tilted behaviour

We returned to the final day of the Victorian Poker Championships Main Event with fifteen players and an identical goal of capturing the $190,050 first prize, coveted trophy and title of champion!

We lost players quickly as we reached the final ten with Kane Sherwell holding a commanding lead alongside Jason Gray, Morry Edelstein and Chris Chronis.

After losing Dean McIver on one of the first hands, Sherwell would river both Edelstein and Gary Benson to the rail. Gray continued to accumulate chips, but some bad luck, lost races and unfortunate rivers saw him endure a roller-coaster of a ride.

Matt Rolfe found a three-outer to stay alive against Chronis as Mick Nolton chopped a double on the river as Chronis exited in 7th thanks to a bricked straight and flush draw. Nolton followed in the same fashion to Sherwell’s King-high as Cohen again clipped Gray with a rivered straight to his two-pair.

Albert Amato followed his one-outer earlier against Gray with a three-outer against Sherwell while Rolfe ran flush into flush to hit the rail in 5th. Cohen went next when he made the wrong read / move against Sherwell’s top-pair to see the first-time tournament player hold a near two-to-one advantage over both his opponents.

The remaining players made a deal, and soon after, Gray exited after losing a race holding Ace-King to Sherwell’s snowmen as he took a five-to-three lead into heads-up play.

That lead increased to over a seven-to-two lead before Amato started to claw his way back into the game after doubling with a pair and straight-draw to Sherwell’s straight-draw and two over’s. Sherwell continued to slip before Amato doubled well into the lead with his two-pair against Sherwell’s middle-pair.

Eventually Sherwell would commit his chips drawing dead to just two outs against Amato’s two-pair and flush-draw. No help came on the river and Albert Amato was crowned our 2009 Victorian Poker Champion!

Julian Cohen, Champion Albert Amato, Matt Rolfe, PokerNews Camera-Man Thomas Kinsman, Jason Gray, Kane Sherwell, Dean McIver, The Trophy

With us wrapping up just after midnight and noticing Mat, Joe and Brendo on a $1-2 NLH table . . . there was no way I could resist!

I profited close to $240 for the night, but it was my mega slowroll that was the toast of the night.

Mat straddled to some retarded amount and the whole table called around to me in the small blind with K♠ 3♠. I called, as did the big blind to see a flop of K♣ 3♦ 3♣ land.

I checked and Mat pushed all in for $15 and found two callers before I also made the call as the big blind passed.

The turn landed the Q♦ and I checked to the donkey who bet out $27 odd. This youngish lady called before I moved all in for a little more on top. Both called and the river of the 8♣ was checked.

The donkey turned over Q♣ J♠, only to be bested by the lady’s K♦ 4♦.

I angled my cards towards the muck to signal that I couldn’t beat either of the hands, and Mat slowly sweated out his 9♣ 4♣ for a flush. He slammed it down and stood up with his hands in the air celebrating his new-found chips. I slowly pushed my cards towards the muck before rolling them over once Mat had returned to the table to BOOM him with a slowroll!

Off to Geelong tomorrow for a couple of days before returning to Asian Vegas . . . Macau!

Finally we reach the pinnacle of the 2009 Victorian Poker Championships with Day 1a of the $2,700 Main Event.

The day was fairly standard with bad beats, huge calls and plenty of commentary by a rather amusing field . . . and consequently here was one of the more amusing hands that I wrote up.

care of PokerNetwork
Wardak KO’D By Khalil Slowroll
With the action folding round to Ali Khalil in the hijack, he opened with a raise to 1,025 and was flatted by Saidal Wardak on the button and Sean Keeton from the big blind.

The flop of K♣ 6♣ 2♥ was checked round to see the 3♥ land on the turn and a check from Keeton.

Khalil then fired 1,650 at the pot and was shot a dirty look by Wardak before he raised to 5,000. Keeton passed, and with the action back on Khalil, he splashed the pot with his remaining 11,750 in chips.

Just like their previous occasion, Wardak snap-called slamming down his 2♣ 2♦ faster than Khalil jumps at the idea of hitting a gentleman’s club with a fat roll of green hundred dollar bills!

