AMHGS Round 8 Fri 23rd Sept

Round 8 was held at Bayside Room 6 at the RACV Club. Several players were MIA this round due to other commitments and others mistaking the dates despite the dates being published here on the site. Note, there are several ways to keep tabs on the upcoming dates like marking them onto your smartphone calendar or work Outlook calendar in advance. There’s even an Event Gadget on this site when you accept it will enter the date on your Google calendar which you can configure on your iPhone/smartphone to use.

(*Note*: If you want to access and use all the features on this site and the discussion forum you need to use or create a Google account to authenticate you as a valid Member, not some anonymous user or public viewer. It's free and all handled by Google).

We had one hired-gun in Paul Harb who substituted for Swampy Marsh. Sam Mohamed was back from his overseas trip refreshed and ready re-establish his presence on the leaderboard after his hired-gun had an early exit last month.

Rusty was on a major heater very early, taking down several pots. Sam’s night didn’t quite go to script as a large pot brewed between he and Rusty. On the river a bet, raise, re-raise, all-in, snap-call ended with Rusty tabling the top-end (Jack-high) straight and Sam showing a lower straight to hit the rail.

Rusty’s dominance continued with another big pot between he and Nate. The flop was QQx and once again all the money was in by the River and Rusty tabling KQ and Nate with trip-Queens but a lower kicker (J?) for another knock-out by Rusty.

Arnold too was steadily growing his stack with the occasional pot and putting a big dint to Bini’s stack. Rodney opened UTG, Bini called on the button and Arnold called in big blind. I’m not sure of flop but was either QJx or QTx and Arnold checked, Rod either C-bet the flop and we called or we checked round but regardless all three saw a Turn card which was an Ace. Arnold first to act made a big bet, Rod folded and Bini called on the button. The river card was either a Ten or Jack (regardless any K would make a straight). Arnold made a big bet on the river, Bini went into the tank for some time verbally going through the hand and eventually called with Arnold showing AK for the Ace-high straight. Bini mucks but says he had an Ace.

Paul Harb for the most-part was fairly card-dead but found himself all-in pre-flop after Bini opened. Paul had QQ and Bini AK. Unfortunately for Paul an Ace and a King hit the flop. The turn was a T to give Paul four Jacks as additional outs but missed a J or Q on the river. Bini double’s-up to which Rusty needles Mark with the phrase “Tinni-Bini.”

Paul was eventually knocked out by Arnold when Paul opened the pot and Arnold came over the top with a re-raise to effectively put Paul all-in. Paul called tabling I think an A6 (suited?) and Arnold with AJ. The board did not run out in Paul’s favour and Paul was out.

Another interesting hand occurred with Rod and Bini. Rod makes standard opened pre-flop and Bini called. Flop and turn came at least 2 or 3 broadway cards and Rod kept betting. He finally gave up on the river and checked to which Bini then fired a decent size bet on the River. Rod snap-calls and Bini insta-mucks !?!. Rod shows pocket Ten’s  on an AKQx board and Mark begins to rant. Rod says he was semi-bluffing his straight draw but checked on the River to “trap” .. Bini goes into a minor tail-spin LOL!

Rod severely cripples Rusty when he rivers a 7 to make trips and Rusty departs in 3rd place losing a 60-40 against Arnold. Final hand was Rod shoves pre-flop with a King and Arnold calls with an Ace which holds. Game over.

The latest scoreboard has been updated on the blog. Bini still holds a 60 point lead on Arnold who just narrowed the gap.

FYI: I’ll be on holidays for the next two games so Allan will fill-in for me. From now on whoever wins that nights tournament is charged with writing up a “Match Report”. Can everyone therefore please sign-up to the Discussion forum linked to this site and post there. Once you have signed up you will be notified that you can also email to Group Email Address and anyone registered as a member of discussion forum will receive the email automatically.

Whoever is updating the Tournament scoreboard spreadsheet (Rodney) please update and post it on the discussion forum so everyone can see their points (either post it as is, make it read-only or post as PDF document).

