I’ve talked myself out of going to too many gigs over the last few years, so when it was announced that Chicago based MC Lupe Fiasco was doing Big Day Out sideshows, I snapped up tickets the day they came out before I had a chance to do it again. Rather than worrying about parking in St. Kilda (especially on Australia Day), I decided to do the lazy thing - drive in to Crown, park, play some poker to get me free parking for next time and then get a taxi to and from the show. A recent post on PokerNetwork hinted that Crown only have one or two 1/2 No Limit tables open, preferring to ferry everyone over to those horrible electronic PokerPro tables which actually made me think about skipping poker all together. After an up and day down of Limit Hold’Em online, I decided to say screw it and headed off to Crown.

I left home at about 5:30, listening to Gym Class Heroes - As Cruel As School Children on the way up. Not a bad album, mixture of alt-rock and hip-hop. Got to Crown at about twenty past six despite repeatedly getting in the wrong lanes near the Docklands area. Pulled up to the multi level car park and give the attendant my Crown Club card, I thought I had free parking on it - denied, card expired. Shell out $10 for parking, ugh, and park on the sixth level.

After getting my Crown Card switched to a poker room card and taking a long enjoyable dump, I headed down to the poker room to check out what was happening. The rumours on PokerNetwork were semi-right, there were half a dozen tables going for 1/2 NL but the list was about 20 long. I go to have a look at PokerPro for a while, almost considering it but after a few minutes I realise that I may as well of stayed home because it’s just online poker with touch screens. I noticed that the rake was capped at $6 as opposed to the $8 many said online, still doesn’t make it any better to play tho.

I decided to say screw it, and put my name down for 1/2NL. Get to the front of the line and a guy I went to school with is manning the booth. He recognises me straight away and while I struggle to remember his name, I ask a few questions about his job and get my name on the list. It’s gonna be a while, so I watch one of the several tables of 1/2 action while keeping my eye on the cricket. About ten minutes later my name is flashing so I get a ticket and buy in for $100. There is a $60 min/max cap on the table, so I have to keep the other $40 in my pocket for now.

It’s about 7pm and I manage to sit down on the wrong table twice. May as well be dead money before I even sit down, you can tell I’m concentrating. I finally get to the correct table and a young talkative American with a big stack (about $300 odd) welcomes me while taking a bite from his cold toasted sandwich. I’m in the two spot and take a look at my opponents. In the seven and eight spot are a couple of twenty-something Europeans, nine spot is a Asian guy in his late twenties playing tight-aggressive, three spot is the eight spot’s girlfriend who is playing tight-passive, four spot loses his stack right as I sit down, five spot is a middle aged women playing tight-passive and the six spot is another European with an average stack.

I decide to wait for the big blind, and right as the four spot gets knocked out another guy comes to the table with a ticket for this table. A person on the floor tells him to go back up to the desk and get another seat, but the dealer tells him to take the three spot. I manage to watch Australia win the cricket while waiting for the big blind. Finally it gets to me and it’s about ten past seven, first hand.. junk. I end up folding my first few hands before limping with in MP. I end up hitting a flush on the river but can’t get paid off so I only take down a $20 pot.

I get in LP and limp with four-five others in the pot. The flop comes for top pair top kicker. Play checks around to me, and I overbet the pot by sticking in $20, fearing that any less would see someone chase the flush. Play gets back to the BB who shoves for $29 total. Play folds around to me and I make sure it’s $9 more to me then call. He flips over for a flush draw. Turn comes . River.. to give the guy a runner runner straight. Ughhhhhhhhhhh. To
make matters worse, he apologises. If it’s one thing I hate, it’s people who say they are sorry for winning a hand. You decided to chase but you sucked out instead - you knew exactly what you were doing so what are you sorry about? I never really tilt when it happens, but it’s a pet peeve. That gets me down to about $35 so I bring the rest of my cash on the table - time to win a few pots.

Somehow I do, but from memory it’s on nothing spectacular. I get pocket aces under the gun and raise to $63 (all-in). Most of the table folds, making fun of the fact that I bet $63 to win $3. I say that I had a 50% chance, a good but vulnerable hand (trying to imply that I had pocket twos). The guy who hit a runner runner straight on me asks if I had KT, to which I said that I had a better hand. The reason I pushed UTG with AA? Well for one I was totally out of position with a great hand. Second, unlike online a standard raise wouldn’t work here. I had a fantastic hand and even if I raised to $10 (5x the BB) or $15 (7.5x), I’d still get people calling with any ace, king, pocket pair or even the odd suited connector. I knew that I was vulnerable on most flops so it was just easier for me to push and take the blinds. If I got a caller who paid me off, that was a bonus.

The American with a big stack loses most of it against the TAG-Asian with JJ against KK when he re-raises preflop, then pushes on the turn after the Asian check-called the flop then bet the turn. He’s pretty bitter about it and says that I would have done the same thing. I tell him that I doubt I would of re-raised the flop, position or not. I get and the yank raises to $10, so I call instantly. In the past few hands he has raised and I’ve flat called so he makes a comment about it happening again. Somehow it’s just us two for the flop, which comes Qx Jx Rag, two spades. I do a stupid thing and check behind. The turn comes another rag, he bets $10 and I just call behind. A third rag hits on the turn, he checks and like an absolute idiot, I check behind. He flips over and takes in a small pot. He asks me why I called the turn with nothing. I simply say that I had outs (and missed).

