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Lets rejoin where we left off with TonyG and his Real Professor to find out the result of that massive 100k Scrabble game. Will the elusive Zasko appear on the board? And like Tony told us before remember about Party Pokers rake free tournaments!

It was a great run on day two for our eight Party Poker online qualifiers who attended the Aussie Millions. When the day wrapped the team had the following in chips:

• Robert Labelle (CAN)  27,600
• Robin Ylitalo (SWE)  192,600
• Christian Glissmann (DE)  89,900
• Jeffrey Hakim (CA)  58,900
• David Sonelin (SWE)  186,200
• Sayed Jabbour (AU)  74,900
• Diego Zeiter (CH)  142,900
• Armin Zoike (DE)  84,400
• Antanas Guoga (LITH)  74,400

When play returned at the main event naturally the action started to heat up a bit down under,  ending our qualifiers day in the sun with them one by one slowly being sent to the rail. It wasn’t all bad news though as two managed to cash with:

56th Diego Zeiter from Switzerland taking home AUD$20,000 who you may remember sent our good friend TonyG packing and off to look for the Professor once again.

60th Armin Zoike from Germany  AUD$15,000

Play continues with Brett Watson sitting pretty with the $257,400 in chips, and a  good friend of Party’s James Dempsey who you’ll remember took part in our Premier League event back in November is sitting on a nice stack of $189,000 in chips, but it seems all eyes are now squarely on Phil Ivey, could this be his year?

Let’s join everyone’s favorite poker player TonyG with The Real Professor as they play Scrabble for $100k at the Aussie Millions, but hang on with Pandas? Plus he lets you know about Party Pokers rake free tournaments!

She’s battered and bruised. She spent a day at the circus but Melanie Weisner has heart and commitment. How did her $10,000 unicycle challenge go? See below:

Here on the Party Poker blog we love hearing stories from the virtual rail as such.

Starting off this week it’s lmtheocean (pictured here on the right) turn who recently won a staggering $16,000 Aussie Millions package.

When we caught up with lmtheocean recently it sure seemed he was living the highlife in Mexico, in between learning to surf, working-out and writing he’s turned to playing poker professionally.

(PartyPoker:Dany Willis): Congrats on your big win, tell us when did you first start playing poker?

(Imtheocean): Well I started to take poker seriously when I was about 18 years old. I played poker in the past, I even read a poker book or two, but it hadn’t become my passion up until that point.

Mixing it up

DW: So tell us what kind of stakes and games do you normally play when playing online or live? Do you mainly play online poker, live poker, or a mixture of both?

ITO: I’m living in Mexico right now, so I’m mainly playing online. I play as high as $1k buy-in heads-up sit-n-gos, and am hoping to start grinding $2k buy-ins soon. I visit my family about once a month, and I try to play some live poker when I’m there. I play as high as $25/$50 live.

First major live event

DW: How about live, ever played something like a WPT, EPT, or WSOP tournament?

ITO: No. I’m only 20 and have only been playing professionally for a couple of years so I haven’t had too many opportunities to play major live events so far in my career. I’m thrilled this will be my first major.

DW: Okay so outside of your poker life tell us a bit more about yourself, any cool hobbies and interests?

ITO: Since I’ve moved to Mexico, I have started to learn to surf. I’m still pretty terrible at it, but I’m hoping I’ll be ready to ride giants 6 months from now :). I love traveling. I plan on living out my dream of traveling the entire world while playing poker for the next 5 or 6 years. I also enjoy working-out and writing.

DW: Sounds great, so you mentioned you play professionally now, how did you get to that point?

ITO: Well I play poker full time now. When I graduated high school at 18, my dad was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. I had planned on going to college on the east coast of the United States, but after he got sick I decided to postpone college so I could be at home with my family.

After passing on school, I quickly realized that poker was my passion, and I wanted to chase my dream of becoming one of the best poker players in the world. I remember telling my dad, and he was furious with me.

Looking back, I know it was much less anger he was expressing and more so fear that I was going to throw my life away chasing a pipe-dream. Sadly, my dad passed away before he got to see me start to excel at poker. It kills me that he might have died worrying that I might wind up being a total screw-up in life. I like to think he checks in on me and the family every now and again from heaven, and gets to see that we’re all doing well.