This is Arnie and I'm All-In.
See you at the Poker Tables.

AMHGS - Round 7 Fri 26th August

This round was held at Bayside Room 6 at the RACV Club. Angus was unable to play so we didn’t have our Poker Tables again and played on the now familiar Home Game setting.

Unfortunately I was pre-occupied with making a top finish and forgot to take some pics with the IPhone so you’ll have to make do with the descriptions. We had 2 hired guns on the play list this round, Allan Bathan for Sam Mohamed and Tilt for Angus Cowan.

Early Rounds
Not much really went on in the early rounds until Allan and Bini clashed in a big hand. Allan raised pre-flop, bet the flop and turn only to be halted by Bini’s large bet on the River, Allan tanked for a while and finally called only to see Bini table AJ of hearts for a rivered nut-flush. The AJ of hearts would later be the hand that knocks Allan (Sam) out when short-stacked he shoved on the button with KQ and Arnold woke-up with AJ hearts in the small-blind.

When Rusty busted a call for final table was made and we dealt one last hand, Swampy limped from early position and Arnold completed from the small blind. The flop saw Arnold with top-pair and swampy with open-ended straight draw, all the money went in and unfortunately for swampy he missed his draws and was Bubble-boy.

Final Table
Arnold came onto the Final table as the big-stack eyeing Bini chips as there was some friendly banter during the week between the two about who was gonna take it down. Bini nearly got knocked out first when he limped from middle position and Arnold checked from the BB. Flop was Q J 8, Arnold lead-out with around a pot-sized bet and after a little bit of thought Bini decided to go all-in. Arnold called and Bini tabled  Q T and Arnold J 8, turn blank, the river a Ten and  a nice double-up for Bini.

Rodney called a raise from Jason with a small suited Ace, the flop came all low hearts and all the money went in on the flop. Rodney had flopped the nut-flush and Jason an over-pair with pocket 10’s (one-heart?). Turn card a 10 and the River repeated an 8 giving Jason a runner-runner full-house.

Arnold doubled-up Grechy on a fairly short-stack,  Arnold raised with Ace-middle and then finally decided to call Grechy’s all-in only to find him with AK. After a few more eliminations, the last 3 standing were Grechy, Arnold and Bini. Grechy was eliminated in 3rd  when he decided to come over the top of Arnold’s raise with a draw (straight or flush can’t remember) and missed giving Arnold a huge 9 or 10 to 1 chip lead going into heads-up with Bini.

Heads-up
It was inevitable but the final hand was Arnold with AQ and Bini with KQ(?) the rest they say is history.

Leaderboard standings
There’s a slight reshuffle in the leaderboard from last round but even with Arnold’s win, Bini coming second means he still holds a 120 point lead well into the second half of the season and pretty much has a lock on the $10,600 Aussie Millions Main event ticket.

The Tournament Scoreboard link has been updated and as always feel free to leave a comment if I got any details wrong. By-the-way a discussion forum is being built which will allow anyone in our group to raise new topics and reply and post what they want … stay tuned.

888PL Grand Final on this weekend

Just a note to those that play the 888 Poker League their last $550 direct buy-in Grand Final event will run this Saturday 27th August at Crown Casino now that they've effectively merged with the Australian Poker League (APL). Check out their website or APL's for more details of the merge.  http://www.888pl.com.au

As long as you’ve played 8 games in the last 3 months (??) or perhaps season you can buy-in direct to this event, but to be sure I’d check with your local 888PL Tournament Director.

I was at Yarraville Club on Friday for a $10 re-buy satellite where the winner already had a GF ticket so he sold  me his second ticket for only $300.

Looking at the 888PL GF schedule there’s a $70 Terminator on Friday and a $80 Teams event on Saturday 7:10pm.  I've played  teams events with Allan before and it's a lot of fun.

Check out the link to the 888PL Grand Final on their website at;

http://www.888pl.com.au/News.asp?Action=Detail&ID=290&TID=4

AMHGS Room Change

Message from RACV Club re: Room Change:
We have had to move your cards group booking to Bayside Room 6, Level 2  for this Friday 26 August.

