Win Money, Lawn Bowls, Poker & Food!

- I have an interview with Dale Philips coming up. We will probably talk about lawn bowls and poker! These are two of my favourite things and knowing Dale from pics, tweets and Queenstown ANZPT I think it is highly likely that we will talk about food.

- You may have noticed me tweeting significantly more and re-connecting with my social media outlets. I basically discontinued regular updates mid year when the political climate seemed murky and I have set clear new goals. I am on the short list for PokerStars Team Online, however, there may only be one spot and the competition is stiff. I therefore will be pumping out the volume so to speak in terms of social media. I realise that this may be a one off opportunity and I will do my best.

- I ran deep in the Sunday Million this week and two of my friends final tabled it Nobbi 'Nobbit' Tanaka and Peter 'Westy1983' West. I was on the rail cheering for them and had 10% of Nobbit! I tried to stake westy1983 a few weeks ago but in a failed negotiation nothing eventuated. Nobbit finished 5th for around 50k and Westy 9th after being on the wrong side of two flips.

- I will be more actively posting on Poker Network so feel free to ask advice regarding travel, tournament seletion, SNG strategy, strategy etc.

- I have an interview with 'On Tilt Radio' in 12 hours time before the start of Day 1 of the Adelaide Championships which will be reported on by P0ker Asia Pacific.

- I have a review of my year coming up through the Poker Asia Pacific website. I will go into more depth about some tournament situations I have faced at crucial stages of my 2011 Player of the Year campaign.

- I have a promotion on at the moment. It is called On The Mac's fishy avatar competition. All you have to do to win a Sunday Million ticket is nominate a fishy avatar picture to info@mithpoker.com.au. This will be posted on my Facebook public page and voted upon.

- Click here for more details about the promotion http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jesse-On-The-Mac-McKenzie/268385906533569

Australia & New Zealand Poker Tour end of season wrap

I am currently on holidays on Hamilton Island. I have taken time out after a long year online grinding and playing all the ANZPT events. I also managed to fit in a trip to Europe which I had been planning to do for a few years. If you read through some of my old blog posts you can see that I fully intended on travelling through Europe more than one time. It happened to be on my trip in July that I had my biggest tournament win.

Most recently I was in Darwin for the ANZPT season finale where I needed to outlast Leo Boxell and Danny Chevalier in the tournament to jump above them in the Player of the Year (POY) points. POY top 3 was worth more than the top 3 prizes in the ANZPT Darwin tournament so there was a bit of math to be run in terms of how to play on the money bubble. This however was non applicable as i was 3 outered with 25 left for a 80 big blind pot in one of the softest live 2k events I have ever played. Leo just fell short of cashing and Danny final tabled to ensure he was the 2011 ANZPT Player of the Year. Leo finished 2nd and I finished 3rd and will use the bonus money for either a) Aussie Millions Main Event in January or b) 4 ANZPT events in 2012.

Prior to Darwin, maybe just a week or two, was ANZPT Melbourne where I was chip leader with 18 left but in a tournament where the prize pool was significantly bigger ($155 for 1st). I was playing well throughout and running well in the big pots. I was unafraid to play against anyone and felt I was probably in the best zone I have been in live poker since Adelaide in February. After the money bubble burst and where i made some good plays against top online guys as well as weaker passive players I decided I was going for the win.

Without going into much strategic detail I don't really know where to place Danny Chevalier in terms of his play. This is probably good for him as I managed to pay him off in a rather large pot in the ANZPT Melbourne and he managed to finish 3rd. Part of me wanted to knock out my nearest competitor in the Player of the Year race and part of me didn't understand the line he took in the hand. Needless to say it was strong and straight forward and probably I should play it as I see it. He isn't some online sicko taking some weird line without it. He highly values the POY and the title but he did play other hands which did lead me to the choices that I made.

There are always moments in time where you feel invincible and that your read is laser sharp. In tournament poker it can all be over very quickly and it was probably the most gutted and disappointed I have been as I had never prepared better for a tournament before that one. I liked my schedule and my life balance and the people and places I had been with. I had a couple of deep runs in the World Cup of Online Poker whilst in Queenstown where I stayed an extra couple of weeks (after ANZPT Queenstown) to get snow boarding lessons and catch up with friends. I really love that place. It is so beautiful and there are many great restaurants, Botswana Butchery being my favourite, bars and activities.

The year I have had has been unexplainably amazing. It is almost unrealistic and unattainable. I feel very fortunate and I realise that many like me put in the effort but don't always get the result they deserve. I think the key to my success has been balance and sustained effort and being relentlessly persistent. Having good people around you to offer support and advice is so important. In the end we make our own decisions based on all the information available to us at the time. I have to thank my family and friends for what has been an amazing 2011.

I Won!