Apart from that I lose blinds. I cut sick on one of my last hands when the TAG called an all-in for $25 or so with bottom pair when I had flopped top pair, then proceed to hit two pair on the turn only for me to hit a higher two pair on the river. Time change was up a few hands later, and as I had been there for an hour and a half at it was about 8:30, I decided that it was time to go. Got my chips changed - down $13 for the session. Meh, could of been worse.

I go back to my car to grab my ticket and stop by the sushi bar in the food court to grab a really ordinary California roll. I scoff it down then grab a taxi for the show at around 8:55. The place opened at eight and the show started at nine so I went in late hoping to skip the warm-up act. Got to the Prince at about ten past nine and went straight in to find the place near-pitch black and no-one on the stage. Damnit, the show is running late! Just my luck.

Support act Foreign Heights came on at about 9:30. It’s probably unfair to give my thoughts on them since I’m not a big Maya Jupiter fan (sick of seeing her pop up when hip-hop is mentioned) but there set was just average. Not good, not bad, just average. They brought a few guys up on the stage to freestyle, the first guy was decent, the other two.. not so much. Production wasn’t bad (except for all the wanky laser sound effects from the DJ, save that garbage for mixtapes along with gunshots) but I couldn’t tell you anything about their songs - they seemed to sound really muddy. If the Optimen were the warm-up act instead I think I would of enjoyed it more.

After doing a half hour set, Foreign Heights DJ Nick Toth spun a few more tracks (including Quannum Project’s I Changed My Mind - awesome track) before packing up. A bit later Lupe’s DJ started setting up with a stage hand, but with Maya Jupiter hanging around you had to wonder what was coming up next. As it turns out, Lupe was apparently running
late so we had to put up with Maya playing a few tracks. She stuck to Aussie hip-hop for the most part, finishing up playing Nas’ Hip Hop Is Dead. You can talk all you want about how much you hate Will.I.Am, but after this, Common’s A Dream and The Game’s Compton you gotta give it up for the guy, he’s not too shabby a producer at all.

Lupe finally came out at about eleven and put on a ripping show, performing most of the tracks from his first album plus a few added mixtape tracks (Conflict Diamonds, Pressure, Happy Industries, Switch). The vocal crowd were defiantly there for the man himself, with several Lupe chants breaking out throughout the show and eating up the performances The Instrumental and He Says, She Says (which I followed every word with).

Fiasco always knows how to play up to the crowd, making sure everyone from the front to the back were enjoying the show and organizing a kick section and a push section for Kick, Push. At one point he decided to “hold the microphone like a game show host”, asking members of the audience their name and where they were from. In the middle of The Cool he began to analyize his lyrics Kanye-style, “Hustler for death, no heaven for a gangsta”. He faked out the crowd declaring the show over, then coming back to perform his latest single Daydreamin’ as well as the hugely popular American Terrorist. He closed the show with Pressure (sans Jay-Z), thanked everyone and left. It was only seventy minutes, but it was seventy minutes of hip-hop at its finest. Thumbs up.

After the show I managed to get a taxi back to Crown pretty quickly and went down to have a look at the poker room. I figured if there was no-one on the list I’d jump on a table - and sure enough there was no-one. I bought in and got placed on the three spot. It was about 12:30 and the table was full of loose passive players, only betting out when they had a real hand. First hand I sit down I’m on the big blind and get crap. I fold a few hands, limp on one hand in middle position and fold on the river when my draw doesn’t come through after calling a cheap turn bet. I’m sitting on about $35 when the big blind gets back to me, and for some reason it’s now 1am. I’ve played NINE HANDS IN THIRTY MINUTES! I look down at 25o and check along with the seven limper’s in front. The flop comes and I decide to check for some reason (probably because I was about to pass out at the table from boredom), hoping to trap on the turn. Everyone checks - crud. Turn card is the , ugh! Checked around to the button who decides to bet $5 into a $15 pot. Like the idiot that I am, I call as do a few others. River is a and I check once again, as does everyone. The button then bets out $30 so I instantly shove for $33. Everyone folds around to the button, who decides to have a chat with the SB about the differences between hand rankings in Manilla and Poker for about two minutes before calling. He flips over pocket aces for the flopped full house.

I’m pissed. Not because I played the hand badly and lost to a better hand, but because I had to deal with this fuckhead slow playing me when he simply could of called and resumed his conversation. You could argue about how big of a moron you’d have to be to LIMP with pocket aces in best position on a passive table but hey, he got his money and I’d rather him keep playing like that, because more often then not he’s going to have those aces cracked and lose the house on the hand.

I head upstairs to get some greasy hamburger goodness from McDonalds but the line is too long and I figure I can hold off ’til I get home since the Maccas near home has a late night drive-through. I decide to get a juice from Boost to tide me over, but as I’m deciding the girl behind the counter tells me that their juicer is broken so they can’t make me anything with fruit juice. Then wtf are you selling!? I go straight to the car and pump up the tunes for the ride home, this time J Dilla - The Shining. It’s okay, I don’t understand what the fuss about Dilla is tho.

I finally get near home at about ten past two and drive straight to the McDonalds to find that it’s.. closed. WHAT!? You were open the last late night I wanted some food but tonight when I’m really hungry, denied. I get horribly shitty and drive home starving where I find that I’ve got no leftovers to barely stuff me with. My sister is up and I let her know how hungry (and tired) I am, only informing her that the show was good without going into detail. I end up eating a peach and watch an episode of Kenny vs Spenny on tv, making fun of Spenny’s foolishness before heading to bed.