There will be signage on Level 2 for your guests to locate the room. Thank you 
  
Kind Regards,
 
Loren De Brincat
Event Coordinator, Member Interests, Conferences and Events 
 
RACV City Club
501 Bourke Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000 Australia 

Fill-in Players / Hired Guns

For various reasons there are times when players aren’t able to play a round or two in the Aussie Millions Syndicate and normally arrange for a friend to play for them. If for some reason you are still having problems finding a replacement there are players who have offered to be possible fill-ins for you should the need arise.

Under the Players link there is now a section called Fill-In Players or Hired Guns as I like to call them just to give them props for their generosity.

If their BIO is available in the Players section, you can read-up on them to get some background info.

To contact them, you need to go to the MEMEBERS section of this website, click on their Profile Pic and send them a message. You have to be a member of this site to do this but no email addresses are publicly listed or displayed and all email correspondence and arrangements are done strictly between the two parties.

Note, that  these people have kindly accepted to be possible fill-ins to give our group some options and they are not obligated to play just because you ask so please word your requests accordingly. Your fill-in would also need to pay the Syndicate pool money of approx $100 on the night as well (if you haven’t already paid for it).

If you would like to be a Fill-In player yourself and have your BIO posted up on our site, place a comment here on this post or send us an email via the Contact link.

AMHGS - Round 6 Fri 29th July

The Top 3 places for this round were;

1. Mark Bini
2. Sam Mohamed
3. Swampy Marsh 

Round 6 saw a few renovations at the RACV club so we got allocated another room on Level 2. As you can see we didn't have our normal felted poker tables but made do with the fine-cotton table cloths.

Here are some pics ! 

Final Table.  Pictured from left to right : Mark Bini, Rusty Joseph, Jason Holloway, Arnold Bathan, Nathan Vincent, Sameer Mohamed, Mike Marsh.

Action folded around. Pictured from left to right : Jason Holloway, Arnold Bathan.

Aerial view : Swampy Marsh  about to make his pause, think, raise announcement.

The heat was on as the top place getters were jostling for position. Gus couldn't maintain his run and busted 10^th. Rusty and Arnold hung on for a little while but busted 6^th and 5^th respectively. Bini like the the odour from the bowels of persistence just kept hanging around, he was hard to kill.

With his 3 immediate points rivals out of the way Bini just needed to pick his spots and that's what he did. Swampy came a valiant third when his Kings were cracked by an Ace which brought Bini and Sameer heads-up.

From reports the final hand was;

Mark: A4 (offsuit)

Sam: A6 (offsuit)

Both flopped an Ace, turn blank but Sam's kicker still played until a 4 hit the River! And so the Bini Freight Train rolls on !

Note the Tournament Scoreboard has now been updated.

Feel free to also add your comments in and discuss hands etc.

2011 WSOP Main Event November Nine

For those that missed the Live coverage on ESPN or Live reporting on the web the 2011 WSOP Main Event November Nine was finalised last Wednesday 20th July.

This is the Big Daddy or Mother of all poker tournaments anywhere ...  Period. With a buy-in cost of $10,000USD  and 6,865 entrants making a total prize pool of $64.5 Million. First place will get over $8.7 Million (8th place gets over 1 Million) it’s the field of dreams boys and girls.

Here’s a pic of the Final Table which the WSOP call “The November Nine”.




The players shown from left to right are:  Badih “Bob” Bou-Nahra (Belize City, Belize), Phil Collins (Las Vegas, NV), Matt Giannetti (Las Vegas, NV), Pius Heinz (Cologne, Germany), Sam Holden (Sussex, UK), Ben Lamb (Tulsa, OK), Anton Makiievskyi (Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine), Eoghan O’Dea (Dublin, Ireland) and Martin Staszko (Trinec, Czech Republic).

The highest placed Aussies were Andrew Hinrichsen (23rd for $302,005) and Tony Hachem (37th for $196,174).

For more info here’s a link to the official WSOP website and relevant page.

