just say no to melbourne…

Larry Liddle:
“It seems to me lookin’ around, that it’s almost all women workin’ here; and that they’re all very pretty. Is that common?”
Charlie’s Wilson’s Receptionist:
“Well Congressman Wilson, he has an expression. He says uhmm….You can teach them to type, but you can’t teach them to grow tits.”

When I was going through my Aaron Sorkin obsession awhile back, I read about this script he was working on for a movie titled “Charlie Wilson’s War”. I forgot all about it until today when I was getting disillusioned with the crappiness of Dexter bemoaning the fact that West Wing and Studio 60 are kaput. I squealed and giggled with delight when I found Charlie Wilson’s War online, and I’m happy to report on its awesomeness.

I’m not a huge fan of Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts, but Philip Seymour Hoffman is great and Charlie Wilson’s gaggle of secretaries make this movie brilliant along with Sorkin’s scriptwriting.

8/10

——————-

I’m back in Manila now after an horrific month in Melbourne and despite being reunited with my awesome maid, I’m decidedly flat from Melbourne poker gheyness and Tsonga losing the AO final and costing me a fortune after he capitulated.

I have previously spoken about Melbourne being awesome, but I was embarassingly misinformed. Melbourne is a hole. 99% of taxi drivers in that city are retards, and although it is not in my nature to do so, I was forced to deliver some home truths to a few of the really ridiculous ones. The type that sit for an hour in a taxi rank, then turn off their light and claim to be off-shift when you tell them you’re going somewhere else in the city. Not every ride is a $50 airport ride, you freaking morons - become Coachtrans bus drivers, you $8/hour lazy freaks. Maybe if you didn’t sit in a taxi queue for an hour hoping for a $50 fare, you could do 10 x $10 fares and afford some f deoderant.

What’s with Melbourne taxis not having GPS? wtf? I lost count of the number of times I got into a cab, going from one landmark to another landmark, and the retard had to sit there for 10 minutes flipping through a UBD. ffs - if you don’t know how to get from King St. in the City to Chapel St. in St Kilda, maybe you shouldn’t be driving a f cab?

On our last night out, myself and two friends and 3 girls were trying to get into recovery clubs like Revolver, Viper and another hole club on Chapel St. We were turned away from each club by the bouncers, $15/hour jokes trying to escape from the fact that their principal job is to grapple with sweaty franked-out degenerates all night and then go home to their hovels in Narre Warren.

Melbourne nightlife is so far beyond retarded its ridiculous. I can understand face control, girl ratios and dress standards and all that bs if it actually works, but I don’t want to hike up my skirt and dance for a broke steroid joker at the door only to find inside its 80% guys anyway cause the monkeys at the door are letting all their tattooed freak mates in wearing 2003 Royals.

Clubs in Europe actually like money and have blindingly sensible policies. In Vilnius (Lithuania), Jethro and I were going to clubs with the following door policy:

Girls get in for free
Guys pay US$50
Someone competent taking cash so that the inbred doormen can’t let their broke schoolfriends in for free

This has the result of culling all the agressive broke bottle smashing monkeys from entering, resulting in clubs 80% girls and only a small % of guys who actually have a job and don’t need to wrap a $20 note around toilet paper on their money clip.

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sports betting tilt but thank buddah for australian open competence…

So I’ve been getting pumped on sports bets this week ofc, despite getting my money in pretty good. I went with some long shots last couple games, getting on Hewitt at 5:1 vs the Serb gun Djokovic, and Hewitt broke in first two sets but went down in straight sets which sucked.

Today I went down to watch the feature matches so I got on Nieminem at very long odds (10:1) vs Nadal. I thought this was way too long for Nieminem, who is a great slick player and definitely capable of causing upsets. He had two set points in the first set but Nadal got lucky and then ran away with it. I think Nieminem is very under-rated, no way was he 10:1 to take out today’s match but I couldn’t hit the gutshot for a huge score.

