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 :)

Images of Melbourne

Hans with the Aussie Millions host

Buzzer at the winery

Sunset at the Betfair party

Federer dominating

Burger King Hungry Jack's

Ana Ivanovic...wow she's hot

Baghdatis slowrolling Safin

Right after Nico busted we went out for tennis again

Had good seats, too

Baghdatis - Hewitt, sickest tennis match I've ever seen

He didn't really say that

Australian wildlife...met this creature on the beach

Weight Loss Prop Bets

The $2k shorthanded tourney didn't go all that well. I lasted 3 levels and then busted after my squeeze with QJs was called by 99 after my opponent "didn't see" my extra 5k chip that I had put in the middle with the rest of my stack. He thought I had barely minraised him so he snapcalled, then admitted he never would have called if he had seen my stack correctly. Whatever, at least I didn't waste too much time with the tourney.

We got tickets for another night of tennis as well so we got to see Venus Williams crush someone from China and then see the killer match between Marcos Baghdatis and Lleyton Hewitt. The match inevitably went into 5 sets (like every match that I've bet on so far) and lasted almost 5 hours! They weren't finished until 4:30am which was pretty crazy. Unfortunately, Hewitt won the 5th set and so all of us lost our bets :( I took a couple pictures, which I'll post when I get back home.

Now onto the weight loss prop bets... Poker players live relatively unhealthy and it's no wonder that so many are overweight (thank God for my genes). I made a couple bets to motivate two friends to lose some weight before the WSOP Main Event. The bets are as follows:

1. Hans Martin Vogl needs to drop from 88kg to 80kg before the WSOP ME, the bet is for $500 and 5% of the Main Event. 80,0 is even, anything over or under wins the bet.
2. Stefan Jedlicka needs to drop from 100kg to 90kg in the same time span and the bet is for $3000 and 10% of the Main Event.

Though I obviously hope that they can lose weight and get healthy, I'm pretty confident that I'll win at least one bet. The interesting thing is that each bet involves percentages of the ME, making the bets potentially worth up to a million dollars. GL me!

My flight to Hong Kong -> London -> Berlin leaves this evening. I've had a really good time here and will definitely be coming back next year!

$5000 Heads Up Tourney

The $5k HU tourney was limited to 64 players, with 32 starting on Day 1 and the other 32 starting on Day 2. I opted for Day 2 and so yesterday I headed down to the casino to try and make my mark. Each match was played as a best-of-3, meaning that even if you lost the first game, you still had a chance if you won the next two in a row. I really like the structure because it increases the skill factor and obviously reduces the luck factor.

My round 1 draw was Lee Watkinson, who just won the PLO tourney here for $180k and also made the final table of this year's WSOP ME. I took control of the first match and eventually won when my 88 held up against his ATo. I made a stupid bluff in the second match and was left crippled, eventually the money went in bad for me on a 764 flop with my K6 vs his 75. His hand held and so it was 1-1, making the last game a do-or-die situation. I had the upper hand early on and was pretty surprised by his tight playing style, which he maintained throughout all 3 matches. I had him outchipped 4500 to 1500 when the money went in preflop with my AA vs his A2o. On to round 2...

The only thing I knew about my 2nd round opponent Alexs Lackovic was that he defeated Adam Junglen in round 1 of the tourney. He started off much more aggressive than Watkinson, but I won our first game within 5 minutes after I fired 3 streets of value with AK on a KK472 board and was called down (and all-in on the river) by KTo. Obviously a set-up, it would be nearly impossible to get away from his hand HU.

Our 2nd game was a little more challenging. I took control after winning a couple 3bet pots early and had him outchipped 6k to 4k when we got it all in preflop with my 66 vs his AJo. The board came down 22T2J and he caught a lifesaver to stay in the tourney. It was pretty frustrating for me but I quickly forgot about it and moved on. That hand left me pretty short, but I did win back some chips and then got it all-in (3k to his 7k) preflop with my KJo vs his A9o. The board came down AQ9K4 and he took the second game, making the score 1-1.

And so once again we had a winner-take-all 3rd game, which went back and forth in the beginning. After about 3 levels of play, he had a slight advantage when we got it all-in. I flopped a flush draw with an overcard and checkraised him after he donked the flop, which he called. The turn blanked, he checked, I shoved for just around pot-size and he made the call with top pair. I missed the river and was therefore eliminated from the tournament.

I'm going to play the $2k shorthanded tourney today which starts in 2 hours. Also, good luck to Nico Behling and Max Bracht, who both have nice stacks with 22 players remaining the in Main Event!

I wanna run like Andy Black

Day1 of the Aussie Millions has come and gone. My starting table was pretty decent with two Full Tilt Pros (Roland De Wolfe and JJ Liu), but also a few local players who qualified in live satellites and were very easy targets. We began with 20k stacks and I quickly built up to 30k after a series of steals and continuation bets. People began to catch on and I was soon being played back at consistently, losing about 10k in the process, maintaining a loose but not crazy image.

