Updated my blog. Haven't had much time for posting on PCH but I'll try to browse through them next chance I get.
The blog entry might be all fucked up because Cardrunners won't let me get in and modify it, so here is a cut and paste:
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Hey guys. Arrived in Melbourne a couple days ago. Super long flight, but it went by fine. I actually managed to sleep at least 6 hours which I've never been able to do before sitting up in a chair. I watched two movies on the flight too including The Darjeeling Limited (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman) which was....well, interesting. Very slow-paced but I can deal with that. I thought the dialogue was entertaining and worth the watch. See if you can pick out the cameo by Natalie Portman, it only lasts a few seconds which is weird.
Here is a very quick recap of what I've done:
* Full Tilt welcome party - was alright, I stood in the corner with my buddy John and ate appetizers and we got drunk. I'm not much for approaching people (including the Tilt Pros) just for the sake of talking to them. They are basically strangers like anyone else and if the opportunity comes up, they talk to me, or I actually have something relevant/interesting to say, I will, but I don't really care. I wonder how many "celebrity pros" careers would have been much, much different based on the turn of one card (meaning they basically were just normal tourney donks who hit it big once and went from there) or what my buddy likes to call "trust fund pros" who had huge resources to enter big tourneys and got the celebrity status when poker was still growing. Either way, pretty nice gig for them! I don't mean to be offensive. From what I've seen the majority of them are reasonably nice and obviously, a lot of them are very skilled players.
* Full Tilt poker day at Capital Golf Club - holy fuck was it hot, 40 celcius. We were initially paired with John Juanda who then ditched us and then we were paired with Brandon Adams who seemed like a much cooler guy anyway. I really enjoyed the round and rode the cart with another FT qualifer named Greg (pro player from Oregon who has made a large number of nice tourney scores online) who is very cool and laid back. John and I have been hanging out with since. I developed horrible blisters on my right non-glove hand during the round which is weird since I'm used to not playing golf for months on end and I've never gotten blisters when I return. I guess it must have been the heat or something. Anyway, I shot in the low 80s (not sure exactly what) and was +2 on the back nine (which included taking 3 shots out of a huge pot bunker I couldn't clear on the last hole). The course was alright. The lightning greens sort of threw me off. Brandon Adams was playing $500/hole with carryovers with Gavin Smith who was in the group behind us (I think he finished just one hole up). Brandon was a good guy and we had a lot of interesting conversation about poker and such. On our way back to the clubhouse we were driving back up the 3rd fairway (cuz it was a shotgun start) and came over a hill just as Phil Ivey was lining up a 3-wood to hit. He just glared at us the whole way past. I must admit, in all my encounters with Ivey he just seems like a moody sort of guy. Anyway, golf was good times.
* Full Tilt Boat Cruise - was scorching hot at the start, then John, Greg, and I found a cool spot in the back and basically sat there all night and chatted throughout dinner. Good evening with nice scenery.
* Melbourne Zoo - it has a great rep, but yah, it's a zoo. A giraffe still looks like a giraffe and the monkeys spend the majority of their time playing with themselves (which was basically the highlight of the morning, don't ask me why but it generated the most laughs by far). I basically spent the majority of the morning missing my wife and son and thinking about how much Owen would have loved it. Zoos are definitely more fun with children who are in complete awe of everything. But still, it was a fun morning which would have been better with less flys buzzing around our faces. There was a Winery Tour next, but we skipped out and took a cab back to the hotel, screw wine.
After the zoo (this was yesterday), I wondered down to the poker room to see what was shaking. I put my name on the 5/10NL list and the 10/20NL interest list. I must admit I thought there would be way more cash game action here. Many bigger games are barely getting off the ground. John wants to play 10/20 limit and it just never seems to get going (he sat at the table when it opened and the list never showed up and the game never started and they wouldn't decrease the rake to play short-handed). The rake is huge. $10 max for the limit games and $25/hour for the 5/10NL and 10/20NL. However, tipping isn't allowed which is weird. Sucks for the dealers, hopefully they get compensated from the huge-ass rake. But I guess it's good not to have to tip since we're getting carved up by the rake.
The poker room at Crown is pretty nice, but a little unorganized. Also, the chips are sticky and the felt is terrible (the cards don't slide at all and you have to pitch your cards in the air to fold everytime which gets annoying over the course of 10+ hours). The dealers however are quite good and friendly for the most part.
I play a little roullette while waiting, get stuck a little but then scrape back and actually make $100. Then I happily escaped when my buzzer went off and the 10/20NL game got started. It was very fishy with many passive calling stations which is the type of game I do best in. I can really take control of these tables and get paid off huge whenever I hit a hand.
I started well picking off a lot of medium-sized pots and showing a few silly bluffs designed to egg on the donk calling stations. But I kept getting dwindled a little by flopping two pair, fastplaying, and having to fold on the turn/river to obviously made draws (this happened 3 times in a short span). I bought in for $4k and bounced between $6k-$9k for a long while, then made a stupid bluff against a huge calling station on a 4-card flush board (he check-raised allin on the river which obviously the nuts, nice bluff me) and went to a great seafood dinner with John up about $2.5k.
After dinner I worked my stack up to around $11k with a lot of medium-sized pots and solid play. Then I got it all-in with JJ on a T high board and the dude rivered another T with AT for a $4k pot.
