sigh.

0/5 in Day 2’s…

I’m going to win one of these things one day and still be running bad overall I think.

Posted in Live Tournaments | 3 Comments »

sick blur tilt, smoking rubble, another campaign bombed like dresden…

Had the PokerNews Cup ME yesterday. I knew this tourney would be one of the softest fields ever for a mid-range tournament as PokerNews has qualified almost half the field through freerolls with most of the rest qualifying through satellites.

I was nervous about spending yet another full day with live poker players, who freak me out a little if they talk to me, but my first few tables were quite enjoyable. Straight up, I had Damonas from PokerNews and Peter Pratis on my first one, and I played pretty crappy for the first level, trying to bluff in retarded spots and running AK into sets a couple times. Before I knew it, I was down to 4 or 5k after an hour and probably should have been on the rail had either of the sets played their hands a bit less strong.

I doubled up a couple times before getting moved to the “tv” table with Vos and Sammy Khouiss and Jason Gray who are all quite entertaining, so a few hours flew by and I peddled up a bit to 40k when I got moved to what has to be the softest table I’ve ever played at. Everyone limping, playing hands very soft, folding a lot, it was beautiful. Ran QQ into JJ and lost a decent pot, ran AQ into AJ and lost a decent pot but it didn’t matter on that table as any 1/2 player could cruise easily just picking up pots as if it was 2004.

Unfortunately our glorious table broke and I got moved a couple more times before I found myself on a soft, but laggy table. A guy I’ve played with before who definitely knows what he’s doing opens UTG for 3k, I wake up with QQ over-raise a little to 11k and he tanks and pushes AI with AKo. I call and win the race, doubling to about 70k.

I get moved again to the table from hell (my 7th table for the day I think). My table has Julian Powell who is very good and laggy, Eric Assadourian who is very tough and laggy, Aleks Lackovic who is laggy and impossible to put on a hand so he’s very tough to play, and some other guys I don’t know who are pretty slick and definitely know what they’re doing. There is lots of raising going on, I pick a couple good spots and pick up some little pots with 3bets. Julian is steaming a bit after being 4-outed in a big pot by this young American guy and I raise into both of them on the button with JT. The US kid calls and the flop is KJx 2h. We both check (I’ve been doing lots of pot control with marginal hands all day against people I think are capable of making moves, as I think I get moved off a lot with the best hand in tourneys). Turn is a T, he leads out, I just call as I think he folds everything I beat if I raise. River A, we both check and he has AT so I sigh and muck. Probably the worst hand I played in the day.

I build up a little bit more and run AK into a short-stack’s AA and get some genuine luck in a small pot when the first 4 cards are spades. I’m up to about 120k with about 15 min left in the day and Aleks has been forcing me to drink. I get drunk ridiculously easy so am already a bit messy after just a few drinks but its almost the end of the day so I figure its ok. Aleks opens UTG, I wake up with KK on the button and pot it, SB with close to avg stack, pushes AI with QQ. I call, and with the avg at 55k, I lose an 80k pot when a Q peels. Over 80% equity but standard for me in tourneys these days, I’m actually fine but everyone is commiserating, which makes me think maybe I shouldn’t be fine and I start getting a bit tilted. I open AJ and its folded to Aleks in SB who is a great guy but very drunk at the time I think and thinks its just a blind battle. He’s making to raise the short stack BB, I quickly realise this could work out really good for me if I stay quiet as if Aleks over-raises (which he’s been doing a lot, and is totally fine against a short-stack), it could reopen the action and I can push in and pick up an easy 15k. Inaction is an action though, and to stay quiet would be unethical, so I yell at Aleks that I’m still in, he goes “oh shit” and thanks me, and just calls. The flop is A-9s-8s and he openpushes for 30k. The pot is about 15k and I’ve played a lot with Aleks and am way ahead of his range here. A better Ace, 99/88 raises me pre with his stack I think so I just have to worry about A9 or A8. Aleks can also genuinely have like 44 in a spot like this, so after a long time, I call and he shows A9 after a long time, probably just an accidental slowroll but it tilts me a bit after I did the right thing and let him know I was still in the pot.

