I'm back

After a month of being away, being home is a great feeling. I'm very pleased with the way my trip went, barring something unforeseen I'll probably do a very similar trip again next year with Bahamas thrown into the mix as well. I had a really great time traveling but living out of a suitcase can get old pretty fast.

view from the hotel room in Sydney. both the bridge and opera house, ship it

I spent the last couple days in Melbourne mainly just relaxing. We made it out to the Australian Open again but the Rod Laver Arena was sold out so we had to watch the side courts instead. It was still incredibly exciting, as Gulbis and Andreev went into 5 sets before Andreev caught up from a break behind for the victory. I really wanted to go to the Melbourne Ice Bar afterwards but they were closed at midnight (wtf?). We ended up at a pretty lame bar/club so the only solution was to drink jäger bombs and make the night bearable.

at the side court

On my final day I soaked up the last bit of sun and tried to mentally prepare for the winterland awaiting for me in Berlin. One final meal at Nobu (my new favorite restaurant, can't believe I didn't go there last year) was the perfect end to a great trip. The fish and sushi that they have there is literally amazing. I know people say stuff like that all the time, but seriously, it's mind-boggling good. It's a little on the pricey side, but that's nothing that being a luckbox at credit card roulette can't take care of :)

On a final note as a follow up to my last blog post, congrats to Moritz for shipping EPT Deauville! It's really sick how so many people I know are taking these major tournaments down, gives me an optimistic feeling that it will be my turn soon!

FT Sweat

I'm at the airport in Melbourne right now getting ready to fly home but I wanted to sneak in a quick GLGL post to Moritz Kranich who is at the final table of EPT Deauville. I know Moritz from my old $100 and $200 SNG days at CelebPoker. He's had pretty impressive online results but hasn't played much live poker, this is his chance for a really big score! Gogogogogogo

Aussie Millions Main Event

I spent my off day doing some shopping and then in the evening made my first trip to the Australian Open with Nico, Nasr and Martin. The Rod Laver Arena was completely sold out, I tried working my charm on the sales lady but no dice :( We had to settle for ground passes which enabled us to see James Blake vs Dancevic. Blake obv took it down in 3 straight sets, though the third set was admittedly pretty exciting. The other guys were for Dancevic and I was the obnoxious American shouting "Let's go James! USA! Whooo!" from the bleachers.

Today was Day 2 of the Aussie Millions Main Event. I began play with 47k chips and quickly amassed a 100k stack. That was my peak and from there it just went downhill. Throughout the day I consistently dropped chips and spend the second half of the day very short. I just kept getting 3bet in disgusting spots and couldn't find a nice opportunity to get my money in. Finally with 20BBs I jammed on the button after two limpers with A5s and the first limper called with AQ. He flopped broadway to seal the deal and I was finito.

Nico, Nasr, me, Martin in front of the tennis grounds

Two whole days of play and the only thing I won was some experience. Because I was stuck playing I missed the $5k HU event, too. On top of that, American Airlines wants to charge me $3200 to push back my flights just 4 days. So now I have just two more days in the sun before returning to Berlin. I think I'll try and get in another tennis night session and hopefully check out the Melbourne nightlife outside of Crown. Then it's back home for a month before a trip to Mexico for spring break followed by EPT Dortmund. Wheeeeeeeee

Cheers mate!

I opted for Day 1b and I was blessed with a super soft table. Nothing too exciting happened during the first few levels, the first major pot came when I coldcalled a 3bet with QQ and got it all-in on a QdTd7s flop against KdKh. The turn was the Jd for the sick river sweat, as he had an open ended straight flush draw. Obv the river bricked and I had just under 50k.

From that point I built up to 75k but the last two levels did not run quite as planned. I ended up dropping 30k to end the day with 47,125 chips. With blinds of 400/800/100 I'm still in pretty good shape, I just hope that I can get a lucky table draw. Tomorrow is an off day so I'll probably get some sun during the day and then go check out the night session at the Australian Open.

I'm beginning to fall in love with Australia more and more. It's not just the weather (though that is one of the main reasons) but it's also the general laid back attitude that Aussies seem to have. Australia seems to be a mix of the States and Europe, something I can identify pretty well with. I may come here for a few months next year around this time to escape the Euroweather and do some exploring both here and in New Zealand.

I haven't taken any pics in Melbourne yet but maybe tomorrow I'll see get some beach beautys on camera at St Kilda beach :)

Aussie Millions prelims

I made it ITM in one of the preliminary Aussie Millions tourneys. It was a $1650 bounty tournament where there was a $1k bounty on one designated player at each table. I didn't win any bounties (yet) but I did make my way into the final 32 players. Day 2 begins in a couple hours, Pokernews is doing the live reporting here and 1st place gets $151k so go me!

I have a pretty tough table draw though and since it's a shootout format from here on out I'll have to deal with these players until there are just two of us left.

***EDIT***
I finished 6th for $25.2k, not a bad result but still somewhat unsatisfying. That's the thing about tournaments, though. Nobody is satisfied except the winner.

Congrats Benny!

A big congrats out to Benny "psychobenny" Spindler for finishing 3rd at the EPT Bahamas! Sick sick accomplishment! I've played with Benny both live and online and really know how uncomfortable it is to play against him, therefore it really did not surprise me how he has total control and domination at the final table.