Poker Idols

DW: Well tell us then who are some of your favourite professional poker players?

ITO: There are a lot of less famous poker player’s out there who I would call my favorite’s, because they did so much to help me to get to where I am. Jon ‘Croixdawg’ Ford staked and coached me when I was first getting started, and without him I have no idea where I’d be right now.

I’m a fan of Phil Galfond, Tom Dwan, and Olivier Busquet. Galfond just seems like a great guy, and I learned a lot from watching his training videos. Dwan has been part of some of the coolest tv hands ever to air, and he’s a great ambassador for the game. He’s also the face of the internet generation, and watching him play provides a great illustration to how winning poker strategy has evolved into what it is today. Olivier Busquet is the godfather of heads-up sit-n-gos. In addition to being a great ambassador for the game, he’s also the best husng player in the world and he pushes guy’s like me to be better. I wouldn’t be scared to play with anyone, but I don’t like having to play Olivier, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be too happy to have Galfond or Dwan at my table. They’re all amazing.

The Ultimate Question

DW: Okay lets play that fun hypothetical game called “Winning Big”, you’ve won a big live event what is the first thing you’d buy with the prize money?

ITO: I’m not planning on settling down anytime in the near future, so I probably wouldn’t buy a house, car, or anything like that. I would definitely, use a fraction of that money and continue to travel and explore the world. I would also donate a good chunk to my church. The rest of the money, however, would likely go right into my poker bankroll. I plan on continuing to climb limits, until I honestly believe no matter how hard I work I can’t be good enough to win at a certain level.

DW: How about you let us in on how you ended up winning this promotion?

ITO: I had decided a couple of days prior to playing the Aussie Millions qualifier that I wanted to put more of an effort into trying to win satellites to live events. I had actually played a qualifier the night before where first prize was guaranteed to trip to Seoul to play in an APPT main event. I was fortunate enough to get to heads-up where obviously I felt like I was pushing a pretty big edge. Unfortunately, it was one of those heads-up matches where everything goes wrong, and I busted the tournament in second. Truthfully, I almost started to cry I was so upset that I came so close, and then lost it in heads-up of all ways.

Maybe it was for the best though, as I found redemption in winning the Aussie Millions qualifier the next day. Funny, when we got heads up in the Aussie Millions qualifier, I had a 3:1 chip lead, and the guy I was playing had very little heads-up experience. I ended up losing my huge chip advantage, and even coughed up the lead at one point though. I’m really thankful that I was able to keep my composure and hold when we got it in with my 2 pair vs his pair plus nut flush draw.

Party Time!

DW: So how’d you celebrate your victory?

ITO: During heads-up of the quallifier, my 3 roommates were huddled around the computer with me sweating the action. One of my roommates also had 4 other guys on a skype conference call. My headphones were on the whole time, and I was blaring music to try to block out all the chat circling around me.

When I won, there were just cheers all throughout the condo, coming from myself, my roommates, and from the computer speakers. I called my mom and my brothers and sisters. I hopped on Facebook, and messaged some buddies. After that though, I went right back to grinding lol. I think I managed to squeeze out a couple thousand in profit not including the Aussie Millions qualifier win that day, so all in all I would call it a pretty solid day of poker :)

DW: Thanks for your time Imtheocean, and good luck at the Aussie Millions. And there we have it folks, a few good tales for us all to learn from, chasing his dreams sure seems to be paying off for Imtheocean.

I’ve been playing some poker at the Aviation Club in Paris last week.

I just busted out on day 2 of the 1k Silver EFOP event. I busted in 17th or 18th place which was in the money and tantalisingly close to the bigger payouts.

It was a tough event in some respects. I’m not exactly well known for being a night owl.

And so any poker tournament that doesn’t even start until 8pm is going to be tough for me.

The idea of playing until the wee hours and then having to come back with a small stack did not appeal to me.

Which meant I grew very used to saying the phrase ‘Tapis!’ which is French for ‘all in,’ in my attempt to go big or go home.

Day 1

Our Day 1 ended up going an extra level (I have no idea why although I’m sure they explained it at length in French) so we didn’t even finish until 5am. That is not a time that I see often from the back end. Right at the end of the day, I lost a flip to Elky’s girlfriend. I really like Cathy and was glad to see her at my table but was less than happy to shovel most of my chips her way. It was such a standard spot though and we both made Day 2.

