Fml! I wrote a really long post (about 75% as long as what this post will end up being) and I accidentally got rid of it all! So I have to write it again I usually routinely save what I'm writing too, just to ensure this doesn't happen..

Anyway I got back to Auckland two days ago after a long but fun and exciting month in Melbourne, Australia. I played in the Aussie Millions tournament series and as most of you have heard by now had a pretty deep run in the $10,600 main event! The series and month both started off kinda poorly for me, I was stuck about $2K in 5/5 cash over a 3 game sample, $10K online over just 2 Sundays of MTTs, and was bricking every live tournament for multiple entries. This year the series was a bit different in the sense that if you busted a tournament, you could re-enter once if it was before registration had closed. Registration was open for 4-6 hours after the tournament started, and the sides were pretty turbo structured so this meant a really expensive series for some! For example, the first event was a 3-flight re-pecharge which basically means if you bust day 1A, you can re-enter day 1B, and same with day 1C. But, you can also re-enter once per day! So if you quickly think about it, you probably realise that the maximum number of bullets for this event is 6.. Well, I was in for 6. $6,600 for a $1,100 tournament :/ I didn't even cash! Day 1 I played for like 14 hours to bubble day 2 lol. I was also in for $2,200 in the 6-max, $1,150 in a satellite, $1,100 in a NLHE/PLO rotation, $1,100 in a shootout, $8,150 in a $1,000 re-buy and didn't have any cashes.. Thankfully, I made day 5 (final table) of the main event, so didn't have to play and brick more of the side events

I started off the month by arriving early to room with Heißtercamp (German reg). We mostly just chilled, had some nice meals and played a couple of online sessions. Shortly after, I moved in with Akasherin, KingPaulie (NZ MTT regs), Paulie's cousin/cousin's wife) in William's Landing (lol, a new suburb about 30 minutes drive away from the casino the events were held in). The house was really nice, and all of the guys I stayed with were really great, nice people who were fun to live with and generally spend time with. They also had a really friendly young cat!! Anyway during the series I was fortunate enough to have gotten to meet and play with a tonne of cool people and great players. In no particular order at all, some guys that were on my table at some point that come to mind are mads.amot, taleric/SwoopAE, the_czar19, wizowizo, tollgate, Patrik Antonius, Toby Lewis, Brandon Adams, Jesse Sylvia, some live regs and I'm sure a bunch others which I feel bad for missing! Oh Russel Thomas (November 9er) was also on my Teams Event table for a few minutes, haha.

I also met a few other people throughout the series for dinner etc including pvas12, WhiteRabbito (finally!), *****rk, Jan Collado and some guys I met in Brighton last year and some more. In all cases a pleasure I know I sound really cheesy here being so positive, but I really just want to mention again that I feel so, so forunate and blessed that my experiences with people in poker has continued to be so pleasant. As I've mentioned multiple times, I really enjoy meeting people (not necessarily just poker players, of course) and am glad that I've experience the best of it with the people I've met, and haven't had any unfortunate run ins with the unfortunate stereotype of scummy/degen types that poker players sometimes have.

Anyway I feel overall that I played really well throughout the series for the most part. The main event being a 5-day event with 10-14 hour days naturally does mean some mistakes or sub-optimal lines/plays will be made, but I was pretty happy with most of it. I do admit I made one really terrible spew for my first bullet of the 6-max however, where I decided to 3-bet K8s vs. a random fish who was like 40, then 5-bet jam with no fold equity over his 3.33x 4-bet in the second blind level! I flopped the nut flush draw vs. his AA on AhXhXo but didn't get there.

I'm pretty happy to honestly say that I didn't at any point in the end game feel very nervous at all. I was for some reason feeling pretty nervous right before day 2 started, and most days you feel a little bit anxious right before the day starts. That being said, once I sit down it's just poker, a game, and thinking about the chips as just chips and not money or equity helps I guess. The main reasons I felt so comfortable and confident in the end game were:


1) I was running fairly well during the final 25 or so, and had great momentum. I was chipping up nicely, winning some important and big pots or races, and at one point was even the chip leader.
2) The field was getting softer and softer, relative to what it could easily have been. The top 36 had a lot of really sick players with some pretty big stacks, and somehow a lot of them alll ended up busting. By the final 16 or so, I was feeling GREAT as I was confident I was easily one of the top 5 players left by far, and probably even more. I'm usually not that egotistical with my poker skill, and I realise I may sound a little douchey here so I apologise. Anyway, to give you an idea, the final table had Antonius who is obviously a sicko, Jarrod who is fairly solid/decent from my short experience of playing with him, Dan Shak who needs no introduction and 3 weaker/less experienced players who I feel very confident I had a significant edge on. In comparison, the final 36 had WhiteRabbito, James Obst (Andy McLEOD, Phil Ivey, Jan Collado, Barewire, Sol Reader and a few more which could have made a riduculous final table in comparison.
3) Feels weird to say it, but having a really small percentage of myself maybe helped a little bit to not think too much about the money.