Khalil looked down at Wardak’s hole cards, then back at the board, before slowly rolling over his 5♥ 4♥ for a perceived slowroll.

Fortunately for Khalil the river bricked out landing the A♦ to see Wardak exit when his all in bet amounted three antes shy of Khalil’s stack.

“What about that for a jizzy card on the turn” commented Khalil before adding, “why do I have to bust a Sydney player . . . I want to get rid of the Melbourne scum” as he raked in the pot to climb to 26,000 in chips.

Michael Pedley, Tony Hachem, Kane Sherwell, Joe Hachem, Jonathan ‘xMONSTERxDONGx’ Karamalikis, Full Tilt Poker, Harris Pavlou, Michael Chrisanthopoulos

Heath decided to implement shifts into the schedule for the 2009 Victorian Poker Championships, and consequently it had me starting at the dinner break for Event 13: $10,200 High Stakes Holdem.

With only 23 players fronting up the ten dimes, dinner break also brought the final table which meant it was going to be a lot easier for me.

Seat 1: Sam Khouiss – 103,000
Seat 2: Billy ‘The Croc’ Argyros – 14,000
Seat 3: Julius Colman – 48,000
Seat 4: Daniel Neilson – 56,500
Seat 5: Van Marcus – 44,500
Seat 6: Ben Invelito – 70,000
Seat 7: Stewart Scott – 31,000
Seat 8: Warwick Mirzikinian – 72,000
Seat 9: Tino Lechich – 22,500

Only the top five spots would pay, but instead of discussing how the tournament played out, I’d rather tell you about the controversy that surrounded the ending to the tournament.

With play three-handed between Van Marcus, Julius Colman and Sam Khouiss, the tournament was paused as the boys did a chip chop to see Khouiss take most of the cash as he was chip leader.

The tournament however would continue to play on to see who would be deemed the official champion.

Khouiss only cared about the money (since he had no more than 20% of his action) while Marcus and Colman obviously wanted the title, while all three players wanted to get out of there as it was kicking into hour twelve.

Marcus then was left crippled after doubling up Colman, and once it was obvious that Marcus was a near lock to fall next with just three big blinds, Colman and Khouiss agreed that whoever eliminated Marcus would be crowned champion.

Only a few hands later Marcus would head to the rail courtesy of a flopped set of trips by Colman, and with that, Khouiss shook Colman’s hand and went to cash out his winnings as I was left dumbfounded at what had just happened.

Tournament Director Matthew Burgoine and I sat there stunned trying to figure out how to wrap the event up online so as not to effect the integrity of both Crown and PokerNetwork . . . let me just say it was harder then you’d imagine!

Sam Khouiss, Chips, Van Marcus, Billy ‘The Croc’ Argyros, Julius Colman, The Trophy, Daniel Neilson, Sam Khouiss on a good day

I was down in the Crown Poker Room by midday to cover all the action from Event 12: $1,650 Pot Limit Omaha of the 2009 Victorian Poker Championships.

Only 57 players took the felt, but it was an all-star field that featured some of the old-timers along with a mix of young online and live specialists.

I blogged this event very similar to how we ran the Day One’s back at the WSO; which meant no chip counts page and just a highly colourful and informative blog.

Just after 11pm we hit our final table following the elimination of Jim Sachinidis, but still needed two more eliminations until we hit the money.

Jay ‘SEABEAST’ Kinkade fell in 9th, followed by Michael Guttman as we hit the money just before 1am and a little over 12 hours into the tournament!

Fellow PokerNetwork Forum frequenter Con ‘tsapy’ Tsapkounis fell in a double bustout in 6th along with Robert Wang in 7th thanks to James Sherrill. Brian Hull fell next as the four remaining players made an even chop as play ticked past 2am.

Greg Cook was next to go as Van ‘Sirens’ Marcus eyed off a win to take him to over US$1,000,000 in tournament earnings, and once Sam Youssef exited in 3rd it looked likely.

