tilted behaviour

Although feeling good about my game and wanting to play, I decided to step back and let Heath and Josh partake in the sixth installment of the Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series $550 Main Event.

With a fairly weak player pool and a decent structure that normally results in a $300,000-plus prizepool, it is easily one of the best small buy-in tournaments that one should play throughout the year. Happily returning to the blogging desk however after a near six-week hiatus from the Aussie Millions, it was very good to see 623 players take to the felt over the three day one flights with 524 of these being unique entrants – ie not firing multiple shells like many of the regulars that did!

Day 1a Coverage
Day 1b Coverage
Day 1c Coverage

It was extremely surprising to see how many people punted off their stacks with ease, and consequently it drove me crazy sitting there writing these hands up as 214 players managed to sneak through to a day two berth. Heath went busto, but Josh managed to make it through meaning that a very busy Landon would have to take his seat on the blogging desk on Sunday for day two.

Heath Chick, Peter Aristidou, Nobbi Tanaka, Sean Dunwoodie, Octavian Voegele, David Morton, Haibo Chu, Kristian Lunardi, Jacob Chen, Julian Cohen, Tom Wing, Shao Liu, Michael Spilkin, Sean Keeton, Chris Barratt, Tom Grigg, David Gorr

No major hands stood out, but there was an odd occurrence during one of the flights that got my heart pumping for a moment.

Crown Director of Poker Operations Jonno Pittock grabbed me and asked if I was hungry and wanted to get some lunch. I wasn’t and kindly responded with a no, but he responded with, “well do you want to join us anyway?”

Thinking I was in trouble I decided to head upstairs with him and Christian, but alas I wasn’t in trouble but was called in to discuss the upcoming State of Origin event at the Victorian Poker Championships in late July. With so many dilemmas regarding the State of Origin – such as team selections and tournament structure – Jonno and Christian just wanted to run past some ideas they had for it, and after exchanging some thoughts for a while I happily returned to the poker room after enjoying a glass of coke on Crown’s wallet.

With day two kicking off just after midday, action flew fast and furious as people decided that a day outdoors would be better then capturing a piece of the $311,500 prizepool and preferably the $75,000 first prize.

Day 2 Coverage

Event 6: $340 Six-Handed Champion Craig Matthew became the bubble boy when his dominated ace failed to improve or chop as a happy fifty-four players were all now guaranteed some hard-earned money. Everyone however seemed to forget about the hefty money available to those that could finish on the top as eliminations continued to roll out the door as Raemin Alexander (48th), Peter Aristidou (46th), Nali Kaselias (44th), Michael Bancroft (42nd), Chris Barratt (39th), Dale Chapman (38th), Ricky Gov (35th), George Cotaidis (34th), Peter Pratis (26th), Sean Keeton (25th) and David Zhao (15th) all fell short of the final table.

With the final table being set roughly around midnight, the one aspect powering me through the long day was the fact that a mate could be heading home as the champion as Josh was still in contention for the top prize. $71,100 was the difference between tenth and first, and it was no surprise to see the word deal thrown around a few times – especially from Josh’s rail as they knew how the pay jumps were so dramatic in relation to a young uni student’s bankroll!

Eventually a deal was made with the top four extremely happy at the result after it was chopped up via chips with each player receiving roughly around $40,000. Josh busted in third when he pushed his five-big blind stack with connecters and ran into the pocket jacks of eventual champion Tien Tran.

The heads up duel was a surprising one as Tran was sitting at roughly a five-to-one disadvantage against Anthony Yarranton, but with chips flying, a double with treys and then an even bigger double with a superior flopped pair, Tran was inevitably crowned the sixth Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series Champion!

The final day of the Victorian Poker Championships Main Event was upon us with a final ten remaining.

Jackson Zheng and Mishel Anunu fell early before local players Cliff Lee and David Gorr, along with Michel Bouskila, would each suffer their ill-fate eliminations at the hands of Michael Egan. With a chance of going coast-to-coast, Martin Comer held onto the chip lead tightly before eventually releasing it only to bust fellow old-schooler Antonis Kambouoglou to hold over forty percent of the chips in play.

