Working as a tournament reporter and blogger for PokerNews has enabled me to travel to many amazing countries during the past twelve months, and at the same time I’ve been fortunate enough to witness up close some of the world’s best Texas Holdem poker players and personalities. Upon reflection of the year that was, I thought about my most memorable moments from 2008 and decided to compile my Top Ten. Some of these moments you may have heard about, some you may have not. I’m sure everyone has their own moments, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind, whether good or bad, right or wrong, as the most memorable, from my vantage point, merely three feet away from the poker table.

You can read the first part of this article at PokerNetwork:

From The Den: My Top 10 Most Memorable Moments of 2008 - Part 1

This morning I woke up at 7am to play in the 100k Guaranteed tournament at 888 Poker. This is a great tournament for a number of reasons and worth the pain of getting up early! Firstly it is a ridiculously soft field and there is always an overlay. Today there were 347 starters, with a buy in of $216, that’s well short of the guarantee. It’s a deepstacked event, with 10k start bank so there’s plenty of room to play, but the best reason is the promo we’re running at PokerNetwork. The highest finisher of the PNW forum members gets free entry into the following week’s event! Also if you play this event you get free entry into the 10k freeroll the following week which starts two hours prior. So there are heaps of reasons to get up early for this one!

This morning however I would’ve been better off staying in bed. I had hardly played a hand for the first hour and a half before this hand came up. The player UTG raised and I called in EP with pocket sixes. Two other players called and we saw a K44 flop. Nothing special there, and the action checked around. The turn was gin for me as a 6 peeled off. It was checked to be and I fired out about a one-third pot bet. One guy called, before the UTG check-raised me. We got it all in and I found I was up against pocket kings. Pretty brutal. I finally hit a two outer, and it sends me near-broke.

Down to about 2,000 in chips, I got them in holding A8 on a flop of A83 and looked set to double up through an opponent holding AQ. But wouldn’t you know it, another queen hit on the river, and the one-two blow had well and truly knocked me out of this one.

Today was also the highly anticipated final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker. Change and F-Train did a great job of blogging this one, and it seemed to be a table which although slow in parts, produced plenty of action and excitement which should make great viewing. After couple of really sick beats, some badly mis-timed bluffs and some big pots, it was Ivan Demidov and Peter Eastgate who were left standing. With the exception of Chino Rheem, I think these two were the best players at the table and it should be a high quality heads-up match. Demidov has the lead and will be hard to beat, while Eastgate is gunning for youngest WSOP Main Event Champion ever. Both are worthy world champions. Demidov FTW.

My bags are packed as I’m off to Manila tomorrow for the APPT Manila event which starts on Thursday, once again covering the event live for PokerNews. I expect a decent but smallish field for this one, as I suspect many of the usual Australian attendees might be skipping this one to concentrate on the local Perth Championships, followed by the APPT Grand Final which starts in Sydney a week later. It’s going to be a busy few weeks!

I worked right up until the dinner break of the final day which was an honour and a thrill to be part of the WSOP right up until its final moments. The final day was a little anti-climactic, especially after Tiffany Michelle busted out in 17th place. We were all sad to see Tiffany fall short of a final table berth, but obviously the big dogs were relieved that the stresses of the whole saga were finally over. PN released a press statement to get their feelings out in the open, to the raised eyebrows of many, so I’m sure it’s not the last we’ve heard of this situation.

That night, Tim and I headed over to South Point to donk around in a low limit cash game. It was good fun as we were playing 80% of pots and splashing around. I raised every time I was on the button, much to the amusement of Tim who was always two seats to my left in the big blind. Tim fluked a $100 bonus when he hit a one-outer to make a straight-flush to put him back in the black, while I was pretty much square. Then a hand came up where I held 78o on the button and after some overly aggressive betting I found myself with the nut straight on the turn. The action was frantic as a third spade fell on the river. Tim donked out into me and I exclaimed “If you’ve got the flush I’m leaving!” and made a crying call. Tim showed a junky suited connector for the running flush against my nuts on the turn. Joke. Luckbox. Things then got pretty ugly as I couldn’t connect with any flops to cash in on my crazy, aggro image. One guy at the end of the table kept hitting all of his draws, and on one occasion made a running straight on the river, bet out into me and turned over his cards before I’d even acted. I’d flopped two pair and been run down. Standard. At least his stupidity saved me another crying call.

Finally it was 4am and we were ready to call it a night. I said to Tim “I’m going to get aces this time” and I look down at two black kings from under-the-gun. I raised, Tim re-raises, I 4-bet and he calls. The flop is K-Q-T. I have top set, and the action is capped once again. “You don’t really have A-J do you?” I say and I feel sick when a jack hits the turn. I check and Tim quickly checks behind. A brick hits the river and again we both check. I flip over top set expecting to be good, and Tim shows a horrendous J-9. The guy caps it preflop and flops the second nut straight. Unbelievable! I grab my chips and walk out the door in disgust. Live poker is so rigged.

That night I pick up some sort of bug as I’m feeling pretty average the next day. We head over to Garry’s where all of the PokerNews guys are hanging out for the day, with two tables of poker going as well as some action on the Nintendo Wii. Plenty of beers, laughs and fun were had by all. I played in the HORSE game and was in front early but then ran like a retard once again. I had to fold sets three times in Omaha. I flopped a full house with 33XX on a 3TT and Anthony check-raises me twice with T3XX. Eventually when I found myself re-re-straddling, I realised I needed a break.