APPT Melbourne Update

Event #1 : $50 NLHE, $50 Add-on, re-entry, Repecharge Accumulator $50k Guarentee. Four players from our Poker crew took to the Poker felt at Crown on Day 1 Flight, Thursday 14 July. 

Adam Brown fresh from his trip to Vegas, Arnold Bathan, Mark Bini (who at this moment sits atop our Syndicate’s Points table) and Allan Bathan.

With an initial start bank of 5k Mark Bini had a huge chip stack of 40k at around Level 6, so much so he decided to not even take the 10k add-on for $50. Unfortunately Mark and Allan didn’t survive this time round and busted late Thursday evening. Both Arnold and Adam managed to hold-on and grow their stacks to survive Day 1 Flight 1 and carry-over to Day 2.

Congratulations to Adam for placing 40^th and a cash of over $400 on Sunday.

Click on the comments link for this post for any further results our crew had in the APPT Melb Poker Championships.

Asia Pacific Poker Tour comes to Melbourne !

The APPT is one of our region’s most prestigious poker tournaments and is only really eclipsed by the Aussie Millions. Check-out the Crown link.

With a AUD$5,000 'Main Event' buy-in and over 500 entrants expected, players can anticipate a high calibre of poker talent from all over the globe all vying for a slice of the AUD$2 million plus prize pool, along with the title of APPT Champion.

Check out the APPT Schedule here. (PDF is 2.7 MB file)

Note there are smaller buy-in events in the schedule, such as Event 1 ($50) and Event 8 ($125) along with a Teams event ($200).

This a great opportunity for those with limited Live Buy-In Tournament experience in our group to gain good practice for next year’s Aussie Millions. Who knows you could even come away with an APPT title to add to your Poker resume.

Here's a short video of the Season 3 APPT Final Table in Sydney.

Results: Round 5 - 24th June 2011

Angus Cowan makes it back-to-back wins !

Below are the top 3 place getters for Round 5 of our AMHGS played at RACV Club Friday 24^th June 2011.

1. Angus Cowan
2. Jason Holloway
3. Sam Mohamed

Round 5 was interesting. First we got moved from our normal Club Function Room to the Bayside Room 4 on Level 2 due to a Corporate Function being held there, and then Gus blew-up the gearbox in his van so we didn’t have any Poker tables !! Well, we are a “Home Game Syndicate” !

Here are some Pics!

Final Table

The Three Amigo's? or Three Stooges?

The Top 3 Place getters

Angus has continued his good form and good luck from last round. Gus fairly early on was extremely short-stacked with around 3k but found ways to double-up a few times to finally find himself heads-up with Jason Holloway.

Holding a 2:1 chip lead, an early move by Gus saw things even-up a bit and in a 30 min heads up saw a see-sawing match, Gus was on life-support when his Jacks got outdrawn by Jason’s flopped King (KT) only to have Gus claw his way back. The final hand went down something like this.

Gus slight chip lead. Jason on Button shoved pre-flop and Gus called;

Jason: 45 (suited) Gus: KQ (offsuit)

• Flop: 10 5 2
• Turn: K
• River: 8

And Gus makes it back-to-back wins !

The leader board standing sees Gus vault past Arnold to 3^rd place with Rusty barely ahead in 2^nd and Mark still on top. Click on the Leaderboard link in the side bar for more details.

Word is, with Gus’ second win, Bini is feverishly making arrangements to reshuffle his African Trip later this year in order not to miss even one game this season! Now is that Desperation or Dedication? You be the judge.

The points race is starting to heat up, so stay tuned !

As always, if I got any of the details wrong feel free to comment (Bini, set the record straight!)

Win a $5Kor $13K WSOP Pkge: Sun June 26th

I’ve received an email regarding a Tournament at Mitcham RSL that depending on numbers, the winner will receive a $5,000 or $13,000 WSOP package.

For further details please see go to http://playpokernights.com.au

Not sure if I'll be going as it's on the other side of town for me but may be close to some of you. Good Luck.

