Oliver Gill

80 Days. Three Continents. One WSOP.

…but first there’s Thailand.

Days 1-2
After spending my last afternoon in Australia for three months watching the Gold Coast Titans climb to second place on the NRL ladder, I get dropped off at the train station; buy my ticket and stretch out on the mostly empty train to enjoy a three hour trip to the airport. Less than one minute before the train is scheduled to leave, I go to grab my laptop and… Oh fuck, where’s my laptop bag? I had it when I walked into the train station… I grab my other bag, race off the train and spring back to the ticket window and… Run good one time! My laptop bag is on the ground next to the ticket window. Now I need to flip good again… I spring back to the platform and make it to the train literally seconds before the door closes. Disaster averted.
The train trip starts off uneventful and I’m listening to my iPod when the hot blonde girl sitting across from me says something to me. I take off my iPod to answer her question and we start talking. Her name is Tyla and she’s 18, she goes to Sunshine Coast Uni and she’s going to the city to go clubbing tonight. We hit it off and chat for an hour or so. She asks what I’m doing tonight. FML I’m leaving the country for three months. Solid ego boost that she seemed interested.
As we get into the outer suburbs of Brisbane, Tyla says she has to go to the bathroom and upon learning there are no bathrooms on the train and that it’s an express train, she starts to panic and ask the security guards to stop the train. They tell her they can’t. She spends the next 20 minutes squirming in her seat trying not to wet herself. After about 15 minutes she’s literally in tears and says she’s about to wet herself. Fortunately for her, we arrive at a station just in time and she’s able to disembark. The story might have been a lot more epic if the train station was another 5 minutes away.
The rest of the trip to the airport is uneventful and I arrive several hours before my early morning flight. I get a couple hours sleep, watch some Stargate Universe on my laptop then eventually check in and board my flight to Bangkok.
I arrive in Bangkok and after clearing customs, I am approached by literally dozens of people trying to get me to stay at their hotel/go in their taxi/etc. I choose one and (with a few days hindsight) rip myself off by about $20 USD but that’s what you get for not negotiating. My hotel is nice and in the centre of Bangkok, near Nana Plaza, one of the entertainment districts, so it’s not a terrible deal anyway.
My taxi driver speaks close to fluent English (I’m still yet to encounter anyone with better English) and I ask him some questions like how much I should pay for things, what the security situation is like in BKK (he says it’s fine) and where I should go if I want to have a few beers and meet some Thai girls. He tells me he lives about 180km north of Bangkok and has a wife and three kids; he only gets to see them for one weekend per month and drives a Taxi in the city to support his family. He sleeps in his cab. I tip him 50 baht on top of the agreed upon fare (about $1.80, although that’s probably more like a $7-8 tip in terms of purchasing power) and check into my hotel.
Bangkok is hot, humid and bustling with life. After a quick shower, I throw on some nice clothes and make my way out into Nana plaza. I head into what appears to be a sports bar and grab a beer, introducing myself to a French guy whose name escapes me. He speaks English so we talk a bit and watch Manchester United beat Sunderland (fuck Manchester United, mbn to be able to buy any player you want – bitter Aston Villa fan here). A girl at the bar comes over and starts flirting with me. Her name is pronounced ‘Be-u’ (I think) and she tells me she only likes foreign guys. I’m assuming she means she likes the fact that Western guys are rich. We talk a bit about Thailand, how everything is back home, I tell her she’s cute, she makes it clear she’s into me, etc. It turns out she works at the bar but she says she finishes at two.
I buy her a few drinks and we discuss more random stuff (music, why there are so many ladyboys in Thailand, etc.) and I think to myself wait, I’m in Thailand… okay she has tiny hands and feet and no Adam’s apple, it’s all good. She has a slamming body and is pretty cute, although not as stunning as some of the other girls at the bar. That said, it’s my first night in Thailand and she’s hot and seems pretty cool so whatever. We make out a bit. Her shift finishes and I take her back to the hotel. On the way back she takes my arm and says ‘I am ladyboy’… I’m like ‘No you’re not… seriously?’ She bursts out laughing and assures me she is all woman. I’m like 95% sure she’s a woman with a sense of humour at this point and 5% I just got pwned. Fortunately, we make our way up to the hotel room and I find out she is indeed all woman. I get less than an hour’s sleep. I have pictures as I should for any good TR, both of the PG and R-rated variety. I’ll post the PG ones. The next day I take her out to lunch and we see Iron Man 2 before we go our separate ways and I head back to the airport. I fly to Koh Samui and find it’s even hotter and more humid than Bangkok.
I catch the shuttle bus into Chaweng, the main town on the island and meet up with Rob, a friend of mine from Melbourne who is in Koh Samui until Friday. Rob says I can crash with him tonight which is helpful since I couldn’t be bothered finding a hotel. He’s staying with Ryan and Jake, two Californian guys who both seem pretty cool. Ryan looks exactly like UFC fighter Stephan Bonnar. He’s just flown in today as well and Jake has been in Koh Samui for a while. We hit the town and after a couple hours I’m so tired (and with minor jetlag) that I’m basically sleeping face-down on the counter of each bar as we bar-hop. We walk past a strip club with the women out front making several suggestive remarks to us. We don’t go in, but don’t worry I’ll have a TR of that club at some point; I’m here for three weeks. On the way back, we stop for food and a hot, tanned foreign chick is walking past. Rob cold-approaches her from a distance with some line, she turns to walk and he tried again with ‘This is your second and final chance, you’re really going to say no to me?’ or something similar. It works and she joins us for a drink. Her name is Ella and she’s Israeli, her first language is Hebrew but she speaks okay English. We agree to meet her and her friend Rotem (weird girl’s name I know) to go go-karting in Bo Phut the next day.
On the way back to the hotel Jake gets separated from us briefly and returns to tell us that a street hooker grabbed his balls and it hurt. The same girl then tried to steal his wallet while he was distracted. Ryan gets propositioned by a Thai hooker with a motorcycle. He declines because she’s not hot enough or something, then says we should all go back to ‘find whores’. I decide to crash as does Rob, Jake and Ryan head back out. The room has 2 beds and 4 of us. I sleep on the floor using my towel as a blanket. I’m so drunk and tired it’s the best night’s sleep I ever had.
Day 3
We meet up with the Israeli girls for breakfast by the pool and have delicious omelettes. We change hotels to stay in their hotel since it’s nicer and the rooms are the same price. After some swimming, we hire motorcycles (the preferred mode of transport on the island with its narrow streets) and head to the Kart track. Did you know it’s perfectly legal to drink beer while driving a motorcycle in Thailand? Rotem drives motorcycles back in Israel and wants to drive (we’ve hired 3 bikes and there are 6 of us) and I say I’m okay with riding on the back. This chick has skills. She can drive. She can drive while chugging a beer with one hand (it’s only her second beer and I’m okay with trusting my life to her driving abilities… but only just)
We get to the kart track and drive a few laps. It’s a good kart track and ridiculously cheap as expected. On the way back we stop in for lunch at a restaurant in Fisherman’s Village, a mini-outdoor-mall type of area in Bo Phut. I eat the best grilled chicken burger and avocado salad i’ve ever had. Also, fresh pineapple/watermelon juice is addictive. We drive back (a bit slower this time since Rotem has had a couple more beers and I’m far too drunk to drive) and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening in the pool.
Day 4-6
I spent some time grinding online and lose a few hundred dollars in MTTs. I buy some original Thai artwork for 550 baht (about $18 USD), will take photos and upload soon. They’re small unframed works, one with a picture of a tiger in the jungle and the other with a herd of elephants. I see some truly epic art that costs about $200-400 USD, proper hand painted canvasses, I’ll buy one before I leave. One main painting with the two small ones will do wonders for my bedroom walls when I get back. Rob wears my Australian flag out to a club and gets about 20 comments on his ‘skirt’ from locals. I get about 20 comments on the so called ‘mosquito bite’ on my neck that Beu left on me. It took six days to fade. Mostly along the lines of ‘you have big mosquito bite (points at my neck and laughs) – is from Thai girl or girlfriend back home?’ I’m pretty sure Rotem and Ryan hooked up at one point. We chill at the pool a lot. I get approached by hundreds of tailors and vendors trying to sell me suits, artwork, trinkets, watches, shirts, jewellery, handbags and anything that can be sold as a cheap knockoff. Anyone want a Rolex knockoff, a cheap Armani suit or some Ed Hardy shirts? A Louis Vuitton handbag? Let me know. They have knockoffs of everything here that are dirt cheap and look identical to the naked eye. If you want something I can bring it to you in Vegas or Australia. Let me know. On Friday, Rob heads back to Australia and the other four all head down to Phuket. I book a game fishing charter and I’m going to be going on an elephant safari this week. I’m also going to change hotels again now that I’m by myself to somewhere a bit cheaper, finish editing my book, grind a bit more and maybe go out one night and see if I can meet a nice local Thai girl. Odds I accidentally pick up a ladyboy on this trip? 10/1.
Day 7
I’m booked in for a game fishing. Update coming soon. Hopefully I’m going to catch a giant Barracuda. They apparently have them everywhere here; i’ve seen them in the markets. If you don’t know what a Barracuda is, Google it and then imagine it’s 1.5 meters long. Yeah.