Anyway for the final table itself I was kinda card dead. I went in pretty short anyway, so I'm not as disappointed as I otherwise could have been I guess. $220K is obviously still a really nice score and I'm very happy with that and the great experience (and exposure) I got during the series. It feels really unreal to get so close to $1.6M, $1M type scores though! I was mostly happy with how I played and my general gameplan, although a few unorthodox plays/lines I took didn't work out so well. I do think I kinda ran bad although I made one bluff where river was probably not a very good one to follow through on. I ended up busting 6th for $220,000AUD when I shoved 88 UTG 6 handed for about 18-19BBs with a bigger than average ante. Definitely +EV but probably not optimal (raise/decide is more standard in general), to be honest I was probably getting a bit impatient.

I won't go into too much detail here, mostly because it's really complicated, but basically I only get about 10% of myself immediately, followed by a potential 12% approximately morel later on depending on how well I do in the rest of the tournaments between now and the start of next year. I sold a fair amount on twoplustwo (35% of so) which was cool because it felt great paying out some really nice returns to some friends and regulars of the marketplace/MTT community. I also ran kinda bad in swaps, swapped about 13% with some really good players and ended up paying out 30K or something because they all bricked

Anyway I'm gonna quickly answer the nice comments before closing off this really long post!

Thanks man, good luck to you this year too. The videos will definitely be useful, but are far from perfect so you should continue to do other work on your game. I'm sure you will do just fine if you put in the hours.

Thanks and good luck to you in 2013 as well!

Thanks so much to all of you for the kind comments and support. It meant a lot seeing all the nice things people were saying on twitter, facebook, twoplustwo and in real life. It definitely was nice for my mindset having so much support and I really, really appreciate what everyone said both before and after the final table.

I don't know, lol, sorry.

Thanks man, I feel great and know there will be many opportunities. I know there are a lot of young poker players out there but I feel like I am really young and will have many chances in the future.

Thanks buddy, and yeah the FT was as explained above pretty good.

Haha, so many people suggested that I had to do this, I actually didn't and ended up just having a nice dinner with some friends and relaxing. This is my idea of a good time!

I plan to possibly make a website in the near future to promote myself a bit more. I feel this is pretty good timing to try get some additional exposure (finishing SNE, final tabling the Aussie Millions main etc) and we'll see how it goes.

The plan from now is to start grinding again soon. Maybe after another day or two of breaks But yeah, I gotta make SNE again this year and hopefully will make at least 90K VPPs this month (I don't HAVE to, but I want to at least make this many and not fall too much behind pace). Playing 8 tables feels really weird after 1-tabling live for so long.. I think I will get back into the rhythm quickly though! I think I'll play 4 tables of 500NL and 4 tables of 200NL, but possibly I might play some other games like Sunday MTTs, Hypers, fifty50s as well. More than likely I will end up having a mixture of games to make SNE this year again.

Fwiw a break down of the VPPs for last year



I played a little bit of cash online whilst I was in Australia, mostly just really short sessions either 1-3 tabling on my phone at 50 or 100NL for “recreation” or a 2-4 tables of 500 or 200NL if I felt like playing a bit. It's gone pretty well and I've run nicely, will post results at the bottom of the post.

Since I had a pretty small % of myself, life is the same and goes on. I will be playing and grinding the same stakes, aiming to work hard by doing some coaching this year, and making SNE again. That's not to say that would all change if I won more money though!

The session today which lasted about 1 hour went pretty well!



Fun hand vs. a fish. Whenever fish over-bet and you have the nuts just rip it, they are almost always super polarized and fish HATE folding what they perceive the be super strong hands. And if they are bluffing, they are folding anyway. That being said, this is coming from a guy who loves betting/shoving for huge vs. fish in many spots

Cash online this year so far.. Still down cause of damn MTTs though lol


Anyway photos! I didn't bring my nice camera, just my iPhone. The final table photos weren't taken by me either, obviously.


A beach along St. Kilda. Popular place for kite surfing! Looked sick, but didn't do it.


Gussy, Akasherin, King Paulie and I


My friends and I find this sign pretty funny.. It's part of an ant-gambling campaign designed by the government. It's like a slogan from the terminator or something.. Right @TheDrunkLife? lol


My friend Danny and I having a nice seafood dinner along the riverside..


Me looking like a douche (felt like one when taking the pic!) with what was left of the prize money after I paid out most of the swaps


Patrik

And "finally" the Final table! (See what I did there?)




