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Aussie Millions Main Event
Being fortunate to get a chance to play in the Aussie Millions Main Event last year was a dream come true. Getting the opportunity to play again this year was unbelieveable. I wondered if I’d ever get another shot, so I was truly appreciative of my PokerNews co-workers covering for me to allow me to play.
I learnt a lot from playing last year, as well as the experience I’ve gained travelling around watching world class players up close, so I had high expectations of giving myself every opportunity of going deep this year. I’m afraid it just wasn’t meant to be.
There aren’t a lot of hands to write about as most of them were pretty straight forward, they just didn’t go my way. I never got my stack above 20,000 after running into a full house on the second hand of the day, and things just went south from there. The key hand came during the 100/200 level where an online LAG raised to 600. It folded around to me in the small blind and I raised to 1,800 with black kings. He called and we saw a 9-9-6 flop with two diamonds. I led out for 3,000 and he shoved for just under 10,000. I called and he flipped Ad4d for nut flush draw. The jack of diamonds hit the turn and it was over. If my hand holds up there I have 30k+ and the toughest player on the table gone. The rest of the table were pretty lightweight, so it was a pretty devastating blow.
I was down to about 8,000 and tried to chip away, but always took one step forward and two steps back. I picked up pocket tens, pocket jacks and then pocket tens, in three consecutive hands. I spiked a set with the tens but got no action. Then with the jacks, my opponent calls with a bare ace flush draw and makes a running flush and of course I pay him off with my third nuts jack high flush.
The blinds snuck up and I got into push or fold territory. Everytime I pushed I had a pair or AK but never got called. Our table broke and I got moved to Eric Seidel’s table. First hand an early position player raised and I shoved with pocket tens. He called with AQ and spiked a queen on the turn. One hand with Seidel, and my Aussie Millions is over.
It was obviously disappointing but I don’t see what else I could’ve done today. It just wasn’t my day as the cards didn’t fall my way. Last year I won a key race, this year I lost it. Some people said it’s all experience. Well last year was meant to be experience, this year was meant to be cash! Oh well, I guess the cash will have to be Manila now!