The setup they have down at the Australian Open is pretty amazing - its a heavenly, wonderful world of competence and logic and I strongly recommend their little program. I called Ticketek, my barcoded tickets were emailed, I printed them out, taxis and trams going straight to the front of Rod Laver arena, absolutely no lines, scan barcodes, straight inside watching the action - beautiful.

Normally girls playing sports is pretty lol, but I have to admit I was wrong about female tennis. I watched the chunky Williams play Jankovic today before the Nadal match and it was fantastic tennis. The Jankovic backhand is ridiculously sexy - her technique is flawless. Serena was clumsy and brutal as she clobbered the ball around, staggering around like a punch-drunk Amazon and she just got completely worked over by the class of Jankovic, who I think is a future No. 1 player if she can stay injury-free.

Just say no to leg-weights girls.

This morning, I peddled the draw for the Liverpool-Villa match and was squealing in delight when Crouch equalised in the 89th minute, then spent a full hour squealing in dispair when my Betfair balance didn’t go up the amount I thought I had won. When I eventually discovered how to check my bet history (I am no good under desperate pressure), I realised I’d changed my mind at last minute and put half my wager on a Villa win, effectively laying Liverpool - which is retarded in itself, as Liverpool is pure sex and I would sleep with Fernando Torres and brag about it after. I lose myself in his dreamy eyes…as Harley’s friend Tim rightly pointed out last night:

“It’s not gay if the guy is really really hot.”

I made a limp-wristed bet tonight on Tsonga to cause an upset against Youzhny so I got some back, but have started 2008 heavily down for sports betting and its about to get a lot worse in a fortnight when I hand Vos 5k unless the Giants can pull off a miracle and stop the Patriots perfect season.

One time Manning Junior, one time….his older brother saved me last year against Vos and I’m desperately hoping another Manning can make Vos cry on Feb 4….

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omg so ghey. 0/7 Day 2’s…

Ran my AK into AT on the 4th hand of the day and lost the race when a Ten spiked the board. Would have had 90,000 had I won the race. F poker.

Same guy who hit a river T to straight up last night vs my top two got me with another T this morning. Sigh…

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omfg no way ffs finally i cash in a f tourney….

I really wanted to do well in the 6max today as 6max is basically proper poker and everything else is a joke. I started pretty well, chipping up to double stack without seeing a showdown but I dumped in a big pot in blind battle vs lag when I had JJ and he had AJ on AxAxx board.

Moved tables and chipped up again and was sad to see our table break and I got moved back to the lag’s table. I had about 20k (10k starting stack) when I opened button with 22 vs the same lag and he 3bet me out of BB. His range here is so wide its ridiculous, and I’m almost 4betting or pushing for value - I structure 4bet rather than push to hopefully discourage low pair call-offs, but he pushes and I’m priced in for a massive pot (probably 3x avg stack). He flips AKs and is disgusted to see 22. Window card Ace and I’m devasted and gutted and left with 900 in chips (the pot was 40k plus).

Next hand I wake up with JJ UTG and put my stack in, the lag isolates me with T4o and I double to 2k.

5 hours later, the lag is gone and I am up to 90k and nearing the money. I fought and scratched and fought for that whole period, and super happy with my recovery after the big race loss. I had some nice cards with 40 players left and pulled off a lot of light 3bets nearing the bubble.

There were very few poor players in this tourney, with almost all the players on my tables being pretty decent. Annette_15 was railing a couple players on my table and they were both pretty good and made my life very difficult. One of them now has 300k and was opening every 2nd hand - I 3bet him a couple times and he insta 4bet pushed on me, so I stopped 3betting him pretty quickly…he was using his big stack very well.

5 minutes from the end of the day, I lost a big pot with top two to a rivered straight which sucked pretty bad, but I didn’t play it so well, I probably should have gotten rid of him by raising big on turn but he hit his 7 outer and I paid him off on river which sucked.

