I recently returned from Crown’s Aussie Millions Poker Championship in Melbourne, Australia. I had a delightful time and want to toss out a few random observations about the Southern Hemisphere and poker therein.
· Melbourne is one of the coolest cities I’ve visited. It has the sophistication and suaveness of a big city, but without feeling cold and impersonal. The best analogies I can think of are San Francisco and Vancouver. In particular, when I go to a large city, one thing I’m looking for is culinary diversity. Well, while sitting in a very good 24-hour Greek restaurant, I looked out the window and saw three restaurants across the street: Hawaiian, Vietnamese, and Korean side by side. Even the food court at the hotel features Indian, Mediterranean, Chinese, Japanese, and Italian. McDonald’s and KFC are upstairs (so I’m told – I never actually went near either).
· The poker (at least at the Crown) is pretty expensive. They take a reasonable rake, but hit you with a time charge every hour.
· On the other hand, the games are good enough that you can still beat the rake pretty comfortably. Or so seemed to be the general consensus. I didn’t get much chance to play, but the few games I played in were certainly quite soft. Actually, I’m not sure I should use the word “soft.” I think of soft as lots of calling, raising only when they have the nuts, and so on. That was a good description of the $2-$3 No Limit Hold’em games I was in – many of the players were clearly brand new to the game and were basically planning to call until they got there or didn’t.
· The Pot Limit Omaha games, however, were another matter. I was playing $2-$4 PLO when a very drunk new player arrived, slumming until his $5-$10 or $25-$50 PLO game got going. He decided to raise every pot pre-flop to stimulate action. Stimulate it did – there was one pot that got four players all-in pre-flop for total of about $2,000. That was the peak, but there were plenty of $600 to $800 pots when the slummer was throwing his party.
· I think I won a pot with the worst hand at showdown, which is not something you see every day. This was in a much quieter $2-$4 PLO game and I had called a raise in the big blind with pocket kings and one suit. The flop came K-9-3 with two hearts (not my suit). I checked and the pre-flop raiser bet three-quarters of the pot or thereabouts. I check-raised and he pretty much insta-shoved for $250 or so. I called and immediately turned my cards up, certain I was racing with a flush draw. “@#($&#@(*&*! set-over-set” he muttered. A third heart came on the turn and a black ten or something on the river. “Good hand,” said my opponent; he mucked his cards. He frowned at the woman across the table: “I turned a flush and straight draw.” She looked at him, obviously confused. “How did you turn a flush draw?” “Second heart came on the turn.” A new voice at the table: “Um, two hearts on the flop, third on the turn.” He looked a little sick. “Really?” Heads nodded all around. “I mucked a baby flush.” I’ve given this lecture before, but in Omaha, it’s even more important: put your cards face up on the table. Yes, you’re giving away information, but we trust there’s a fair chance you’re going to have to show the hand down anyway to claim the pot. It’s far too easy to overlook some backdoor or forgotten miracle in a four-card game; don’t throw away a winner needlessly.
· I’m sitting in the teams tournament and see another player drinking a cappuccino. That, I think, looks delicious, so I order one. The waiter brings it to me, I give him a dollar, and everybody’s happy. Two days later, I’m sitting in a cash game and order a cappuccino. “That’ll be $3.50, please” says the same waiter. I give him the $4 and tell him to keep the change. I ask my tablemates, “What’s up with that?” “Tournament players get free drinks; cash players do not.” Some things in Australia are weird.
· Why Melbourne is the stone cold nuts: my wife and I go to a lovely beachside restaurant for dinner. We get a table right at the window and enjoy our meal with a setting sun. The check comes, I pay for it with our Visa card, we thank the staff, and leave the restaurant. We take a walk down the beach about a mile and hop in a taxi back to the hotel. I go to pay the cab driver and discover that my Visa card is not in my wallet. So we’re four days into a ten-day trip and my credit card has gone walkabout.
We go back to the hotel room and I call the restaurant. The lady is very apologetic, but no card has been turned in. “But give me your mobile number, sir, and when we close up around 11:00, we’ll have a look-around.” I do so and sit down to wait until 11:00, at which time I’ll be calling our credit card company to cancel the card. Ten minutes later, my mobile rings:
“Hi, Lee – Ken here, manager of the Stoke House restaurant. I have your Visa card. I chased you and your wife out of the restaurant, but you must have gone the opposite way.”
“Wow – that’s great. I’ll just hop in a cab and come get it.”
“No need. I’m coming into the city tonight to visit a mate – you’re at the Crown? I’ll just drop it by there. I’ll be there around Midnight or so.”
“Seriously? That’d be great.”
Sure enough, at 1:00am, I went to the hotel desk – they were just about to call up to my room because a guy on a motorbike had dropped an envelope at the front desk for me.
So I hit the Good Samaritan jackpot and had a great time in Melbourne at the Aussie Millions. See you there next year.
Lee Jones is the Card Room Manager for Cake Poker and has been in the online poker business since 2003. He is also the author of “Winning Low Limit Hold’em,” which has been in publication for over 15 years.