I’ll be uploading photos from my Blog in the pokertips.org forums in a thread i’ll be creating in the lounge.

How about a weekly update and i’ll start doing the daily ones when I have something to write about?

Hachem Deepstack Series NLHE 6Max (230 buyin)

This event went badly. I lost two races and I was out early.

Hachem Deepstack Series $340 Bounty Event

I come to the table with a beer in hand and immediately start acting as if im completely smashed while in reality its actually my first beer. I open the first eight pots or so (winning some and losing some) while we’re 300BB deep to portray the maniac image, then I find queens. Effective stacks 15k at 25/50. Random guy opens to 150, I repop to 700, he calls. He thinks im a drunken tiltmuppet, so this could be profitable. Villain instacalls and the flop is AQ3. Bink! I check and villain bets 900. I’m pretty sure that means he’s strong since he has to think im unlikely to give up here in a 3bet pot if I really am drunk. I figure that means hes strong, so I raise to 2500 and he calls. Cool, he has an ace and he isnt folding. The turn is a king and I bet 5000, he insta-shoves and I beat him into the pot. He had AK and the river bricks. Good start

I start massacring the table and I have 70k pretty quickly, stacking a few short stacks on flips and doubling a few others up.

I finally find myself involved in an interesting hand at 500/1000 when we’re nearing the bubble. I have three bounties which means i’ve made $300 so far.

Villain has 50k and I cover easily.

Terrible female player limps, I find AcQh and raise to 4000 on the cutoff, folds around, she calls.

Flop: Qc Tc 4c

Well that’s a helpful flop, how do I even flop top pair AND a nut flush draw that’s just ridiculous

She donks out 15k which is almost double the pot.

What?

…wait, WHAT?

I think for a couple seconds, realise my hand is the super nuts and move all-in. She snapcalls and tables 9c8c. Fuck I hate live poker. CLUB PLEASE

The turn and river brick and i’m back down to 25k. I pull off some nice bluffs to climb back to 50k, then stack a shorty when I raise/call A9 against a 20bb stack and he has K6 and I hold to take my 4th bounty. I’m back to 80k when i get involved again with a bad/tricky live player.

At 800/1600, I make it 3500 with KTs (my standard raise) in early position, loose/bad reg named Andrew who had previously flatted J6o on the button against my openraise flats and the BB (tricky/bad live player calls)

Flop: 642 rainbow

TBL checks, I bet 8000, Andrew folds, TBL minraises to 16000. No sir you do not have a hand. I quickly raise all-in and villain tanks for a moment then calls and reveals… 72 for bottom pair. Okay, I read his hand correctly, I just misread the fact that… he didn’t fold bottom pair. I brick out and i’m short again. The blinds go up and I suddenly have 11bb again. A guy shoves 9bb, I reshove, a short stack behind calls all-in for 3bb and another guy goes ‘oh I guess theres value’ and calls as well for about 8bb. My sixes brick out (an additional three bounties would have been nice) and i’m crippled to 1bb. I bust shortly after.

1100 PLO Event

I massacre my starting table and chip up to 90k from the start bank of 30k with no major showdowns. I get it in with 77xx vs AKQJ on a KK27 board on the turn and fade the river to chip up to 160k.

I head to the final table with one of the big stacks but it’s only six paid. With nine left I get it in with KK, a flush draw and a backdoor draw against AA and no redraws and brick all of my outs to drop back to the average stack in a pot that would have given me over a third of the chips in play. With eight left, I check-raise all in with AQTx vs AAKx on a QTx flop and villain tank-calls off his stack for slightly under a third of the chips in play. The turn is a jack. Thanks for playing and I bubble again.

$550 HU Tournament

Round 1 – 30k stacks

My opponent is tight-passive. I have a 32-28k lead when the following hand takes place.

I open the button to 1k at 200/400 with Ts9s and villain calls. The flop is Ad 8s 7h

He checks, I make it 1500, he checkraises to 5k. Um, okay? I consider folding (it means he has an ace or better) but decide to peel since he’s putting the rest in if I hit. The turn is 6h and villain open shoves. I snap and he has A7 and I hold. That was easy.

Next round (I had a bye so this is the bubble match) I grind villain down slowly, lose with KK to 34 when he flops a straight, grind him down slowly again, open shove QJ into A8 with villain easily covered and fail to get there, sending us back to even stacks, grind him down again, then go completely card dead as he starts getting aggro, get back to even, then get it bad (30/70 I think) since there are now only about 30bb in play. I brick out again and my opponent wins. Sigh.

I decided to unregister the 1100 6max because the field looks strong and I need to sleep in.

$340 Accumulator – I get it in preflop with AA vs AQ first level vs a tilting donk, then at the 100/200 level I play a monster pot where I flop a straight flush draw against a set and fail to get there in a 450bb pot (I had 42k, villain covers) which would have given me a huge chiplead.

Oh and I also bought 40% of a friend and he shipped the Accumulator for 12k, so I made 4.7k. Then I swapped 10% with him and he chopped the 6max so I made $500. Then I swapped with him again in the Terminator and he finished 7th so I made another $70

In conclusion I need to stop playing poker and start backing people instead

Sorry for lack of updates etc but i’m really busy at the moment, my posts will be back to their normal quality/quantity for Thailand and Vegas.

I still have the $550 Main and $1650 Shorthanded Shootout events left so i’m definitely going to ship something this series though

I make my way over to Burswood and find that the tournament is starting at 12:30 rather than 12. A guy who was at my table at Aussie Millions is in the poker room so we chat for a while and I find out he finished 48th. Eventually, the tournament gets underway and i’m informed that I can’t use the hood from my hoodie at the table because it’s against Burswood dress regulations. What?

I find myself involved in some minor pots early and lose most of them after missing flops and either giving up or cbetting and being played back at.

I finally find a spot to get involved in some postflop action against Sean, a solid reg from Melbourne. Sean and high stakes regular Matt Kirk are the only good players at my table, naturally they’re sitting one and two to my left.

At 25/50, I open to 150 with Ad 6d and Sean calls. Sean has played back at me a lot postflop and i’ve given up or he’s had the best hand every time so far.

The flop is QQ9 rainbow and I lead 300. Sean calls. I figure he raises a lot of Qx hands so he’s probably floating with some sort of low-mid PP most of the time. The turn is 7h, putting a second heart on the board. I check and Sean bets 700. I raise to 2125 and sean thinks for a moment then makes it 6000. He doesn’t even do that with AQ, he has to have a full house here. I muck and he shows me 99. He’s surprised to hear that I didnt have a queen and he doesn’t really believe me. Awesome, I just tried to bluff against a flopped full house.

After that i’m down to about 15k and I continue to whiff flops. I pick up KK and raise, get two callers and an AJ3 flop. I check second to act and Sean bets, the other player calls and Sean ends up showing down AJ. Must be nice sir.

I go card dead for a bit and leak down to about 12k, then I find K5 in a 3 way limped pot, i’m SB, sean is BB, other limper is a random fish at 75/150.