Day 2 – Bubble day

I began Day 2 with about (~21k) 9bb and as we were still 16 players away from the money, I wasn’t expecting much. It was my day though! I said ‘Tapis!’ five times in the first hour and managed to build up to 70k. I changed tables quite a few times and then ended up on the bubble, sat beside the lovely Remy Biechel. We’ve known each other for a few years and although we struggle with his English and my French, I love being able to chat to him. Mostly, we just smile at each other as he has one of the happiest smiles around. Sadly, he was the bubble boy so it was a short conversation with fewer smiles.

Once the bubble finally burst, everyone was quite short stacked. I was trying to find good spots for my stack and was involved in quite a few pots which meant my stack was fluctuating wildly. I lost a couple of flips and then got my last 15bb involved with A7 against an opponents A10 and that was it for me.

And on to the 2k Event

It was a hell of a lot of fun though and I’m really looking forward to getting into the 2k event tomorrow. I was incredibly grumpy at 5am this morning when I stomped back to the hotel thinking about Day 2 with 9bbs, but I’m glad I didn’t give up. It feels good to get a cash under my belt early in 2012!

Kara Scott

I’m having a great time staying here at Crown Towers for the Aussie Millions. I go to a private area every morning to have breakfast and see all the tennis stars from the Australian Open that is being held out here at the moment. No cooked breakfasts for them but in my time in the dining area i am able to reveal a few of their dietary delicacies. I have something very much in common with these stars at the peak of their sporting prowess. Every single one of them seems to have had yellowtail sashimi at some point, some with jalapenos, some without. I have seen Andy Roddick eat three portions of yellowtail a number of times and have seen lots of new style salmon, baby spinach salad with dry miso. Tennis players seem to eat sashimi by the bucket load – something they very much have in common with us poker players. I’m no Phil Hellmuth so you won’t see my tweets going ‘met Andy Roddick who said hi Phil, you’re the greatest – how about poker lessons in exchange for tennis lessons,’ but i know Roddick likes poker so I may have to test his mettle and heart over the next week if his schedules allow.

As I write this i have just been in the area and saw Maria Sharapova. I’m not normally a fan of Russian – Americans (Ralph Perry) but if Maria is open minded I am quite willing to lend her the guiding hand of Tony G to lead her down the path of righteousness. Who else have I seen? Andy Murray – he was smiling, Caroline Wozniacki – she seems like a nice fun girl. These tennis stars seem to get younger and younger though so it is a good job the Devilfish isn’t here.

The player who seems to attract the most attention here though is Chinese tennis star Li Na – she reached the finals of the Australian Open last year and went on to win the French Open. I was walking to Nobu to have some yellowtail sashimi, as you do, when i saw this lady and dozens of autograph hunters. I was thinking who is that? Then i see the sun tan marks where she wore the sweat bands. It also turns out she is sponsored by Crown – she’s in the same stable as Joe Hachem. All Crown need to do now is sign me to join Joe and Li and they’ll have a winning team that qualifies. I have my PartyPoker sponsorship (and am hoping to get an exclusive corporate chequebook soon) but the G isn’t going to say no to another endorsement.

In the meantime I am preparing for Sunday’s 100k tournament. I had an entrance planned but it has run into some issues. I may have to enter merely as the businessman poker player which is disappointing. I’m in a relaxed mood due to my professional tennis diet though so perhaps it is the best course of action. Zasko is off guarding the empire and he had a falling out with his mate TJ over the marble of the wagyu they get so i have no pet buddies with me this time.

What about the cash games here? Patrik needs to get back to the table methinks – this weekend will get lively i predict. The nippy chiwawa Mr Negreanu and others get into town. I also heard Durrrr is on his way and that you cannot rule out an appearance from Ivey – we’ll see. I will also be joining my sponsors’ most qualified (yes those who have Aussie Millions packages) for dinner on Saturday night.

Yesterday two new members of the Australian Poker Hall of Fame were inducted – congratulations to David Gorr and Jason Gray. Both really deserve this but now they should get to the table so i can take everything they have!

From the Crown Casino in Melbourne it’s the Aussie Millions with Jungle Man and Tony G. Join us as Daniel Cates aka Jungleman talks more about his recent 100K challenge he made at the recent WPT in Prague.