I’m steaming by this stage, with about 4 min left in the day, I pick up QQ and open, Julian calls behind and another quiet, good player, calls in the BB. Flop is Kd-Td-x, I fire, Julian puts me all in quickly for 40k, BB folds, I muck in disgust and yell “fukkkkk” in frustration. In WSOP this is a 10 min penalty, but I ask the dealer if there is any penalty for swearing and I’m told “no there isn’t” so mostly as a joke, I yell “FUKKKK” again but it felt good. No penalty = awesome.

Crown has some great dealers, but there is some ridiculously bad dealers here also and I’ve had a few of them today. I really dislike paying high vigs and being given crappy dealers in return, and I’ve been gentle with lazy or poorly trained dealers all day but late in the day, I raise, get called a few times, dealer doesn’t give me my change (about the 5th time today that’s happened) so I tell him to do his f job and stop being lazy. Apparently, someone blogged about what a wanker I was over this situation, and they’re probably right, I could have been meek and nice like I’ve been all day with dealer mistakes but I’d just had enough. I mean, some of the dealers can’t even work the table without help, antes flip them out and complicated things like counting an AI the bad ones get right about 25% of the time. It frustrates me when casinos put dealers of this level on the floor. Maybe they’re not getting paid enough and need to get paid more to attract higher quality, maybe the training isn’t adequate, maybe they’re just lazy, whatever - this stuff shouldn’t be the norm.

The day ends, in the last 15 min I lost almost 100k and now I have to peddle a short-stack today. After 20 minutes of waiting, no one is coming to bag our chips, I’ve had just about enough after 12 hours of live poker so I’m on sick tilt, I can see us all waiting an hour while a single FM tries to bag 150 players’ chips over the next 90 minutes. Arul sees I’m about to lose the plot, and gets me out of the situation, telling me to chill and go home, I realise he speaks wisely so I just walk off, leaving the chips there. Seriously tempted to not bother showing up for Day 2 today, but I probably still have a couple thousand equity in the tourney, and I’m a bit too nitty to blow it off - also I’ve done some swaps, so I’m forced to go down, go through the motions, get eliminated and that will be yet another promising campaign burned up in a heap of tilt and pain. Sigh.

Posted in Live Tournaments | 2 Comments »

manila bombing, bad boys prop, porn star racism uproar…

The day after I flew out of Manila last week, a shopping mall just a few blocks from where I live was bombed. I shop there all the time. 11 dead, 100 injured, high-grade military explosives found but the government is saying it was an accident. Scary stuff - will be interesting to see how it develops…

———

Gaz gonna make me hella rich tonight on a sweet little Bad Boys prop bet.

My team is:

Mark Vos
Tony G
Emad Tahtouh
Duckie Arul
Sam Khouiss

Gaz the chump has:

Crocky
Lee Nelson
David Saab
Gary Benson
Jeff Lisandro

——-

Speaking of Gaz, he brought my attention to the media uproar over Jennica St. Foxx using a racial slur in her latest film. See news report below - ADULTS ONLY (may offend).

“It’s filthy and disgusting…in a bad way.”

Use Of ‘N-Word’ May End Porn Star’s Career

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Christchurch BZP Wedding Mutant Behaviour Awesomeness…

Finally arrived in freezing but idyllic Christchurch after a 28 hour ordeal. My friends were supposed to meet me at airport about 7 hours before I arrived but gave up and I wasn’t able to get messages through to them for variety of reasons. They caught up to me at hotel around 9pm just when I desperately wanted to sleep and easily convinced me to come out for a big pre-wedding night which I had reservations about, not wanting to be a wedding mutant the next day. I was quickly convinced to join them however when I was reminded that BZP is legal in NZ.

BZP is a nasty little drug that is illegal in Aust/US/UK and godammit should be illegal in NZ too. Those readers who know me would know of course that I absolutely never take illicit substances and do not condone the use of such substances, but if the NZ government says its ok to take BZP, who was I to argue? The government always knows best.

This is an example of the dozens of stores where you can legally buy BZP pills and powder.

