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TassieDevilPoker.com - Travelling as a poker reporter and occasional player, this poker blog features stories from the tournament circuit as well as the online poker grind.

The Tasmanian Devil is a ferocious carnivore, rarely seen, but a survivor who loves nothing more than devouring anything that stands in its way.


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Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

GG Swine Flu

August 27th, 2009 Entertainment, Poker, Travel No Comments »

I’ve now found my way to Macau for the start of the Asian season. I arrived after a chilly, but mostly safe flight with discount airline Viva Macau. I didn’t have to flap my arms out the window and the most dangerous thing about the flight was pretending not to cry during Marley and Me. Since when did Jennifer Aniston movies become more than a mindless perve?

One good thing about Viva Macau was that we landed right in the heart of Macau, and after a ten minute cab we were at our hotel. No transfers, no ferries, no fuss! Unfortunately some of our friends and colleagues on the same flight two days later wouldn’t have the same fortune as their flight was delayed, then cancelled and they were forced to pay $900 to get on another flight. They kindly get their refund in 6-8 weeks. WP Viva Macau. Please get me home in one piece. One time.

So we spent the first three days at the beautiful Galaxy StarWorld Hotel. Our view was spectacular from the 30th floor, across downtown Macau and across to the lake. We spent the first few days busily working on finishing the third edition of the PokerNews AU magazine, and sorting out details for the newly announced merger between PokerNews, PokerNetwork and our closest competitor Bluff Australasia. It’s a pretty exciting time as we now have a mega-super power in poker in Australia.

We then had the APT event which ran pretty smoothly, which David Steicke pwned to finish 4th, and of course the infamous APT player party. Held in the Presidential Suite of the Galaxy StarWorld Hotel, it was an incredible night. Before we’d even had time to grab our first beer, we witness two of the most stunning APT models, dressed in nothing but body paint, posing for photos. The suite was awesome and although there were no spa antics this time around (apparently due to the carnage imparted on the room last year), there was still plenty of fun to be had. One memorable moment was being introduced to John Juanda in the queue for the gents and then watch him stagger in, and stumble back out, pissed as a fart.

After an unexpected tiff which left Garry making an early exit, the rest of us ventured over to the infamous D2 nightclub. Not being a fan of nightclubs, I was reluctant to go, but was half interested to see what all the fuss was about. We arrived at the overly-crowded, overly-loud club and I bumped into APPT President Jeffrey Haas within about five minutes who invited me to his VIP booth with 4 bottle of scotch, beers and more sitting on the table. Unable to talk over the fkn loud as hell music, he poured me a scotch…neat. I battled away for a swig or two before grabbing a coke to make the scotch drinking somewhat more enjoyable. It became a whole lot more enjoyable when I found out Saab was paying the tab. Bottoms up! Fruity test tubes of some unknown cocktail followed by shots that resembled chocolate milkshakes and the rest of the evening became a whole lot more blurry. There were rumours of yours truly “carving up the dancefloor”, “shakin what yo mamma gave you”, “work it, work it, oh yeh” but they are unsubstantiated gossip. I recall an overly-aggressive Chinese promo girl wanting to get me up onto the dance floor. When I politely declined, (girlfriend is in the bathroom, got lost in translation) her response was to aggressively grab my wrist and attempt to drag my sorry ass out there herself. This was no flirtatious grab. She was one strong chick (read lady boy). It felt more like she was grabbing me to throw me out, such was her aggression. Short of slapping her in a sleeper hold to get her to calm the fuck down, I held onto the bar with my other hand and rode out the pulling affect until she got bored about five minutes later and left. The good news is that my wing span is now three metres.

The next night I played my first live cash session in god knows how long. Maybe six months. Maybe more. I played 10/20 with Tim and first hand picked up AKo UTG. I raised to 70 and got onehundredandseventyfivemilliontybillion callers, so I check folded on the baby flop. I stacked a guy with pocket kings, and won another nice pot with trip sevens where I got three streets of value town. There are two hands were somewhat interesting. The first was in a seven-way limped pot, I had pocket fives in the small blind and caught a set on a 573 flop. I checked, expecting one of the many limpers to toss something into the middle, allowing me to check-raise. A mistake I guess, but life is never easy OOP right? Everyone checked around of course. Turn was an innocent looking 2. I led out for 100 into 140 and got one caller on the button. River A. The board is rainbow, so I only fear a four. I can’t really put a button limper on many fours, but I can certainly get value from a two pair, esp if he has an ace. So I put out a part blocking, part value bet of 150. If I’m raised, I have to fold, but 150 is cheaper than me check-calling, and allows me to get value from a worse hand that might check behind. He tanked and tanked and muttered something about me having four-six before making a crying call. I assumed I win, and flip my cards. He then turns over Q4. WP. This same guy tanked with a flopped set earlier in the evening against Ducky who had shoved with a straight+flush draw. So sick.