I’m a bit short now but the structure is really good so I’m fairly comfortable - I also play short pretty damn good now I think, so I’m not too worried, but I’m hoping I can get some nice setup hands in my favour tomorrow as I had absolutely zero setup hands in my favour today.

There are 19 left and 150k for first so I’m in with a shot - but mostly, I’m just f relieved to finally cash in a f tourney ffs - ding…..

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outplayed 2080…

I’m now 0/6 for Day 2’s.

I woke up and headed down to Crown this morning feeling excited about the possibility of some high level, complex hands - I wanted to see if I could match it with the best in the world as we tangle back and forth with our 25bb stacks.

I knew it would be tough in the clinches, so I was prepared for the arduous task of folding 85% of hands preflop and making sure I didn’t get out of line with a trouble hand like AQ. I steeled myself for the task at hand, and this mindset served me well when I raised 55 and was cold-called, then another guy with 30k pushed over the top of us. I went into the tank and let my 2200 go. Disciplined fold.

A couple hands later, the legendary Jeff Lisandro and I tangled in what was basically a fascinating pot. To the naked noob eye, these pots look pretty straight-forward, but what the noobs don’t understand is that there are numerous complexities when two very high-level thinkers like Lisandro and I tangle with 20bb effective stacks. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

As this hand will be talked about on forums and “he said, she said” columns all around the poker world, I’d like to put my thoughts down on paper and present my levels of thinking to the noobs who weren’t there but will no doubt comment on it.

Lisandro raised from late position into my SB. With 20bb in front of me, I wake up with QQ. Normally, this hand would be pretty easy to play, but with the deep stack sizes and the fact that my tourney life was on the line, I had some thinking to do. It’s also important to make super slow decisions in tourneys to disguise all your actions. Conventional wisdom says you should wait 5 minutes before folding to a c-bet, even if you miss everything and are always going to fold. It’s psychological warfare and only the strong survive.

So I’m sitting in the tank trying to stay calm and trying to put Lisandro on a hand. I’m working through ranges, he’s raised late position and I’m trying narrow down what he could have before I go crazy with my QQ. He could have AA, KK, AK which have me dominated, an underpair which I’m racing with, or maybe something like JTs which I’m 60/40 against. Decisions have to be made, and I’m feeling the pressure. Do I let this QQ (trouble-hand) go and wait for a better spot? With 20bb, I could let it go and still have heaps of time to maybe pick up a few AA’s or KK’s or AK’s.

I decided, because its Lisandro, I had to make a stand. Otherwise he’d just push me around all day, getting at my goat. I fumbled with my chips for a bit and then pushed all-in, praying for a fold. Unfortunately I walked into AKo and was completely dominated. Bad read.

Before you jump on the Criticism Bandwagon and bag my play, please understand you’re analysing this hand from the comfort of your living room. You’re not in the trenches, sweating over your 20bb stack, mixing it with broke tourney legends from around the world. It’s a lot harder in the trenches, trust me. These spots might look easy, but they’re not. Sure, with 20/20 highsight, maybe I could have let QQ go preflop there and I’d still be in the tourney - but I can’t play the “if…” game. I just have to wear my mistake and try and hope the experience holds me in good stead for the future.

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a brutal day but through to Day 2 of main…

I hope to do well tomorrow in the Main Event so that when I hit on Annette_15, she understands that I am fully serious about tournament poker and hopefully, she’ll be more likely to give me the time of day. Hmmm…I a sucker for a great fringe.

Today was pretty brutal, I could do beat ghey stories but whatever. Someone was asking me tonight what my plan is for tomorrow - plan wtf? Come on. We played 150 hands today. We’ll play 150 hands tomorrow and if I run neutral or good for 150 hands, I’ll finish in the money.

