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• USA vs the World and the PokerNews Freeroll

  July 09, 2008

  With all of the day 1's from the 2008 WSOP Main Event being played there has been a planned break before the two day 2's are to begin. With reportable events on (because who cares about the Casino Employees event . . .) PokerNews planned a day out of fun for all their employees.

  The day started nice and early at 1pm at the Las Vegas Indoor Soccer Centre where kick-off between the USA and the World in the inaugural PokerNews International Friendly began. With Garry captaining the USA team and Felipe (our photographer) captaining our World team, the fireworks soon began when USA captain Gates scored the first goal for the home team. It was quickly followed by USA-recruit Dustin Sitar when he scored soon after. Not only was he a non-PokerNews member (one was allowed per team) but he was also a successful poker player.

  Scores were traded back and forth with the USA staying ahead at all times until half-time. We lost our star in Giovanni, and it would be left to me, Slippers, Thano, Felipe and some of the Dutch-PokerNews staff to gain the lead back. However this would be a really hard task as the USA team contained 4 semi-pro soccer players in Dustin, Garry (who has played indoor many times before this match), Don ( who played college soccer) and Neil.

  

   

  Play during the first half

  The second half was all USA as the retained their lead until the final minute. With the scores at 11-9 in USA's favour, one of our dutch players put a ripper goal in to put us behind by 1, and with about 30 seconds to go, yours truly scored one to even the scores. As the USA players sunk to the ground, we lined up for peneltys, and being the shittest soccer player alive I sat back as the first reserve. As we shot first, the scores went 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3, 4-3, 4-4 until it was up to the captains. Felipe stepped up and shot deep into the top corner to put the scores to 5-4 and next it was up to Garry. As he lined up with all of the pressure on his shoulders he aimed to the far left, and as it hurled toward the back of the net it was saved by our goalie sending the World team to victory!!

  Following the soccer match we played a game of bball and were joined by Christian, Dane and Guzz. With an intense match it was the USA's turn to take home the victory against the predominately Australian based world team.

  

   

  Christian heading to the basket

  Following a quick trip home we would arrive back at the Rio for the PokerNews freeroll. Not before I left Guzzardi wanted a piece of the action and bought 10% of me for $10 - which I thought was a fair deal as the chance of cashing in a freeroll is always small when you're a great player like myself (ha ha ha) as there is so many banana plays occuring.

  

   

  Slippers and Eric folding

  The freeroll began in the Amazon room at the same time the Casino employees event was being undertaken. Wearing my Nascar-inspired shirt with all the online poker company's logo's attached from Full Tilt to 888 to t6 and poker-affiliated company's such as PokerNews, Bluff, PokerRoad and WPA I sat down and played extremely tight until moving to my second table. I took down a few pots and built my stack to around 6000 (double starting) before again moving to my third table. Sitting with Don, Eric, Leon and some others time ticked away as we approached the starting time for the PokerStars party.

  

   

  Me stealing some blinds

  With only two tables remaining people really wanted to cash in this freeroll, but I was aiming high for the first prize of $2000. Having swapped 10% with Heath earlier, he was eventually eliminated and began to rail me hoping to make some money off me to cover his potential expenses later on. With Eric being the only one to pass on a deal with 13 remaining I limped to the final table of 10 in about 4th chip position. Deciding on a deal, we all took $500 and flipped for the remaining $300 - which I lost.

  Getting changed out of my poker-shirt we were all on the way to enjoy what PokerStars could provide for not only their players and staff, but also their VIP's in us PokerNews guys.

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  Read more: Thano Vasilakos, Neil Fray, Filipe Pacheco, Anthony Molinaro, Christian Vaughn, Dane Jensen, Donald Peters, Eric Ramsey, Garry Gates, Heath Chick, Michael Guzza

• A Palm Tree and a Desperate Boy

  June 19, 2008

  So yesterday I had to cover the 7-card stud championship with Don, Eric, Joe and some of the other reporters. With a very strong field, it was a pro-heavy field that finished the day with a long way until they would reach the money.

  As the day wound up, computers were bagged and pens were capped, Garry headed over and invited us all out to this place for some drinks. With only the Venetian on the cards for me and Joe we decided to join everyone else to steam off a little and neck a few cold ones along with Christian, Chris and Donald.

  As we approached Tommy Rocker's we found out that it wasn't just a bar, but it was 'Tommy Rocker's Mojave Beach - a rock 'n' roll topless bar'! Once through the doors and past the 11 people crowding the bar we all took a booth for ourselves. As the first round of drinks came out, out came the deck of cards and we were all doing omaha flips.

  Once Eric was stuck $200 to Garry doing $50 double flop omaha flips, I taught everyone how me and Shane do the 9-card omaha flips - discard 2 preflop, 2 on the flop and 1 on the turn. With everyone loving the idea that got going until the real action started to occur.