The other interesting spot was in one of the last hands of my night. After two limpers, I’d decided I didn’t want any customers when I looked at AK, so I made it 140. A guy in the small blind then raised to 420. This was a sick spot as this guy had only shown AA and QQ all evening. We were both at around 3,000 deep, so part of me thinks a call is ok. Online I definitely call or four-bet, but I guess live, I had enough of a read on this guy to realise I was either dead or drawing to an three/six outs. I folded and he showed pocket kings.

I ended up HK$940 in front, and then proceeded to lose $1,000 the next night on a fun but retardedly rigged game of three-card Baccarat. GG and I had so many opportunities to crush this game when the dealer would tease us with a 3, 2, 1 or even a 0, but we would show our utter naivety for the supreme skill of this game, and we continually failed to better the dealer’s score. Time, and time, and time, and time again. On our final hand, with it all on the line the dealer pulled a 1. GG pulled 6,3, muthfkn A. I squeezed monkey, monkey, monkey. WP three-card Baccarat dealer. We then jumped over to regular Baccarat, and although I wasn’t playing I was thoroughly entertained by GG taking on random Asian guy in an epic heads-up Baccarat duel. The Asian dude had a tell, he was angry when he had a good hand, and happy when he had a bad hand. So when he looked really upset one time we knew we were in trouble (since GG was always betting on the opposite to this guy). The Asian dude looked down, then looked at us and said “Bye bye!” and flipped natural nine. Slowrolling mutha fucka! From there it was game on, and GG was steaming after losing around 4k but he got back to square and we moved on.

We’ve now jumped over to the Sofitel Hotel and are working at the Grand Lisboa Casino for the APPT Macau event. I guess you are wondering why I have actually updated this blog. Well it’s simple. Swine flu. A few days ago I picked up some nasty virus, origins unknown, and have been in quarantine. From states of eyeball-rolling hazes, to supreme sweats, to earth-shattering chills, the last three days have had it all, but it’s given me a chance to finally update this blog! The bad news for readers is that I’ve shaken off the worst of it, and expect to be back at work again tomorrow. Unfortunately I don’t get sick often, so stay tuned for the next update!

Guest Post: The Nizzles

June 23rd, 2009 Entertainment, Poker, Travel, WSOP 70 Comments »

My time has been soooooo insanely busy at the WSOP that I just haven’t had time to update this blog recently. I then had the following conversattion with one of my poker buddies and fellow PokerNews bloggers, Tim “The Nizzles” Duckworth…

Him: ”Can you please update your blog . . . it’s been nearly a month”
Me: “You really think I have time?”
Him: “Well, either way, I have nothing to read”
Me: “Why don’t you write something for me then”
Him: “Ahhh . . . ok”


So here it is…straight from the duck’s mouth….I present the nizzles…

So here I am at 2am in the morning after being asked to be a guest writer on Tassie Devil Poker and make the first (and very belated) entry since the World Series of Poker kicked off and the Devil himself captured second at the ANZPT.net Melbourne Main Event.

After arriving in Las Vegas just under three weeks ago we both expected to be hitting the felt a bit while tackling the computer from the media row . . . however that hasn’t been the case.

I’ve only played a handful of sessions, while I don’t think TassieDevil has even touched a card or handled a chip . . . and when you’re six figures richer it probably pays to put some time to run it up one time!

The main reason why, is that the scheduling hasn’t been on the healthy side for him. Mixed events that stretch to the 3am cut off on day two are the norm, with day three starts starting earlier then expected. Basically his schedule seems to be Work – Sleep – Work – Sleep – Work – Sleep and maybe if he’s lucky he gets a chance to put his feet up to do more work for other projects such as PokerNetwork.