Ex-Melb poker players Andrew and Shane live in Christchurch now and hooked us up with a good night out. The girls in Christchurch are…um…yeah - I think the cute ones all fly to Auckland or Aust as soon as they graduate high school.

We had a lot of fun anyway and then back in hotel room, one of my mates decided it would be a good idea to snort some Valium/Stilnox lines to help us sleep. I got knocked out cold and missed out on subsequent adventures.

We awoke the next day with a couple hours till the wedding totally wrecked. I was operational but only barely, one of my mates couldn’t even stand up. We had a quick conference and decided the only way we’d get through the day would be to do some more sleazy BZP for an energy kick. This helped us a great deal but probably was a bad idea in hindsight.

The wedding itself was beautiful. Tim and Hayley are a wonderful couple with two gorgeous little sons, and the day went off without a hitch.

I did my best to behave myself and received restocking of BZP from some hookups at the wedding (thanks Jocelyn), others got involved in the madness as well which was good as some negative attention got diverted away from my mutant behaviour. The Beere family knows what to expect of me at these sorts of things, having put up with me since I was 14, but its possible some of the bride’s family was offended by my speech heckling and drinking out of wine bottles and dancing on chairs and tables. But all in all, I think I didn’t do too badly all things considered.

I used to chase Tim’s little brother Pef around the house when we were kids and give him severe, deserved beatings whenever he had to nerve to beat me on computer games but Pef is all grown up now with a little daughter and sporting an absolutely horrendous goatee. I spent most of the night trying to convince him and the mother of their little daughter that they need to change her name from Kelly to Cailin (as mean girls might call her Smelly Kelly at school), even offering large bribes. They weren’t interested. I offered my services as godfather, but was politely rebuffed. Highly offended, I then spent the late hours convincing Charlie (Tim and Pef’s father) that he was a wonderful father and shouldn’t blame himself that his youngest son ended up gay with a goatee.

The speeches were generally excellent although the MC was a very nice guy but was incredibly boring. I was placed at the Ghetto table right at the back which was a very smart move from the organisers. I decided if the MC cracked any more lame jokes, I was going to launch candy artillery fire at him from the back of the room and everyone started donating wedding candy for my stockpile. I only ended up firing one barrel which hit the father of the groom on the back of the head, friendly fire and avoidable in these sorts of wars - he understood of course.

The best speech of the night came from our table as people gathered around to hear Matt Crank give a poetic half-hour rendition of our young adult years which was possibly the greatest speech ever made in history, pausing only to eat strawberries from other peoples’ plates and fake flowers from the table arrangements and the odd random bark at nothing in particular.

I then spent some enjoyable time filling in the wedding comments book with hi-larious comments which weren’t so hilarious in hindsight (I may have labeled Hayley a “gold-digger” in one of them but no one will ever know it was me). All in all, it was a wonderful day and my behaviour can’t have been too bad, as I got an invite to the legendary Beere family Xmas party which usually results in excellent debauchery and fun, even if there will be no home-made slippery slide this year due to canal shark deaths nearby but we’ll see about that.

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Qantas is retarded Vol. 3…

Qantas is retarded.

So after arriving a day early for my flight, I did the entire process again the following night, was running a bit late but got to airport in time to see my flight to Sydney was delayed by 3 hours. I don’t think I can even blame this one on Manila airport as they claimed the incoming flight was 3 hrs behind schedule.

I’m pretty used to delayed flights as I run bad in travel, but I had a connecting flight to Christchurch from Sydney which I was going to miss by about an hour due to the delayed flight. Very few people were there at the scheduled time, it was apparent most of my fellow passengers were notified by phone of the delay. I asked why I wasn’t notified, the Qantas supervisor in Manila said they couldn’t reach me. This was an obvious lie as they had both my home and mobile numbers.

I let it go without making a scene and asked what was going to happen to my connecting flight the next day. The supervisor said they were going to hold the flight for me for an hour so I wouldn’t miss the connection. This was an obvious lie, I said “Firstly, its not fair to delay an entire plane for one person. Secondly, you’re lying, there is no way Qantas will keep everyone on a plane waiting for an hour just for one person arriving late.”