Good luck all, and thanks for reading if you actually read this super long post

gg!!!

and gl

GG and GL in 2013, i'll be following!

.

wow, nice photo's and solid finish, good work mate, i hope you have a very successful year.

Yeah a nice read and the best of luck going forward

Is PA as nice of a dude as advertised? Who would you say was the nicest you've met from all the tv stars? Any conversations with ivey/matusow?

thanks! gl this year also, i'm sure you'll crush.

thanks, gl in 2013 as well, hopefully i'll be able to post stuff worth following for.

thanks Mike, all the best for your year too, catch up sometime on Skype.

Thanks buddy. Well I didn't actually play with him or Ivey at all until the final table (kinda ran decent with table draws for most of the event), but from what I saw/heard he seemed like a pretty nice guy with a sick aura. And pretty good looking!! I haven't really met that many famous people, let alone talked or played with them, but in my experience Theo Jorgensen was really, really nice and also a pleasurable guy who was entertaining and seemed really genuine. I met him during EPT Berlin. I haven't seen Matusow before and even though I saw Ivey last year and this year, haven't played with him. I would say he seems a bit more intimidating and cold rather than nice from my general impressions, although I'm sure he is a nice guy in general..

Brandon Adams was also a very nice guy, and good to talk to as well. I actually wrote some blog posts for an old site of his before black Friday so was cool to meet him. I didn't play with him, but last year Daniel (Negreanu) was around and seemed pretty nice and friendly, kinda like in the way you'd expect. A lot of other pretty nice, less famous people (compared to guys like Antonius anyway), a few of the poker pros I mentioned in my post above, Lynn Gilmartin, etc.

Will be following! And congrats, your results are amazing! You're basically what I aim to be, but 6 year younger than me.

Sick, didn't know HotKarlMC is a dealer now.

Jelly @ photo with Antonius.
Also, I notice he's wearing Ivey poker badge now, does that mean the site will be fully up and running soon?

Think so, a few people (Jackie Glazier; Australia female pro or semi-pro, Patrik, Dan Shak, Ivey himself) were wearing the patches.

Are you Still with leggo? If so have you heard much about what's happening with the ivey league etc. Be sick to see you with that ivey badge bro.

Aren't you 'active' on Deucescracked only?

You two look good together.
I mean the PA photo :P

;]

Yeah I'm still with LeggoPoker. I'm not entirely sure what is going to happen at this stage, and the little amount I do know is unfortunately supposed to be kept secret for now, so I will have to keep quiet for now sorry!

I am not an active coach on DeucesCracked anymore, but am on excellent terms with the upper management and still regularly check the site to answer questions on the videos I made there.

This is a short walk from where I'll end up moving into this month. Such a shame that I couldn't have you over man, would have been fun.

Grats again, gl for the rest of the year!

Haha maybe I'll hit you up for WSOPAPAC, at the very least for a meal or something! Sorry I didn't get around to meeting you this time, just got a bit busier than I expected, heh. gl for the rest of the year too~

Hi. Congrats for your results so far

I have a question for you.

I'm an Euro player and I'm planning to move to Auckland in 2014 with my girlfriend.

We're both 24, she's a dental hygienist so I think she could find a job easily, but how works for online poker? Do You need to pay taxes on winnings?

Thank
It's kind of a grey area in general, but overall people don't pay tax for poker winnings in New Zealand. If you are absolutely crushing it, and bringing in a super consistent and high income, perhaps you will need to get a lawyer or whatever if/when the tax department try to get involved though?

In terms of updates, I've been pretty lazy to date! Lazy in terms of volume, I mean. After taking a fairly long break from cash games it's pretty hard to play a really long session, for example like 8 hours, so I've mostly played like 1-2.5 hour sessions. It's been going quite well and I've run pretty nicely though. I'm up $8K in cash games over 30 hours this year, and since I'm SNE there's a decent amount of rakeback too. (Around $1.2K for this sample, $1.4K if/when I make SNE again this year)

Trying hard to not be too slack, but hasn't been going to plan so far. Don't want a brutal end of year with heaps of VPPs to make again!!

Great updates!

Seen you at the 200 zoom tables recently. Go back to hypers and such, too tough for me already without more bosses in the player pool

Ya I saw you too
I know your just kidding in a friendly way but think I'll mostly stick to zoom though just because I feel it's so much better for my long term poker game (for example how high my EV is in live MTTs or even online MTTs) than hypers, even if the hourly at hypers is probably potentially greater. Although if I really care about hourly I'd work on my game and mix mid stakes+ across heaps of sites.

Really good update, nice pics. Congrats on the score!