Youngster Josh Barrett was gifted the lead by Comer – and nearly half the chips in play – before the remainder of his stack was shipped to him as shot-stack ninja Karib Karib was unable to pull another miracle from his hat as he exited in third to leave online guns Barrett and Egan to battle it out.

With Barrett holding a slight four-to-three advantage, he pushed that out even further with some aggressive early heads up play before Egan managed to fight back and then double when his pocket nines held true. Barrett slid further behind – eventually down to a near six-to-one deficit – only to double and then chip up to snatch the lead back. Barrett however would return to that deficit when his dominated ace failed to improve, and just several hands later would see his tournament come to an end against Egan’s favourite 10♦ 7♠.

Besting a small, but high calibre field, Michael ‘ITSOVER9000′ Egan displayed a mix of aggression, patience and determination to capture the $160,700 first prize, large coveted trophy and title of 2010 Victorian Poker Championships Main Event Champion!

Antonis Kambouroglou, Michael Egan, Karib Karib, Dane Jensen, Michel Bouskila, Mishel Anunu, Trophy, Josh Barrett, Martin Comer, Jackson Zheng, Michael Egan, Josh Barrett, Chips, Cliff Lee, Josh Barrett, Chips, David Gorr

97 players returned for Day 2 of the Victorian Poker Championships Main Event with hope of being one of the final ten to bag their chips at the end of the day.

James Obst, Julian Cohen, Jonathan Karamalikis, Steve Topakas, Benn Skender, Jarred Graham, BIlly Argyros and Joe Hachem were just a handful of the talented players that succumbed to the rail over the course of the day. Jason Mann earned the unwanted title of bubble boy after being bumped to the rail in a three-way mash.

The remaining twenty-seven was one of the strongest ever to run this deep in a Main Event, but Mitchell Carle (27th), Chris Evans (26th), Peter Peeters (23rd), Trung Tran (21st), Ricky Kroesen (18th), Andrew Demetriou (17th), Sean Keeton (16th), John Dalessandri (14th) and Grant Levy (12th) would all exit to the rail as the final table was formed.

Final Table Line-Up (average stack 672,500)
Seat 1: Michael Egan (1,036,000 in chips)
Seat 2: David Gorr (176,000)
Seat 3: Karib Karib (174,000)
Seat 4: Mishel Anunu (202,000)
Seat 5: Cliff Lee (291,000)
Seat 6: Jackson Zheng (476,000)
Seat 7: Antonis ‘Toothpick Tony’ Kambouroglou (1,220,000)
Seat 8: Michel Bouskila (908,000)
Seat 9: Josh ‘jbrhythm’ Barrett (919,000)
Seat 10: Martin Comer (1,335,000)

Martin Comer again led the charge amongst fellow old-school tournament veterans that included David Gorr and Antonis Kambouroglou. while young guns Jackson Zheng, Michael Egan and Josh Barrett, along with local tournament stalwarts Karib Karib and Cliff Lee all stood within grasp of the $160,700 first prize and title of Victorian Poker Champion for 2010!

Martin Kozlov, Grant Levy, Sean Keeton, Nathan Goodall, Karib Karib, Dave Lee, Mark Blechman, Jason Mann, Joe Hachem, Benn Skender, Jarred Graham, Mitchell Carle, Jackson Zheng, Mishel Anunu, Nali Kaselias

Always a favourite tournament of mine, it was good to see the Victorian Poker Championships Main Event roll around once again with Day 1 upon us.

269 players anted up $2,700 to take to the felt at lunchtime looking to emulate the feats of past Champions Albert Amato (2009) and Jay Kinkade (2008) of navigating through a highly skilled and talented field. Although the numbers were down on previous years, many of Australia’s best players made the trip down to Melbourne as tournament stalwarts Gary Benson, Sam Khouiss, Leo Boxell and Tino Lechich, online phenoms Brendon Rubie, Michael Guzzardi, Dean Nyberg and Joel Dodds, and local favourites Peter Aristidou, Amanda De Cesare and Tony Hachem all took to the felt.

