Let’s start with Friday. Got picked up by Matthew and Krunchie, and we checked into our hotel on hindley st, the breakfree. I had initial worries, hoping it wouldn’t' be dodgy or overly noisy, but when we got there, it was pretty decent. Not the Hilton by any stretch, but it was neat and tidy so it was great. So then we got changed and headed down to the grand final party.
After saying g'day to boof (Darren Lehmann) who was standing out the front, we headed inside and hit the bar. Although we told ourselves that we wouldn’t go too silly, 4 schooners later, we realised that we have only been here for half an hour! The finger food was great, but I only had a little bit because I had a huge yiros before we arrived so I was full. On Friday, I met trishan and had a good chat to him.
I also met Leigh trudgeon (roytrudgey online), and he was a really nice bloke. we have had a few (read a lot) of verbal stoushes via the chat box over the last few months - not necessarily nasty, but definitely heated at times, but you could tell that he was the sort of bloke to laugh it off (as am I) and it was great having a chat. It was good catching up with all the usuals, the murrins, des, Darryl, rcon etc - always good for a laugh.
By this stage in the night, the beer was flowing freely, and I am very glad that the tab was cut off at around 1030, because I would have been in a bit of trouble had it gone any later. Some people weren't so lucky (i.e. haylee LOL). So in the end, we got some maccas and headed back to our room for an early night, in bed by about 12. Highlight of the night was getting a bat signed by shane warne.
The next morning, I felt a little worse for wear, but a shower and a red bull fixed that pretty quick. From then on, all the talk was about poker - Matthew and Krunchie are great to talk about poker with, because they both think at a level where we talk about strategy and not about individual hands, so it was great.
I was particularly impressed with how eager Krunchie was to talk about strategy and to learn the game in general. he took up poker a couple of years later than Matthew and I, and as such he is still a bit too tight (to which we give him a bit of a ribbing) but I have seen him improve a crap load lately (even though I don’t play with him that much). With his awesome deep run, 16th is a great effort, I think this is just the beginning as I don’t think he is anywhere near the player he can and will be. I won’t be surprised if he takes out a grand final in the next few years.
So to the actual day. I wasn't anywhere near as nervous as I thought I would be, mostly just excited. But before I knew it, it was just like any other poker tourney. The play on my table was pretty tight early, as you would expect. Pretty soon though, one player, Janet Tran, started taking control of the table, and in general playing really really aggressively (6-8bb open raises were standard)
My first big pot came at the 100/200 level, when I picked up the two red aces in mid position, and made it 600 to go. Gayle Andrews was in the big blind, and made it 1200 total. She was the only person who I had played with previously (online) and my reads were that if she 3bet at all, she had a pretty strong hand. So I decided to 4bet to 4000, and she called. My immediate reaction was that she also had a big pair. The flop came 8 high, all diamonds, so I had picked up the NFD to go with my aces. Gayle checked, and I led for 6K, and Gayle called. The turn was a brick, and I shoved for my remaining 8k or so, and Gayle tanked and called. She rolled over the two red queens. This hand was great for me, and unlucky for Gayle, because it was pretty hard for her to get away from the hand since she had the Qd as well. So that early double up got me to around 36k.
At the 100/200 level, Janet really started to pick up the pace, and she was opening for around 1600 as a standard raise. But after a while, I noticed that she was raising a big amount with middle pocket pairs, but with absolute monsters she would only raise a small amount. She raised to 1600 pre, and when it got to showdown she rolled 8s against another guy. Then a couple of hands later, she only raised to 600. This immediately made me sit up and take notice, because it was the only time she had done this so far, and when everyone folded she rolled aces. A couple of more hands later, the same thing happened with kings. So I picked up a bet sizing tell. The other piece of information I gained was that in one hand with QT where she had flopped mid pair, she checked and then snap called a bet.
That was crucial in this hand. 100/200 still, Janet opens for 1600 in mid position, and I call on the button with AQ suited. The flop is 10 high. Janet checks, and I lead out for 3K and she snap calls. The turn is a brick, and I get checked to, and I lead out for 6K. Janet once again snap calls without thinking for a microsecond. Now I am pretty sure that she has a middle pocket pair, and I decide that if it’s a brick, I am going to have to give it up. River is a J and Janet checks for a third time. I love that card, and decide to instantly lead out for 7.5K into Janet’s stack of around 9K. That slows her down a lot, and she tank folds and shows 77. I promptly show and tell her that if she is gonna keep overplaying mid pair, then that is whets gonna happen to her. I wanted to tell that table that I was going to be running the show, not Janet, and it worked, as I think it rattled her a bit, and she lost the rest of her chips within half an hour or so. I go to the first break on around 44K and I am feeling pretty good about my prospects.
Now that Janet had gone, the table slowed down a LOT. To my left was Andrew hill, a young guy who was really tight, but knew what he was doing. On my right, both were tight players as well. Matt Probin played fairly abc, and I felt I could exploit him a bit, and to his right was Katrina Stephens. This is not meant to be disrespectful, but she is definitely one of the best woman poker players I have ever played against (lol obviously I didn’t sit on a table with Nicole at all
). I felt that she was one of two players that I really had to watch out for, and the couple of big pots that I saw her play, she played excellently. Towards the end when she was getting short, she probably didn’t' loosen up as much as I probably would have, but other than that I was really wary. The other player I was really worried about was Kevin Kelsall. He was over the other side of the table, and he seemed fairly tight, but whenever I was in a pot with him, I found it really really hard to put him on a range. It was lucky he wasn’t sitting around near me, as I think I would have had a lot of trouble. I have since found out that he is a good mate of Caleb’s, and Caleb tells me that he plays a lot at crown, and I can see why.
