Pass the Vegemite, Mate!

There's nothing quite like a trip to the other side of the world to turn your poker game upside down.

I mean, there has to be some explanation for how Andy "Bronze Medal" Glazer, who has been specializing in reaching final tables without pushing the ball over the goal line for the last couple of years, could win two big buy-in tournaments in four days at the 2004 Australasian Poker Championships in Melbourne, Australia.

Although I can't completely discount the theory, "the blood must be rushing to his head," proposed by a friend (who needs enemies?), I do have a serious theory as to why the challenges of shorthanded tournament poker didn't seem quite so daunting while I was winning the $500 pot-limit hold'em and the $1,600 seven-card stud events.

During the last three months of 2003, I was pretty much a no-show on the brick-and-mortar (B&M) casino tournament scene, due mostly to some head surgery I was having done (true). They finally put a brain in (not true … they said the old one was too decayed to replace and just sprayed some WD-40 on it).

I'm fine now and was mostly then, but during my time away from the live scene, I played a very large number of one-table no-limit hold'em tournaments online. After an indifferent start, I kicked it into gear and won a reasonable amount of money … but far more important, I got to spend much more time playing shorthanded than I normally would, and got in a lot of practice playing stacks of all sizes against players of all different skill levels.

While I could have duplicated part of this experience by playing live one-table satellites in the few hours each day before a B&M casino tournament (and if you're not a fan of Internet poker, I would recommend doing exactly that if you have tournament-winning aspirations), I didn't have to.

You might think no-limit hold'em practice would help more in a pot-limit hold'em event than in a seven-card stud event, and I think that was probably the case, because I played the pot-limit event under unusual circumstances.

I hadn't planned on playing. My 15-hour flight landed at Melbourne Airport, and in due course I got through customs and took a shuttle to the Crown Promenade Hotel. I dropped my bags in the room and didn't even unpack: After that much time in the air and two more hours at the airport, I wanted to see a familiar face or two. I headed down to the poker room at Crown (the only casino in Melbourne, but despite that monopoly status, a luxury property that treats its players well).

When I arrived, they told me the pot-limit hold'em event was starting in 30 minutes, so I said what the heck, and entered.

The blind structure was well done for a one-day event. I never felt like we reached a level where we had to push our chips in simply because the blinds were too high. The event finished in about 12 hours, but it went relatively quickly at the end only because certain players chose to get their chips into action. I thought the opposition was a bit too aggressive near the end (a curious change, because they'd seemed too passive near the start), so I was able to counterpunch most of the last two to three hours.

I had very little sense of what was going on outside of my table. A couple of friends were watching, it turned out, and someone was taking pictures, but I noticed neither. My world was the final table, as one member of Britain's famed Hendon Mob, Joe "the elegance" Boevers, noticed from the rail.

Coming up to me the next day to congratulate me, "the elegance" (I love that almost all the Brits have nicknames … hmm, "Goldenrod" Glazer – for my trademark gold Cross pen? That way, maybe opponents could feel allergic to me … ) said, "You looked extremely focused, Andy."

Of course I was focused! With the chance for a title on the line, and a big payday … what with Card Player pays its writers, if you get a chance to make some money, you'd better take it.

Speaking of paydays, when we got down to four players left, two players (Gerry Fitt and John Madaffari) each had about twice as many chips as Jesse Jones and I did. Ever one to reduce fluctuation (especially given my recent record of non-closure), I inquired if the other players wanted "to do something."

Everyone but Fitt was amenable. He said, "Of course I want to do something. I want to win $17,000." (First place was $17,076 in Australian dollars, which were each worth about 77 cents U.S. at tournament time – a considerably worse situation for the Yanks than they faced here in 2003, when $1 U.S. was worth almost exactly $2 Australian.)

You know the story: He who says no … Fitt was out in fourth place only 10 minutes later. Threehanded, we quickly made a deal, although we left quite a lot of money in play for first and second place.

We remained threehanded for quite a while, and eventually I trapped Madaffari, and was heads up with fellow American Jesse Jones for the title. I didn't yet know this, but Jones is the best tournament player you've never heard of. You'll soon hear much more about him, I am certain.

Jones wasn't giving any chips away, but in an uncharacteristic showing of mental toughness, neither was I. We each went through aggressive, solid, and trapping phases, and then I finally blasted him the old-fashioned way: by sucking out in a big pot.

Heads up, with the blinds starting to become significant (not yet burdensome, but significant), nobody has to do anything wrong for all the money to get in before the flop when the hands are Q-Q and A-A. I thought I had Jesse when we got it all in, but when he turned those razor-sharp ace blades over, I thought I was done.

No one was more surprised than I was when the flop came Q-4-3, but I didn't feel unworthy: On two separate occasions earlier in the event, I'd lost half my stack to cruel and unlikely river cards. The deck had chosen a late and key moment to pay me back.

Jesse had a few chips left, but I've learned enough watching other players finish to know how to walk the fine line between not giving a short stack a cheap double-through and not letting him breathe, either. Jesse just didn't have enough ammo left after my drawout.

Next issue, I'll discuss some actual hands and seven-card stud strategy. We'll save my first-day heroics and second-day blunders in the $10,000 championship event (where Jones again finished second, this time losing with K-K to 3-3, although almost all of the money went in after the flop, when Tony "the Lizard" Bloom had flopped a set).

What a terrible two weeks it was for Las Vegas pro Jesse Jones. He got aces and kings cracked just as victory was in his grasp. The poor guy didn't get to bring a single trophy home, but come to think of it, Jesse Jones isn't a poor guy. In fact, one of the nicest and most talented players I've met in a long time came home with about a quarter of a million dollars more than I did.

We're both richer for our Australian experiences, of course, but given the wonderful way the Crown folks treated all the foreign players, I think just about everyone who went to Melbourne came home richer for having made the trip, even if their accountants might dispute that description.