Unfortunately the above mentioned, along with previous Champions Amato and Kinkade, 2010 Aussie Millions Champion Tyron Krost, WSOP Bracelet holder Simon Watt and resident PokerNetwork blogger Heath ‘Tassie Devil’ Chick all became casualties.

Only 97 players survived with Martin Comer leading the charge with 252,200 in chips. Snapping closely at his heels was David Gorr (192,300), Antonis Kambouroglou (185,000), Jim Giannoukos (179,200), Jarred Graham (175,600) and Michael Egan (168,500) as everyone still held an equal chance of capturing the $160,700 first prize and coveted trophy.

Tyron Krost, Chips, Joe Hachem, Jonathan Karamalikis, Benn Skender, Ricky Kroesen, Tony Hachem, Tom Grigg, Gary Benson, Chips, Heath Chick, Martin Comer

One of the great events to work on the local calendar, I happily made the trip down to Melbourne to cover the Event 13: $10,200 High Stakes Holdem from the 2010 Victorian Poker Championships.

The reason I find these high roller-esque event great is because the field that assembles is always going to be made up of some of the best players in town. Unfortunately only twenty-four players took their seat, and once I arrived for the night shift, only eleven remained.

That number was cut down by two once Gary Benson and Aleks Brkovic busted to leave us at a final table of nine.

Final Table Line-Up
Seat 1: Billy Jordanou (56,000 in chips)
Seat 2: Grant Levy (77,000)
Seat 3: Vesko Zmukic (37,000)
Seat 4: Aaron Benton (94,000)
Seat 5: Ali Ghezelbash (14,000)
Seat 6: Shane Warne (55,000)
Seat 7: Jonathan Karamalikis (42,000)
Seat 8: Pierre Aoukar (18,000)
Seat 9: James Obst (65,000)

Ali Ghezelbash, Billy Jordanou and Vesko Zmukic exited early as Jeff Fenech and the rest of the 888Poker peeps arrived to sweat Shane Warne as Pierre Aoukar made his way out the door in sixth to leave the remaining five players in the money.

Grant Levy exited in fifth when his K♦ Q♦ went down to Jonathan Karamalikis’ A♣ K♥, before Warne captured the lead after winning a race against Karamalikis’ treys. Karamalikis however would find lightening on the river just a few hands later when he rivered a two-outer holding 8♠ 8♣ against Warne’s 10♥ 10♠. Karamalikis swiftly dispatched of Aaron Benton in third before Warne would finally see his deep run end in third for a $40,000 as two South Australians; Karamalikis and James Obst entered heads up play with not much splitting the two online guns.

Obst chipped away, eventually capturing the lead and extending it before being crippled by Karamalikis’ Q♣ J♥ against his A♥ 3♠ when a Queen spiked on the turn. Obst doubled, then doubled again, and then doubled one last time before his K♣ 6♣ couldn’t overcome Karamalikis’ A♣ 9♣ to fall shy of his maiden live tournament victory.

For Karamalikis, this is his fourth live tournament victory, and third in Melbourne following his recent Aussie Millions Bounty Event and ANZPT Sydney High Rollers victories. Earning himself another $100,000 payday, sees Karamalikis’ career winnings climb well over the half a million mark – yet again justifying his recent appointment of a Full Tilt Poker Red Pro and stature of one of the best players in Australia.

With the mini-UBOC 5 running on Absolute Poker and cash games on PKR, it really got my drive to play some live poker going. As the Victorian Poker Championships are in full swing, I decided to make the drive down to play Event 8: $550 8 Game Mixed Event.

