Ever since I was a kid, the one place in the world I had always wanted to travel to was Australia. When I left high school at 18, achieving that goal any time soon didn’t seem too likely. An unexpected chance presented itself in my first year of university, however. A backpacking organisation showed up at one of my boring afternoon lectures and put forward a proposal where they’d take you to Australia for six weeks, so long as three of them were taken up by conservation work. I was stoked. It was the first time I’d ever seriously thought about going to Australia and I’d never dreamt that I’d get to go there aged just 19. I decided that if I could convince just one of my friends to travel with me, I would go. But I couldn’t convince them. And as much as I wanted to broaden my horizons and be more adventurous when I got to university, the thought of spending six weeks on the other side of the world with people I had never met was just too daunting for me at the time.
With that chance gone, I figured I’d be in my 30’s or 40’s before I seeing Oz. But, at that stage, I was in my poker infancy and was still trying to remember that a flush beats a straight.
Qualifying & Getting There
Fast forward two years. It was the December 27, 2008; Celtic had just beaten Rangers 1-0 at Ibrox courtesy of a wonder goal by our Australian striker and I found myself in my bedroom, playing an Argentinian heads-up for a $17,000 Aussie Millions package. The high stakes nature of the match gave me an edge, I felt. I had been in a similar situation eight months earlier in a WSOP qualifier, also against an Argentinian, and managed to close that one out despite being out-chipped 4:1 at one point. This time, I had a small chip lead.
But while I had no intentions of losing that lead, this was different. Las Vegas had never been on my ‘places to visit’ list pre-poker. Australia was right at the top. I don’t mind admitting that I was struggling to keep the butterflies in my stomach under control. I remained focused enough to grind my way to a 2:1 chip advantage when I opened K-Qo from the button and saw my opponent make a sizable jam over the top. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I knew if I lost I could go back to small-balling him again for a bit. I typed, “Aussie Aussie Aussie?” in the chat box, clicked the call button and watched as a queen of spades spiked to out-flop his nines. By the time the turn and river bricked, I had “OI OI OI” typed in the chat box and “We’re off to see the Wizard” primed for playing at full blast on YouTube. I’m cheesy like that.
Oz Qualifying Win
Two weeks later, my dad and I boarded a plane at Glasgow Airport, bound for London Heathrow. Then Bangkok. Then Sydney. Then Melbourne. When we finally made it to our room at the Crown Promenade, it felt like another two weeks had passed. It was only 11am local time and we were both absolutely shattered, so we decided to catch a few hours’ kip before checking out the casino downstairs and having a bite to eat. I was first to stir. When I rolled over to face the window, the first thing that struck me was that, despite us being in the middle of the Australian summer, it was dark outside.
I decided to wake dad up to give us both a chance of adjusting to GMT+11 at some point during the trip, but we soon realised the only thing we could do to achieve that was to go back to sleep. It was almost midnight, after all. After a quick phone call home, we were back in our beds, attempting to sleep for at least 20 hours in a 24-hour period. That is pretty much the definition of jet lag. It took us both another couple of days to get fully acquainted with our new time zone, but by the time January 20 came around – Day 1C of the Main Event – I felt completely 'in the zone.'
Day 1
I had no real reason to be as confident as I was going into the tournament. Discounting the £10 SNGs I had been playing in my local snooker club, my only prior live experience was my eight–hour stint in the WSOP Main Event six months earlier, where I had suffered a little from rabbit-in-the-headlights syndrome. My friends seemed to have confidence in me, though, and perhaps that helped. I knew of at least 20 people who had bets of between £1 and £50 either way on me to win the whole thing at odds of 300:1. I also had the option of swapping 10 percent of my action with two fellow qualifiers, both Australians, but I declined. In doing so, I would eventually save myself $3,000.
I made my way to Table 33 Seat 5 in plenty of time, a good 15 minutes before Shane Warne gave the “Shuffle up and deal” cue. The only person I recognised at my original starting table was a fellow qualifier I’d met at a welcome lunch a few days earlier, Gerhard Rieder. He was seated three to my left. Soon, though, I realised that the Australian on my immediate right must be a respected player given the amount of attention he was receiving from the locals - I later discovered him to be Steve Topakas, who had finished second in an earlier side event for over $100,000. All things considered, I was satisfied with my table draw.
The first two levels didn’t back me up. I was having a lot of trouble against another Australian player who was sat to Steve’s right. My stack fluctuated between 16,000 and the starting stack of 20,000 before I had my first key hand of the tournament - a complete cooler in which I managed to lose the bare minimum.