Flop 775

I check, Sean bets 200, limper folds, I call

Turn: 3

I check, Sean checks

River: 2

I bet 350 for some thin value, Sean calls and turns over… 79o? What? Jesus, this is not going well for me. I’m down to 10.5k after that pot and it’s all one way traffic in the wrong direction.

So far i’ve been the preflop raiser about 15 times and i’ve won 1 pot with a cbet out of about 8 and connected with 0 flops. This is starting to remind me of ANZPT Sydney

Sean raises to 400 UTG and I call with 88 from the SB.

Flop: 964

I check, Sean bets 600, I call

Turn: A

I check, Sean checks behind

River: 6

I check, Sean bets 1300. I’m not really beating anything other than a stone cold bluff, but something feels odd here about his line, Sean is the type that would bet an ace on the turn and I don’t think he’s trying for thin value with TT-KK… so I guess I call?

Sean shows me 32o for a stone cold bluff and I scoop in my first decent pot, climbing back to around 14k.

I win and lose some small pots and the blinds go up to 100/200, I stay mostly uninvolved throughout the level since i’m pretty card dead and I eventually get involved again with a 13k stack and pocket 3s just after the start of the 100/200/25 level (there are two 100/200 levels, the second one is where antes come in)

A young online LAG player has been moved to my right and he seems competent. He’s opening a lot of pots. He opens to 500 from UTG+1, I call with 33 next to act, Matt Kirk calls.

Flop: 9d8d3c

Well hello there, first time i’ve flopped top pair or better all day and it’s a beautiful wonderful set against the two laggiest players at the table

Young internet lag bets 875, I call, Matt tank-folds.

Turn: As

Internet lag thinks for a moment and bets 1650. Interesting spot for me here, the board is draw heavy and a raise commits my stack, problem is he knows that and if I raise he’s not going to pay me with less than aces up here. I call again, figuring I get a third street out of Ax this way since he’ll checkcall, or if he bets I can just call if the river is a dangerous card or shove if its safe over his third barrel since this guy will bluff all his missed draws and his bluff will be for about half my stack, plus if he’s got aces up or 2p he’s going to be committed to pay my shove since it’ll basically be a minraise over his river value bet.

River: 5c

Pretty decent card, 67 is the only straight draw that got there, none of the flush draws got there, villain immediately fires 3950. I have an additional 6k or so behind that so I think for a moment about whether to shove for value. He can have AA and 67 with his line, but his range is mostly missed draws and aces up so I decide to shove for value. He instacalls and tables 67o. GG sir

I suppose raising the turn is standard, but he normally misses and fires 4k with this exact hand whereas he folds on the turn to the raise; so I don’t hate my line here really its just high risk and I do think aces up is a larger part of his range than 67 and sets so I dont think my shove is too bad.

Its day 4 currently im lagging behind on updates but the last couple days have been pretty uneventful, saw some movies (Shutter Island gets 8.2/10, Green Zone gets 6.8/10) and explored Perth a bit, i’m going to either go reef fishing tomorrow or snorkelling wth dolphins, havent decided yet. Online im down maybe 600 or so, made onen t100 FT but lost 3 races to finish 8th and ive mostly just been losing key flips over the past couple days

Day one of the live poker adventure started with a less than thrilling ride to the train station, followed by a train ride to the airport, then a flight to Sydney and another flight to Perth. Upon arrival, I decided to check out the Burswood Casino complex and found my way to the poker room. I quickly learned that Burswood actually has two poker rooms. I asked to register for Day 1a and the floor manager directed me to the player party where Danny McDonagh, the TD, was hanging out with the players. Free beer and food beckoning, I made my way over to the player party and caught up with several of the young aussie online poker pros who had satellited into the Main Event. I found danny and after looking over the field, decided that Day 1a was definitely the weaker of the two with most online qualifiers choosing to play Day 1b. Surprisingly, the field was not particularly star studded with most of Australia’s elite poker players missing from the field, probably because Perth is so far away from everything. After catching up with online pros ‘Rickwaa’ and ‘Jackovich’ and having a few beers with them, I decided to head back to the hostel for a good night’s sleep. In a good sign of things to come, I drew room 14 (14 is my lucky number). If I get pocket deuces on the first hand tomorrow, this tournament is as good as over. I have a really good feeling about this trip.

After some delicious kebabs, I decided to get an early night’s sleep. The ANZPT Main Event starts tomorrow at midday Perth time and I need to get some rest.

Tomorrow is where it’s going to get interesting. A well-structured $2700 event full of live satellite qualifers and APL players? Count me in

Been a while, hasn’t it? If you’re new to my blog, scroll down and catch up on my adventures last year in Vegas for the WSOP.

It’s that time of the year though, so my blog is back and this year it’s going to be huge.

Having grinded online for most of the past four months close to seven days a week, i’ve learned that volume is everything. I’ve learned that 13-tabling is okay; but 14-tabling I time out aces. I’ve learned that running hotter than the sun is helpful and while downswings can be brutal, they don’t really happen as much when you’re playing 20+ MTTs a day. I’ve learned that writing a book is very time consuming, but ultimately rewarding.

After an awesome three months of poker both online and live including two final tables at Aussie Millions, my bankroll is in better shape than ever… so you know what that means. It’s time for SwoopAE’s next live poker adventure. All I need is my carry on bag of clothing, my laptop and my 50k bankroll, which will hopefully still be intact in 126 days time. Let’s do this.

This year, it’s Around the World in… wait, let me check my calendar… 126 days. That somehow doesn’t have the same ring to it as Bond18′s Around the World in 90 days, which you can read about here (www.spewingwithbond18.com) but the general idea is the same.

Here’s my schedule

16 March – Leave Brisbane for ANZPT Perth. It’ll be my first time in Western Australia and at Burswood Casino. I’ll be playing the $2700 ANZPT Perth Main Event which I was lucky enough to satellite into on my first attempt the other day, along with any prelim events that happen to be on if I bust early.

21 March – Leave Perth for the Hachem Deepstack Series in Melbourne. The $1100 8-game, $1100 6-max NLHE and $1100 PLO events in particular look awesome, along with the $550 Main Event. I’ll also be playing some of the smaller stuff and I might take a shot at 10/20 PLO for the first time if I can find a soft enough table. Plus, Melbourne is so awesome that I can’t stay away for more than a few months or I will die.

6 April – Back to the Sunshine Coast for a few weeks to grind online and possibly try and pick up a WSOP ME seat which I might actually use this year. For those of you who followed my blog last year, I won a seat, went to Vegas, then didn’t play the Main Event because i’m a bankroll nit/was on lifetilt after getting owned by the deck all summer.

2 May – Leave Brisbane for Bangkok, Thailand, then on to Koh Samui to meet up with the Redback Challenge boys (Yann, Alex and Robb, along with a few other people I know who will be in Thailand at the time as a featured guest for the Redback Challenge). The plan is to grind online and in an underground cardroom that apparently has the softest games in the world all day, party all night, try to pick up Thai girls (and hopefully not any ladyboys), generally engage in degenerate activities. A solid prelude to get me into the right frame of mind for the WSOP. Redback Challenge website is here http://redbackchallenge.com/

Approx 27 May – Leave Koh Samui for LAX, most likely with a one day stopover in Seoul, South Korea. Korea to Starcraft is like Mecca to Islam. We all have to make the pilgrimage once in our lifetime. Also, I figure it will be more fun than a stopover in Singapore, which was the other option.

May 28 – Las Vegas, baby! I will be taking up residence in ‘La Grand Casa’, better known as  ’The Yellow House’ for seven weeks along with seven to ten other professional poker players including one of my housemates from last year, some friends from last year’s WSOP and some of the Melbourne poker crew. (http://www.vacationrentals.com/vacation-rentals/54700.html#rates-header)

I’ll be playing basically everything at the Venetian Deepstack Series this year along with a couple of the smaller $1500 WSOP events (probably Razz, Omaha/8, HORSE or 8-Game to maximise chances of winning a bracelet). Also, UFC 114 and 116 are on, tickets are a must this year. Plus, strippers, awesome clubs and lots of alcohol consumption will be in order. Round 2 in Las Vegas. Also, the PTips homegame starring SwoopAE, Seb, CMBurns, Ozone, HHCMotu and Bubbleboy will be epic. Equally epic will be ‘Ozone introduces Team PTips to the Spearmint Rhino’. Vegas is going to be awesome.

