2009 Aussie Millions: Cash Game Wrap Up

A few personal thoughts and anecdotes that didn't make it into the PokerNews blog of the 2009 Aussie Millions Million Dollar Cash Game:

* Several dozen Krispy Kreme donuts were brought on set at the end of the dinner break. I took one out to the PokerNews video guy, who was hard at work outside the main stage area where Dwan and Antonius had eaten their dinner (some sort of $180 beef). Word or sight of the donut must have filtered around to Antonius, because about five minutes later he sauntered backstage. And I do mean sauntered. Antonius has this herky-jerky way of walking that makes it seem like he's never really sure which way his body is going to take him.

At first Antonius tried to find someone to split a donut with him, but a Crown PR woman insisted that he should have a whole donut on his own ("One of the green and gold ones for Australia Day!"). He wrinkled his brow a bit and bent over the box of donuts to see what the different varieties were. The PR woman explained that some were creme-filled, some had chocolate, and some had sprinkles. Antonius seemed confused. It was like he's never been first in line at the Krispy Kreme store in the Excalibur at 6am after a long night of prop-betting wheel spins in the Excalibur Poker Room.

Finally he settled on a chocolate-iced, creme-filled donut. He cautiously bit into it, arched his eyebrows as if to say "Hmmm, not bad at all" and then sauntered in his marionette-like way back out onto the stage.

* The hold'em hand in which Phil Laak was stacked by Niki Jedlicka left me scratching my head. Laak opened for $3,500 from the cutoff with A-K and Jedlicka re-raised him to $20,500 out of the small blind with A-A. It was the second time in short succession that Jedlicka re-raised Laak out of the blinds. Laak may have thought that Jedlicka was on air or a medium pair; I'm not sure how else you explain Laak's third raise to $103,000 (esp. when he's playing somewhere around $175k to $200k total).

When Jedlicka shoved, Laak was priced in against any hand except the one Jedlicka turned over. But the only reason he was priced in is because he priced himself in by playing ace-king so fast. I can see Laak not wanting to let Jedlicka out-flop him with some piece of trash hand, but given that he has position, what's wrong with calling the raise to $20,500 and taking a flop? Maybe one of the no-limit cash game experts out there can explain this to me.

* Chino Rheem never made it into the game. There was a rumor running around the Crown Poker Room that he had somehow broken three $5,000 chips and that "his elbow fell into his television" in his hotel room. Draw your own conclusions.

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Live-blogging the game was a fun experience. I'll be quite interested to see the broadcasts (one episode for HU, one episode of the full ring game) in order to learn what players were holding in various hands -- especially the two PLO hands in which Dwan folded to six-figure river raises from Antonius.

For now, I'm going to enjoy a relaxing three days of not working before I tear into my next assignment: APT Manila.