Online Poker : Poker Down Under
In the first article I promised to keep you informed of
how the 2004 schedule was going for me. So we will give
the lessons a break this week, and give you a little more
opportunity to break even in the 50c/$1 game. (No, you can't
move up to 20/40 game yet. And stop playing that off-suit
A7 after a raise. You know it keeps getting you into trouble.)
It's been a hard life since giving up my 70 hours a week
as an IT Consultant. I really miss getting up at 7:30, working
late, long weekends, meaningless meetings and dead important
deadlines. This particularly weighed heavy on my mind at
the start of the year. Unfortunately, I couldn't get totally
hammered on New Years Eve, because I had a flight to catch
on New Years Day. Well three actually. Birmingham to Dubai
to Singapore to Melbourne. Ho hum, the sacrifices we have
to make.
When we finally arrived in Melbourne, we settled into bed
about 4am Aussie time for some much needed sleep. Only for
the phone to go 2 hours later. Channel 9 breakfast TV wanted
me to do a live interview, errr, in 45 minutes time. No
kiddin. Fair dinkum mate. So dragging myself out of bed
and down to the riverside, I got asked some pretty banal
questions via a sat link hook up, apparently by some absolute
babe, who I couldn't see. Not ideal for sparkling repartee…
As it happens the interview lasted about 3 minutes before
the Aussie Deus himself, walked out at the SCG to inspect
the pitch for his final test. Surprisingly, Channel 9 abruptly
cut off from me and Bendigo Sloan (Billy the Croc hadn't
managed to get outta bed), and went straight over to watch
some Waugh twin geezer poke about in the dirt. There's just
no accounting for taste.
Down under, my poker year started less successfully then
I would have liked. One lowlight was murdering a mountain
of chips in one Omaha comp. to Howard 'the baseball bat'
Plant from… Blackpool, Lancashire. My excuse being
I just had to get to the toilet fast. Food poisoning at
it's finest kept me on the (marble) floor of my Crown bathroom
suite for the next half day or so.
I did manage to squeeze my way through to a couple of Final
Tables, which prevented the trip from being a complete financial
disaster. Again I got carried away playing too many hands
(the greatest poker mistake of them all) in the Omaha final
and crashed out in the consolation prize money. I did a
little better in the PLH but unfortunately didn't get the
rub of the green and had to settle for a fourth spot. But
a whole three weeks without a podium finish doesn't put
food in the fridge!
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