Somehow I managed to win the Sunday Million. I got through a massive field on PokerStars and got to the the final table as the chip leader. I sensed that I may not get a chance like this again and played out the tournament without doing a deal. A few players were scared money with low average buy ins and folded really short stacks to hold out for relatively small pay jumps. Then there were two other guys who were more aggressive but lacked control and after watching the replay I also noted that they were a bit backwards in their play. They were overplaying weak hands and underplaying their bigger made hands.

I really only wanted to watch the replay once to see if the fold of broadway straight heads up with Ace-King was correct. It was by far my toughest decision of the tournament. I was relieved and happy to see that my opponent had a better hand with 4-5 of clubs for a rivered flush. I got a fair wrap from the commentator. He is commentating for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) final table and does coverage of NASCAR in the US and some other sports. The link is here http://www.pokerstars.tv/poker-video-9770-online-poker-show-sunday-million-july-10th-2011.html

Right now I am in Naples, Italy. I have been travelling with my cousin Michael through Europe over the last month. We started in London, then caught a EuroStar train to Paris and then another train to Amsterdam. After Amsterdam we flew to Portugal. We meet up with friends in Lagos who had hired a house. Hugh, Tom and Tim had been in Lagos for a month already and we just tacked on for the last week. The house was massive and had a pool, we partied, beached it and played online. Tom joined the jagermeister 'bomb squad' at a local bar, he downed 7 jager bombs in 14 seconds!

From Lagos, Portugal we all caught a bus to Seville in Spain. It was our last day when I managed to bink on the 'vamoooos' IP. I tipped the rental guy $150 EU. Tim & Hugh left a day before Tom to go on a road trip to France for the Tour De France and beyond to Slovenia for the World Poker Tour Event there. Tom went home to Australia and Mike and I decided to travel on to Barcelona. We flew from Seville to Barca where I had booked 6 nights in a backpackers aptly named 'Equity Point'. After a few nights I upgraded to the Mandarin Oriental as I wanted a really good nights sleep and reliable internet.

Today we flew from Barca to Naples France after a skype discussion with James Tai, an investment banker and poker player from Sydney. We are going to hire a car for a few days and drive the Amalfi Coast. Thoughts of hiring a DB9 went through my mind but I decided to just go with the BMW Z3. After Italy we are heading back to London to spend a few days with my cousin Sean who recently married in Sydney even though he lives and works as an investment banker in London. Our family is spread across the world so Sydney was a central location for a great wedding. After winning the biggest tournament of my life I just want to spend time with family and friends. I can't wait to go home even though the weather is so fine here.

On the 27th I do head home to Australia, but very soon after on the 29th I head to Melbourne for the APPT event there. I am currently leading the Australia and New Zealand Poker Tout (ANZPT) Player of the Year rankings www.anzpt.com after coming 2nd in Adelaide in February and having 2 deep runs in Sydney and the Gold Coast. The Melbourne event is crucial with three events to go, Queenstown and Darwin being the other two events. Hopefully the run good can continue, 2011 has been a truely amazing year so far.

Also do not miss my heads up Pot Limit Omaha match against Team PokerStars Pro Juan Maceiras this Sunday, the prize for which is $3,000. This heads up match is a freeroll for me provided by PokerStars as I won the Weekly Tournament Leader Board mainly as a result of my Sunday Million win. I played a total of 2 days last week. The game is at 14:00 ET (US) this coming Sunday, July 24th! When I play, I play to win. All of these extra/bonus/promotions are just cream to me. As with Player of the Year points and possible sponsorship attached to the ANZPT, they are largely out of my control and I am just focussing on playing well and making good decisions.

Also a huuuuuuge shout out to Andy Hin who is the last Aussie left in the WSOP main event. The guy is a genius, I love the way he thinks about the game. It was another great tournament run by Tony Hachem. I can't wait to see how this ends. Go Austria!

Staking, Improving & Binking

I think the process of coaching others and explaining concepts that I accept as being the truth pushes me to open my mind to new ways of working through old problems. As I have begun coaching others in the basics of poker, it really has forced upon me a new level of thinking into my game.

Why I do what I do in certain hands against different types of opponents was revealed in my sleep and meandering. I was doing things without really knowing why. Luckily I was taught by people who were profitable and thinking. If I wasn't, my learning process would have been much longer. So many people were very patient and answered questions that seemed very basic to them in ways that I could understand.

At times I get frustrated thinking over how I played hands even just 12 months ago. It makes me realise now that things take time. Concepts sink in over time with consistent practice. After having a one week break in Hamilton Island I think that one key concept dropped into my mind that took me probably the longest to learn. Opening up opponents ranges and allowing them to bluff in certain spots was repeated to me several times and each time I thought I understood it. I worried so much about missing value in certain spots but in reality there was very little chance I would be paid off by worse hands and only make them fold worse hands and call with better.