Let’s not to mention the problem we experienced over the first two weeks with commuting to the Rio everyday for work. With people grouped together in housing, you would think it would be wise to schedule them on similar events so that car-pooling was easier – however this was not the case until recently.

On most occasions catching a cab was a necessity, and the cost of these start to build up once you factor in the tip. $30 later you’re at work but then you have the issue of the return leg. To hear more about the dilemmas experienced you really need to hear the Devil’s side of things . . . very amusing . . . well, that’s if you like hearing stories of difficulties, tilt-inducing acts and utter grumpiness!

The downs are always paralleled with the ups – and at this World Series there have been plenty!

Phil Ivey capturing two bracelets along with Australian Jeff Lisandro capturing two Seven Card Stud bracelets to go along with his one in 2007. Two females making a No Limit Holdem final table with one going on to finish third and of course one of the most anticipated prop bets of all time with Jeff Lisandro and Barry Greenstein battling Daniel Negreanu and Erick Lindgren for most Player of the Year points for who knows how many millions!

Phil Hellmuth explosions have become standard, hearing the Star Spangled Banner played nearly everyday to celebrate a native capturing a bracelet and seeing the thousands of American’s stand up, hand on heart like they were out in the middle of Fenway Park!

Finally the trick to looking like a balla . . . take a wad of $1 bills, place a $100 bill on the outside and wrap it tightly with a Las Vegas money clip of a rubber band. Deep down you know it’s basically a stripper-roll, but to the non-observant folk you might just appear to be the next online millionaire whiz kid or the cash game grinder that plays 24/7 or just the next random to walk away with a bracelet, hundreds of thousands of dollars and a fading memory in the many chapters of the WSOP history books.

* * * * * * * *


Now I’m sorry if you didn’t enjoy my random ramblings, but it’s probably marginally better then having nothing at all . . . or not.

Hopefully soon the Devil will be back to impart his (hopefully memorable and countless) stories from all corners of the Amazon Room and the Rio.

In the mean time, check out this video which was put together by the PokerNews video team. They did a great job, and it’s easily the best poker video ever created!





Tim Duckworth is a writer from Melbourne, Australia and can be found rambling on about everything poker and everything in between at Tilted Behaviour.

Win If You Can, Lose If You Must, But Always Cheat

April 20th, 2009 Entertainment 875 Comments »

Cheat

Olympic Highlights

August 24th, 2008 Entertainment, Sport No Comments »

The Olympics are nearly over so it’s probably a good time to recap some of the highlights, some of which Channel 7 didn’t get to show as they had to replay Usain Bolt for the two-hundred-millionth time!

My favourite is the cycling…


The Final Countdown

July 14th, 2008 Entertainment, Travel No Comments »

Lack of updates…time running out…tired…busy, busy, busy…etc

I’ll update the past week’s happenings ASAP, but we only have one more day of work to go….tomorrow is the FINAL DAY OF THE WSOP!!!  WOW!!  I’m sure all PokerNews workers will be able to roll out of bed and do it all one more time when they watch the following video.

Enjoy.  Be inspired.



Pai Gow, It’s All Skill

July 10th, 2008 Entertainment, Travel 29 Comments »

Tim, Tom and I were given an early night and decided to take advantage by heading over to the bright lights for some fun. We wandered up and down the strip, visiting Caesars, Bellagio, Venetian and Planet Hollywood just to name a few. We played a little Pai Gow Poker, which I hadn’t played much live before. It’s a popular game due to the large number of “pushes” resulting in your bet being returned which extends your game time. It gets better because if you’re not sure how to play you can just turn your cards face up and have the dealer tell you the correct way to play them!

Of course I luckbox my way to a few full houses to get in front early, as Tim the degen got stuck and started chasing his losses. He found my poker quips, about him playing too loose and that he was a fish, simply hilarious. I cashed out a small profit and we headed over to the Roulette wheel. Tim placed bets on 35 out of 36 numbers, while Tom tells me a story from school where he correctly predicted the colour of 15 consecutive chocolate clinkers. “A mathematical freak of nature!” I shouted as I demanded he choose between red or black. After five correct spins I wished we’d parlayed our winnings each time instead of running away with the profit, but the sixth spin would’ve ended it all anyway. We celebrated our Roulette genius, as Tom says “I think it’s time for a green” moments before the 00 is spun ending the nightmare for young Tim. He scraped together his last coinage for a bus fare home as we headed to the cashier.