed by a losing session, but my passion for the game never dwindled.

It was Wednesday the 11th of April and I was completely broke due mainly to poker but also my many expenses. Crown were running freerolls for the WSOP and I decided to get my poker fix by driving in and playing one to kill a few hours before Basketball. However the game would be missed as I finished equal first out of 253 runners with fellow PokerNetwork regular Michael ‘TheSharkBoy’ Palti to win a $550 satellite ticket. Come Sunday the 15th of April I took my seat in the tournament nervous as all hell at the prospect of playing a $550 buy-in tournament with 154 others. After several hours of play in my trusty Deakin Basketball jumper and Bart Simpson-esque lucky red hat I found myself on the final table and five-handed.

With four $17,000 WSOP packages up for grabs and just under $10,000 for fifth I asked the remaining players to do a deal that saw me get the $10,000 plus an additional $1,000 from the remaining players that included Alfred Grech, Aytunc Tezay and Con ‘Tsapy’ Tsapkounis. Aytunc declined and we played the remainder of the tournament out with Con unfortunately bubbling.

I was 21, a relative poker noob, and was on my way to Las Vegas to play in the 2007 WSOP Main Event!

Fast forward to Day 3 of the Main Event and here is an extract from my now obsolete MySpace blog from the time.
“As we’re down to 623 players remaining its folded round to me on the button where I look down at Qh Qs. Now my thoughts coming into the day was that I’m still going to play poker, my range was Jacks and better, but everything else was an instant fold. As I look down at my queens I know I have the best hand against two random blind hands. I really have 4 options here. I can fold, limp in, raise a small amount or push all-in.

Being the donkey I am I decide to push all-in, now as I do that the small blind leans back and goes, “ahhh, ok I call”, and with that comment I think we’re racing (which I’ll take), but right after that the big blind asks how much. With that statement from the young kid I turn to Tony Hachem and just grimace. He finally folds, and the dealer announces “all-in and call on 35” and about 3 camera’s rush over. I slow roll him hoping that he turns first, but I end up tabling my queens and he turns over black aces. I get up pack my stuff as they deal the flop. The flop comes 4, 7, 8 and with that, some of the players on my table calls out 5, 6 chop. The turn and river brick out and I bubble in 623rd spot.”

I attempted to enjoy the rest of my holiday, but effectively losing $23,000 really wasn’t making me feel too happy. With Jonno Pittock in charge of PokerNews at the time, I asked him about working for him back in Australia as a reporter for the upcoming Victorian Poker Champs, and he was more than happy to give me an opportunity.

Returning to Melbourne and working for PokerNews during the Vic Champs, I managed to win a Main Event satellite seat and parlay that into an 11th place finish for a $12,960 score followed by a $4,869 score the week later in the Saturday series.

From then on most of you know my story. Playing at Crown, losing at Crown, working for PokerNews, not working for PokerNews and contributing to PokerNetwork.

Although I could have gone on about my journey down the poker road, I thought that this long spill was . . . frankly . . . long enough already!

However, I have posted in the forum my recently found blogs from my 2007 WSOP campaign for all of you to read and see how a relative poker noob took to the bright lights of Las Vegas!

Hope you enjoyed this blog entry and the ones from a highly exciting 2007!

Now if you enjoyed the trip down memory lane, and feel that I am deserving, that head to PokerNetwork and vote for my blog to ensure that I am in the running for winning the competition.

Visit My Journey Down The Poker Road and click the + to vote.

Today marked the end of the third flight from Event 1 of the 2010 Aussie Millions!

Like previous years, the poker extravaganza that is the Aussie Millions kicked off with the $1,100 Opening Event that has seen record increases in attendance over the past few years; and 2010’s case was no exception!

A total of 1,143 entrants created the epic $1,143,000 prizepool thanks to a mixture of 919 unique entrants and 224 who repechaged.

When the dust settled on Day 1c, 193 players had made it through with many big-name local players, amateurs and international guests all having seats for action tomorrow.

As most of you know by now I was working the event on behalf of PokerNetwork and Bet 24/7, and if you want to catch the updates as I saw it, then click the links below.