Eventually I had around 26k when I doubled with QhQd against the AsKs of Roland De Wolfe when we got it all in preflop. The board came down Ah 7h 9d Th 5h and I found myself with over 50k in chips. That table then was broken up and I was moved to a new table, sitting to the immediate right of Andy Black, last year's 3rd place finisher.

In the first orbit I was there, he flopped two sets and busted two people, catapulting his stack to 120k and becoming chipleader by a wide margin. I had 45k when the following hand went down:

Blinds 300/600/75, Andy Black makes it 1800 in the CO, I bump it up to 5400 from the button with KcKd. He snapcalls and we see a flop of Qc 9c 4d. Immediately he announces all-in (40k in an 11k pot). I think for a few moments and quickly realize that he will nearly never be beating me in this spot so I make the call. He tables AcTc, so I am 56% to 44% favorite. Obviously the Jc arrives on the turn and I am drawing dead.

It would have been nice to win that pot, I would have had 91k and been chipleader of the tournament, but you can't win 'em all I guess. I survived until the end of Day 1 with 30 minutes left to play for the day, so I guess it's a slight improvement from my previous live tournament results :)

Tomorrow will be spent at the pool or at the beach, relaxation is the name of the game.

Greetings from Melbourne!

The travel from Berlin -> Melbourne was not quite as smooth as I hoped for. Berlin -> London was fine, but then London -> Hong Kong was 11.5 hours of torture with me being stuck in a tiny seat crammed up against the window. Hong Kong -> Melbourne was no different, if it wasn't for the sleeping pills I don't know how I would have survived. It was a super relief to finally arrive and over to the Crowne Towers for some rest. The hotel itself is probably the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. Very classy, very professional.

Jetlag had me awake at 6am, but it worked out fine because I went to the Melbourne Zoo with the Full Tilt "pros" in the early morning. Hans Martin Vogl was kind of enough to invite me to tag along and so ended up spending the morning at the zoo and the afternoon at a winery for a nice meal and some wine tasting. The bus ride back went right down the coast for the most part and was pretty amazing. I have some pictures from the day but can't upload them on my laptop, I'll have to wait until I'm back in Berlin.

The plan for the next few days is just to relax, I'll probably head to the spa tomorrow. As far as poker goes, I bought in and registered for Day 1A on Monday the 14th. That way if I make an early exit (which has become a habit lately), I'll have plenty of free time to watch as many Australian Open matches as possible. I've got tickets to at least one match so far but ideally I'd like to see 4+ matches if possible.

I'm also considering playing the $5300 Australian Heads Up Championship on the 17th as well as the $1650 NLHE Teams Event on the 18th. So much to do, so little time...

Going Down Under

I've been making the final preparations for my trip to Australia tomorrow and haven't had too much going on, hence the lack of blog updates. I was unaware that I needed a tourist visa to visit Australia until yesterday, so I had to make a quick run to the Australian Embassy to get that sorted out. It was stressful but it had to be done.

Now that I'm legally allowed to stay in Australia, I went out and got a 16GB iPod touch to keep me entertained during the 29 hours of travel. The iPod touch is pretty sick, it's basically an iPhone minus the telephone feature. If I didn't have to deal with the whole cell phone contract thing I would certainly get an iPhone now that I see just how sweet that thing is.

Other than that I've just been trying to get in as many online hands and hours as possible during January, figuring that I might as well burn myself out because I'm taking 2 weeks off anyway. Results have been decent, nothing too special, tons of swings as usual. I'm hoping to get in a final 4-5k of hands today, the bills don't pay themselves :)

I'll try and post as many updates as possible once I arrive in Melbourne, stay tuned for more.

Aussie Millions

So I've decided to fly to Australia for the Aussie Millions and to take a 2-week vacation in the sun. Therefore I've made it my top priority to win a tournament package. My first attempt was last night at bwin, where there was a $650+50 qualifier with 51 players, which guaranteed 1 $20k package for 1st place. I started off slow, but eventually began to really take over. The quality of play at bwin is pretty astonishing it become especially apparent in this tourney because it was exclusive to bwin players.

I became chipleader with two tables left and continued to gradually build my stack. Unfortunately my image took some hits when I got caught getting funky with J6o, but most players were too scared to make a stand. Eventually we hit the final table and I remained chipleader until we were 3-handed. One of my opponents was mega passive, constantly complaining about his cards in the chatbox, while the other opponent was super-loose, but in a very strange way. He would constantly defend his blinds with J4o, 93, etc. claiming "thecort you like bluff way too much." In theory it's great for me when he's defending those trash hands, but he was flopping miracles with them, which ended up crippling my stack immensely.

Before I knew it we were HU and he had 120k, I had 40k. I managed to double up once, but it was unfortunately not enough. He put a solid amount of pressure on me and eventually I shoved Q7s with 8 BBs, he called with A7o and I got no help. I was pretty disappointed as you can imagine, but I'll continue to try and get a package tonight. I was supposed to fly to Prague tonight but since all the Aussie Millions qualifiers are running tonight, I just booked a new flight for tomorrow so I can play all the qualis at home this evening. I'm gonna make this...