On Monday I had my 2nd biggest win lifetime and biggest online win in a $109 re-buy tournament with 748 entrants. I think I was in for 3 lots of $109 US dollars. With about 60 runners left I raised with AK and won Vs 77, this was when I realised that I was a good chance in the tournament and should begin to really focus on this particular tournament. The next significant hand was with about 28 players left. I got maximum value with my set of 8's to almost double my stack again.

From 18 out I was card dead and stealing enough to stay above average. A very active opponent was making it hard for me to accumulate chips at this key stage. He raised when I wanted to steal and and re-raised me when I had nothing. We got down to 15 players and there was a quick fire elimination of 4 players leaving me sitting at 10/11. I had 20 big blinds when I flatted behind an early position raise with aces and flopped top set. I was wondering how I would get paid when he proceeded to bet into me 3 times.

I then doubled through this same player which put me into the chip lead going into the final table. 3rd hand into the final table I cold 4 bet bluffed the guy who I had developed some dynamic with to which he responded with an all in move which I could not call. The same guy then eliminated another player with AA beating AK. I then continued to re-raise the chip leader and float in position as we battled on a hand where I re-raised him, got cold 4 bet by another player and I shipped it in with 10's and won a race against AK.

From this stage on I don't want to get into details but I really played well and anticipated opponents moves in advance pretty well. A couple of players were out and for the first time in the tournament I got it in bad with 88 vs the very active players JJ, I was fortunate enough to river a straight. I felt this player ' Vinkyy' played really well and he walked away in 4th when my AK > his AQ with $19,327.50 USD.

We played a few hands with 3 left before 'utreg' from the Netherlands was persistent is his request to look at numbers which is to do a deal. We all agreed to look at the numbers based on chips. I had a chip lead and 'nikov' from Sweden was almost even with utreg. When Pokerstars came back with the numbers they were offered approximately 31k each and 41k was set aside for myself if I agreed. I asked each player for 1k more but they instantly declined. Rather than negotiating further I felt comfortable playing out the tournament with first being worth $48,318.75, 2nd $34,789.50 and 3rd $25,770.00.

After almost 9 hours of play the stacks were as follows;

Nikov (Sweden) 1.5M
On The Mac (Australia) 2.4M
Utreg (Netherlands) 1.6M

Shortly after they declined the deal the stacks were;
Blinds 25k/50K (5K ante)

Nikov (Sweden) 1.15M
On The Mac (Australia) 3.04M
Utreg (Netherlands) 1.56M

Going into Heads Up;

Nikov 2.024M OTM 3.481M

Then this happened...

Matthew Moate covered it quite nicely;

What a sweat Final hand... Nikov min opens 160K, OTM re pops to 380,567. Nikov shoves, OTM Snaps to show down AKo vs As9s... Board runs out Qc 3s 6s binging a flush draw
then he hits his 9c
and the river brings the wine with Kc... WP GG!

Online Poker Landscape Changing

With the recent shut down of online poker in the USA the games on Pokerstars have become noticeably easier. The fields are smaller but games are soft. 18% of Pokerstars players are from the USA compared to 35% for Full Tilt Poker. The development of worldwide poker tours such as the European Poker Tour, Latin American Poker Tour, Asia Pacific Poker Tour and the Australian & New Zealand Poker Tours by Pokerstars really places them well to survive and maybe even grow if they focus on and develop these new markets.

Online poker will return to the US market, the government is just going to legislate it and tax the market. The licenses will be sold to those who are interested and possibly Pokerstars and Full Tilt as we know them now maybe excluded from the re-opening of the market. They took the risk of continuing to operate during a time when others like Party Poker did not offer online gaming to the US market in reaction to legislative changes. Some land based gaming companies such as Harrah’s have indicated interest in obtaining such licenses.

The indictment largely focuses on financial transactions, claiming the online poker companies violated a 2006 law that Congress passed to cut off the flow of cash to online gambling companies, saying the firms “deceived or directed others to deceive United States banks and financial institutions into processing billions of dollars in payments.”

In the meantime ‘American online grinders’ either have to re-locate to Canada or become live pro poker players if they aren’t interested or motivated enough to get ‘real jobs.’ One of the great pleasures of playing online poker is being able to play when and where you like. All you need is a reliable internet connection and you are on. Obtaining and transferring funds online has been the real catch to American players in the past due to the ‘payment processing act’ but we are fortunate in Australia to have no such issues.

At present some players are worried that their funds may be frozen or unavailable. This seems to be just a temporary issue as this Forbes article outlines; http://blogs.forbes.com/nathanvardi/2011/04/20/u-s-online-poker-players-will-get-their-money-back/. This is actually an opportunity for Australian poker players to make hay whilst the top American grinders are blacked out.