During the middle of the day, I went completely card dead. To be honest, I have never been on a run like that before. For probably 5 hours, I didn't pick up a playable hand. Not even 5-7 suited or anything. So I grinded a stack of 50K for at least 3 hours. At one stage, I was talking to Alex Kidd who happened to be walking past. He asked how I was going, and I said I was going ok, but card dead. He said that if there was anyone in this room that would be able to manage a chip stack while being card dead, then it was me. I took that as a huge compliment, and I think it gave me a boost at a time when I was starting to get a little frustrated at my lack of cards.
The situation was also helped by the great people the table. Katrina, Andrew, Gayle and matt are genuinely nice people, and it was a pleasure to play poker with them. So even though I was card dead, it was still great fun, and it stopped me getting frustrated. By the dinner break, I had grinded my stack up to 74K without really seeing too many showdowns. At this stage, the average was a bit over 50K so I was pretty happy.
Just after tea, a few people on our table were starting to get short, and they busted out pretty quickly. I was on around 80K when our table got broken. The table I got moved to was nowhere near as enjoyable, but the play was a lot looser there (albeit slower, we were getting 2 orbits per level compared to 3 on the other table), but I didn’t mind the table change. In no time at all, I had got my stack up to around 115K and I was loving it.
In the last level before the end of the day, everyone was starting to tighten up, and my stack was looking better and better. Around 15 mins before the end of the day, I managed to run my kings into aces, to lose a 110K pot, which really hurt, but I was still alive on 65K.
In the last 5 minutes before the close of play, everyone started remarking on how it would suck to get knocked out now, and they were snap folding from almost every position with every hand. I thought this was a great opportunity to build my stack a little bit, so the second last hand in the cut-off with K3, I decided to shove my 65K stack, blinds were 2000/4000.
To my surprise, the small blind tanked for about 3 minutes before letting it go. In my head, I was letting out a big "phew", but then the big blind started tanking as well! I was like oh crap, worst steal in the history of the world. But in the end, he laid down AT and I picked up the blinds. The very last hand of the night I picked up 88 and managed to get the blinds again. So I ended up on 82K, and the average was 88.
I was really happy with making day two, but rueing what might have been if that guy had QQ instead of AA. But all in all, I was excited. My table draw wasn’t too bad, as I was 6th out of 8 stacks, so there wasn’t going to be too much in the way of desperation shoves etc. and pretty soon, I was absolutely loving my table, as they were giving up with out so much as a whimper. At the 2000/4000/500 level, I was opening for as little as 9.5-12k, even from utg, and everyone was folding. Within 45 minutes, I had built my stack up from 82 to around 150k, basically without going to showdown.
That had dropped to around 130k, which was the stack I had when I got knocked out. It was at the 2500/5000/500 level and I opened AJ suited to 12.5k from the small blind after it was folded around to me. I had done this as a steal around 3 or 4 times already (basically every orbit), but this time the BB calls.
Flop is AK8 rainbow, and I am thinking this is an awesome flop, because I don’t think he will believe I have an ace because of the previous play. So I lead out for 24k, and the BB jams over the top and has be covered. My first instinct was weaker ace, and that he had gotten fed up with me stealing from him. I felt that everything that was beating me preflop would re-raise preflop, except for K8 and A8. I was expecting him to wind up with A7-AT.
So I pretty quickly called, and he rolled over A8. I was really annoyed with myself after that, because I didn’t take enough time to think it through, but I still don’t know whether I would have folded or not. But in those spots, I really need to just slow down and take my time a bit more. So that was that, and I was out in 40th.
With that disappointment, I decided to head to the bar for a beer. At this stage, I was chatting to trishan, and bionic mike came over and introduced himself. It was great to meet mike, and he is a genuinely nice bloke, who I doubt has ever frowned in his life.
Aaron and Matthew came over to chat as well, and we decided to go upstairs and play in a couple of SNGs. In these, I had an absolute ball; it was just like a home game. I ended up dropping 50 bucks playing them, but it was definitely worth it, especially when we started playing Omaha as well. In between, I was heading over to the 888 laptops, and it was great fun playing mike heads up on a 15c/30c table.
The more pints I consumed, the worse I played, and that got a little worse still when I decided to load up the blackjack for a while :p but not to worry.
All in all, it was a great weekend. I have been thinking hard about it, and to be honest, really cannot find a fault in the whole weekend. Not one. I can’t think of a better structure for a 2 day tournament really. Maybe having an hour for a tea break so people can have a proper meal would work out well. It would probably help the venue too.
Massive congratulations to everyone who cashed in the event, especially Nicole for winning it, and Krunchie for finishing 16th. It’s a great effort, and in a tournament structured like that, it takes real poker skill to go deep, not just luckboxing. So well done.
A super huge massive thankyou and well done to Garth and others, that no doubt spent countless hours in organisation, and for being tireless during the weekend. As I said before, I can’t think of a single change to the tournament structure, it was great. In future, it would be awesome if there was another camera angle on the feature table so that you could see the action at the table rather than just the flop – a picture in picture where the flop is displayed at the bottom of the screen and a main shot fills the rest would be great, but obviously that is a minor thing. The tables were absolutely awesome, I saw one misdeal for the entire tournament, and it was very quick to deal, even from the end of the table.
For those that didn’t make it to the grand final, I encourage you to try and qualify for it next season. It was a great experience. If I don’t manage to qualify next season, I would seriously contemplate buying in directly, as it is 100% worth it.
BRING ON THE NEXT ONE!
(wow I just realised how long this was. You can tell how bored I am at work, and how excited I was about the weekend.)