She got very offended and claimed to have been in direct contact with Qantas Sydney and that there were a number of people on our flight who were making that connection. She promised me the flight would be held for us. I said “I’m sorry but you’re lying.” She swore that the flight would be held. She was so adamant I felt bad and thought, well maybe if there are like 10-20 people who will all miss the connection otherwise, they might hold the flight.

I Xanax’ed it up to deal with the stress of 4 hours waiting in Manila airport and boarded the plane pretty chilled and crashed pretty quickly. The air/con was pumping full blast and the entire plane got head colds. When we landed in Sydney, half the passengers were sneezing and sniffing and blowing noses, including a sleep-deprived and out of Xanax me.

With a full blown headache, we got off in Sydney to find Qantas staff waiting for us. Of course, it became quickly apparent that the Manila Qantas supervisor was lying through her teeth. There was only 1 other guy and myself making the connection to Christchurch and the Qantas staff said our plane left an hour ago on schedule. I asked what the plan was. The Qantas guy said “It looks like you’ll have to stay in Sydney overnight and fly tomorrow.” I said, “NFW”. The other guy said “Not a f chance.” The Qantas knob got all abusive and told us to calm down. Firstly, I thought we were both being very calm. I told him to calm down. He got his panties in a knot and told us to sit down and chill. I told him to stop ordering us around and bounce to fixing up their mistake. He got offended and grabbed my arm to drag me to a chair. Ofc this was a big mistake on his part, and all hell threatened to break loose. My fellow traveller yelled “That’s assault!” and I said “Yep, if you’re lucky, you’re only going to lose your job.” The Qantas spastic realised he was in a bit of trouble and tried to pacify us, we stormed off to the transfer desk.

The Qantas knob phoned up to the desk to warn the staff that there were two angry people coming up, so the staff was ready for a fight. There was lots of yelling, the whole thing was very unprofessional. We were finally told we could catch a flight to Auckland in a few hours, then a connecting flight to Christchurch. I demanded Qantas Club entry and 1st class upgrade as partial compensation for the total screwing we’d received. The lady laughed at me. The other guy requested a $10 meal voucher. The lady laughed at him. We left empty-handed and severely tender from being screwed so hard.

Of course, our Auckland plane was delayed. We arrived in Auckland expecting to miss our 2nd connection of the day, but we needn’t have worried. Our Christchurch plane was also delayed. We finally arrived in Christchurch about 8 hours after we were supposed to land.

3 delayed Qantas flights, 1 missed connection, 28 hours of pain, nonstop lies and abuse from Qantas staff. It was a wonderful day. Qantas is f retarded.

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calendar tilt….

So I woke up yesterday a little nervous already as I had to fly to Christchurch last night and I really hate traveling, especially through the whole Manila airport tilt process then changing flights for connections, etc - basically I was a little bit scared as I always am before flights in anticipation of the upcoming travel tilt.

So I played bad in the morning, ran bad, dropped about 6k. I’ve been sleeping around 1pm each day and had to leave for airport at 6pm, so I thought I’d solider on through so I could sleep on the flight.

The next 5 hours were very painful, I was tired, did all the ghey packing process, tidied everything up and set out for the airport with my bags. You can’t call taxis in Manila here with any reliability, but usually its pretty easy to just flag one on the street. Not today. I walked with my suitcase/bag for about 1 km and finally arrived at a taxi hot-spot. My taxi driver casually informed me the fare would be 1000 pesos. The metered fare to the airport would be about 80 pesos and I said “Don’t be ridiculous - you’ll get 100 pesos without the meter if you get me there as fast as you possibly can.” We were off and running for the peak-hour drive to the airport.

By this stage, especially after the walk lugging my heavy baggage, I was beginning to get nauseous, dizzy and exhausted from lack of sleep. Or maybe the Manila peak-hour diesel fumes pouring through the A/C vents. Or perhaps because my taxi driver insisted on playing his Celine Dion “My Heart will Go On” song on repeat. Or more likely because he sang along with the song. If you don’t know what that song sounds like, pls download it and try to imagine a Filipino taxi driver belting it out in broken English, missing every note there was to possibly miss, butchering the melodies like a squealing pig on the slaughter block.

