Aussie Millions January 09

The picture is of the twelve apostles in southern Australia a couple hours outside Melbourne. I won a satellite on Cake and Amanda and I were able to take a vacation and visit a place we may not have gone to otherwise. What a great experience it was. We took a red eye from LAX direct to Melbourne hoping for less crowds...WRONG...every seat was booked and this was a 15 hour flight. I usually like an aisle seat but got the window on this one, bad move. I had Scotty Nguyen sitting in the seat directly behind me with his girl/wife (?) and their two kids. One of the kids had to sit in our row next to Amanda and she became a nanny for the flight, although he did great and was a good traveler. We crossed the dateline so we completely skipped a day but arrived safely and took a cab to the Crowne Plaza Hotel. For those of you not familiar with the Crowne, it is a HUGE place, with hotel, casino, mall, movie theatres, dance clubs, and many places to eat. It was THE PLACE TO BE, and literally thousands of people were there every day. It is located right next to the Yara River and there is a very modern urban feel there in Melbourne. Mind you, January is summer there and it was definitely warm, but not too bad. We were lucky because after we left, it got really hot (over 115) and they also had the worst fires in decades soon after we left. We had dinner the first night on the banks of the Yara on a boardwalk restaurant called the Waterfront. This boardwalk is a very wide and cool walking area through the city and next to the river, great for people watching. It was almost sunset (8:45) and we were enjoying our meal and the scenery and then at 9, we heard this whooosh and fire started shooting out of these metal towers along the river. There were about 9 of them and it turned out to be a planned choreographed show. How sweet is that ? A great start to our trip. As far as poker goes, I made it through day one with a short stack and day 2 started at the feature table with Patrik Antonios. My first hand I get A K suited in early position, and I push all in, Amanda is freaking out, but no callers and I chip up a little. I ended my day top pair and a flush draw but got beat out and the Open was over. I did pick up about $1500 in cash games though and that pretty much took care of food and excursions. A couple interesting (to me) notes...you don't tip in Australia, of course i didn't find out till day 3 and was keeping everyone happy there for awhile. Also, when you go to a fast food place, NO one picks up their trash, they just leave it there for the porters, keeps em in a job I guess, just found that interesting. The Australian Tennis Open was in town while we were there and we went over to check that out too at the Rod Laver arena. Very fun. On one of our excursions, I ran into Jim Worth or krazykanuck and his girl and hung out with them and ended up having dinner with them that night. I very much enjoyed his poker stories as he has had many more experiences than I have had. I knew of him because of seeing him in Aruba but had never met him. We ended the day with a great dinner near the river and some wine and topped off our wonderful trip to down under.

June 09

June was an interesting month in many regards. I always look forward to the beginning of summer, as I always think of the many things I will do in the coming months. Unfortunately, summers pass quicker than they used to and there never seems to be enough time to do all the things I want to do (spend time with the kids, play golf till sunset, go shoot hoops at the beach, see a movie and of course, play poker). The news was filled with stories of Iran. These stories brought a new perspective of that country and although the government is wrong and standing firm, the people expressed themselves publicly in the eyes of the world for the first time in a long time and it is clear they want to be part of the world and all it has to offer and I support their efforts and hope. My son plays club soccer and they won the California state championship for boy u-13 and we got to go to Washington. Amanda, Kory and I and all the boys and parents travelled to Pasco WA via Seattle. We rented 6 mini vans and drove the 4 hours outside Seattle. The first 90 minutes is scenic and beautiful and then as you get more east, it becomes more desert like. We had a great time there and beat Oregon 12-1 and Washington 9-1. Our soccer team is now ranked 8th in the nation...one of the other boys on the team is from Iran and his parents and I had some good conversations about the current events there.

POKER

I had won a seat for event 54 at the WSOP with Cake and travelled there in late June. Rooms are crazy cheap there now and I stayed at the Oreleans for $30 a night. I wanted OFF the strip as the events i would be attending (Palms and Rio) are on the other side of the freeway. I got there at 12:15 and wanted to get some poker in right away so I got the room and hustled down to the poker room and got the last seat for the noon tournament. There were 110 players and it paid 10. i grinded it down and got close, 13th but didn't cash. Event 54 was a $1500 buy in NL tournament and Cake had planned a get together for all the winners at the Palms the night before the tournament. My son, Kyle, happened to be in town with his buddy and their girlfriends so I had them meet me over at the Palms and I got them into the party. It was in the Fantasy Suites tower and on the 30th floor. The suite was very nice and actually had a private pool on the balcony outside the room overlooking Vegas from 30 stories up. Cake gave me my buy in and said ' you better get over to the Rio, they are gonna sell out' WHAT ? i hopped in a cab and got over there and they were right, there were about 300 people in line registering for the tournament. I did get in and was relieved. Back to the party, I ran into a new friend and great player, dougblazers, and a couple buddies I met in Ireland, brutus44 and luckyshaun, from Ireland. It was a kick ass party with models running around in bikini's and in the pool and open bar, etc. The next day arrived and I was ready to battle. I chipped up a little in the first couple levels and then after the break, I raised a couple times in late position with A Q and A J and got pushed and decided to lay em down, putting me on a shorter stack. Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson came to the table about this time with a very short stack, about 1600. The blinds were at 75/150 and a 25 ante and he played NO hands until his stack was down to 1100 and he minimum raised to 300 under the gun, leaving him with 800. Two players behind him re reraised and it folded around to him and he mucked. Two hands later, he pushed his last 800 from the button with A J and the big blind called with A A and 'jesus' was done. I hung on for about another hour
and reraised all in with 9 9 to the other short stack and he turned over A K and turned a K, ending my day.....maybe next time