tilted behaviour

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.