Shortly after that Full Tilt pro Greg Mueller (GregFBTMueller) sat to my left and got instacoolered on his first hand. He straddled first hand after talking a lot of smack and acting like he was going to play like a maniac, flopped a set of Ks, then lost to a flush for his entire $4k buyin. He eventually made a small profit though (I played a couple bad hands against him). He really threw me off my game a bit though since he had immediate position on me all the time and was playing me hard and reraising a lot. I had to tighten up and just try to target the fish whenever I could (though I did instacall a $50 and $325 bet with A high on a QQJ76 board against him once, but I failed to clue in that this would make it unlikely he would bluff me much afterwards).
Then I had an interesting hand with an Asian guy about my age on my left. He's been playing each other really hard, but I felt I had a good read on him. I limp with 33, he raised to $175 and there are a couple callers. Flop is 248. Checked to him and he bets $510. Folded to me and I smell total bullshit and check-raise him allin for another $2200 or so. This is a big move with such a weak hand, but it's my only play if I think I'm winning. He tanks forever and I think he's about to call me with A-high (I'm a little worried he has something like 55 and is going to call). He eventually folds KQ, but has shown he really wants to gamble with me.
Soon after, I get in a raised pot with 67s and flop the nut straight. I bet out $200, he raises to $650, and I jam exactly like I did before again for his remaining $3k. He tanks for a bit and frustratingly calls with I have no idea what but I think he's more-or-less drawing dead. It always feels good working a player who is out to get you.
I went on a bit of a heater which included busting a Dan Nord lookalike (which made it feel even better) with a set of As for about a $14k pot. The hand was straddled by Greg to $40, Nord (I'll just call him that) raises to $80, I rejack from SB another $225, Nord only caller. Flop AJ3 two hearts. I pound it for $500 cuz I see no point in slowplaying and just hope he has an A or JJ or pays me off with something. He calls pretty quick which I love. Turn offsuit 5. I bet $1500, call. River offsuit 8 which is perfect because my AA stays the nuts and I push all-in and he tanks for about 20 seconds, shrugs, and calls. I don't know what he had but ship it. Huge pot for $10/$20.
I won a couple more pots and had my stack up to $19985 (I remember cuz I counted it to see if I was past $20k and came up just short). After that I lost a couple medium coolers, made a bad call against Greg (which only cost me an extra $600 I guess), then had KK run into AA all-in preflop against a guy who, by all means, didn't necessarily have AA. The way the hand played out it was a cooler. As it turns out the flop is AK8 and they chips were obviously going in no matter what. That was almost an $8k pot so that put a real dent in me.
I finished my night by getting in a raised pot with a tight young Chinese kid. I check/call a $225 bet on the flop of Q77 with greek style (8T) flush draw. Turn is a T, I check and he pounds $750. I believe he has a hand and that he thinks I'm on a flush draw but I feel like I can get him to change his mind and represent a 7 if I push him hard (whenever I've pushed hard I've had the winning hand previously). So, I check-raise him all-in for another almost $3k. He folds quick, I show, and he says I was winning. I think he had AK. He then says he would have called for sure if he had AQ or better and I believed him so I guess I was pretty lucky and this was definitely a little reckless play because I really didn't think he was bluffing. I was getting late and I had to get up for the Full Tilt freeroll today, so I decided to call it a night at around 2am.
So, after all is said and done I finished up just over $10k, which is great though I was up $16k at one point. I was pretty happy with how I played for the most part, though I did make a couple bad plays and I think I made a couple really risky plays that could have easily backfired big time. But, you can't always play safe and sometimes you just have to go with a read and play it hard. Good start to cash. The vast majority of my 10+ hour casino sessions have been good winning sessions and I think I do a good job at maintaining my level of play throughout these sessions and manipulating my image properly against the various people who sit down.
One thing that gave me problems was having the FT pro Greg on my left when we got down to 5-handed. I wanted to keep playing because the two guys to my right were complete donks with deep stacks. But, though very friendly and chatty with me (and seeming to respect my play) was playing me hard because he always had position. This makes such a huge difference. I also ran pretty cold towards the end which didn't help much.
Today was the FT freeroll with a $50k prize pool, about 120 people, and bounties on about 25 or so pros ranging from $200-$2000 depending on number of WSOP and WPT bracelets. I sat at my table with my buddy Greg I mentioned I met previously (not the pro, the golf guy), another guy Nathan I'd met, and 3 pros including Howard Lederer. First hand I fold 27o and a guy jams all-in for his 2500 stack on the button and shows rags and proves me just wants to get this over with cuz he has somewhere to go. Next hand I get TT, raise to 200, he instajams again and I make an easy call hoping I'm not getting played. I'm happy to see Q7o. But, of course, like I knew would happen, flop is Q73, turn Q, and I'm fucking drawing dead after being at the table for 2 minutes. I felt pretty bummed walking back to my room as the first person out because this event looked like tons of fun and a nice opportunity at some good money for nothing. Oh well, I'm already getting over it and there was nothing I could do. Shitty break though...
The $2200 PL Holdem/Omaha/Omaha Hi-Lo tourney starts in 40 minutes and I think I'm going to give it a shot even though my PL Omaha and Hi-Lo games are probably barely above average or not even. But whatever, I'll just focus hard, play tight, and think through all my decisions and see what happens. I feel like playing a tourney today and I didn't really get my fill this morning in the 2 hands I played. There is also a $1100 tourney on the Poker Pro machines which has a 100 cap on the field (
http://www.playpokerpro.com if you're curious what the hell this machine is). It starts 2 hours after the other one so I will probably try it out if I bust early, but I don't really care.
Anyway, I have to go eat before the tourney and I have no time, so I'm off. I'll update again next chance I get. Peace!
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