With the clock reading a few ticks past 3am, Marcus looked in control with an overwhelming advantage of 622,000 to James Sherrill’s 193,000 in chips.

However nothing happens that easy!

Marcus would have Sherrill all in on a flop of Q♠ 6♣ 4♠ holding Q♦ J♦ 9♦ 6♠ against Sherrill’s A♥ A♠ 9♠ 7♥. However running sevens would see Sherrill double through to hold a five-to-three advantage.

Thanks to Marcus’ expertise and countless hours on both the virtual and green felt, he would slowly claw his way back into the lead before getting Sherrwill to commit all his chips on a K♣ 4♣ 3♠ with just A♠ 9♦ 7♠3c to be in bad shape against Marcus’ J♣ J♥ 3♥ 3♦. The turn would ding for Sherrill dropping the 2♥, and after the blank 9♥ landed on the river, Marcus was left facing a three-to-one disadvantage.

After a long and exhausting 16 hours of play (blogger inclusive!) Marcus would push his chips into the middle on the turn drawing dead with an under-full to Sherrill’s flopped fours-full to see Sherwill crowned champion and Marcus heading out the door pissed off – to say the least!

Van Marcus, Jim Sachinidis, Leo Boxell, Con ‘tsapy’ Tsapkounis, George Mamacas playing iGolf, Jamie Pickering, Chips, Champion James Sherrill, Jay ‘SEABEAST’ Kinkade, Van Marcus

I headed down earlier than expected to cover the heads up tournament as Heath was still in the Six-Handed event.

It was pretty dull and boring, apart from the fact that I had two mates in Van Marcus and Kristian ‘BadaBing’ Lunardi playing in the semi finals.

A few hours ticked by and I made my way over to the State of Origin Final Table to hopefully see the non-Australian state of New Zealand somehow lose!

Problem was . . . it was nearly impossible . . . and the table draw didn’t make it any harder for them as all three were seated next to each other – therefore making it very easy to chip dump to each other when one got short!

As expected New Zealand won the $32,000 team first prize but also finished one, two, three to see the team pocket $55,000 for their great showing!

Team New Zealand Members Phillip Willcocks, Lee Nelson and Kevin Clark

After another stint abroad I was ready to return home back to Melbourne – except for the fact that it was straight to the Victorian Poker Championships for the State of Origin!

It was an early start in the morning as both me and Duffy had to catch an 8:30am flight out of the Gold Coast.

We were pleasantly surprised to find out that Grant ‘grunter’ Levy would be joining us, and consequently we split a cab to the airport.

We chomped down on some breakfast before boarding the plane; only to find out that I drew the short straw and was forced to sit next to James Honeybone (haha) as Grunter got an upgrade to premium economy as someone had been allocated his seat.

Duff stared out the window, I fell asleep to some Coldplay and Honeybone chucked his iPod on while watching the sports recap.

Another successful plane ride (landing is a success IMO) that featured me sleeping from take off to landing saw us pick up our bags and catch the Jetport Parking bus to my car.

We dropped Duffy home in St Kilda before checking at Crown Promenade so that Grunter could dump his bags so that he could play the Heads Up tournament.

I grabbed a haircut before heading down early to scope out the set-up for the State of Origin.

Following the highly successful inaugural event last year, the State of Origin returned with a room full of to overfed egos, millions of dollars in earnings and plenty of hubris ready to battle it out!
Eight states competed from reigning champions South Australia, favourites Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia, the quiet kids from Tasmania and Queensland, along with the two noobs of the Territories (Northern and Australian Capital Territory) and New Zealand!

The tournament was played as an eight-handed shootout with the winning state on each table progressing through to the final table, but everyone that is eliminated earning points that go towards the overall team score and $32,000 team prize.

When the dust settled at 4:30am (sigh) New Zealand had sent three people through to the final table, while all other states managed to sneak one on there apart from Victoria and the Territories to see the overall points tally sit at:

Current Standings
The Territories – 250 points
New South Wales – 240
Queensland – 180
Victoria – 160
South Australia – 130
Tasmania – 110
Western Australia – 70
New Zealand – 60