Taking my seat I found David Steicke to my left and Daniel Neilson and Dean Francis at the opposite end of the table. I lost a few pots early before making a six-five in Razz to chip back over my starting stack before taking a nice pot of Steicke when he folded sixth street with my board showing (A-2)-3-7-K-4, before making Aces-up in Stud against Francis’ lesser two-pair to climb to 13,000. Steicke would win round two when my (8-8)-9-2-7-6-(8) was run down by his (6-6)-A-5-8-9-(7) as I made the first break with 12,925.

I would then find a virtual double once the No Limit Holdem orbit came around. With a limp of 200, Francis made it 625 to go and found one caller before I bumped it to 1,750 with 10♦ 10♥. The blinds, limper and Francis folded before the smooth-caller shipped it, and I made the call to be up against 9♠ 9♥ as I moved to 20,625 in chips.

Our table broke, and I found myself seated on the direct right of Kerry Stead – before donking off some chips to him in 2-7 Triple Draw. My revenge of Stead would be better as I delivered his knockout blow in Stud after he found himself short. But that sweet feeling of having chips would soon turn sour as I had an opponent all in for a pot worth in-excess of 15,000 with (K-9)-K trailing my (A-K)-A. He found deuces on both sixth and seventh street to see me return to my starting stack of 10,000.

As the structure crept up on us, I was forced to ship nine-big blinds with J♠ 10♠ from the button and was isolated by the small blind with A♣ 10♣. The flop fell 9♠ 8♥ 4♠, but even with that many outs, I obviously bricked out to bust in 26th of 48 players.

Late last night, Heath and I decided to play the $200 Teams Event at the Victorian Poker Championships, and consequently I made the boring drive up the highway to donk off.

I arrived early to take care of some things before Heath and I decided to grab a few drinks and some food at Lagerfield. We discussed work, poker and all of the above before being joined by Kirsty, Landon and a few of his mates.

Eventually we decided to make our way downstairs to tackle the gauntlet of the teams event, with me taking the first rotation. Unfortunately the 2,500 starting stack I had received was soon chopped into half as Heath took his seat and topped up another 2,500. I would lose us some chips, he would get us a double; that was the order for the night, which funnily enough was the opposite to the way it happened when we first played a teams event together back in 2008. Nothing went right for me, and inevitably it would be Heath that would bust us when he shoved over Aces with Ace-Jack – and although flopping a Jack – failed to improve to see us bust in about 60th place of the 214 starters.

However, I spent the majority of the night when not playing discussing the upcoming State of Origin, and how it should be fixed for 2011. Consequently, here are my suggestions for how the 2011 State of Origin at the Victorian Poker Championships should be conducted.

State of Origin Committee
Over the past few years, there has always been an issue with the exact formation of each side. Justification for an inclusion or exclusion is always the biggest talking point, followed by the selection of the captain.

To make the State of Origin a premier feature event on the local poker calendar, something has to be done to ensure that the teams selected are not only fair, but also a true justification of the best in the state.

Consequently I believe a Committee should be formed that will pick the squad through mutual decision by sorting through live and online tournament results both in Australia and overseas.

The next point is exactly who should be on the Committee? Well firstly, the members that form the Committee must be unbiased and impartial to the event, and have no chance of being selected themselves. They must also have a sound knowledge of the game, and possess an even greater knowledge of the Australian pool of poker players. I don’t believe that the Committee should be too large either as this will create even more difficulty when coming to a conclusion on final teams.

My vote for who should head up this Committee? Firstly – although I may be a little bias – I would cast a vote for myself. I have yet to meet anyone with a greater knowledge of players in the country, am also independent to the event, and am at nearly every tournament around the world that would influence the team selection; whether it be an Aussie Millions, APPT, ANZPT or WSOP.

My next vote would be for Jonno Pittock who has the influence in the event, as it is in his poker room where the event is run. Finally I believe that Tony Hachem should stay involved in the Committee by the pure fact that it is his creation, but by doing so, he would have to rule himself out of possible selection to remain fair.

Selection Criteria
Obviously the toughest part of the event, I believe I have come up with a simple solution that should please everyone.

