Playing Down Under
ISSUE #4 - DOWN UNDER
Hi again,
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!
The trip was worthwhile for one reason alone though : the aussies
themselves. Jason Grey, The Croc, Bendigo, The Kouiss brothers,
all great fun. The best nickname I’ve ever come across : Dog
Meat George. Yes, they do call him that. The biggest personality
of them all though, was Mick Stanton : the greatest plethora of
chat up lines you will ever hear uttered by a 56 year old anywhere
in the world. Every two hours or so, he would bring along a couple
of sheila’s, and introduce them to the world’s poker players.
The rumour was, that Crown had to install a revolving door in his
room to reduce the door banging and save the hinges
But as they say, having fun doesn’t put food in the fridge.
And as you should be able to see from the accounts, I had to go
without towards the end of Jan.
Dave
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