Poker Eyewear

So you’ve tried wearing Sunglasses at the Poker Table? If you're like me you’ve tried multiple sunglasses from mirrored Sport sunglasses from Oakley to El-Cheapo’s from Big W and the local Petrol station and everything I’ve tried to wear at the Poker Table indoors I just take-off eventually because I can’t see my cards or the colour of the chips for Shit !

Well, I think I’ve found the solution. Playing across from me in Event 4 of JHDSS7 was a dude with some reflective shades I’d seen heaps of players wearing at WSOP and WPT events on T.V. During a break in play I commented on his Sunglasses and he replied they’re not “Sun”glasses but poker eyewear or light enhancing lenses specifically made for playing poker in low light or even night driving. WTF? … I asked him if I could try them on , he handed them from across the table and when I put them on … well … all I can say is .. wow. It did not reduce any light at all and infact seemed to make things a little bit brighter even! I asked him where he got them from and he mentioned a company called Blue Shark Optics in the U.S. Price ranged from $89 - $149 U.S with $30 U.S. Dollars for International shipping.

Check it out at http://www.bluesharkoptics.com

A couple of us are thinking of ordering online (especially with the strong AUD) so let me know in the next week or two if you’re interested and we can probably buy several in one order and save a little on shipping.

JHDSS 7 - Update

Event #1 : $50 NLHE (Re-entry, add-on accumulator) 1,800+ entries in 5 flights.

Allan placed 35^th on Sunday 12^th for $535 cash.

Event #4 : $200 NLHE (freeze-out Mega-stack 30k Start stack) 280+ entries.

Arnold, Brett Males and Allan again to the field. Brett Males placed 15^th for a cash of $560.

Interesting hand: With a tournament average stack of around $180k I had about 420k and was one of the tournament chip leads. Unfortunately I got involved in a re-raising war with the only other stack that could bust me. We eventually got it all-in pre-flop with me holding Aces vs. Queens. but …. You guessed it the dreaded Q hit the river.

Well done to Brett and Allan on cashing and especially to Brett who made his first Tourney cash at Crown.

Don’t forget there are other events still to enter and of course the Main event (see links in previous post or go to www.crownpoker.com.au)

JHDSS7 - Event 1, Day 1, Flight 1 Thu 9/6/11

4 Hardened poker players in our crew took the field for flight 1 Event 1. Arnold Bathan a member of the Aussie Millions Syndicate and 3 “Friends of the Syndicate” : Brett Males, Allan Bathan and Jason Benatsky all of who are Followers of our Aussie Millions Syndicate website as well. 

With a 5k Start Bank and 20 Min blind levels the action was fast and furious and once players found out it was also a re-entry event there was sickness to be had. Jason, Brett and Arnold all fell victim before Level 6 and had to re-buy. Allan managed to survive with his initial buy-in. 

As the tournament progressed Brett, Jason and Arnold fell by the wayside but Allan was able to stand the test and get into some nice spots to finish Day 1 Flight 1 at 1:40am with 122K in Chips. 

Word is that there were approx 450 buy-ins (many multiple re-entries of $50) and about 200 $50 add-ons. So with another 4 more flights and over $30,000 in the prize pool already, the $50k guarantee put up by Crown will be well exceeded.

Good luck to Allan for Day 2 and any of you that may be playing the other Day 1 flights or in other events in the JHDSS7.

Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series 7 - Crown

For those that aren’t aware the Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series 7 (JHDSS7) will commence this Thursday June 9 with Event 1 being a $50 , $50k guarantee. It’s a Repecharge Accumulator Event which means that you can buy into just One or All of the Day 1 Flights (there are 5 of them in total). Any chips you have at the end of each Day1 Flight will be accumulated with any other Day1 flight Chips you ended with that day and brought into your Day 2 Starting Stack on Sunday June 12. Click Here for more info on Event 1 

Here is a link to the JHDDS7 Tournament Schedule.

I highly recommend the JHDSS Tournaments for those in our group that don’t play a lot of Live Tournament Poker as these are good value for money and can provide you with reasonable experience (several 2 Day events) that will hold you in good stead if you happen to top the points and represent us at the next Aussie Millions.