Event 1 Day 1a
Event 1 Day 1b
Event 1 Day 1c

With work wrapped up around 9pm, I decided to join the PokerPro tables with Garry, Chris and Heath.

The tables were full so I decided to jump on the newly located $15 Squeeze Baccarat table that they had moved to sit nearby the PokerPro tables.

Buying in for $400 I slowly grinded up some profit before Brendon Rubie decided to join me for some degenerate gambling action. After explaining the rules he decided just to bet whatever I bet, but couldn’t really get a handle on the art that is squeezing!

At my high point I was up around $200, but left satisfied with $175 profit as Brendon had easily doubled his $100 buy-in before we both moved to the PokerPro tables.

Since Heath, Chris and Garry all had in excess of $300 – well apart from Heath who had around $200 – I decided to short-stack it to increase the fun factor and bought in for $20 on the $1-2 NLH PokerPro table that they were playing.

Those buy-in’s went fairly quickly – and from what I can remember – Kings vs Ace-King (all in on turn, river Ace) and against Chris as we shoved dark, my K♦ Q♣ went down to his 9♠ 5♣ when the board ran out A♦ Q♦ 6♦ 5♠ 5♥.

Consequently I decided to take it seriously after dropping a quick $100, and bought in for the full $100 amount. I quickly chipped up to $150 when I made two-pair and then just slowly took down pots every orbit to hit a high-point of $320 before making a move on Chris.

He made it $7 under the gun with 3♠ 4♠ and I three-bet to $23 with A♣ 9♠. The button called and so did Chris to see a 3♦ 5♥ 3♣ flop land. I bet out $25, the button moved all in for less, and Chris gave me this big talk before making it $75. Obviously he cashed out after that hand with around $500 as me and Heath were soon joined by Elaine once Garry and Brendon had left.

Elaine nitted it up and only lost pots to me when I would three-bet and then continuation bet with 7-3 off etc.

The night finished around 2am with all of us enjoying some play time outside of work!

Today was a dark day in my short-lived poker career as I was officially dropped from the PokerNews team.

If you read this site on a regular basis, or know me in person, then you would be aware of the incident that occurred at Crown the other day during the PokerNews Cup. Consequently, with the head of the live-reporting team in town on holidays, we decided to have a meeting to discuss what was needed.

Organising to meet up with GG left butterfly’s in the pit of my stomach as I had no idea what the outcome was going to be, and after small talking for what seemed like an eternity, we the heart of the meeting.

After around twenty minutes of GG leading the talking and me sitting there stone-faced, it was decided that I wouldn’t be part of the PokerNews team anymore.

He did say that the door is still ajar if I am able to learn from my mistakes, work hard and prove to him that I can still be a worthy contributor, but with PokerNews being the only poker media in Australia, it is close to impossible to keep working as a poker journalist from out of Melbourne.

My working relationship with PokerNetwork is still in limbo as GG said that decision rests with Heath, Sean and Stephen, but I’m going to assume that due to the PokerNews / PokerNetwork relationship that I’ll also be dropped from local events.

So what now for thkcduckworth . . .

Obviously I want to stay in this field and still enjoy writing immensely, but it’s now just become a whole lot harder.

I’ll have to start exploring some options with other poker sites and use my network of contacts that I have built over the past two years to see what opportunities exist, but basically . . .

After barely having a chance to settle in back home I received an email from Sean Callander requesting me to be on the new PokerNetwork Hour later that night.

Although unsure at first, I thought it would be a good idea to make an appearance on behalf of the PokerNews / PokerNetwork team, and consequently accepted knowing it would only be fifteen minutes of embarrassment!

The show kicked off at midnight, and about ten minutes in I received a phone call from SEN before being put on hold until I was needed.

I then spent the next five minutes discussing the Sydney Championships with hosts James Potter and Andrew Jeffreys before ending my short-lived radio career . . . well for another day hopefully.

Not having listened to the interview yet, I most likely stuttered, mumbled and ummed my way to sounded absolutely terrible, but if you feel up to it, you can download the whole show by clicking the link below.

PokerNetwork Hour – 16/9/09

Let me know your thoughts on a scale of one-to-ten on how much I sucked, or alternatively throw us some ideas that my improve the show in the future.