Unfortunately there really isn't that much to update because I've continued to be lazy and just enjoyed relaxing the last few days! Have sneaked in a few short "proper" (8-tabling 500 and 200) sessions, as well as a few shorter sessions where I just played 2-3 tables of 50 or 100NL on my phone or iPad during a bus ride or whatever and it's gone pretty good! Screenshot of all of my sessions to date this year, a lot of green
To be honest I should probably filter out some of the really dumb sessions that inaccurately portray my hourly/time spent grinding etc, for example 1-tabling 50nl on my phone, or 4-tabling nl10 or nl25 to teach a friend etc but whatever. I will do some proper filters later in the year to see how my year went



Graph



Unfortunately the VPP count is terrible, but hopefully I'll be able to get something like 75K total, minimum, by the end of this month (although it certainly doesn't seem like it based on the rate I'm going at!)..



MTTs suck and as I mentioned earlier I'm down a considerable amount in them over just 2 Sundays in January, like 7.5K or something crazy like that, but with Aussie Millions and cash in the equation, I'm on pace for a decent year.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet which I'm liking is the 5x multiplier for FPPs is definitely noticeable and it feels pretty nice to get a bunch of FPPs even after a few short sessions! Can't wait to see how it accumulates after longer sessions like I'm used to, heh.

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $5(BB) Replayer
SB ($500)
BB ($765)
UTG ($530)
UTG+1 ($520)
Hero ($627)
BTN ($513)

Dealt to Hero 6 6

fold, fold, Hero raises to $11.05, BTN calls $11.05, fold, fold

FLOP ($29.60) 5 9 6

Hero bets $100, BTN calls $100

TURN ($229) 5 9 6 J

Hero bets $110, BTN calls $110

RIVER ($449) 5 9 6 J J

Hero bets $333, BTN calls $292 (AI)

BTN shows 8 9
(Pre 49%, Flop 15.2%, Turn 9.1%)

Hero shows 6 6
(Pre 51%, Flop 84.8%, Turn 90.9%)

Hero wins $1,032

Standard hand vs. fish. Lol there was a limped pot a few hands before where I 8x potted it, he called, and folded river ( )
Edit: Eh turn sizing looks a little small, but bigger would leave pretty awkward river size, although that doesn't matter vs. fish. Probably should still go a little bigger.
Not used to sizing after 3.33x pot c-betting the flop yet though!

yoo david, finally blogging again, nice :P
really like the overbetting vs the fish, should implement that in my game aswell i think. but i think the turn sizing has to be bigger since there are more draws etc. which the fish can chase and the river might bring a bad card for his hand

Yeah I mean this is kind of a rarer example since I generally do it more on the turn, and especially river where their range is so much more defined. I haven't really done it on the flop that often although I may start experimenting a bit more, I think it's probably good as their ranges are mostly inelastic, and you make more money vs. their "made hands" than drawing hands (especially OESD or FDs) when they put in heaps of money because their drawing hands tend to have more equity than their made hands, vs. the top of your value range (which is what you would be overbetting with in general anyway, against fish). I specifically did this vs. him since he already called my turn 8x pot a few hands earlier, and folded river so would be more likely to call and less likely to fold! Perfect combination when we have a set

And yeah I already said in the above post but I think turn looks a bit small for the reasons you said, he can chase/put money now with draws, and maybe some action kills can come on the river so we wanna give him a good price on river. Unfortunately turn being an overcard is a bit annoying since it's a "scare" card for some of his range, although most of the hands other than maybe like A6 usually have pair + gut shots and fish don't like folding those anyway (like 98 76 97 etc).

In a lot of spots where they have hands with high absolute strength is usually the best, since they rarely fold those.
AND rarely some fish will call with random hero call stuff because they think you're polarized/they're just button clicking.

I've given this example before but say you open 77 and fish calls, flop A72r, you c-bet standard size he calls, turn A you bet normalish size again, he calls, river 6o, I think jamming even if it's 3x pot is probably optimal vs. most fish because they will basically never fold Ax. Most of the time they aren't calling 88 to 3/4 pot or whatever on the river anyway and overall it's more +EV because you make SO much more against their Ax hands.
Or like if a fish c/calls 875, turn 4 but for whatever reason you decide to check back T9, and he leads on Jo river I would probably just jam even if it's a massive overbet because he is never folding 6x, but only calling a raise (a lot of the time anyway). etc..

Anyway you are mostly targetting the "strong" (absolute strength) hands in their range, but as I said you DEFINITELY get calls by random fish. I've jammed 3x pot on river with straights and stuff vs. fish and been looked up by mid pair etc, some just really don't care about the bet size in relation to the pot.

I talked to a couple people about this and do feel it's slightly different in MTTs because fish care about their tourney life quite a lot (especially in higher buy-ins, or live), so over-shoving risking their tourney life can sometimes get them to hero fold, at least more often than in cash.