Good Things Happening

Yesterday Ashton Cartwright played well enough to win a 100k guarantee tournament on Pokerstars for 22k. He was the last man standing after almost 3 thousand people entered. He had a stack most of the way and then on the final table went back down to 9th in chips before staging a pretty awesome comeback. I knew he was going well but I didn't really get too excited until they got 3 handed and a few things worked in his favour. Heads up he carved up the guy and won it pretty easily.
www.ashtoncartwright.com for more info.

It was a pretty fun day. My internet kept cutting out. I think the weather affected my mobile broadband reception. I moved in recently and I have a list of things to do which includes going and getting a fixed line installed ASAP. I toyed with the idea of going down to Melbourne for the Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series but instead I think I will get things done here and go direct to Perth for ANZPT.

Go to the Source

'The door to your right leads to the Source.'

A week after Adelaide ANZPT I travelled to Dubbo to visit the Team 1 Team base. I got to catch up with Dingo, Browny, Westy, Baza and Lukey. I got to experience the good life on the 'run good' internet connection and shipped a couple of tournaments in one night! I also had a great time at the Dubbo Railway Bowlo, getting getting ko'd by Baza88 on the APL final table. It went something like this;

On The Mac; 'I'm all in'

folds to Brad in the big blind.

Baza88; 'How much do you have?' (looking at a message on his phone)

On The Mac; 'I'm sitting on about eighty-eighty thousand Baza (blinds 5k-10k).'

Baza88; (After a slight delay, some may say 5 minutes) 'Um, I call'

On The Mac; 'I have 88, you got AJ?'

Baza88; (After a few more moments) 'Oh'

Mac; 'Humph'

I think you know by now he has Aces and is slow-rolling me in a 11 re-buy at Dubbo Railway Bowling Club to the laughter of all the local regulars. Classic Baza, nothing like Dubbo hospitality. They make you think you are good then bring you back down to earth.

I got the Mayoral tour of Dubbo from Brad Bower, (he is known as the 'Mayor of Dubbo' to many Australian poker players and these days doesn't answer to much less). He has been known to answer Skype calls with his robe on and not the usual Full Tilt one that most have.

I got my grind on and I was able to focus really well. We mostly ate out or had food delivered. We prepared a few cocktails. I flew my Dad in from Mackay and I stayed for about a week. Originally I was going to do a road trip but the flights were only $144 and the car needed a service.

I also sent my mum and brother on a trip to the Philippines and I am planning to go on a few trips between ANZPT's. I've basically been moved out of Neutral Bay now as the place I was in has changed ownership in preparation for development. It was a good base to have between trips.

Late one night I went on a drive up through Manly and to Palm Beach and back. It was really awesome to drive through at night with the car recently serviced and there not being many other cars around. I blasted through Whale Beach and stopped of at 2-3am at Palmy which is a really nice spot at anytime day or night. It had a different feel to it this time as it was so early in the morning that not many of the house lights were on that usually illuminate the beach front. It is usually really cool driving around the last bend onto the beach front area and the area being lit by the houses on the hills. The beach was really calming and I had a snack and listened to some music then drove back.

I was kinda bored after the drive and wasn't ready for bed, so I ducked into Star City to see if there were any games running. There were like 3 tables and I mixed it up on the 1-2 $200 buy in table. It was a bit unusual as normally you can get at least a 5-5 $500 table running, but I played for a bit until I got hungry and bored an went for breakfast at the Queen Victoria Building. I decided to get a taxi from star as it can be hard to get parking in the city and I realised I had a few questions to ask at the Apple store.

I went in and the service was great. I ordered my iMac and an additional screen online whilst in Dubbo (it was delivered to my place as i arrived back in Sydney), but I had a few questions about the setup. I also found that I could just purchase an iPhone with no wait at the store. I bought one outright and then took it to 3/Vodafone and told them I wanted a BYO contract as my contract for both phone and internet had just completed. I had been on a waiting list for 6 weeks with 3 mobile for an iPhone and it was really satisfying being able to just walk into the Apple store and say, 'here is the cash, thanks for the phone'. It really was a pleasure. Sometimes I think that the telco's in Australia don't like money. They are slow, unreliable and expensive compared to other countries.

Some of my goals have changed after recent events. I still am looking to do some work with Paul Penna on mental/life skils. He was our former sports psychologist at the institute of sport and I found him to be excellent and I am sure he can transfer his knowledge over to apply concepts to poker. I think that both of us are challenged and excited to be working on this project. Utilising Skype we can do some work while I am away.

Perth is the next stop on the ANZPT. It should be fun times. I have many good friends in Perth and a lot of the tournament guys will be there. We have been on some pretty awesome trips to Queenstown and Cebu and it is always good to catch up with everyone.