We were then ready to fly to Casablanca where the poker tournament was held at the amazing Magazan resort, one of, if not the best resort I have ever been too! Jackstar and I are not resort type of people, but this resort had a casino, great gym & spa, amazing rooms and an unbelievable Gary Player designed championship golf course!
Yeh, I think I was in heaven! And I was going to get the chance to play a poker tournament, something I love doing, but have only had the odd occasion to do so the past 4-5 years!
This was a great chance for me to see how Jack was going to get treated by 888, as one of their global ambassadors, we were told she would be treated very well!
Well I'm not sure what very well means in other people's vocabulary, but I can honestly say that Jack was treated like royalty! 888 put on an amazing event, treating all their qualifiers and guests unbelievably well, with other ambassadors Sam Holden, Russell Thomas & Nico Villa-Lobos being there to enjoy the event as well! It was great for both Jack and I to meet and get to know the other Team888 ambassadors as we are going to spending a bit of time with these guys at future events. The good news is we had a blast with all of them! A great group of people that I know we will have an enormous amount of fun with in the future!
After spending a day at the resort to chill out, Sam and I got out and played some golf! The golf course was amazing and an awesome warm up for the start of the poker tournament, where each ambassador had a $250 bounty on their heads! I was hoping to be seated atone if their tables, unlikely as their we're approx 12 tables and only 4 ambassadors!
BANG! I found myself seated on Nico's table and it doesn't take us long to have some fun, with me showing him a bluff or 2 and just generally enjoying playingmn each others table!
The event was played in great spirits amongst all the players, event though there was a $10,000 AUD 1st prize! A credit to 888Poker and how they separate themselves from other poker sites!
To the surprise of most, even though I was sprouting my mouth off to the others that I was
going to win this thing, I begun to build one of the biggest stacks in the room. With a nice mix of good cards and good play, I began to dominate my table. At one point Nico saying it was 3-0 to me in heads up hands, but for some reason I could see he had plans on making a comeback!
With 95 players starting the day, paying the Top 17 and play stopping for the day when they reached the final 9 players, play began to get fast as the structure made players stack shallower
and shallower. We lost Russell and Jackstar just before dinner, with Sam, Nico and myself all heading to dinner with a chance to make the final table!
After some friendly banter at dinner, we all headed back ready to make a deep run! At the end
of the day, it was great to see that Sam, Nico and I had made the final table, with Nico and I chip leaders with a decent distance between 3rd stack! I had so much fun playing and it was great to feel like I feel into the role of the player quiet quickly, surprising myself how well I played and how I felt like I actually knew what I should in just about all spots during eye day!
I was super excited to go back the next day for the final table!
The action was pretty quick and fast on the final table, with some short stacks needing to gamble early and before I knew it, we were down to the last 4! Crazily I was one of those final four and both Sam & Nico were still in, which made the event that much more fun I could go deep with some new friends!
Before I knew, I knocked Sam out in 4th to get his Bounty and Nico knocked out 3rd place and we were now heads up!
As we started the heads up match, Nico looked at me and said " From the start"! We played
our very 1st hand of the tournament together and we were going to play our very last hand of the tournament together, pretty damn kool I reckon!
After a great heads up match that went for over half an hour, Nico's A
s10d held up against my shove of 6h4h and ended up taking the title and possible revenge for me getting off to a 3-0 start on our first table!:)
Finishing 2nd in this event was an amazing way to start, cashing for $6.5AUD and having some extra spending money for the trip, which will be awesome as we are planning on mixing some great work with Jackstars poker and my writing mental performance program's, with some great play time in the UK & Europe!
Next Stop- Marrakech:)
Jackstar having a go Left Handed. Just before impact and it was a great pitch shot!
Great shot post impact, one of my better shot of the day!:)
Next Stop- Marrakech:)
Magazan Resort was an easy place to relax:)
Jackstar having a go Left Handed. Just before impact and it was a great pitch shot!
Sam holing out during his best round of the year!
Some amazing sunsets at Magazan!
Great shot post impact, one of my better shot of the day!:)
The September 9:)
Heads Up with the Brazilian Maestro!
He was too good to the surprise of nobody:)
To the victor (and their partner) goes the spoils:)