Not originally scheduled into the regular array of tournaments on the local poker calendar, the Big Game Poker Sydney Championships didn’t let anyone down!

Many people believe that it ticked off all the boxes in the continued development at Star City, and hopefully I can reinforce most of those points with The Eight Points of Enlightenment: Sydney Championships.

1 – Sports Theatre and Halo Bar: Previously when you visited Star City, you could really tell that it hadn’t been designed by a local (American to be exact) due to its outdated and inappropriate fittings. As poker started to boom, the bar was the negative focal point for many locals and visitors as the atmosphere was nothing comparable to Crown or any casinos around the world.
Not only does the new bar offer a huge array of drinks and nibbles, but it also houses over 50 screens – including one mega screen – for all your sports and entertainment needs. It also features a spacious stadium style seating area with a surround sound system. Throw in the fact that it’s open 24 hours a day – the Sports Theatre and Halo Bar is an experience!

2 –Good Choice Of Tournaments: With only a week available it was always going to be tough to organise firstly a schedule of events that satisfied everyone, but also that was schedule-sound. Starting with a Morning Series that featured two holdem events and an Omaha to a bigger buy-in Omaha as well as a bounty and deepstack event – the Sydney Championships catered for everyone. Throw in the Main and High Rollers Event, and everyone could get their taste of tournament poker from $150 to $5200.

3 – High Rollers Event: The only downside to the scheduling was that the High Rollers Event was run simultaneous to days two and three of the Main Event. This not only affected the numbers that forked up $5,200 but also depleted the quality of the field as many were either still in the Main Event or had returned home. Next time schedule the High Rollers beforehand so that a maximum number of entrants can be achieved.

4 – Connection? : As mentioned in a previous Eight Points of Enlightenment having internet problems always make life tough for a blogger. Normally at Star City we run off a fairly fast internal wireless system, but due to the ongoing refurbishments, the connection has been closed and left us somewhat stranded. We were able to use a wireless USB connection after it was expressed couriered to us, but this just created an unnecessary hassle during the whole tournament.

5 – Quick To Cash: One of the problems at most casinos in Australia (except for Crown) is that once a tournament table breaks the staff are normally very slow to set-up a cash game. Why is this a problem you may ask? Well rake is the bread and butter for any poker room, and in cash games you accrue the most. Star City however stepped things up for the Sydney Championships turning over tables quicker then I have witnessed in the past so that cash games were quickly running. It’s never a downside to have a full and busy poker room!

6 – Main Event Structure: With the Main Event only being a $1650 buy-in tournament, you wouldn’t expect that the structure would be fantastic. However Deb and Jason did a great job at structuring the tournament really well so that play was deep and slow, but finishing times on each day didn’t stretch into the wee hours of the morning. Playing ten levels on day one helped greatly, and combined with some of the jumps in the middle stages, the final table was reached at an appropriate hour. The final hand was dealt during level twenty-six of 40,000-80,000-5,000 which was fairly standard for a decent structured tournament, and hopefully in future Star City will follow the same structure for similar events.

7 – Strong Field: With the current poker calendar packed with events from around the country and the globe, it’s always hard finding not only time for an event like the Sydney Championships, but also to make sure that the turnout is strong. Fresh off the Vic Champs in Melbourne and APT and APPT in Macau, along with the upcoming PokerNews Cup; the Sydney Championships were always going to find it tough.
However the 324-player turnout was not only a great success, but the quality of the field that took the felt was extremely strong as well. Players like Jason Gray, Billy Argyros, Grant Levy, Graeme Putt, Joel Dodds and many of the country’s best players were part of the field that truly represented another great stop on the local tour.

8 – FlopNutsOnYou Flops Victory: There is no doubt that the best player to cash in the event managed to sneak away with victory at the Sydney Championships. Arguably Australia’s best young all-round player, Jarred ‘FlopNutsOnYou’ Graham looked at ease and in control for most of day two and the final table, and with this victory he added another notch on his poker belt.
Just to reinforce the last point, it was great to see a top player take down the event, and it’s a guarantee that the money isn’t going anywhere with Graham and his backer unlikely to stop playing anytime soon.