Approx July 20 – Leave Las Vegas for Australia. Potentially continue the trip either visiting ANZPT Queenstown in New Zealand or heading back to Koh Samui or Phuket. Who knows?

So that’s the plan. It’s going to be an insane journey and hopefully this year the deck is on my side as I attempt to take on the live poker scene.

I’m leaving for the airport in a couple of hours. Perth awaits me. What better way to start the trip than shipping an ANZPT event for six figures?

See you on the other side (of Australia that is)

SwoopAE

Week five begins with my housemate Michael leaving to see if things work out with the girl he met in Vegas. People find love in strange places, so who knows

Unfortunately, this leaves me without a laptop at home so with my internet access restricted to net kiosk terminals at the Flamingo, my blog has been without an update for some time.

Over the past week, I played in three major tournaments; in the first, a $550 VDS event, I chip up to 3x the starting stack before running three of a kind into a full house to go broke with ~20% of the field left.

In the second, another $550 VDS event, I 4bet shove with AK over a 3bettor’s JJ in the early mid-stages, get called, lose the flip for a 2x average stack to head to the rail.

The 1k Caesars Megastack Main Event is more interesting; we start 1000bb deep, I chip up from 50k to 60k quite easily before bluffing off 30k in a sick spot where I felt villain would fold top pair in a spot where my range is 80% nuts 20% air (I had air, obviously), unfortunately my read of villain is off and he makes the call with A5 for top pair no kicker on the river in a monster pot, knocking me down to 30k.

I find my way back to 120k without a major showdown by steamrolling the table as the blinds go up because everyone at my table seems to be weak-tight. During the last level of Day 1, I get moved to a more aggressive table and with about 20 minutes of play left, I have a brain implosion and elect to 4bet all in with 77 for about 45bb when I get 3bet by a laggy guy who has been playing like a maniac; unfortunately he wakes up with QQ and snaps me off to send me to the rail.

Other highlights this week include watching UFC 100 at a bar; we arrive just in time to watch Brock Lesnar beat the hell out of Frank Mir in a completely one sided bout. The UFC diehards hate it and the bar erupts in boos. I love it. That’ll teach the UFC fanboys to knock ‘fake wrestlers’. Frank Mir, you just got knocked the fuck out. Fun times.

A few days later, a friend I met named Joe decides that he wants to put a team of myself, James (a friend from Melbourne) and Adam (a random online player I became friends with in Vegas) into the $1680 WSOP Dream Team Poker event at the Rio.

Unfortunately, James and Adam both get coolered early in AK vs JJ and AK vs AA spots to bust and i’m left flying the flag alone with no chance of recovering any share of the team portion of the prize pool.

I eliminate one of the ‘Maven VT’ guys (their whole operation is ridiculous) to chip up early when my QQ flops a set against KK during the first level super deep (about 5% of the stacks went in pre) and he check-raises all in on the turn giving me a free doubleup. He gives me a speech about how bad I play. The Maven likes to teach his players to trap themselves, apparently.

I hover around the 2-3x starting stack mark for a while, encountering neverwinpoker.com’s Bryan Micon to my left at one stage and 2007 WSOP Main Event Winner Jerry Yang on my table at another stage. I actually bust Jerry Yang when my KK holds against his 75s all in preflop, although to be fair he did have under 1bb. Regardless, the structure eventually degenerates into a crapshoot and the average stack is about 12bb as we approach the bubble.

I get moved from the button to the BB three times in about 10 hands as my table breaks three times in under five minutes. This completely cripples my stack since I can’t find hands to defend my blinds or spots to steal and i’m left open shoving my way back from 7bb to 10bb before I jam 75o into AQo and fail to get there against a trash talking European guy. This leaves me with 1bb, I double up in the big blind but then bust a couple of hands later when I get all in for about 3bb in a five way pot with some random suited connector and fail to get there. I end up finishing about 60th, lol donkaments etc.

I spent my first night at Caesars Palace since the guys all have rooms there and i’m too lazy to walk home after a session one night; Caesars is definitely a world class property. I lose my shirt in the pool area somehow, along with the hat I got Micon to sign for a friend back home and my Team Obnoxious Jerks jersey from Dream Team Poker. When I told Micon during the Teams Event that I promised to bring ‘Hed1′ back some signed NWP gear and Hed1 responded with ‘don’t be a homo’, Micon insists on giving me a signed hat and shirt to give to him ‘with love’.

I spent the rest of the week playing cash (and actually winning a few buyins) and hanging out with friends from Crown including James, Brendan and Chris and some other guys I met on the trip, Joe, Seth and Adam. We have a lot of fun and decide that a few of us might meet up in Macau for the AAPT event next month.

My last night in Vegas is where the trip finally gets a little more interesting. I start out losing a buy-in playing cash while we wait for James to wake up (it’s about 9pm at this stage) at Imperial Palace. He finally arrives and James, Brendan, Chris and I head out to ‘Moon’, a club at Palms.

Moon is awesome with good music, only slightly overpriced drinks, plenty of drunk hotties (and some not-so-hotties including one girl who walked up to me at the bar, grabbed my ass and tried to pick me up using ‘oops, I didn’t mean to grab your ass, i’m so sorry, let me make it up to you, blah blah blah’.

Unfortunately, she’s not my type. James has a little bit of luck with a slim brunette from Melbourne (a solid whose name escapes me but her blonde friend cockblocks him and the half-hearted attempts to wing by Chris, Brendan and I fail miserably as the blonde chick ruins his chances by dragging her friend out of the club.

The view from the top of Palms is pretty awesome (see pics in my thread at the forums), we stand around drinking for a while with an awesome view of the strip on the balcony at the club and discussing life, the universe and everything.

After a couple hours, James and I decide that we’re going to the Spearmint Rhino as neither of us have been to a strip club in Vegas and it’s my last night in town and James is also leaving in a few days.

It’s now about 3:30am and the night is just beginning. Chris has met a new friend, a young African American guy who tells me his name is ‘Gizmo’. He offers to give us a lift to the strip club and the four of us accept. On the way, he says if we want value for money from strippers he has a friend who works as a stripper and we should go around to her place and ‘follow his lead’. Intrigued, we accept this offer and purchase a carton of Coronas at a service station before heading off for what is sure to be an adventure. Let it ride.

A few minutes later, we find ourselves entering a condo in a gated community south of Mandalay Bay. The five of us walk in to the condo (it’s about 4:30am) and find a fairly attractive blonde woman sitting topless on the couch. Wait, what?

She introduces herself as ‘Isabelle’ and confims that she is indeed a stripper ‘who also does sex shows’. Okay then. She seems to be friendly with Gizmo but the nature of their relationship remains a mystery for now.

Isabelle asks what we’re here for and Gizmo tells her that we should all have a gang bang. She seems to be pleased with this idea, but Chris and Brendan both seem very much not fine with this idea. While drunk, James and I haven’t reached that stage of intoxication yet. I mention to her that James and I have both never had a lap dance (true in both cases) and I offer to buy James a lap dance.

She waves away the money, grabs a blanket from another room and sets it down on the floor, instructing James to lie down. Isabelle strips down to a G-string and grinds away on him then takes his shirt off and starts taking off his pants. James finds this a little bit awkward with the rest of us sitting there in a random stripper’s living room instead of the VIP area where this kind of debauchery is supposed to be taking place.

Suddenly, she stops and says it’s my turn. She comes over to me and does goes through the same routine on the couch, then out of nowhere pulls my *ahem* equipment out and asks if I mind. I laugh it off and tell her i’d rather not go any further with my friends in the room here.

Gizmo offers everyone some… let’s call it white powder to ‘loosen us up’. We elect not to partake since illicit substances are not our scene. Isabelle goes back to randomly giving lap dances to all four of us for whatever reason and when it’s my turn, she grabs me and pulls me into the bedroom, much to the amusement of James, Brendan and Chris.