Australia has gone mad about legendary cricketer Shane Warne’s rant at cyclists. As you know I choose to encourage cycling and bike riding and i sent him on it in his excellent charity tournament two days ago. Here we cut to the fine detail – Shane you need my guiding hand!

That’s right folks you too could be winning your share of our $1 million promotion on 5th February

Starts: 00:00 ET, 7 November 2011 Ends: 13:30 ET, 05 February 2012

Our Winter Million promotion is your big chance to play for a million dollar prize pool. So make sure you kick off 2012 with a blistering bankroll when you cash in this tournament. And the best part is you can compete for this giant prize pool for as little as $1.

Just to let you know we’ve already kicked off our $1 qualifiers so join the action now and view the full qualifying structure to start planning your route to the Winter Million final table.

To join the action, secure your seat in the main event on 5th February, for full details click here

I think I may have had one too many pints of Guinness in Dublin at the WPT because I’ve really been paying for it this week. I spent some time in England, sniffly and croaky-throated, trying desperately to keep this cold/flu/laryngitis/ebola hybrid at bay, but it seems to have caught up with me anyway.

I think that it was probably worth it though because Ireland was so much fun. It’s been a while since I was able to hang out with some of the Party Poker/WPT regulars and we made the most of it. I learned a fair amount about people that week, including just who knows ALL of the words to the movie High School Musical and various other bits of gossip. I’ll tell you what, the European Royal Flush Girls Violet and Raysa are really lovely and great fun to hang out with although I think that we’re all as bad as each other at foozball.

I’m spending a few days on holiday in Amsterdam right now before I catch a train to Paris to play some of the Euro Finals of Poker events and attend the European Poker Awards at the Aviation Club. Hopefully by then, I’ll be back in tip top condition. For now, I think that I’ll be keeping pretty quiet here in Holland while I nurse myself back to health.

We’re in the heart of summer here. Zasko is off guarding the empire in my absence and I really think 2012 will be a big poker year for me. All the best for the next 12 months to you all. Just remember, follow the guiding hand and you will be qualified!

The sun is shining and the cash action has already started here at Crown and i am hitting them harder than the giant hailstones hit my car during the freak weather here on Christmas Day. Last night, Patrik Antonius won over $1 million – enough to feed all the wolves and give him a supply of Fiji water for a lifetime. I was a small winner over 24 hours and am happy with my position (mainly playing 1000/2000 PLO). At the moment i have mainly been barbecuing the kiwis and aussies – the international menu is heating up by the day. Bobby Bellande wants a game but let’s see if we see the colour of his money – anybody got the number for BrokeLiving staking? Lol. I also heard Jungleman is coming in and all these businessmen from Macau – it is going to be a feast!

I have really got into my tennis in recent months and have just come off the court – I intend to take in as much of the Australian Open as much as possible as it is on out here coinciding with the Aussie Millions. I’m hoping to get to meet the players on Sunday night after I have played Shane Warne and Joe Hachem’s charity tournament at Crown. Hang on – am I starting to sound like the Brat? Shoot me! Warney is a good bloke and I am glad he has accepted my offer of poker lessons – he knows about heart and commitment. The buy-in for the charity tournament is AUD$1,000 with AUD$500 re-buys – come and get me, it’s all for an amazing cause. See: http://www.tswf.com.au/ for more information on the tournament – lets raise lots of money. You never know, if Bobby Bellande comes I may stake him for that!

Enjoy the rake free MTTs at PartyPoker.com – I love it! I am planning on making an entrance at the Aussie Millions – no dog this year though – it is much better than that! I will let you know very soon!

We ask the ultimate question: TonyG vs Hellmuth heads up? Who do you think would win?

Join in the fun as we ask a few friends on the poker circuit, What’s your favorite WPT stop?

From the WPT Dublin join us as the great Kara Scott talks about her plans for the next few weeks:

Here’s a clip from our upcoming Mixed Game Championship show which will be out on the 10th of January in the UK on Sky Sports.

At the start of a new year, poker players begin to set goals for how they hope the next 12 months will unfold. Often these goals are centered on making more money, winning a big tournament title, or moving up in stakes. The big question then becomes how you’re going to achieve these results.

