old man Swanky August 2011 GF Trip Report

[Russ]

icwudt

[Sinitster]

wenz part free coming sur ?

[Whitmee35]

Team Swankmee should have crushed really. I just kept getting called in every spot I shouldnt have when I triple barrel bluffed. haha

[Swanky]

Will try to get part 3 and 4 up today. Just gotta get it written.


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-34.906490,138.574700

[Swanky]

PART 3

Sunday:
What a looooong day!

Ben and myself were up reasonably early, as Ben had to take his seat for Day 2, and I wanted get our podcasting gear set up. (Did I mention you can download our podcast at www.therail.com.au ???) (GF edition will be up soon!)

Dave and Russ decided they needed more beauty sleep than us (and if you’ve seen their heads you’d understand why), so they decided sleep in a bit. Ben and I headed for an uneventful walk to the Crown.

Excitement was sure in the air though, people were already gathering and keen to take their seats, at this point we had around 95 people left and that meant if you were seated, you had a 1 in 2 chance of cashing. Not bad odds and made me wish I was taking a seat in the tourney and not at the podcast desk.

Garth gave the shuffle up and deal speech and the cards were in the air. Mitchy Mitch and I were settling in to commentate for the day. It was quite funny at one point, as we were situated so close to the Feature Table, Mitch and I were discussing how certain positions should be playing at this stage of the tournament, stealing blinds etc, when Bionic Mike looked around at us, and for the first time ever didn’t have a smile on his face. He was actually frowning! Seems we must have been reading straight from his play book and was worried we might be giving too much away. Luckily Mike was the only one that could hear us and he was able to get on with the business of crushing the table.

The field dropped fairly quickly and really wasn’t too long before the bubble was burst and everyone was in the money.

I signed up for the 4pm Farewell Tournament. Firstly, just let me say WOW! The standard of play was abysmal. I know we are only pub poker players and the majority were there for fun. But when I put $50 of my hard earned up to play poker, I expect the level to rise somewhat from the normal Monday night poker. If I wanted to waste $50, I would have gone across the road to Lazer Squirmish and absolute blast, probably would have had money left over for a cold beer afterwards too.

I found myself raising preflop with hands like AQ, AJ and AT only to have someone snap call, another come straight over the top, forcing me to fold. I’d watch the others call. At show down it seems any suited cards were good to go. 7T was gold to raise with, 49 was good, watching K high take down massive pots was sending me on life tilt. After I folded half my stack away, I decided enough was enough. The final table had just been announced and I really wanted to call the action for The Rail (GF edition available for download soon in iTunes or at www.therail.com.au!). So when I peered down at QT of diamonds, I figured, I’m shipping it all in, if I get called and I double or triple up, then cool, if I get busted, I’m going let the table know they are tools and GTFO to the FT. Sure enough 2 callers, 7T off suit hits his 7, I sigh and say thank funk this is the farewell game, farewell meatheads. OK, so I just said nice hand and left. But I really wanted to go to town on these guys, but I have more class than that (no really, I do!).

I ran like Dave’s Dad had just found out about my visits to his Mum’s place when he’s out of town, straight to the podcasting booth. This was easily going to be the best FT in 888pl history and I was going to be lucky enough to call the game and record it for history.

This really was a who’s who of solid 888pl poker players.

• Pat Dillon
• Chris Whitmee
• Ben McDonald
• Mike Raines

There were also a couple of others that I didn’t know at the time and they were going to make for a great game of cards.

And I wasn’t wrong, it certainly wasn’t the longest FT in GF history, but we saw some great play. Eventually we got a winner and it was time to get our drink on.

Ben finished 6th for a great run, and as such was nice enough to shout Russ, Dave and Myself to an awesome late Sunday night steak dinner at one of the fine eateries in Crown. After we gorged ourselves there on a few beers and some great steaks, we headed across to a “loungy” nightclub nect to this restaurant and indulged in our new favourite drink and now official drink of The Rail (check out www.therail.com.au), Hpnotiq. I can’t belive I’m in love with such a girly drink, but damn it, it’s awesome. So after a couple of those we decided to join everyone in the poker room for a bevvie.