Later that night we went to karaoke. Highlights were Aussie boys doing “Land Down Under”, Leon’s “Hey Mickey”, Melissa’s “It’s Raining Men” and Zeke’s “Safety Dance”. Garry and Shane win the boy band award for their “Bye Bye Bye”. By this stage my fever had set in and I was struggling to get through the evening, and not just because of the bad singing. Once I got home I found myself shaking cold in bed, which was a little bizarre in the Vegas heat.

The next day I drugged myself up and went for a quick trip up to the strip to do some shopping with Tom and Craig. We said hi/bye to Amanda and I got to see ten minutes of my first ever live WPT event at the Bellagio. Tom then picked up a new Mac laptop before we headed back home. We were going to catch up with the others at a poolside BBQ, but I started to crash again. I wanted to say goodbye to everyone, but I also wanted to try and get myself better for the 20+ hour flight back home the next morning. In the end I just wasn’t up to going out and rested up. My final night in Vegas was an early one!

It was a memorable 7 weeks or so, full of hard work and long hours, but plenty of fun, excitement and laughs in between. The PokerNews guys are a fantastic group of people which made the whole experience so much more enjoyable. I’m sure we’ll catch up again on the circuit….somewhere!

We’re nearing the end of the Main Event and things are getting exciting with Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth and PokerNews’ own Tiffany Michelle still in contention as we head into Day 6. If any of those three can make it until the end then it will be huge.

After the Main Event has been a little dull so far, finally some controversy has emerged. Firstly Tiffany Michelle is wearing Ultimate Bet logos, much to the disgust of the hierachy at PokerNews. Expect more to emerge from this story once she is eliminated and the PN bigwigs can move in for the kill.

The other controversy was something I was fortunate enough to witness first hand, blogging the feature table on Day 5. Phil Hellmuth was moved to the direct left of Mike Matusow for the final two hours of play as I sharpened my virtual pencil for plenty of fireworks between these two. Generally things were pretty quiet until the final hand of the day. Here how I saw it go down in the live reporting blog on PokerNews.com:

Sat Jul 12 2008, 23:39 PST | Posted by TassieDevil

Hellmuth Ends the Day With a Blow-up

Cristian Dragomir opened with a raise to 80,000 before Hellmuth made it 255,000 to go from the small blind.

“I hope he doesn’t have aces,” said Hellmuth as Dragomir asked for a count. After a few moments, Dragomir made the call.

They saw a flop of and Hellmuth checked to Dragomir, who thought for a moment before firing a healthy bet of 300,000. Hellmuth sighed in disgust before folding face-up on the table.

Matusow laughed and said to Dragomir to show the bluff, and Dragomir flipped ! Matusow and the crowd roared in hysterics as Hellmuth jumped out of his seat and stormed around the room berating his opponent for calling his reraise with ten high.

“Listen buddy, you’re an idiot!” screamed Hellmuth. “This is the Main Event and you are the worst player in history!” he continued as the crowd was loving every moment of the blow-up.

Dragomir’s entourage continued to cheer as Hellmuth continued the barrage. The TD stepped in and issued a warning to Hellmuth to settle down before Dragomir stood up out of his chair to put Hellmuth back in his place with a cry of, “Enough is enough!”

Fortunately for both players the clock ticked over to the end of the level, and the end of the day’s play to settle both players down. They eventually shook hands and began to bag up their chips as Mike Matusow summed up the situation best as he shouted, “Thank God for Phil Hellmuth! Thank God for Chris Moneymaker!”

What a way to end the day!

Further to this Hellmuth was awarded a one-orbit penalty which he will serve at the start of the day tomorrow! They say you always remember your first Hellmuth blow-up, and it was definitely a thrill. A highlight of an otherwise dull Main Event. Let’s hope he can go deep.

So after the freeroll we headed down the road to the Palms for the PokerStars official WSOP party at Rain nightclub. After collecting our VIP Access “grey” wristbands and oddly being asked for ID, we fought through the crowd to the nearest bar. The place was packed and the bar was my favourite kind…open.

I grabbed a Carona and turned to find a rather flexible girl in a hoop suspended ten metres in the air above the dance floor. The hoop was all she needed to bend in an unimaginable variety of positions to get the evening off to a good start.

Apparently our VIP access gave us access to a more private bar, which was nice, but when some of the guys found an area we weren’t meant to have access to, (where PokerStars pros Joe Hachem, Emad Tahtouh and Grant Levy were hanging out) it suddenly seemed important for us to be in there. I’ve learnt in Vegas that if you are doing something you shouldn’t, you just act like you are doing nothing wrong, play it cool and no one cares. We walked into the “black wristband” area and hung out there for a while until security got sick of us ignoring their requests for wristband checks and asking us to move. I heard one of the guys slipped the meathead a $20 to stay. Personally, I was happy enough to be $20 richer in the “grey” area, so I wandered downstairs towards the stage and bumped into Tom (who had been working late and just arrived) and just in time to catch a eyeful of the delightful Dita Von Teese.

The Queen of Burlesque first emerged like a pearl from an oyster and followed that up with a performance as the bubbles of a champagne glass!




There were other performances from girls hanging from various objects, with girls dancing all night aound the massive multi-tiered complex. After drinking too much and laughing at stupidity of others (Isabelle Mercier/Dario Minieri/Steve/Schepis/Slippers/etc) we headed home in the wee hours to grab some sleep before we had to wake up with sore heads for the first day of the big one…the Main Event!

Here are some more pics from the party: