Travels

My first stop was Melbourne for the Aussie Millions. I loved Melbourne so much, it's actually somewhere I could see myself living and I don't think I've ever said that about anywhere I've been before. The city is just class, real easy to get around, very mellow and unreal weather.

As far as the tournament went it was pretty uneventful. I got through to day 2 with my starting stack after I played ok all day. I made two medium sized mistakes, one of which I was really disgusted with - let's just say you should never bluff me on the river because I love paying people off.

On day 2 I was a shortie and got a good few nice resteals in before eventually getting it in with AK vs 10 10 which would've given me a nice stack but it was not to be. The only other event I played was a $1,000AUD (€550) PLO tournament in which the standard was laughable, but I managed to get raped in two big pots and that halted my progress.

It was a poor showing from the Irish in Oz...there were seven of us there and no-one managed a cash in any event. I'm putting it down to jet lag. One plus though, was me and the Butt (Dave Callaghan) paid O'Shea to drink about a shot and a half of vinegar for €50 at lunch the day before we left. This was such a good spot for us because he loves vinegar so much and we were desperately trying to ruin this love. Unfortunately he still horses it on every meal we have, but it was still worth it coz he was in bits all afternoon.

We also went to the Australian Open and got to see my hero Marat Safin get absolutely destroyed by the Fed Express; it was a great night out because of the atmosphere at the match and also Federer was mind-blowingly good - dunno how Nadal beats him.

Next stop the APT Manila, Philippines