One of the locals limped in early position and Mr Topakas and I came along from the cut-off and button respectively. Mr Rieder checked in the big blind and we went off to a flop with me feeling rather optimistic about my 8-7 of spades. That optimism seemed misplaced on the Ad-6s-3c flop where I had one spade and not much else to be excited about. But the action checked around to me and I was only too happy to take the free card. The ten of spades peeled off and gave me a gutshot straight flush draw. With 1,100 chips in the pot, Mr Rieder led out for 850 chips and the other two in the pot folded, leaving the action on me. I figured calling was my only option, as Gerhard had been very tight thus far and this was a pretty strong bet from him. I thought he almost always had two pair or a set in this spot and that I would certainly get something out of him on a spade river – perhaps a lot if I could luckbox an off-suit nine.
I called and saw the dealer turn over the king of spades – bink! As expected, Mr Rieder checked to me and I considered how much I should bet. With the pot standing at 2,800 chips, I didn’t want to get too greedy, but then I felt his hand was strong enough on the turn that he would still pay off a chunky river bet. I settled on 2,100. Gerhard gathered together some chips to match my bet. Then he put a yellow chip on top and tossed them into the pot – a raise to 7,100. That really took me aback. He wasn’t the type of player who would bluff here. He had to have a flush unless he had misread the board, so I asked him if he had. Obviously he wasn’t going to tell me, but I hoped I might get a reaction. He didn’t say a word. Then I asked him what his username was and he started laughing. He had to have a flush, he was so relaxed. Whether he would raise with anything but the nut flush was another question entirely, but given that only three lower cards than my 8-7 of spades were in his range, it seemed highly unlikely that I was winning if he did have a flush. After a few minutes in the tank, I decided that A-x of spades made up too much of his range and let my hand go. For my troubles, and I guess because we had both qualified on the same site, Gerhard showed me A-4 of spades.
I had somehow managed to avoid losing half my stack in a spot where I think most people in the room would have. I had hoped not to have such a tough decision so early on, but was glad that I had handled it in the best way possible. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long for me to recover those lost chips when the short stack two to my left pitted his jacks against my queens and got me back above my starting stack. But just when I thought I was gaining a bit of momentum, the empty seat was filled by Scotty Nguyen.
Scotty Nguyen
Incredibly, his presence actually helped me out. Within a revolution of sitting down, Scotty put a huge dent in the ego of the Australian who had been causing me difficulties in the first few levels by building a huge pot then shoving the river, getting a fold and showing king high. Not long afterwards, Scotty took a chunky pot away from Mr Topakas with the nut flush. All of a sudden, everyone on my right was petrified to open a pot light.
Although they would both eventually adjust, the new table dynamic gave me some time and room to manoeuvre. In the fifth level, Mr Topakas open-limped the cut-off with Scotty in the big blind – a sign of the respect he was getting. I naturally isolated him with 7-6 suited on the button and only Steve called to take us heads-up. All I remember about the flop is that it was pretty horrid for my hand - I believe it was Q-J-9 rainbow, giving me no backdoor draws. But when Steve checked, I couldn’t exactly give up - I had seven high! I stuck out a continuation bet and Steve called. The hand was now over for me.
The dealer peeled off the six of clubs on the turn, which at least gave me some showdown equity, so when Steve checked I was only too happy to tap the table as well. The river was the six of spades. Oops. Steve put out a value bet and I value raised whilst almost hoping he folded so that I could avoid showing the table my hand. He called then left the table for 15 minutes, steaming. I even took some wrath from Scotty for having the nerve to raise his big blind with 7-6, but it was all in good spirits. He nicknamed me "the kid trying to go broke’".
I peaked at 32,000 with that hand, but I honestly have a mental block thereafter. It’s the only part of the tournament I can’t remember anything about. When the table broke near the end of the final level, I found myself on 12,000 and life support. I presume I just got owned by Scotty Nguyen without realising it at the time, because he finished the day with almost 90,000.
I was moved to the far side of the room, where I took Tom Dwan’s empty seat and was promptly warned by my new table mates about how unlucky the seat was. But I didn’t listen to them and got my chips in the middle at every opportunity, trying my best to double up or go broke just like Scotty had predicted. Somehow, when it was time to bag and tag. I had fewer chips than I came to the table with – just 10,950. There were only five players left in the entire tournament with smaller stacks.
I was happy to have made Day 2 in only my second ever live tournament, but it looked like I was going to have a lot of spare time tomorrow. Not to worry, I thought. I was still very inexperienced on the live circuit and getting to play with Scotty Nguyen had been an experience in itself.
On the way back to our hotel room, whilst not completely giving up hope, my dad and I discussed going to one of the night matches at the Australian Open if I busted before 4pm.
Little did we know what Day 2 had in store...
Read Part Two...