<3 Australia

Melbourne is a pretty sweet city. Carl and I have gone on a few city walks and I like it a lot. The British know how to erect impressive architecture and downtown Melbourne is filled with interesting buildings. The women here are also magnificent to look at and Carl and I are constantly shaking our heads at the amount of ridiculously hot women roam the streets of Melbourne. I know these statements would be better with pictures but I've been forgetting to carry my camera. I'll get some pics up eventually.

The $A1650 tournament was pretty fun. I came in 47th with 48 getting paid and I feel good about my play in all but one hand. I don't feel like talking about my botched hand but I'll talk about the hands where I won $A2,000. The tournament had 40 or 50 "bounty" players and if you knocked one of them out of the tournament then you won $A1000. I had one of these players directly on my right with blinds at 100/200. He started the hand with about 8000 chips and I had about 9000. He raised on the button to 550 and I looked sown at black Kings in the SB. I reraised to 1700 and he called. The flop came down 844 and I led for 2100. He moved in instantly for about 6000 total and I called almost as quickly. He tabled J6o and my KK held. He was on tilt a bit and decided that he was going to outplay me postflop. The floorman came over and handed me 10 $A100 bills and all of a sudden the tourney only cost me $A650. The next hand occured at a different table with blinds at 300/600. Someone limped in early position, the bounty limped, and the small blind completed. I looked down at Ks7s in the BB and checked my option. The flop came out Js8s3d the SB checked and I bet 1500 into the 2400 chip pot. The first limper folded then the bounty moved all-in for 3200 more. I had a trivially easy call with my spade draw and was delighted to see him turn over 6s4s for a smaller spade draw. The board blanked out and again the floorman came to pay me $A1000 in cash. Now I was on a total freeroll and already profited $A350. I was happiest with my play from 100 down to the bubble. I started the 600/1200 level with 13000 chips and worked my way up to 50K without seeing a flop. I had a pro, Ben Roberts, on my right who tried to steal my blind every single round and I restole on him about 50% of the time. In my ultimate hand, with blinds at 1K/2K and a stack of 42K, I raised from middle position to 6K with JJ. Everyone folded to the big stack who had about 130K and he reraised to 15K total. I felt sick because it just reeked of a big hand but I'm not the guy who folds JJ with 20 BBs. Also, there were only 4 minutes left in the 1K/2K level before blinds would go up to 1500/3000. I think it's a clear shove but obviously the big stack had AA and the door card was another Ace. 47th paid $A2000 so I ended up profiting $A2350 for the tourney. It was a nice way to start the trip and I hope I can keep it up. The cash games look fantastic but I haven't sat down yet. Tomorrow I think I'm going to put in a decent session and try to win my $A10K buy-in for the main event.

That's the news from Melbourne. I'll try to bring a camera with me the next time I go out.