Comment(s)
Comments
tateissy says
Fantastic. I'm going to spend some more time reading this. Just amazing!!!!03/20/08
lakong says
This is great to read. Will your win change your poker player plans? Any chance you'll make it to the states with Tony to play in the WSOP this summer? Let us know and welcome to the site. I'm guessing that Tony won't be talking to you much -- I know he had high hopes to be the first Australian to take it down!- Scot
03/20/08
Anonymous says
Nice. Sounds like you desrved it.03/20/08
s0stndrd says
Hi Scot!Thanks for the message, I really like the vibe of tworags - really positive and sincere! It was actually through Tony's blog that I stumbled on to the site!
From what I've read of Tony's, I don't think I'm a small blind of the poker player he is, but I have to admit that being the first Aussie to win the Mills does feel great though I wasn't even thinking about that when it all went down. It actually took a phone call from the editor of Bluff Australasia for me to realise that!
Most of win has paid off my mortgage though it's given me more $$$ to play bigger buyin online events. Still playing the $10r that are my bread and butter and good fun tourneys to play and grinding away at 50nl and 100nl cash trying to get better! No plans to head to WSOP but maybe if I can squeeze a few trips to Asia or LAPT might look into it. Planning trip to Europe with my girl in September so maybe play some poker tourneys live while away but for now, looking forward to playing more online tourneys, especially a few of the Sunday majors this weekend as it's a public holiday in Oz and no work for us nine to fivers! :)
Thanks again for the warm welcome and looking forward to being part of the community!
cheers
Max
03/20/08
lakeoffire says
Amazing feat! Looking forward to reading about your next big win. Congrats again!03/23/08
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Sunday Mills win recap
by s0stndrd on 03/20/08
Originally posted on my blog how a luckbox ran like God for 10 hours as "ty lee jones - the director's cut"
Or the story of ‘s0stndrd’ winning the March 2 edition of the Sunday Million.
I won’t be presumptuous enough to say that everyone wants to win the PokerStars Sunday Million, but I don’t think too many would question the prestige of the event, easily the biggest Sunday major tournament week-in and week-out. In fact, excluding special editions of the tournament, the 8000-strong field that anted up the $200+$15 buy-in for the March 2 PokerStars Sunday Million was the biggest on record, generating a prize pool slowly edging towards the almost unbelievable $2m mark.
From a bankroll management point of view, this tournament was well out of my price range. Being a $50NL player and regular in the $11 rebuys, the amount in my account on Sunday night Perth-time (about t-minus eight hours to the Sunday Million kick off) was all but screaming at me not to play the Millions, especially as my efforts to satellite in through double-shootouts, $39 satellites and rebuys all proved fruitless.
But while money talks, the decision ultimately resides with the man. And when the man considered all the factors including running bad (QQ never holding up vs AKs, the standard two-outters on the river and a very memorable flopped king-high flush losing to a runner-runner straight flush that the other person didn’t even see until the dealer pushed the chips his way) and the following day being a public holiday and one of the rare opportunities said man could play the Sunday majors, what to do became obvious. Get the credit card out and transfer enough funds to play the Million, with a little surplus to also give the Sunday Hundred Grand a crack too.
In preparation for an almost perverse 5.30am wake-up (on a public holiday of all days!) and not to mention pre-empting a spate of Future Music after-parties once the crowds had left Wellington Square and returned to the ‘burbs, I got an early night, looking forward to a morning playing poker on-line.
When I had registered for the event, there was somewhere in the area of 4000 runners. By close to 6.30am Perth time, the starting field had done a pretty handy soufflé impersonation, doubling in size to more than 8000 runners – a phenomenal figure and comparable to WSOP Main Event numbers. Coupled with 10k starting stacks and a slow’ish structure, this was going to be no done-by-lunchtime walk in the park.
While I had previously satellited into the Millions with a previous account (I have since lost log-in and ‘misplaced’ my bankroll), this was the first Sunday Millions I had bought in to directly. I figured that I had been running so badly with flips and rivers that I was probably due for a change of fortune soon and tackled my first table with a sense of optimism.
It took less than a couple of orbits to realise that my first table was the starting table from hell. Button raising and c-betting the flop? No-one was having it – and that’s if your opening raise wasn’t being re-popped in multiple spots. My tourney campaign looked close to being over before it had the chance to begin when my opponent called my five-bet shove pre-flop with pocket kings at the first blind level of 50/100. Amazingly, he didn’t have the dreaded aces but the other two cowboys in the deck so chop-chop we went with split blinds all we had to show for what happened.
A few levels later, I once again got it in pre-flop with KK vs an aggressive player’s AKs, though it would be no split pot this time. My hand held up and I found myself with 20k+ in chips and a little breathing room. Later, trip aces on the turn that turned to quads by the river helped amass a 30k+ stack and surprisingly, ‘s0stndrd’ was among the early chip leaders. Not that that meant much with 7,500 players still in the hunt for the 200k first prize.
Breaking the tournament into one-hour chunks, I slowly chipped up and continued picking up momentum with some timely assistance from the deck and dealer. Soon, the field was on the money bubble and amazingly, I wasn’t in the danger zone and could take advantage of shorter stacks trying to desperately cling on until the bubble burst. Then just like that, unlucky number 1315 fell and everyone had cashed including one relieved luckbox from South Perth, Western Australia. I had at least turned a profit on my buy-in (incidentally, and not that it means much, I’ve since discovered a friend of mine who I rate as an excellent tournament player has played the Millions 50-odd times without cashing). Everything from now on would be cream.
