Crown Casino, Melbourne #2

Well the jet lag is gone only to be replaced by poker banishment. Local gaming laws do not allow media to play poker and work in the casino in the same 24 hr. period. So a final pass at the tables has come and gone and now its down to blogging business.

Tomorrow (Saturday the 6th) is the first official event of the Aussie Millions: $1,000 + $100. Its a No Limit Hold'em event and a two day event. URLs for the coverage include: Pokernews.com, Pokernetwork.com and AussieMillions.com; all three sites will have simultaneous tournament reporting blogs with both audio and video enhancements--all brought to you by the Poker News team.

The Aussie Millions main event is $10,500, it will go off Jan. 14th and 15th with two first day flights and two Day Two flights as well. Final Table is Friday January 19th.

Also on the schedule a $100,500 NLHE event on Friday, January 12th.
The Aussie Heads Up Poker Challenge $5,200 on Tuesday January 16th.
The Australian 2 Card Manila* Championship $3,2000 on Thursday, January 18th.

All dollar amounts are Australian Dollars; current exchange rates 1A$=0.783897 USD; 1A$ = 0.598376 EUR.

Time conversion. US EST is -16 hours Melbourne.
Melbourne is +11 GMT

*2 Card Manila
2 Card Manila is played with a deck of 32 cards (2s, 3s, 4s, 5s & 6s are removed) with the maximum number of players being 11. The Ace cannot be used as a low card to form a straight in manila games.

11 players x 2 cards = 22
Community + burn cards = 9
Total = 31

In 2 Card Manila players are dealt 2 cards one at a time starting with the blind.
Flop comes down one at a time until 5 community cards are face up on the table. There is a burn card between each community card, making a total of 4 burn cards. In 2 Card Manila the 2 hole cards must be used, as well as 3 from the board.

Players are required to either bet or 'check' on each card as it is opened.

In 2 Card Manila an ace may only count high in a straight. For example, A, 7, 8, 9, 10 is NOT a straight. The only time you can use A in a straight is 10, J, Q, K, A

A flush beats a full house in any reduced deck game.

The betting structure for $2 manila is $2, $4, $4, $4, $8 and $5 manila is $5, $10, $10, $10, $20
Only one blind, before cards are dealt. (eg $2), all players can either call the $2, raise to $6 or fold.

After all bets are called, a card is burnt, and the second community card is dealt. Players can either, check, bet ($4) or fold. same thing up to 5 cards. The bet on the fifth card is now $8
The amount you can raise on the first round is double the blind and added onto the blind, so in a $2 game the raise would be $4 making the total to call $6. on a $5 blind, the raise is $10, making it $15 in total to call. All subsequent rounds, the raise is only double; eg. The bet is $4, first raise to make it $8, second raise to $12. Only 3 raises per round permitted when there are more than 2 players in the game.

At the showdown players use their two hole cards and any three cards from the five community cards in the center of the table to form a five card poker hand.