Okay, i’m not complaining. This is where the TMI principle kicks in (too much information, as if he hadn’t crossed that threshold already) so we’ll skip ahead a few minutes.

Let’s just say this is quickly becoming my most enjoyable night in Vegas to date. We do our thing for maybe 15-20 mins and as we’re finishing up, Gizmo knocks on the door and asks if I would like to ‘do some DP with her since the others don’t seem to be up for a gang bang’. Wait, what?

If you don’t know what DP is, consult urbandictionary.com but you’re probably better off not knowing. She encourages me to but I politely decline and we head back out into the lounge to drink more beer. Isabelle invites James into the other room but he declines. Chris and James still want to get to a strip club and I have a couple hundred American dollars left in my wallet to burn before my flight.

Gizmo heads into the bedroom to do whatever with Isabelle. After a few more minutes (it’s now about 5:30am) we tell Gizmo through the door that we’re going to get a taxi and head to a strip club and thanks for an interesting night but we’re heading off.

We go to leave but as we’re walking out to get a taxi, Gizmo races to the door and tells us he’s happy to drop us off at a club. Isabelle the stripper decides to stay behind.

Around 6am, we walk into the Penthouse Crazy Horse III club (it’s called something like that, I was fairly drunk). We realise that this isn’t the Rhino, but Gizmo tells us the Rhino is overrated, so whatever.

I tell everyone it’s my round (it is) and instead of ordering drinks, I tell everyone to choose a girl since i’m buying a round of lap dances. There are only four girls in the club and one customer at the bar, a few security/bar guys and, well, us.

The strippers quickly flock over to the drunk 20-something cashed up poker players like bees to honey. Poker players are the fish at strip clubs. James takes a liking to his girl so I buy him a dance and tell her to take good care of him since it’s the first time he’s had a lap dance in a strip club (technically still true since our ‘Isabelle’ experiences did not occur in a strip club).

James’ girl is about 5’8 with a perfect body and light brown hair. She’s a solid 9 in the club, although who knows since strip clubs do provide an environment in which gentleman can… overlook flaws. Not to mention the many Coronas I have consumed.

I find girls for Brendan and Chris then figure that since it’s a round i’ll get one for myself as well. I decide on a girl named ‘Isis’ (lol, stripper names) who tells me she is from the Phillippines. At this point, I am convinced that she is as close to a 10 as i’m going to find, not just at the strip club but possibly ever.

After our dances, we find that James has disappeared into the ‘VIP Area’, no doubt to have his wallet emptied, among other things. An hour passes and still no sign of James. I purchase an $8 bottle of water which I figure is a fair price for 300mL. It isn’t even Fiji Water. Eventually, Brendan and I send Chris in to the VIP Room to find James. Chris returns a few minutes later and says that James’s response when he entered his VIP Room was ‘fuck off’.

A blonde stripper who seems to have noticed that i’m the only person spending money in the club and therefore an easy mark asks me if I think her boobs are real or fake. I tell her it’s hard to tell with her shirt on but if I have to guess i’ll go with real. She strips down to her bra and asks me whather I can tell yet. It’s a legitimately tough call and I stick with my original answer. She then gets topless and asks me if i’d like to feel them to help me make my mind up. She isn’t quite as hot as the other strippers but she does seem to have perfect breasts. I oblige and eventually tell her I think they’re either real or the best fakes i’ve ever seen (this is an honest answer). She hugs me, tells me she loves me and then wanders away when she realises i’m not spending any money. My heart breaks, although not that much, since Isis is sitting on my lap again trying to convince me to go to the VIP area. I never find out whether they’re real or fake. Maybe Brendan did, since he got a lap dance from her.

Eventually, James and his girl emerge and I dare to ask how much he spent; he says it was $100 and the best $100 he has ever spent. I can’t really argue since they’ve been gone for close to an hour and a half and from what I understand, that’s not a bad rate for a Vegas strip club.

After eventually separating James and his stripper, she says she would like to thank me for introducing her to James with a free dance. Strip clubs are awesome at 6am when the girls are bored and we’re the only guys in the club. I get a free dance but tip her the $20 anyway. Clearly this was her plan. I’m such a strip club fish.

I check my wallet and find that somehow i’ve only spent about $180 tonight and that includes five lap dances, only two of which were for me. I can spare the buyin at 200NL for a night like this. Gizmo pulls me aside and asks me again whether I want to ‘go back to Isabelle’s place and double team her’. Instead, we elect to ask Gizmo to drop us off at Caesars Palace. He drives off, never to be heard from again. I still don’t know whether Gizmo was his real name.

I’m quite exhausted and i’m flying out in under 10 hours, James hasn’t slept in 48 hours, Chris is still freaked out by Isabelle wanting a gang bang and Brendan says we should have gone out to Palms earlier so he could have picked up. We laugh at him.

James heads back to Imperial Palace to sleep, Brendan heads to his room at Caesars, Chris wanders off to play some cash or something and I wander over to the Flamingo and ask the nearest blackjack dealer where I can get food at ‘whatever hour it is now’ since I seem to have lost my phone. She informs me that it’s 10am and points me towards a cafe where I order some delicious waffles with maple syrup.

I walk home to the Meredian for the last time, leaving the bright lights of the strip behind me. I sleep for an hour, quickly clean the apartment, give the keys to the landlord and grab my bags. Goodbye, Vegas, I think we’ll be seeing each other again.

I walk over to Tuscany (which is across the road from my condo) and ask for a taxi; a limo driver there offers to take me to the airport for a comparable price ($20) and I figure why not. Somehow, i’ve never been in a limo before and i’m leaving Las Vegas in one piece, so a celebration can’t hurt. The limo is stocked with champagne glasses and if there was anyone left with me, i’d consider a toast. There is no one else left though and i’m still quite drunk, so I stretch out in the limo and watch the giant medieval castles and pyramids of the Strip fade into the distance.

We arrive at McCarran International Airport; I board my flight to LAX and after a short delay, my V Australia flight departs for Brisbane. I even manage to get about six hours of sleep on the flight.

Thirteen hours later, I step out out of the terminal and into the refreshingly cool Brisbane sun. It’s not Las Vegas but Bris Vegas is close enough and I can go outside without sweating again. I’m home.

I didn’t get my one time this trip but my bankroll is still in good shape and I had one hell of a time and some… interesting… memories. Maybe next year.

The Final Count

Cash Games: Approx +$300

Tournaments: Approx -$6500-7000; +$10000 in unused Main Event Seat

Expenses: Approx -$2000

Casinos Visited: Caesars Palace, Venetian, Palazzo, Wynn, Excalibur, MGM Grand, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Rio, Palms, Paris, Bellagio, Gold Coast, O’Shea’s, Bill’s, Imperial Palace, Casino Royale… probably some others that I forgot

Best Movie I saw during the trip: The Hangover

Best Club: Moon at Palms (although I didn’t visit many)

Hottest Stripper: ‘Isis’ from Crazy Horse III

Hottest Cocktail Waitresses: Surprisingly… the Rio

Number of random hookups: More than Brendan, less than Chris and James. We’ll call it a tie. More than zero and less than five.

Number of hookers I was propositioned by: 2

Number of tournaments I played: 20-something

Number of tournament cashes: 1 (miserable failure accurately describes it)

Best dealers: Caesars Palace

Best floorstaff: Wynn

Best atmosphere: Caesars Palace

Best hotel: Mandalay Bay or Wynn, it’s close

Biggest disappointment: The Venetian; it’s overrated, smoky and the food is awful

Best value hotel: Imperial Palace: despite what they say; it’s acceptable enough and location IS everything

Biggest dump of a hotel on the strip: Luxor

Biggest dump of a casino on the strip: Casino Royale

My next trip will either be The Victorian Poker Championships or APPT Macau in August. It’s been fun but that’s all for now folks.