With the games getting tougher, tilt has become more costly. Think for a few minutes about how much tilt cost you in 2011. If tilt wasn’t a problem: How much more money could you have won? What stakes would you be playing now? What titles could you have won?

Make 2012 the year you killed tilt and stopped wondering how much more you could have achieved.

You’ve tried to kill tilt before and the reason it hasn’t worked is because you didn’t work long enough (tilt takes longer than you think to kill), and you didn’t work smart enough (tilt is an entrenched problem that requires a well devised strategy to kill).

Use this article to begin developing a strategy that kills tilt in 2012.

Understand Your Tilt If you want to successful eliminate a problem like tilt, you must first understand it. Devising a strategy to eliminate tilt from your game, means that you understand what causes it, the signs of it, and how it affects your game. To begin assessing tilt, I have all new students fill out this questionnaire and in The Mental Game of Poker, readers are asked to create a ‘Tilt Profile.’ (Often, by simply filling out the questionnaire or creating the tilt profile you can reduce tilt.) In case you haven’t picked up the book yet, here are the questions to create your tilt profile:

• What causes you to tilt? (Bad beats, losing to fish, running bad, etc.) • What are the things you say to yourself out loud, or to other players, when frustration starts rising and when tilted? • How do you know that you’re on tilt? What’s the first thing you notice? • How does your body react to tilt? (Head gets hot, body is sweaty, heart races, fist is clenched, etc.) • Can you identify the point when tilt starts shutting down your thinking? • At what point do you take action to deal with tilt?

Once you’ve answered these questions, study the information regularly, and especially before each session. In order to kill tilt, you need to recognize the earliest signs of tilt. It’s at that point, tilt is easier to control. If you wait until you’re tilting to try and regain control, you’re in for a major battle. Instead, study your tilt profile so you’re ready to take aggressive action against tilt at the first sign.

There are two steps to eliminating tilt. The first step is managing or controlling tilt at the table.

Managing Tilt at the Table The only way you can kill tilt is by remaining in control at the table when you would typically lose control. Unfortunately, the brain makes controlling tilt harder because it’s designed to shut down thinking when emotion rises too high. Meaning, if tilt becomes too intense, you lose the ability to think clearly. Thinking is how you remain in control, and if you can’t think, you can’t control tilt. Period.

That means, you need to take aggressive steps to control tilt at the first sign, otherwise, if it gets too big, the intensity of the emotion makes it nearly impossible to control. Have a strong sense of urgency to spot these early signs of tilt, as though your poker life depends on it. Once you recognized a sign, follow these steps:

1. Take a few deep breaths to mentally back up and create some mental space so you can think clearer.

2. Repeat a statement of logic that corrects the flaw causing tilt, in your mind or by reading it. It’s like a mantra, but not something that only sounds good. This logic statement needs to correct the flaw causing you to tilt. For example, “Bad players have to win for me to be profitable,” or “I can’t control the cards, I can only control how well I play.” Something that attacks the reason you’re tilting, and gets you refocused on the action.

3. Focus on correcting the tactical mistakes you tend to make when beginning to tilt. It’s good to actually list these out on a note card so you can easily remind yourself that you, play too many hands pre-flop, 3-bet too much, or become too tight.

4. Repeat as often as needed. In a session or tournament where variance is particularly against you, you might repeat these steps 5 times in 10 minutes. Kill tilt often means going to battle. You have to fight to remain in control.

5. Quit when you can’t fight any more.

If you follow this strategy and still tilt, but, you don’t tilt as bad, it takes longer to tilt, or you don’t play as worse, then you’ve made some improvement. In your next session, you can take another step forward if you stick to this strategy.

Tilt is a big problem and killing it can’t happen in one day. It takes sustain aggressive effort.

Resolving Tilt Managing tilt in the moment might help in small bursts, but long term it is like putting a band aid on a bullet wound. To really conquer tilt, you need to resolve the root cause of it. Managing tilt at the tables is a critical short-term step, and resolving tilt is the second step that allows you to actually kill it.

Resolution means, that you’ve permanently solved the root cause of tilt. Understanding the root cause is the toughest part and requires digging deeper into your tilt. To make it easier to identify the root cause of tilt, I’ve identified seven types of tilt that poker players typically encounter:

• Running Bad Tilt: One (or more) of the other types of tilt happens so frequently in such a short amount of time that your mind can’t reset itself before the next time you play. As a result, tilt builds up and makes it easier and easier to tilt again.