As for me, I'm in Melbourne now and just hanging out. I'll probably play some of the $1k satellites over the next days as well as some cash games if I get bored enough. Then on the 19th both the Aussie Millions and the Australian Open start! Dilemmas dilemmas...

Australia on the road

Australia is everything I had hoped for plus more! It feels good to be back in English-speaking territory. Not that Filipinos don't speak English, it's just it is soooo much easier to understand when it's being spoken as a native language. We spent the first day and a half in Sydney but the weather didn't play along, just 22c and cloudy skies. That didn't get us down though, we still got outside and did some exploring.

We took a ferry over to Manly, a beach town right next to Sydney. I tried some authentic fish 'n chips and was not disappointed, even though I'm not the biggest french fry fan. We also took the Monorail in Sydney around a circle but we encountered the Australian version of white trash which ruined the ride. I guess it's not just an American thing.

mean face for the crappy weather at Manly Beach

We got the rental car yesterday, which is always an experience interesting for people accustomed to driving on the right side of the road. They drive on the left wrong side here, so I had to just think stay left stay left stay left. Inevitably I wanted to signal a turn and hit the windshield whipers, even they are switched! It didn't take me long to get accustomed to the new system and now I can drive and let my brain wander without thinking about staying left the whole time.

We made the drive down to Tilba Tilba, stopping at the Hyams Beach at Jervis Bay along the way. The beach was really sick, the sand was almost as white as it was on the Maldives even. Apparently the sand is so nice there that Hawaii imports it from that particular beach. I wanted to make it a point to go swimming every day since we're driving down the coast. The only bad thing is that I got a slight sunburn yesterday, bleh.

proud because I'm standing

Today we took another scenic drive and ended in Gipsy Point, where a group of kangaroos just approached the back porch of our room. The first kangaroo I saw was roadkill so it was nice to see moving kangaroos too :) Tomorrow we'll make the long drive to Philipp Island and then move onto Melbourne the day after. I'll probably blog again once I get settled in Melbourne and get my tourney schedule figured out.

The Philippines

My sister and I were on a flight from Dallas to Tokyo on December 31st when we crossed the international date line, meaning I had no New Years this year. The trip was long but being welcomed by warm Manila air quickly had the flights forgotten.

We spent the first few days in Manila doing all kinds of touristy things. My sister is more of a museum/cathedral person so I got dragged along to those. I did get my fix of fun and games at Star City, which is the amusement park in Manila. Though I'm sure that some rides would not pass US safety inspections, I tried out most of them anyways and I must say they were all pretty fun rides. Then the park instafilled up with people so it became a lot harder to navigate through the crowds and the lines became ridiculously long.

me and a cool guy with an iguana

I tried to win a stuffed animal with a basketball game but I failed miserably. A bunch of people had high hopes as they stared at me while I waited for the game to start, I think they figured since I'm tall and white I'd probably shoot like Dirk Nowitzki. I made a mere 5 shots in 25 seconds and disappointed everyone, though. It's really weird walking around because I notice people look over quickly then look away. Then they'll take a quick glance back like "Is he really that tall?" The funny thing is I'm not even THAT tall by Western standards (1.97m) but over here I am likely the tallest person that several of these people will ever see in their lives. Luckily I don't get offended when people stop and point at me. Sometimes I'll notice them right after they look at me as they turn and whisper in someone's ear, who then awkwardly turns and looks over at me as well. Lately I'll try and make eye contact with that person right as he starts to look over at me, just a fun little game I like doing.

Yesterday we went to Ocean Park, a really cool aquarium type park that they have set up on the harbor. Seeing all those colorful fish reminded me a lot of snorkeling in the Maldives, I definitely want to try and snorkel in Australia. There is also a "fish spa" at Ocean Park, where you let so-called doctor fish nibble away at the dead skin on your feet. The fish apparently have some sort of healing powers and I'm not sure if it was psychological or not but my feet really did feel rejuvenated afterward.

i can't upload the picture i took but it looks just like this

We're spending our last two days in Angat, a province about 1.5 hours outside of Manila. My Dad lives here and I wasn't quite sure what to expect before we arrived. The apartment itself is nice, but their landlord raises roosters for local cockfights, which happens to be a national sport in the Philippines and is also shown on television. I did some reading about it and apparently in the Philippines they attach blades to the legs of the roosters during battle. Anyway, the apartment is surrounded by these roosters, I counted over 30 of them. Contrary to common belief, they cock-a-doodle-doo at all hours of the day, not just at sunrise. As one can imagine, the quality and length of my sleep has not been outstanding.

Overall I'm pretty impressed by the Philippines not only because I'm having a great time, but also because Filippinos are generally such nice people. Manila, like most big cities around the world, has its good districts and bad districts. As a whole the city is relatively dirty, but that is not a very big surprise. Both the Spanish and American influences are very evident, almost everything here is in English. The food is also ridiculously westernized in certain parts of Manila: McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Wendy's, Taco Bell, KFC, Shakeys, TGIF, etc. It's like I never left Kansas!

We leave on Wednesday to Sydney, then we'll be there for a couple days before making the drive down to Melbourne. Since we're driving down the coast I want to make it a point to go swimming every day. For anyone in Germany reading this, I'll be sure to think of you when I jump in :)