I was starting to lose the plot. I haven’t murdered anyone yet in my life, but my sleep-addled brain was getting ideas. I asked him to stop. He ignored me. I begged him to stop. He ignored me. I asked him how much I needed to pay him to turn off the tape and he said “200 pesos” (about $5). I paid instantly and drifted off into a gasoline-induced sleep coma.

10 min later, I wake up to the sound of “and my heart will…go onnnnn….and onnnnnnnn…” OMFG - the prick had turned it back on again. If he wasn’t driving our cab at high speed, I think would have throttled him right then and there. I yelled at him and he said “thought you were sleeping” - classic filipino logic. I demand my $5 back. He refuses. I swore at him in Indonesian (at least I think I swore - “Anda nyentot - apakah makan bakan burung saya!” - any bahasa speakers, pls let me know if this even makes sense). In the heat of the Celine Dion moment, I may have threatened bodily harm if the tape is allowed to play again in my vicinity. He seemed to understand the time for games was over and he considerately respected my wishes and didn’t play the song again.

We arrived at the airport after a pleasurable hour in traffic, I gave him a tip of 1 peso, and lugged my bags into the madness that is Ninoy Aquino aiport. I can’t talk too much about Ninoy Aquino without reliving the pain but honestly, that building is just ridiculous. They have hundreds of staff but everything moves at turtle pace, you have to stop for dozens of “security checks” and “ticket checks” that accomplish nothing. Some of these guys wouldn’t be able to read their own name badges. I play a game with them sometimes, and show them random papers when they ask to see my ticket and pretend I’m in a hurry. They usually glance at some random itinerary I flash them and let me pass with a shrug, even if they don’t understand the ticket, they don’t want to look stupid and there are another 20 of these pointless “ticket checks” down the track they probably figure.

On the first of many x-ray scan tilt processes (they do about 5 of these, for what earthly reason I have no idea), the xray picked up my joystick mouse in my bag. I’m watching the screen with the lady and it looks really bad on the x-ray, a bit like a gun. She calls over her supervisor and he asks me what it is. I say “a joystick”. He says “Huh?” I say, “A joystick, a computer mouse.” He says “Huh?” I say “It’s a computer mouse in the shape of a joystick used to move a cursor around the screen.” He says, “Huh?” I realise we could be here awhile. Sometimes, these roundabout filipino games are fun and sometimes I play along for a bit I was too tired tonight. I decide to jump off the retarded conversational carousel and sigh instead, responding with “Never mind -its obviously too complicated a concept to explain”. I guess he figures never mind also as he gets distracted by something else, the girl waits for him a moment or two, then people in the long queue start yelling, so she waves me through without making me open the bag. Comforting.

I get inside the mad-house and look up at the board for the Qantas gate. I can’t believe it. My flight has been cancelled. After what I’ve been through, I’m so close to the edge of insanity, I’m trying desperately to hold on. My flights get delayed/cancelled so much, its really quite ridiculous. My flight isn’t even on the departure board. I’m fuming.

I storm up to the information desk and demand to know why my flight has been cancelled. The girl asks me what flight I’m on. I’m so far beyond tilted, I’m like “Figures - you’ve probably had dozens of flights cancelled tonight - I’m on Qantas 0020 to Sydney.”

She looks at her list and says, “Sir that flight hasn’t been cancelled.” I really can’t deal with this anymore and I demand to know why its not on the departure board. She replies, “Sir, its not on the departure board because we only show this evening’s flights.”

I’m realising quickly this girl is obviously a total moron. I say “Yes, my flight is this evening, its supposed to be leaving in just over an hour.”

She replies calmly, “Sir, to the best of my knowledge, your flight will be leaving on schedule, 25 hours from now.”

Gritting my teeth, I calmly ask, “Pray, dear customer service lady, what day is it today?”

She smiles and replies “Why Sir, its Wednesday of course.”

I calmly pick up my bags and head outside to catch a taxi. I am seriously downie - I belong here. I thought yesterday was Thursday. I am too tired to kill myself for my stupidity, so I sleep instead….

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