Next stop . . . PokerNews Cup!

The TV crew tweaked, adjusted and prepared the set before Riza Santos finished her final table introductions with the players taking their seats in just under an hour after the expected 12pm start time.

We lost Kim Tae Hyung on the first hand, then Vesa Leikos on the second before Liz Lieu fell 15 minutes later when her 2♦ 2♠ were unable to improve against Steven Yea’s Q♥ Q♣. Yea continued to run-amok on the table and knocked out Ron Kluber and Susumu Toge over the next 40 minutes before. Cicurel Didier fell in fourth before Casey Kastle made it one better here in Manila finishing third following his fourth placing in Macau.

It took two hours to reach heads-up play with Yea holding the chip lead with 1,572,000 to Neil Arce’s 1,048,000 chips, and the local favourite Arce took control and claimed the chip lead to move to a two-to-one advantage.

With blinds only at 6,000-12,000 with a 2,000 ante, heads-up play between these two talented players were expected to last a while, but half an hour would be all that it took. Arce made it 100,000 to go from the button and Yea re-raised to 300,000 before Arce quickly moved all-in for around 1.7 million with Yea making the call. Arce looked in bad shape holding K♠ Q♠ against Yea’s A♦ K♥, but the board of 4♠ 6♣ 7♥ Q♥ 6♥ saw Arce crowned as the Asian Poker Tour Philippines champion for 2009!

“You run soooooooo good!” commented F-Train as we wrapped up the final table in under 3 hours, and combined with an American bill-filled envelope from Liz Lieu . . . he wasn’t wrong!

2009 Asian Poker Tour Philippines Champion Neil Arce

After bombing out of the PokerNetwork Online Championships event on PokerStars I wondered down to the poker room to see what action was going on. Adam Simon and Vincent Wan were seated at a 50-100 NLH game, so I decided to pull up a seat to sweat their action for a while.

Wonky went on a heater making a straight-flush against a local grinder and slowly grinded back to even as Adam floated for a while. After finishing second in the PokerNetwork tournament Heath Chick wondered down to see what our plans were, and with dinner time upon us we decided to make a move to Greenbelt 5.

After getting looked up and down by a group of Trannies that we saw at Embassy the other night we quickly rushed upstairs and settled on Mr. Rockefeller’s . . . again for me. Some steak and fish and were all back in a cab on the way to the Metro Card Club to play cash games until the wee hours of the morning.

We all managed to find seats together on a 25-50 NLH with the buy-in ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 pesos. Not having too much on me I bought in for 2,000 and we all slowly began to lag it up and lose our chips.

Being crowned champion no less than 6 hours previously Neil Arce came up to me and shook my hand, welcomed us to his club, and started general chit chat about the final table and the Metro. It was really good to see a local boy win the main event, and consequently show his appreciation to us (for who knows what reason) by approaching the four of us on several occasions to see if we wanted or needed anything.

Filipino Phil had the better of us playing some huge hands and having the best of Heath, while Adam and I just donked chips. On the other hand Wonky lagged it up due to the tightness of the table, and consequently we re-named the night Lagtarding Live With Wonky Wan! Wonky definitely won, and after being in for around 8,000, I managed to cash out up a buy-in while Heath and Adam didn’t have as much luck.

Filipino Phil

Before I left I made sure to say thanks to Neil and that I would be returning soon. His response, “You’re always welcome here!” as we all headed back to the hotel as I had to pack for my 8am flight in under 5 hours.

Once back at the hotel I packed my suitcase and had a quick sleep before heading to the airport on a 6am taxi. I didn’t have any change for him and we stood there in a stand-still for over five minutes before he just accepted his 100 pesos instead of the 150 he was charging me. An upgrade to business class made me feel a whole lot better after seeing the number of people at the gate.

A fairly sleep-deprived arrival into the Melbourne rain was fairly ironic as Victoria had been in a heatwave over the past week or so. I booked into a nearby hotel for the night, booked my flights for Adelaide, and tried to get some rest before jumping back in a plane to the City of Churches for the inaugural ANZPT.