It’s Main Event time and I arrive for Day 1a to find Aussie pro Julius Coleman to my right, six satellite fish and one empty chair for what most be one of the softest tables in the field. The satellite fish all start off by limpcalling everything or opening to 11x and other retarded spewy play during the first level and I chip up to 28k without finding hands or confrontation with the only major hand occurring when I snap off a retard’s bluff with ace high on a two pair board for about 1k.

By 50/100, i’m sitting on close to 28,000 and it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day. True to their usual form, PokerNews manages to get about half of the information wrong on this hand so instead of copying their link; this is how it actually went down.

Spewy/bad player who only seems to open limp or raise to 10x or more decides to limp UTG, tilty LAG-fish who has already thrown away 3/4 of his 500bb starting stack putting way too many chips into several different pots with one pair type hands elects to raise to 300. I find 2c 2s on the button and call, UTG calls and we take a three way flop.

Flop: Td 7s 2d

UTG checks, MP bets 500, he’s tilty, shortstacked and has been very aggressive so I elect to call (I normally raise here but villain is likely to have complete air) and UTG minraises to 1000. What? MP calls. Well, one of them probably has some sort of a draw and I can’t let them get there for free. I hate raising here because it looks so much like a set but I kinda have to and they’re both really bad. I make it 3500, UTG quickly calls and MP elects to jam for about 6,900. I ask whether the action is open for UTG and I to raise if we want, the dealer calls the floor and the floor confirms the action is open. I tank for a while, not remotely worried about MP (his range is basically top pair, overpairs and flush draws) but worried about the donktastic UTG player. I figure TT is unlikely since he would have probably raised since he’s made it 10x+ several times already so that leaves his range at something like 77, AT, T7, 8d9d, Adxd with maybe some spazzy random hands in there for good measure like a very badly played aces. I decide to go with the hand and reraise to 18,500 (enough to commit the stacks if UTG has a flush draw) and UTG thinks for a moment and elects to call. I’m a bit worried, but he’s pretty awful and he didn’t jam, so I think i’m good. UTG started the hand with ~27k and we’ve both already put 19k into the pot with about 21k in the Main Pot and 24k in the sidepot, so we’re committed.

Turn: 9d

Oh dear god that is an awful card.

UTG checks. Odd. I move my last 10k in and UTG calls and tables Ts Th (77 wouldn’t surprise me but I didn’t even have TT in his range after his preflop and flop play).

MP tables Ad Qd for the nut flush (which is coincidentally the top of his range too) and I have one out.

River: Qh

I’m crippled to 1400 chips.

I lose my BB, the blinds go up to 100/200 and I lose my SB as well. On the button I find 55 but UTG raises so I elect to fold since i’m massively crushed by his range. On the cutoff, I find A3 and with the BB away from the table, Julius Coleman opens the Hijack to 525. I tell him i’m far enough ahead of his range and jam, it folds back around Julius who calls and tables 9c6c. The board bricks out for both of us and I double to about 3,000.

I find QJ on hijack and minraise the next hand; BTN calls, SB (who has returned to the table) 3bets to 1200. It’s his first 3bet of the tournament. I fold. The hand goes to showdown and SB tables AA (which loses to BTN’s QsTs). Why am I raise/folding a 15bb stack? Sigh. I fold a bit, open shove 2c2s from MP then an orbit later, I find myself involved again with Qs Tc on the BB. Two players limp and I check my option (i’d move in here if there were antes but i’ve moved in a lot and I don’t think I have much fold equity). Flop KQ6 rainbow. With 700 in the pot, the first limper leads 600, the second limper folds. The first limper has only limped with low pocket pairs so far so I decide that with 1300 in the pot and a likely five outs if he wakes up with a hand, there’s not much else I can do with my ~2.5k stack so I move in all but one 25 chip and villain instantly announces call and tables 66. Sigh. The turn is a 7 and i’m drawing dead so I muck for the last 25 (pokernews/pokernetwork has a photo of me with my last 25 chip). So, I now have 1/1000th of a starting stack and 1/8th of 1bb. My K7 triples me up next hand when I bink a king on the river then three players limp a few hands later, I put my last 75 in with A9 and brick out against the limper’s K3 which makes a full house (which he checks twice for some reason before minbetting the river.

Busto~!!!

Well, that sucked. So much for flop set stack donkey. More like flop set against donkey, get set over setted for ~60k (which would have made me chipleader) and go home early.

I’ve now officially dropped half of my bankroll playing live over the past two months. I’m done with live poker for a while and i’m done with playing professionally. My roll is still very grindable for the stakes I play so it’s time to get a full time job and/or go back to uni, drop down in stakes slightly, fire up my computer and go back to what i’m good at; crushing donkeys in 5/10/20 rebuys and 26/55 freezeouts.

GG everyone. Maybe next time.

I wake up and after a quick shower, I put on my new jacket (which is the only warm thing I own) and walk over to Crown. It’s cold and rainy but i’m feeling good.

We start the $1100 6max tournament with 10,000 chips and 40 minute levels. I have solid Crown regular Leo Boxell to my left and four unknowns at the table. Unfortunately, only the guy to my right seems to be awful and he’s running quite card hot. I start off splashing around in small pots, climb to 11k and then drop to 8k without playing a notable hand. I get two streets from a set but put a lot of chips in and miss with a nut flush draw and two overs and then again with an open ended straight flush draw. Missing 15+ outs in back to back pots is not helpful. I flop middle set with JJ at 50/100 and get two streets of value postflop; firing pot sized bets on the flop and the turn. Villain folds his top pair to my pot sized bet on the river. I flop top pair and get run down when villain turns two pair to concede two streets of value back to a different opponent.

I eventually find myself involved in a fairly large pot with Kh Qh at the 50/100 level. I have a very loose-aggressive image and i’ve lost most of the pots i’ve been involved in as my opponents have been hitting flops hard.

CO (bad spewy fish) limps for 100, I raise to 375 on the BTN, SB folds, BB calls, CO calls. BB is a station who plays too many hands.

Flop: Kd 9d 3h

BB checks, CO checks, I bet 600, BB calls, CO folds

Turn: 6s

BB checks, I bet 1200, BB raises to 3400. What? This smells like a flush draw but villain is in his late 40s/early 50s so it could be a set. Would he really check a set twice? I’ve only 2barreled once out of about five hands so far and it was with a weak hand and that hand went to showdown so I think villain thinks i’m light. Old guys don’t checkraise draws on the turn though do they? It’s an $1100 6max event though and villain is relatively unknown… i’m almost certain AK isn’t in his range… could he be raising a weaker king for value and/or ‘information’? I’m not beating much but I can’t see any hand that villain could have which beats me other than a set, so after about a minute and a half I elect to call, leaving us with close to a pot sized bet behind.

River: 5d

All of the draws just got there and now I don’t beat anything anymore. Villain insta-shoves and I fold and curse myself for not checking behind on the turn against an old guy. I’m pretty sure I was going to go with the hand on the river if a diamond didn’t hit. Why am I trying to get three streets of value here? Sigh. So bad. I’m left with only about 4.5k after the hand and at 75/150 I find a few spots to raise AQ and 99 (at 30bb i’m still too deep to open shove) and each time I miss the board and am forced to checkfold or I miss the board, fire a cbet and my cbet is raised.

I’m down to about 2500 when I find Jh Jd and UTG makes it 450. I shove on the button and UTG looks sick. As he’s tanking, I decide I have him crushed enough that I want a call so I do my best to make it look like i’m on tilt and throw out some reverse tells. Villain eventually calls and tables JTo. He’s completely crushed and he misses the flop and is drawing dead by the turn. I’m back to 5k. I find AQ again, raise, get two callers and the flop is K98 with two spades. I don’t have any spades. I sigh and checkfold as the villains get it in with a set against a nut flush draw. Leo Boxell has the nut flush draw and is busted by the spewy fish to my right. At 100/200, I shove 99 over a raise and a call and get two folds then shove AQ over a raiser and get another fold. My stack is back to about 7,000 now and the antes kick in next level. I’ve also shoved preflop on 4 of the past 20 hands so my image has loosened back up after showing down the pocket jacks earlier. I find Ac Kc on the button and a young Asian guy with about 13k raises to 600. I insta-shove all of my chips except for a lone 25 chip as i’ve done this every shove since the start and I feel like he’s going to call me very light (as in AT+ KQ 88+ light)

He starts tanking so I do my best to look weak since i’m pretty sure he has AQ after thinking about it for so long. He asks me some questions, I do a Phil Laak impersonation and hide under my hoodie and eventually he announces all in. I call off my last 25 chips and villain tables… what looks like a queen. Ship it! Oh wait, that’s two queens. What the fuck? Epic slowroll. Fortunately, we’re flipping and i’m feeling like i’m pretty due to bink one of these AK vs QQ flips since this is my third in two days and i’m 0/2 so far. I stand up and point at the table and tell everyone that i’m going to bink an ace on the flop.