First of all Captains will pretty much remain as they are from this year, as most of them are true figureheads in their states. However it is a question of how the seven other spots should be filled, that gets everyone scratching their heads. With a Committee in place, they organise a few hours where they can sit down and discuss the teams. With the State of Origin concept being pitting the best in the state against the best in other states, then that is simply what you do. Taking live results both at home and abroad, online rankings and past form from the period of the 2010 Victorian Poker Championships to before the 2011 Victorian Poker Championships, you should be able to pick the best team.

The Committee will firstly select the six players they believe are the best in the state over the past twelve months and then provide a further four alternates. This list is then handed to the Captain who must contact each of the six players to see if they are available. If not, the first alternate will take his/her place and so on until six available members have been chosen.

As for the final spot, well that will be the Captain’s Exemption. If the captain believes that a player who missed out on the team should have actually made it, then they can be called up for that final eighth spot. They believe that they are a great player for the format of the event or were unfairly passed over, but either way, they have a chance to influence the team in a possibly winning way.

Although New South Wales have persisted with it, I believe that satellite winners shouldn’t be allowed in the State of Origin. I have no major argument for it, apart from saying that the event should be the best of the best from each state, therefore meaning that a satellite winner – regardless of how well they ran in the satellite or in the State of Origin – wouldn’t be in the best otherwise they would have already been selected. The only way this concept would work is if every team decided to have one satellite winner, but in all honesty, I don’t think this would happen.

Event Format
The Shootout format is a perfect way to run the State of Origin, but some tinkering needs to be done so that when the final table starts, it isn’t already game, set, match for a particular side.

Keeping the Shootout format points system of:

1st – 60

2nd – 50

3rd – 40

4th – 30

5th – 20

6th – 10

7th – 0

8th – 0

Like normal, you play down until there is a winner as each team is allocated the appropriate points for where they finished on each table. Each set of 10 points earns your side 10,000 tournament chips, and when you return the following day for the final table, each state will sit down with the equivalent amount of tournament chips in relation to their accrued points (ie 240 points equates to 240,000 in chips) plus the day one starting stack of 20,000 (in case a team fails to accrue any points during the shootout). Consequently when the final table begins, everybody still has a realistic chance of winning the title.

Now for the next twist. The final table will begin with the Captain playing, but at four separate occasions they will be allowed to make four substitutions. Any team member can be subbed in, and team member can play multiple times, and the subs do not have to be used if the Captain wishes so.

Not only will this format make it a little more exciting, but will also mean that for both days of the State of Origin, there is not only a crowd smothering the rail, but also every team member in attendance as they all still have an equal chance of winning.

In all honesty, none, one or all of these ideas that I’ve come up with could be utilised in the 2011 State of Origin, but only time will tell.

So many people have already contributed thoughts and ideas in relation to selection, format etc, and some are good, and some are bad. Heck, I would love to see a Stanley Cup-esque trophy with the winning team and their members engraved on it created so that the pride of crushing your opposition is more rewarding!

We will have to wait quite a while until we hear changes to the State of Origin, but hopefully those with the power to do so, take in what others have had to say on the issue that is obviously very important in our small and close-knit poker community.

Yet another Champion has been crowned in the Crown Poker Room when Albert Amato’s 9♥ 7♥ held true against Kane Sherwell’s underpair.

The Victorian Poker Championships will always have a strong spot reserved in my heart as it was my launching ground for both a blogger (first gig with PokerNews) and player (11th in the Main Event), and consequently I’m proud to present my continued tournament summary with The Eight Points of Enlightenment: Victorian Poker Championships.

1 – State of Origin Success: For the second year running the Victorian Poker Championships played host to the State of Origin. This year the ante was upped by adding both the Territories and New Zealand to the rooster, along with altering the structure and format to make it work and function better along with pleasing both player and railbird.
The one downside for many was firstly allowing New Zealand to participate as they aren’t an Australian state, and secondly seeing them victorious. Overall I think they should be allowed to be part of the State of Origin regardless that they may fly a different flag to us, and if anything is to be changed it should be the weighting of the points system so that a more strategic approach is needed in the first round of the shootout.

