tilted behaviour

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.

On one hand I can count the amount of times I’ve drunk myself to the point of sickness . . . and last night I added another. I only had around 4 Corona’s but the vodka to red bull ratio in each glass Nik Lackovic and Andrew Scott were pouring definitely outweighed what is normally expected in a standard mix!

Waking up feeling absolutely terrible I slowly made my way down to the Grand Ballroom to set up my computer in preparation for day 2 of the Main Event. F-Train, looking surprisingly fresh, looked up at me with that look of, “You look dreadful” . . . and boy did I feel it!

I stumbled round the floor as play began catching up with some of the Aussie boys from the night before. I approached Nik and stated to him, “I hate you” after he was the main culprit when it came to the quadruple-strength vodka mixes at Myama only several hours earlier. It took me a few hours to get back to a normal working level, and a bottle of Gatorade and a banana delivered by Heath definitely helped.

Bubble Boy Nik Lackovic

Play was quick as we hit the money with Nik Lackovic bubbling, and once the dinner break was upon us we ventured up to the FHM Player’s Party to enjoy a few free drinks and nibbles. In comparison to the Macau player party, this one was definitely at the other end of the scale being fairly lame apart from the open bar and being able to stare at Riza Santos in a beautiful red dress.

F-Train and I returned to tournament floor to see another Aussie fall on the bubble with Michael Pedley falling one place short of a repeat Asian Poker Tour final table when Pedley’s A♦ 2♦ was unable to stay ahead against Neil Arce’s K♠ J♥ when a King fell on the flop.

Michael Pedley enjoying day 1b play with Liz Lieu

With the final table being formed before midnight I headed back up to the party to snack on some food and enjoy a non-alcoholic beverage before persuading Heath and Damian Oborne to come down and play some cards.

We sat down on a new 50-100 table with a couple of guys down from England and Heath found a double early while Damo lost a couple of buy-ins. Another English guy sat down fresh off a 300,000-plus peso win on a higher-limit table and wanted to have some fun with his mates. He bought in for 20,000 pesos everytime and chipped up the table – especially Damo who benefited by chipping over and over through him.

It wasn’t a good session for me getting my Aces cracked all in on the flop against a straight draw. Then I slow-played queens terribly and was cracked by 10♥ 6♥ with all the money going in on a board of 6♦ 6♠ 9♠. Now in for 15,000 pesos I slowly grinded until the table broke to four-handed. With heath fairly drunk and tired he couldn’t leave because of his love for short-handed play. Soon play was down to three-handed between a visibly tired Heath, a very-awake me, and some German dude.

After half an hour of play the German finally realised that we were slowly grinding his money away and decided to leave. So now it was what the both of us wanted . . . a heads up battle!

We played at least 100 hands with me having a definite edge over Heath who was falling asleep as the clock ticked past 6am. After slowly grinding back some of the money I had lost in the full ring the final hand came down where I rivered trips on a four-flush board with 10♥ 8♣ against his K♥ K♦. As he saw me table my trips he stood up and went straight to the cashier to cash out to return to bed.

If you’re wondering if I feel bad for taking advantage of Heath . . . nah, not really, because he probably has the edge most days . . . so it’s only fair!

Wanting to catch breakfast again I headed downstairs just in time and was escorted to a table. I left my table to get some apple juice only to return to my table where a older couple had taken up my seats. The waiter quickly moved me and I put down my drink to get a plate of food. However, yet again my new table was filled with a middle-aged woman tucking into some fruit.

“Allright, this is ridiculous . . . please get me a table where I can sit down!” I told the waiter and he escorted me down to the end of the restaurant where I was seated by myself with barely a sole around me. After quickly downing my first plate of food I ventured back for some cereal and fruit only to see the beautiful Riza Santos strolling round the buffet.

Already in love with how gorgeous she is, seeing her out of her normal black figure-hugging dresses and in tracksuit pants, thongs and a boring old t-shirt easily pushed her to the number one spot.

I return to my table with a bowl of cereal in hand only to see Riza seated on the table next to me with what I assume was her mother. Like a star-struck teenager I sat there slowly chomping on my cornflakes with, “OMG, OMG, OMG” going through my head over and over. I tried to keep my cool and act as casual as possible while returning with a bowl of fruit. I finished my meal and headed upstairs with the “OMG, OMG, OMG” still whizzing through my head.

Riza Santos

Heath, F-Train and I caught up in the lobby before heading to the shops across the road. We bought some groceries and returned to the hotel where they ventured back to the room while I took to the felt.

I only played for an hour or so on the same table as Adam Simon and across from Wonky. I bought in for 5,000 pesos which equates to around AUD$200 with blinds at 50-100. I doubled early when I opened to 300 from under the gun with K♥ K♦ and was met with five callers round to the small blind who raised to 1,300. I thought about pushing my remaining 4,700 into the middle, but I felt that he wasn’t strong and wouldn’t call an all in.

So I flatted, and so did some Skandi player from the cutoff to see a flop of 7♦ 3♦ 2♣ fall down. The small blind immediately moved all in, and once I called the Skandi got out of the way to see my Kings up against his 8♣ 8♦. The board bricked out and I found a double and finished the session with around 12,000 pesos as I went upstairs to prepare for the Opening Ceremony and Welcome Party.

The Opening Ceremony and Welcome Party was more like a friendly get together with an open bar and cute APT models strolling round, which lasted no longer than 45 minutes. Once the ribbon was cut and the speeches were spoken Heath, Damon and Hux headed to dinner as they had the Head Hunter event to play while a few of us decided to head out on the town.

David Saab, Bryan Huang, Ivan Tan, Raymond Wu, Gabby Barredo, F-Train, Myself, Andrew Scott and ‘friend’ Joy all squashed into Saab’s LandCruiser and drove for around 30 minutes until we arrived at this Japanese restaurant that Saab kept raving about it. Bottles of Saki flowed, and so did the food until we dropped off Bryan, Ivan and Raymond at a KTV place before the rest of us headed to a club called Embassy.

Cheap drinks, cute girls, and a mix-mash of music were the highlights, but an over-filled dance floor saw Saab and Gabby leave early before the rest of us partied with some of the APT people before Joy took us to the Wensha Spa for some relaxation.

We stripped down in our change rooms, showered up and headed through a few rooms until we reached our own rooms to enjoy a massage. An hour later (I think) I put my robe back on after enjoying a somewhat painful massage before heading back to the change rooms as the clock ticked past 4am. F-Train and I waited in the reception for Andrew and Joy for over 30 minutes before deciding to catch a cab after they were no shows.

. . . and just for good measure

Riza Santos