  With a strip pole in front of us, and a reporter desperate for some extra cash we dared Joe 'Alf' Schepis to get up on stage, dance for 2 songs with his feet leaving the ground every 10 seconds for longer then 2 seconds or so; and if he could get a girl up there with him we would chuck in an extra $20 on top of the $85 he was already getting. However the boss didn't like the idea of a guy 'stripping' for the crowd as it might scare his 11 customers off. So we came up with another idea.

  In the corner near the stripper stage there was a palm tree; for 80 bucks all Joe had to do was pretend to hump the tree for 2 songs and he would get paid. As he humped and grinded the tree for a the first 20 seconds of the next song a shout of, "WHAT THE HELL!!" came from the bar and Joe immediately deserted the tree. "You know I was thinking. I gotta do that for like 8 more minutes. Fuck that!! That ain't worth 80 bucks" said Joe as he sat back down to finish off his Budd light.

  With Garry being up a billion in prop bets and flips for the night he shouted a lap dance for Joe with the 'stripper' - thats if you can call her that - no idea how to dance, pregnancy marks that represented 3 kids and not the best looking shiela either! With everything said and done, we were out of there after 3 rounds of drinks, some food, enough laughs to last us the rest of the trip and all it cost was $96 - and thanks to Garry; on him.

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  Read more: Christian Vaughn, Eric Ramsey, Garry Gates, Joe Schepis, Chris Boncek, Donald Peters

• Deuce to Seven and the Tank

  June 12, 2008

  So over the last 2 days I have been covering Event 18 - $5,000 No-Limit Deuce to Seven Draw with Rebuys. With the strongest field ever assembled (in my view) and a starting stack of 10,000 with blinds starting at 100-200 with a 50 ante we thought the game would be very slow for most of the day.

  However when Phil Ivey had already dumped close to $100,000 by the end of the rebuy period, we had second thoughts on how the remaining day of play would end up. With Mike Matusow and Tom 'Durrr' Dwan in the lead for the start of day 2, everyone was pulling for Tony G as a potential PokerNews bonus could be on the cards if he ship shipped the 500k first prize.

  As the close of play came to end, Erik Lindgren crippled chip leader Durrr down to a big blind when he stood pat with a perfect 10 against Durrr's pat 10-7. With a final table made up of Mike Matusow, Barry Greenstein, Jeff Lisandro, Tony G, Tom Schneider, David Benyamine and Erik Lindgren; it was anyone's bracelet.

  With the day over and my first day off tomorrow, it was still going to be all hands on deck as we had to move from the Excalibur to the Golden Nugget for a few days before finally moving in to our house. Once me and Dane arrived back at the hotel, we headed straight to the felt. Dane finished stuck a buy-in but I cashed out up $400 in an hour or so of play. Feeling good, but still wanting to gamble, I first headed to 4-card poker where I lost $100 - allright still up a $100, not that bad. Then I went to roulette where I lost another $100 - allright I'm even, not that great. THEN I went spastic; I ended up losing another $400 on 4-card poker. First I was betting small amounts like $5-10 on each box ($20-40 a hand) then I just let loose and plonked down $100 a hand until I went broke. Feeling like the biggest degen in the world both me and Dane headed upstairs to get some shut-eye before our early 11am start the next day.

  With the night before's antics behind me we headed out to the airport to pick up the car Christian wanted to rent for a few days. Waiting for him to fill in the doco's we realised that we had free wireless. BANG!! Just like that our computers were out and me and slippers were playing heads up against each other. I lost to Slippers 2-1 but beat Dane 2-0, not a bad result while we waited, and then we got another surprise.

  

  Playing heads up at the car rental office

  Waiting so long for the car to come down, they decided to upgrade us and put us in a Dodge Ram; probably the biggest god-damn pick-up truck I've ever seen. After climbing into the truck we were on our way to check in to the Golden Nugget and jump in the Tank for a swim.

  For people that don't know, the Tank is the newly refurbished pool at the Golden Nugget equipped with a shark tank, a 3-level water slide and blackjack by the pool. As we swam, jacuzzied up, and slid down the 30-feet high waterslide for most of the arvo while necking back Corona's in a can, it all finally came to an end around 8pm when we decided that it was time to head out to enjoy Downtown and have some dinner.

  

  The Tank

  With Guzzardi still in the $5,000 NLH event, it was just the usual suspects plus Tom 'the camera guy' and another blogger Don. After chowing down some dinner at Binions we were on to the table games. Everyone hanged round the craps tables while I headed to roulette. I ship shipped $125 at the Golden Gate playing $1 roulette and then another $50 at Binions - it was somewhat satisfying after my donk off from the other night at the Excalibur. With Guzzardi out of the 5k with 6mins on the clock remaining and Matusow shipping the 2-7, it capped off a good few days.

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  Read more: Donald Peters, Tom Kinsman, Anthony Molinaro, Dane Jensen, Michael Guzzardi, Christian Vaughn, Golden Nugget, The Tank