Flop: 4s 4c 2d

Turn: 6c

Well hello there Mr. Flush Draw…

River: 9s

Sigh. I suck at flips. I wish everyone luck and head to the rail. Jonathan ‘xMonsterxDongX’ Karamaklis is moved into my seat and I pity the poor souls at my former table that are about to get crushed.

I find that i’ve lost my bank card and rush to the bank, arriving about 5 minutes before the branch closes to cancel my credit card and withdraw money for the HA rebuys event coming up.

The $240 HA event with $100 rebuys starts shortly after and i’m seated at a table with 2009 Aussie Millions Main Event winner Stewart Scott and the most aggressive woman in poker, Miss Lisa Walsh (from my ANZPT Sydney table if you read the TR)

Stewart and I rebuy and everyone else decides to be a nitdonk instead and play a single stack.

Lisa starts off by open shoving or calling shoves on seven of the first ten hands and doubling up three times, twice through Stewart, despite being crushed twice. I find AK and open shove, Lisa calls with A2 and binks a deuce on the river to stack me. Some people are just blessed, she’s on the most massive life heater of all time (she tells me she’s up 50k in 5 days at 5/T/20 Straddle live and that’s on the back of finishing 2nd in ANZPT Sydney)

I double rebuy and Stewart raises to 150; he’s been gambling a lot too so I shove my 2k with AJ and he calls with QJ and I hold to move to 4k. During PLO, I flop top set and get it in against Lisa who has a 3 card wrap for 9 outs; I turn quads and she rivers one of her outs, but fortunately my quads manages to hold for a change. I pick up another nice pot with a second nut flush against Lisa and finish the rebuy period with 10.5k; I take a single add on (you can take up to three) and take 11.5k to the end of the rebuy period.

I chip up during PLO with either the nuts on the river or without showdowns nicely and nothing interesting happens at all until there are two tables left. This is about five hours of me not playing a single noteworthy hand or being all in at any stage in either game; I 3bet once in hold’em and win the unwanted pots in PLO and/or fire pot bets until the villains all fold when I hit flops and I have about 22k at 600/1200 which is slightly below the average with 18 left out of the field of 81. Top nine are getting paid. During PLO, I pot with Ah Jc 9h 6c and get repotted by a short stack; I call off and i’m up against Kd Kc 3d 5s; fortunately the flop is three hearts and I chip up to about 28k.

After that I raise pot over multiple limpers with QJTTds and AQJTds and get one caller each time; the flops are 632 with two of a diff suit and 543 with three of a diff suit and both times my seperate opponents lead pot into me and i’m forced to fold since I have absolute air. I’m down to about 20k when the game changes back to Hold’em with 15 left and the average stack is ~33k. Two players are away at my table so we’re 5 handed; I open shove BvB then raise to 3500 with 9d 8d on a nitty guy’s BB with SB away from the table (I can do this since BB is only shoving like AQ+ TT+ and i’m deep enough to raisefold live here) when i’m on the cutoff; sadly BTN elects to shove (he’s also tight but less so) and he only has about 10k so I have to call; he turns over 9s 9c and i’m pretty screwed; I brick out to drop to about 14k. I find Qs Ts UTG and shove since we’re still 5 handed and BB is away and two of the other guys are super nitty; one of the non-nitty guys calls with Kc Jh and we’re off to the races.

Flop: 667
Turn: 8
River: 7

I die a little bit inside since it’s the first time i’ve been all in called and covered since the end of the rebuy period and it’s my second deep run with essentially no showdowns only to finish just outside of the money; I wish Stewart luck (he’s awesome and we’ve been drinkin together) and head to the rail. I later find out Stewart went on to win the tournament. Good for him. Speaking of life heaters though… he was all in called and covered at LEAST eight times since I was at the table with him from beginning to end. Some people are blessed.

Day 8: I take a trip to Carlton for the first time to get dinner with James, Tim, Chris adn Michelle; we eat delicious Italian food, I have gnocchi with chicken and avocado and we get gelati for dessert; Chris decides to put in a session at Crown afterwards and the rest of us all head home. I’m taking Days 8 & 9 off poker so that i’m well rested for the Main Event. I’m playing really well this trip (with the exception of that one hand where I tried to bluff Sam Youssef) but my bankroll is taking a lot of punishment and if I don’t cash in the Main, i’m done with live poker for quite a long time and i’m also going to be done with playing professionally as soon as I can find a job I like. This is the final showdown, people.

I get dinner with James, Michelle and Tim at one of the restaurants at Crown; the pizza is average but pots of beer are $2 so good times are had by all. Tim and Michelle opt out of credit card roulette and James and I decide to flip for the remaning $25 or so. I lose my first credit card roulette ever (1 for 3 now) but fortunately it’s for what must be the smallest credit card roulette bill in history.

We head down to the poker room, James puts on his PokerNews shirt and takes over reporting duties for the ‘State of Origin’ Feature Event while I head to the cash tables for some 2/3. I draw a ridiculously bad/loose table and buy in for $200. On the first hand, I look down a 9h 9d in MP. UTG limps, I check my option after having posted, two more players call and the button raises to $22. Button is a loose/bad cash player and i’m way ahead of his button isolation range but being OOP sucks. SB calls, BB calls then UTG calls as well. Okay, well the UTG limper is unlikely to be trapping since he sucks at poker, none of these players are flatting TT+ in the SB or BB so the only player I have to worry about is BTN. With close to $100 in the pot and a good chance that I have the best hand plus fold equity and somewhat decent equity against BTN’s calling range (which I assume is JJ+, AK, AQ) I elect to move all in. The player who limped behind me tanks… then overcalls? What the fuck? Button thinks for a moment then elects to call and when it folds around to UTG, he says ‘now I have value’ and calls too, leaving $16 behind. BTN is all in for about $150, i’m all in for $200, UTG has $16 behind and MP2 covers. I know I have a better hand than UTG and MP2, with no idea what button has but a suspicion that he’s at the weaker end of his range so probably AQ or JJ tops. Everyone keeps their cards down and I find myself in an $800 pot on the first hand.

Flop: 6h 2h 2d

Both players check. Cool, so neither of them has an overpair. Massive LOL at checking with $16 behind in an $800 pot, but whatever. Nine or lower please.

Turn: 4h

Check, check. BTN looks like he’s losing interest in the hand so i’m pretty sure he has AK or AQ since he doesn’t look enthusiastic at all. I must be good.

HOLD!

River: Th

Far from the best river in the deck but also far from the worst. I make a nine high flush. UTG takes his time to show and seems to want to see what everyone else has first so I show my nine high flush. MP2 mucks QJo with no heart face up. LOL, donkaments. BTN mucks AKo with no heart. HOLD! UTG triumphantly slams down Qh Jx for an epic slowroll and epic fail given he overcalled a shove with two callers with QJo. So it turns out I was in decent shape there preflop against AK, QJ and QJ. Whatever. I’m in no mood to play after the slowroll so I stand up and leave.

Day 7 – I’ve busted the $1100 6max when AK

Today, I learned that when it comes to live poker, I don’t have a B game. I have an A game and a D- game.

I showed up several hours early for the $120 PokerPro Event. For those of you who don’t know, PokerPro tables are the electronic tables they have at Crown and used to have at Excalibur in Las Vegas. The format is a double shootout with 9 tables and 9 players per table for a field of 81.

We start with 20k stacks and 20 minute levels. This structure is actually better than it looks (although far from fantastic) since we see at least twice as many hands per hour on a PokerPro table when compared to a live table.