• Injustice Tilt: Bad beats, coolers, and suck-outs are prime examples of triggers that make you feel cursed and make poker feel unfair.

• Hate-losing Tilt: Many players hate losing even though they realize how much variance impacts results in the short run. Wanting to win is not the problem—the problem is how you handle the inevitable losses.

• Mistake Tilt: Making mistakes is frustrating for many logical reasons; these reasons just happen to be flawed because of inaccurate views about learning.

• Entitlement Tilt: Believing that you deserve to win for X, Y, or Z reason makes winning a possession. You tilt when someone undeserving takes it from you.

• Revenge Tilt: Disrespect, constant aggressive action, and opponents thinking they’re better than you are just a few of the reasons why you seek vengeance at the table.

• Desperation Tilt: The urge to win your money back and get unstuck is so strong, it makes you play monster sessions, force the action, and jump up in stakes.

Look at your tilt profile and try to dig deeper into the particular nuances and qualities of your tilt. Did losing to a fish seem unfair because you have more skill? Did losing to a tough regular make you want to destroy them? Do you simply hate losing? Is one bad beat enough to tilt you?

Identifying and resolving the root cause of tilt can be a complex step. But, it’s necessary to kill tilt. If you need help with this step, The Mental Game of Poker is designed to make it easy.

Jared Tendler, M.S. is the author of the highly acclaimed book, The Mental Game of Poker. He’s the mental game coach to over 200 poker players from around the world. Find out more about Jared at his website: www.jaredtendlerpoker.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jaredtendler

Here at PartyPoker we’re always pushing the envelope as such when it comes to the innovation and the design of our products. So you’ll be glad to know that our famous No Download Poker client has had something of a face-lift to bring it into 2012. Not noticed it yet? Well you’ll be happy to hear that some of our new features include:

• Lobby Itunes view • Table filtering • Take seat from lobby • Modern tables with player avatars • New tournament lobby • Embedded account and cashier pages • Email reminders for registered tournaments • Blackjack and Roulette for side games

We hope you enjoy these new features please note they are currently available in English and German. What are your thoughts on our updates? Something else you’d like to see?

I’ve been invited to join the panel of judges for the European Poker Awards in Paris in January, held at the absolutely gorgeous Aviation Club de France. It’s a real honour and I was definitely surprised and happy to be asked. It feels like a big responsibility, so I’ll be considering the possible candidates carefully and trying to make the best possible decision. There are so many fantastic people up for awards that there won’t be any easy decisions!

I’ll be spending quite a bit of time in Paris in January as Party Poker are putting me into some of the Euro Finals of Poker events to help me hit the ground running playing a new year of poker tournaments. My new poker season all starts on the 5th of January though, with WPT Dublin and I’ve already had a lot of people arranging times to meet up and drink whiskey and guinness. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m going there to play a serious poker tournament. It’s an easy venue to lose track of that fact!

I hope you’re all having a fab Holiday season and that you’re 2011 ends with lots of my three favourite things: Food, laughter and poker!

Christmas is coming to the G household – may I wish all the best and remember it is a feast! At this time of year it is only right that you think about others in need and have a deep and meaningful with yourself about life, love and the cosmos. It is with this in mind that I channelled all my positive energy into this spiritual video message to Phil Hellmuth. The change from 2011 to 2012 is very significant for you I know Phil – things are different, it is time for a new Korea. I read on the web rumours that Kim Jong Il was ‘in a fit of rage’ prior to his sudden collapse shortly after sustaining a ‘bad beat’ playing poker. Were you playing Chinese with him Phil and how much did you play per point? 2012 will not be the year of Team America Phil – don’t try and be a superhero – just face facts. I even heard you might be backing out of the PartyPoker.com Premier League because the stakes will be too high. If you do you owe me $50k anyway.

Merry Christmas everybody – I hope my record gets to number one. Just remember that you should feast a lot but not too much. The January sales are coming and so is plenty of seafood – leave some room for feasting on rake free MTTs at PartyPoker.com. Last time this happened I was so happy that I rolled around in a golf bunker – I was delirious.