2 – Decrease In High Stakes Turnouts: It is understandable that our current economy may not be in the best state, but over the past few years poker has never really been effected too greatly. However, Crown ran two high stakes tournaments – a $10,200 High Stakes Holdem and a $250,000 Challenge – that really didn’t pull the numbers it had in the past.
With only 23 and 8 runners respectively, it was fairly poor to only get this turnout even with most of the poker community in town. I must admit that the cash game action was HUGE to say the least, and this could be the main reason behind the lack of numbers, but I guess we’ll never know.

3 – Bring On The Ladies: I personally think that the Ladies event should be a regular on the Australian tournament schedule. Not only is it an additional avenue to increase the poker playing community, but also reverses the normal trend of WAG on the rail, and now places the male as the silent observer watching on. (On a side note, check out the very interesting thread on PokerNetwork here about this very topic)

4 – Where Were The Mix Games?: The Victorian Poker Championships are supposed to by a championship series, but if that’s the case, where was the variety of events of different poker variants? Only three events were non-holdem ones, with only one of these being Crazy Pineapple to the other two Omaha ones. Gone was the marquee HORSE event that many poker enthusiasts love along with the split games of the Morning Series. Just like the WSOP, I think that any tournament schedule has to include a mixture of poker variants, and even if it can only accommodate for one, then sobeit. Bring back the HORSE and the Mixed Stud!

5 – Weak Final Table Line-Up?: Many may have looked at the final table and just spotted a chipped up Jason Gray and Chris Chronis along with a short-stacked Gary Benson surrounded by amateurs – and especially when you compare this table to last years that included Jay Kinkade, Tino Lechich, Sheldon, Minh Nguyen, Julian Powell, Harris Pavlou, Ben Delaney and Tim Horan. However this table was stronger than you may have imagined!
Dean McIver has been a regular on the tournament circuit for a number of years while Benson, Gray and Chronis’ records speak for themselves. Mick Nolton is a very talented player along with Julian Cohen who has began raking up results in the past 12 months, and when you add in the strongest amateur on the table – champion Albert Amato – you have a table full of talent . . . I guess we’ll have to see where they are all in 12 months because we know what last years final nine have achieved!

6 – Busy Time For Poker: It is always a difficult ask to plan not only a poker tournament but also a championship series ahead of time – and when tournaments are getting announced without too much preparation time – there will always be crossovers. Not only was the ANZPT Queensland (5th – 9th) finale on during the first week, the hugely popular FTOPS (5th – 16th) was also being run to consequently detract some of the online contingent competing over the two week schedule (2nd – 17th). Combine this with the Asian Poker Tour Macau (12th – 23rd) and the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau (15th – 30th) and you have a very busy and expensive month of August!

7 – Main Event Structure: Jonno Pittock and his loyal staff always implement great structures for every tournament held at Crown – and in the case of the Victorian Poker Championships Main Event – it was no exception. For the first time at Crown since I started working for PokerNetwork/PokerNews day three saw more than a final table return to battle it out. This was not because of slow play or an overly huge field, but rather that the structure was just too good to see the field reduced to just one table by day two. Kudos Jonno and his staff!

8 – Money Is Going . . . Somewhere: I’m unsure of exactly where he lives, what he does, or what he plans to do with the money, but I think that Albert Amato will pop his head up around Australian tournaments in the future. Obviously there were crowd favourites going into the final table, but it was great to see a talented by short-stacked player battle hard (with some luck) to take down the $190,050 first prize.

Queensland then Melbourne and now Macau!

Tilted Behaviour is heading back to Viva Las Asia to tackle the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau Main Event and High Rollers . . . while also mixing in some partying, gambling and relaxing in one of my favourite destinations on the planet.

Stay tuned for who knows what may eventuate!