As the tournament was progressing, I was (ironically) using an old pay slip to keep track of the various pay bracket cut-offs. While I agree that you need to play to win, you can’t win without gradually moving up the pay scale. While it does happen occasionally, it’s rare for a single chip leader to dominate an entire tournament from start to finish. As the various bubbles kept bursting, I continued to keep my head above water and slowly, my pay packet for the day grew, level by level.
As is the norm, I kept my close poker (and indeed, life) mates Aaron and Ash up to date with my progress. By just after lunchtime, I got a phone call from Ash who had had dim sum on Leach Highway and was on the way home. “Do you mind if I drop past?” Does Gen Y care about the slow death of the English language? Of course not! Not only did a knock on the door herald Ash’s arrival, so too did pocket kings in late position. The signs looked good.
Ignoring the fact that by about 1pm, all I had eaten the entire day was a leftover chocolate croissant from the day over, it probably wasn’t clever thinking to start opening beers, but when there’s Knappsteins and Pepperjacks to be drunk, my rubber arm doesn’t need much twisting. The brews were going down far too easily and helped me relax (and not to mention get a little excited and talk it up a little bit after one smarmy comment too many in the chat window) as the tournament went on.
By the time I was guaranteed a four-figure payday, Aaron, Lys (who are getting married today, congratulations guys!) and their daughter Caitlyn had also made their way over and soon, there was a small crowd gathered around my widescreen Dell lappy. Finally approaching the final few tables, I made an essential double-up when I open-shoved with AQo in LP only to run into JJ. A king-high flop was no good, but then 10 on the turn gave me some additional gut shut outs (okay, hit your set now JJ). The queen on the river was massive and the study room of our little South Perth apartment erupted in celebration. Then a few hands later, flopping a third queen with pocket queens versus aces and suddenly, your favourite poker player’s favourite poker player was back in the game.
Down to 10 players spread across two tables of five, the final table bubble was excruciating. Eventually, a short stack’s 99 ran into my JJ and the nine-person final table had been set. The prospect of a five-figure payout suddenly became very real. Obligatory shout-outs were broadcast via the chatbox and then it was back to business.
A few eliminations (and the five-figure score locked up!) later, I got very lucky to luckbox a mountain of chips when I rivered a full-house with 88 against a loose opponent that flopped trip aces with A2 on an A-x-A flop.
Once the field had been whittled down to three, I once again found myself as the short stack. Fortunately while playing the role of table bully,vm1124 shoved on my big blind when I was dealt pocket kings and I again enjoyed a much-needed double up. Then when vm1124’s once-upon-a-time dominated 8-3o out-flopped DrunkPPlaya’s 8-9o, I found myself heads-up – albeit with a significant chip deficit – for 200k and title of Sunday Mills champ.
After winning a big pot with Qc-8c that turned a flush and bridged the gap between our chip stacks, I proposed a chop. While chip count dictated a 145k/135k chop (with 30k in the middle for the winner) vm1124 wanted 5k more making it 150/130. As it was my first time at the dance, nerves got the better of me and I took the –EV deal (which has been the topic of plenty of forum chat) but was still stoked to be able to pay off my mortgage before the age of 29.
I then ran like Tamsyn Lewis heads-up and on hand 15, went with my gut feeling that Ad-5d was ahead of my opponent’s four-bet all-in range on the button and called his shove. The hunch proved correct and while I had to sweat some additional outs after flopping a five, Lee Jones managed to come good at the best possible time and in a frenzy of yelling, “Hold! Hold!” and “one time!”, my friends and I celebrated a never-to-be-forgotten victory with punching, hugging, screaming and shouting.
Funnily: a few months ago in one of my greatest New Years Eves ever, Ash, Aaron and I - together with our respective partners - were drinking Champagne in a spa and celebrating life. During the festivities, I toasted one of us making a big five-figure (yeah, we’re ballers for real) this year. I wasn’t sure who was going to come through with the goods (and if any one of us would) but felt that we had paid our dues and something big was on the horizon. But even with this flicker of hope inside of me, if someone had predicted that someone I knew – let alone me personally – was going to outlast 8000 others in a Sunday Mills, I would have been more than just a little skeptical.
Following a lot of celebrating and a pounding headache come Tuesday morning, afternoon and evening, I discovered that I was the first Australian to take out the Mills which was surprising as I thought one of the Card Academy guys might have done it or perhaps Adelaide sensation Andy Macleod has already notched up a big Mills win, but after checking with various reputable sources, it looked like I was indeed the first. And my timing couldn’t have been better (unlike my deal negotiating) with 8000 runners ensuring a healthy payday.
Even more amusing, this was the first tournament I’ve ever actually won, or at least a tournament with more than 15 people.
My feet are still floating a few inches off the ground. No matter what happens to me poker-wise from here, I like to think I’ll be forever remembered as the first Australian to take home the Sunday Mills on Stars. As I said to my friends, I don’t think it gets bigger than this in terms of on-line achievements. I sincerely wish everyone all the best with achieving their poker dreams and hope that more Aussies start taking down big events online soon.