Run good for another 150 hands on Friday and I’ll be on the Final Table - who are these morons who think there is some rocket science to 40bb average stack tourneys. Most of the time, effective stacks are 20bb’s or thereabouts with all the short stacks and its full ring ffs. Plan for tomorrow? lollza - hope for 20bb setup hands, and hope I don’t screw up with so many complicated and taxing decisions to make preflop. Sigh.

People run bad for 100,000 hands online ALL the time - but if you run good for 400 hands in a tourney, you can win 1.5 million or more - tourneys are like 20/20 cricket, hit and giggle, anyone who doesn’t see why or thinks tourneys are some kind of mystical high level poker are basically morons.

I didn’t run so good today but whatever, I finished pretty short at 25k so will be looking to make some brilliant high level preflop pushes tomorrow - whoop. Hope I’m up for the challenge….

Most of the day went pretty smoothly with good dealers who were not overly taxed by the incredibly complicated procedure of bringing in antes. However, by the end of the day, some dealers were tired and things got messy. On the final hand before the last level and in desperate need of a smoke each, a guy and I tangled in a hand. The starting chip denominations were not arranged correctly, which meant dealers had to keep changing 5k chips in the middle of hands for players. I understand most TDs have to walk around doing important work like penalising people for using mobile phones and telling people to stop talking to their friends on the rail, but surely they could have spared a TD for 10 minutes to put some smaller chips on each table. They couldn’t. It’s not such a big deal if all dealers have the ability to do simple maths and deliver correct change. They don’t.

So just before the final break, I throw in a 5k chip and said “raise to 1100″. Dealer said, “change coming” - I’m not a huge fan of “change coming” purely because I think the average dealer is simply not smart enough to get the change right a high enough % of the time and I have more important things to concentrate on than worrying about getting correct change. On the flop, still waiting for change, I say “bet 2500″ and I’m called by my opponent. I am handed 4 black chips as change, or 1000 short. 5000 - (1100 + 2500) = 1400 change. Kids can do this stuff. Come on, how do they get it wrong so often, its ridiculous.

Anyway, the dealer makes a mistake, and I’m short-changed 1000. With the clock timing out on the break, I ask for my correct change. The dealer calls over the floor, who proceeds to reconstruct the entire hand at a slow pace. They do it twice and get it wrong twice. I’m fuming as our break is getting eaten up as they try to sort through the reconstructed betting in the middle of what is basically a pretty imporant pot late in the day. I won’t say the name of the dealer/TD as I don’t dislike either of them and hold no animosity (everyone makes mistakes and I actually think both dealer and TD were doing their best under pressure), but this was slightly ridiculous - it was painful to watch something so simple get screwed up so badly and watch for 7 minutes of our 10 minute break as they tried to fix it and were seemingly unable to get it right. Crown is charging us $400,000 for this single tourney - call me crazy but I think players paying $500/head vig deserve better than this.

They weren’t able to get the change right in the end but I was eventually pushed the pot and I raced upstairs with 3 minutes left in the break for a smoke. I got back a minute late and both my blinds had been dealt through. I was pretty tilted in the last hour of the day as a result, but this is nothing new for me. Long days of 15 hands per hour and dealer mistakes and listening to donkeys complain about losing a race after winning three - live poker is pretty awesome.

Anyway, on the 2nd last hand of the day, a guy who I’d tangled with a number of times during the day (and got the “best” of me every time) got eliminated with AA when QQ hit a set and he sat there without moving, completely stunned. I didn’t really care much for this guy or his smug attitude as he continually paused for 5 minutes before making every decision like a fully sick live tourney pro, and I couldn’t really understand why he just sat there after being eliminated, refusing to move, and holding up the game. I started singing, “Hit the road Jack, and don’t you come back, no more, no more, no more, no more…” and I got a warning for it from the TD.

If Matsuow didn’t say 100 things worse than that today without getting a warning, I’ll be pretty surprised. I’m starting to wonder if perhaps I’m not so popular in the Crown Joker Room….

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