I'll be playing Event 1 and 11, so if you're playing also let me know, hopefully I'll see you at one of the Event Final Tables !
 

Arnie.

2011 The Leaderboard Rankings are now Online !

Hi Everyone,

The Leaderboard/Scoreboard is now online and viewable. Just click on the Tournament Scoreboard link in the Side Bar.

Note you may have to scroll down to view the points table and also the Zoom In feature to get a better look.

Results: Round 4 - 27th May 2011

Howdy Poker Crew,

Here’s a brief write-up and top three place getters for Round 4 of the Aussie Millions Home Game Syndicate (AMHGS) played at the RACV Club Fri 27th May 2011.

1. Angus Cowen
2. Nathan Vincent
3. Arnold Bathan

Angus basically went on a heater beginning with a couple of pocket tens, Jacks vs Mark's pocket 6's, a sick suck-out against Dave Enaty and then during 3-handed play delivered back-to-back knock-outs eliminating Arnold with AK vs. J9 and then the next hand heads-up against Nathan with AJ vs. K5s.

Interesting Hand of the night:
Final table. 5 or so players left. Blinds 500/1000. Everyone folds to Angus Cowan on the small blind who raises to 3000. Dave Enaty who was pretty much pre-occupied for most the final table on his IPhone with AFL SuperCoach throws in 3000 without announcing raise only to find Gus had already put in a 3k raise. After the confusion sorted the flop was dealt.

Flop is: 44K and Gus shoves, Dave snap-calls. Cards are tabled;
GUS: K7
Dave:AK

Turn card is a 7 and the River bricks. Gus has Dave covered and Dave is eliminated in a storm of contention. Who knows the play may have ended differently if Dave had paid attention pre-flop but … as they say that’s poker.


The full list of results will be posted once I get the updated spreadsheet from Rodney.

Stayed tuned.

Below are some random pics from Round 4.


Rusty and Rodney Joseph trash-talking leading up to Final Table.



Nathan and Gus Heads-Up.

AMHGS Tournament Dates.

Click Above Picture for a clearer Image.

Here is a screen shot of the exact tournament dates for the Aussie Millions Home Game Series for 2011. Note this is just a Filtered View of the Tournament Calendar from the Link in the Task Bar.

You can also get this view by first clicking on the Tournament Calandar link Then click the Agenda Tab on top right-hand corner. By default it will show only next months items but you can expand it by clicking Look for more on the bottom (both highlighted by Red circles).

The Full Calandar will likely be used to also show upcoming Home Games and other Important Dates like Crown Melbourne and Victorian Poker Championships as well as the Joe Hachem Deep Stack series. In future you'll be able to Filter these out by using the "Drop-down" arrow next to Agenda Tab and select which Calendar filter you want.

Short Poker Video's

Some short Poker Video's from YouTube have been added to our Website. At the moment it's just showing random Videos from YouTube but later if people are interested we can create a Vidoe Channel of our own showing highlights of Final Tables and Video Productions of our Home Game Series.

Want to know when the Next Tournament is?

Well it's easy now, the sidebar will display the next upcoming event in our Aussie Millions Home Game Syndicate round.

Note you can view a Full Calendar of future dates, venues etc. In the Tournament Calendar Link under AMHGS LINKS section at the top righthand portion of the sidebar.

Both spots have links to Google maps so if you don't know where a venue is or need directions you can get it all here!

Hopefully we'll be up and running soon with some cool stuff

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to post here to let you guys know in during the course of the next few weeks I'll be trying to add additional features and links to this such as Tournmament Schedule, Games results, Leaderboards and Player Profiles.

Welcome to our New Aussie Millions Home Game Syndicate Website !

Hi Everyone and Welcome to our new Aussie Millions Home Game Syndicate Website.

Here you will find all relevant information about our Syndicate Groups schedule dates, Venues, Leaderboard and other relevant news.

Please feel free to post or comment on anyting Poker related about our group or others in our group might be interested in.