Back at the poker room, Garth was letting his hair down in only the way Garth can. He was having a great time as was everyone. It really was great to see everyone having a great time and relaxing, both 888pl staff and players alike. It’s certainly a stressful time for everyone. It makes me proud to be involved with an organisation that interacts with it’s players. We seriously have become a great poker community over the past few years and I really hope we can embrace the APL in a similar manner.

After a few (100?) bevvies some of the guys decided to play some PLO. I headed over to the $1 roulette table and turned $100 in to $200, then decided to join the PLO boys.
I sat down with my $100 I had just made and proceeded to clean up the table.

First hand I managed to get it all in and clean up scoop the pot. Copy and Paste that in to the second hand and I’m on fire. I’ve played 2 hands and I’m up nearly $500! Now if this was black Jack I would have been out of there, but this was poker and etiquette dictates I should stick around for at least one orbit and give players a chance to win their money back. Etiquette doesn’t dictate whether should play any hands though! I folded 99% my hands for the next hour, because the table was to be at.
I ended up dropping about $100 to blinds and limping in to a few hands, before deciding I had pretty much got back all the money I had spent on the weekend.

It was getting late and we all decided to head back to the room. Well Russ and I did, as we tried to go Dave and Ben decided to stick around.

Russ and I strolled back to the Bat Cave, and typically, as it had done all weekend, my card didn’t work properly. (This had been the butt of many jokes about me not being smart enough to open a door). Even Russ couldn’t get it to work, which was great, because when we arrived at the foyer to get in, there was about 5 10-12 year old boys hanging there trying to get the doors open. They just looked liked hoons, and I had to wonder where their parents were at 4am on a Monday morning in the centre of Melbourne.
I was also carrying my laptop and recording equipment, so I wasn’t to keen to get a shiv in the back and lose all my gear. Finally the door opened and we entered the hotel. As we climbed the stairs, I looked back to see the little punks trying to stop the door from closing and trying to get in. Luckily the door was too strong and these pint sized hoons couldn’t get in to ‘cause any grief.

Russ and I got upstairs and cracked a cold beer, minutes later we were joined by Ben and Dave and we had another quiet toast to Ben’s awesome run. We all climbed in to bed and giggled like school girls telling dumb jokes and making fun of each other, it really was like being on school camp. The stupidest jokes had us all laughing hysterically, it was loads of fun. It also didn’t take us too much to drift off to deep sleeps. Some of us deeper than others. Dave, on at least 2 separate occasions during the weekend, spoke in his sleep. Now I forget what he said on Saturday morning, but Sunday morning he screamed out “CROWN!”, then mumbled something then said, “19!”. Not sure if he was dreaming about roulette or black jack, all I know is I was laughing my ass off!

To be continued…..

[bennymacca]

man, i wish i was back in melbourne now.

also old man Swanky, i think you forgot to mention our podcast, www.therail.com.au

[Swanky]

man, i wish i was back in melbourne now.

also old man Swanky, i think you forgot to mention our podcast, http://www.therail.com.au

How could I forget that???

Great podcast www.therail.com.au is one place you can get it, you can also search "The Rail" on iTunes.

Good pick up benny the cunt!

[David]

I'll have to leave my cash for my TR then

[Caleb]

I think I deserve some MAJOR CREDIT here.


Who was it that got you onto Hypnotiq? And who was it that got them onto it? etc.

I guarantee all permutations of this questions leads back to me.

Hypnotiq has been my favourite drink for nearly 5 years now. I got benny the cunt, Russ and co. onto it at the last GF. Just incredible.

In fact, I'm getting some for Saturday night!

[David]

Spell it right then, "fan"