The blinds start at 50/100 and i’ve chipped up to 21k when I find myself involved in my first major pot. We’re still 9 handed and villain has ~20k. Villain is CO and is a somewhat competent but not particularly good aggressive player. Similar to a breakeven $3.30 MTTer online maybe and with a similar playstyle.

Folded to me in MP, I raise to 250 with 7h 4h, CO calls, BB calls.

Flop: Qc 7c 4d

BB checks, I bet 600, CO calls, BB folds

Turn: 9d

I bet 1600
CO raises 2400 to 4000
I consider my options. I figure villain’s range is likely to consist of AQ-Q9, 99 and combo draws. QQ is very unlikely since he just called preflop in position and 44, 77 and two pair combos also seem unlikely since I have a four and seven in my hand.

I consider raising, realise he’s not going to call a raise with one pair and i’m just going to get stacked if he has nines so I elect to call and checkcall any safe river (basically any non club)

River: Jh

A fairly safe although not perfectly safe offsuit jack hits, completing one of the potential combo draws and giving QJ a better two pair but missing everything else.

I check, villain presses the 5000 chip button (his bet sizing as he decides on the amount is visible to me on the screen) and then thinks for a bit before deciding to add another 1000 chip and 500 chip. He then elects to bet 6,500. I can’t see him betting KQ for value here but he might have AQ and he’s certainly firing with all of the semi-bluffed draws that didn’t get there.

I start talking to villain and tell him I have two pair and ask him if he wants me to call. He looks freaked out and tells me to do whatever I want to do. I decide to call and just as i’m about to hit the call button on my screen, I time out and my hand is folded. FUCK FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHEN DID THEY CHANGE THE POKERPRO TIMERS FROM 30 SECONDS TO 15 SECONDS.

To add insult to injury, villain shows AKo for absolute air and i’m down to 15k.

That’s the D- portion of my tournament, from here on out i’m playing my absolute A game, some of the best poker i’ve played in months. Even this hand, my decision making was fine but not paying attention to my surroundings (in this case the clock) cost me dearly.

I go set mining twice and miss, go card dead and fold for a while then find myself involved again with ~14k. By now, the blinds have gone up to 200/400.

Dealt to SwoopAE: Tc 8c

UTG limps, UTG+1 limps, it folds around to me on the button. UTG is the type of player who could easily limp aces so I figure my implied odds are good enough with two passive players in the blinds and limp behind on the button. Yes, I know this is terrible online, but I think it’s okay live in this spot since I have an enormous edge in position postflop. SB completes and BB checks.

Flop: 9h 6c 5c

Well, hello!

SB checks, BB (a bad middle aged guy who is your typical live donk) looks like he wants to bet but then elects to check at the last minute, UTG and UTG+1 check, I bet 1,000 (trying to induce a raise from BB so I can 3bet jam since he raises ‘for information’ a lot and folds to a jam). SB folds, BB considers his options and elects to call, UTG and UTG+1 fold.

Turn: 4c

Cool. BB looks pleased with the card and donks out 1,000. I raise to 4,500 and again, he elects to call. I only have about 7,500 behind and I figure he’s calling my river shove too.

River: 5h

BB immediately checks and looks quite disappointed with the card. I pretend to think for a bit (it probably looks weak to this guy) and then bet 6,000 which I think actually does look weaker than all in to villain since he’s already rambled on about his tournament life on several occasions. He thinks for a few seconds and then folds. I think he had a counterfeited two pair but then he decides to show the Ac and says he had ‘another big card’ with it. Okay then.

Shortly after the hand, I raise to 1000 with As Qs and villain from the hand where I timed out jams his now short stack of about 6k, he’s been reshoving a lot since he got crippled so I quickly call and he tables A6. The board runs out 55627 and sadly, I lose a 70/30 for a decent chunk of my stack.

I start opening a ton of pots at 300/600 since the table has become 7 handed and nitty and I accumulate nicely without showdowns. I’m back to about 16k without a showdown when the same villain from the previous two hands I lost open shoves for about 8k; I find 99 on the button and reshove, everyone else folds and villain shows AJ which I figure is close to the top of his range. He quickly binks an ace on the flop and I lose yet another significant chunk of my stack to the same villain.

I chip up some more then get all in against a different short stack at 500/1000 who only has a couple BB and lose with A9 to 66 when I brick out. This leaves me with 5,500 chips at the start of 700/1400. I open shove five times in two orbits without callers and get a walk, putting me back to 15k without showdown. We’re now 5 handed and i’m the short stack.

I’m under the gun and about to shove any two again when I find a beautiful Kd Kh in the hole. I limp in (lol, donkaments, my limping range is AA/KK but no player at the table is anywhere near competent enough to know this) and the button limps, SB jams ~15k and I call, he has AQ and I hold to move back to ~32k. SB is eliminated since we have exactly the same stack size and we’re 4 handed; stacks are approximately 65k/50k/33k/32k.

I start opening a ton of pots again and get 3bet once but find little resistance otherwise. I’m at about 35k when I find Ad Ks under the gun. The blinds have just hit 1k/2k. I raise to 6k and the other short guy who now has 1bb less than me jams. He’s the second best player at the table. I snap and he has AJ; again, my hand holds and we’re left with me (60k), nitty woman to my left who has been gifted two doubleups (80k) and the guy who I timed out against who also won a 70/30 and a flip against me. Damn it, those are my chips, bitch.

I chip up to 65k over the next couple orbits then guy who has all of my chips elects to open jam 20bb on the button. I wake up with 7h 7c in the BB and a tough decision; he’s been all in a lot, is very aggro when short and I guess his shoving range is roughly 22-99, A2+ K9+ QT+ (he’s been caught shoving any two before and although he’s not very good, he is a somewhat thinking player who understands aggression when short stacked).

This is where i’m in a tough spot. The woman will fold her stack away HU so if I win this hand, I win phase 1 of the tournament. If I call and lose, i’m short with 25k and their stacks are similar at 75-80k.

I decide I have him crushed way more than he has me crushed and I decide I can’t pass on a 55/45 edge against his range in this spot with 1.5bb also dead in the pot. I call and villain tables A8o. Yeah, I knew he was light. Sadly, we’re still flipping. This is it, baby… one time!

Flop: Kc 9s 7d

ZOMG I HAZ SET SHIP IT!~!~!~!~

Turn: Js
River: Th

Wait what? Has a straight? FUCKFUCKFUCKWTF!!!!!

Why won’t this guy just die!

I’m left with 25k against villain (my new nickname for this guy) who has 80k and nit woman who has 75k.

I go card dead but pick up some chips when I find KQ and ship over villain’s 6k button raise, amusingly he folds for only about 15k more. I slowly pushbot my way back to about 29k and then find K9 in the SB. Nitwoman folds and villain goes into the tank before calling with A8. Please, for the love of God, let me get there one time against this guy. King or a nine please.

Flop: 742
Turn: 6
River: Q

Or not. I wish both players luck, mentioning that whoever wins this MUST win the final table for my sanity before heading off to the arcade to play Time Crisis 4. I can truly say I played a flawless tournament with the exception of timing out due to not paying attention in that one hand and I haven’t crushed souls this hard at a poker table in a long, long time (i’m talking March and April when I was upswinging)

After some delicious Indian food, I head back to the hostel and watch Saving Private Ryan and Blade Runner back to back. I’ve somehow never seen either movie and I find both to be highly overrated; Saving Private Ryan was an average war movie and Blade Runner, despite its reputation as one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, was simply beyond awful. I mean 1-1.5 star awful. Maybe I just didn’t get the movie but it seems both boring and pretentious with stupid portions of the plot that made no sense and Harrison Ford’s main character just seemed to be lacking any sort of motivation at all for his actions, which really hurts in a story-based Sci-Fi movie. One of the best Sci-Fi movies of all time? Hardly. It was simply awful.

I’m taking tomorrow off poker and then playing the $1100 6max on Tuesday plus the $240 HA w/ $100 rebuys if I bust early from the 6max. As much as I enjoy HA tournaments, I hope I don’t get to play this one