…when someone is sitting with 90$ at a 0.05/0.10 NL HE table…

Hand that put me over the edge:

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [8h 8c] …
*** FLOP *** [8d 9h 6s]
Ingoal: checks
tulsabrian: bets $2
tulsabrian said, “uh oh”
tulsabrian said, “whatchu got meads”
Mieds: raises $4 to $6
tulsabrian said, “i smell something bad”
Ingoal: calls $3.70 and is all-in
tulsabrian said, “chit”
tulsabrian: raises $4 to $10
Mieds: calls $4
*** TURN *** [8d 9h 6s] [Ah]
tulsabrian said, “5 7″
tulsabrian: bets $80.05 and is all-in
Mieds: calls $1.60 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [8d 9h 6s Ah] [5d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
tulsabrian: shows [5h 7d] (a straight, Five to Nine)
Mieds: mucks hand
tulsabrian said, “ahahhaahha”
tulsabrian collected $15.05 from side pot-2
Ingoal: mucks hand
tulsabrian collected $10.55 from side pot-1
Ingoal said, “omg”
Nethor: shows [Ad Jd] (a pair of Aces)
tulsabrian collected $2.35 from main pot
Ingoal said, “trip 8s no good”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $29.35 Main pot $2.35. Side pot-1 $10.55. Side pot-2 $15.05. | Rake $1.40
Board [8d 9h 6s Ah 5d]
Seat 1: Ingoal (big blind) mucked [8h 8c]
Seat 2: Nethor showed [Ad Jd] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 3: tulsabrian showed [5h 7d] and won ($27.95) with a straight, Five to Nine

Apart from that a little grind at some other tables and over at Absolute Poker, not much joy though…especially when you’re sitting at another donkey table with two players seeing the flop 75% and 78% of the time…and connecting time after time….even cracking your bullets…be damned! I guess playing with lots of cold medicine is really -ev for my game and costing me more nerves and money than usual…

Sidenote: bullets cracked by runner runner straights or flushes in the last few days: 3, I’m so All-In preflop the next few Aces I hold

…sometimes isn’t such a good idea after all. I played a NL HE Heads Up match at Absolute Poker in preparation for tomorrow’s HUC3 match and I didn’t do all that good. Note to self: try to take your time and don’t let yourself be bullied around tomorrow. Trust your gut.

After that disappointment I went back to common grounds – to the low limit NL HE ring games at Full Tilt. I grinded out some bucks and cleared another bit of the bonus, so what do you do with the free money? Yup, play a SnG! Shorthanded NL HE sounded right so I gave it a shot. Bouncing up and down like a rubber ball for 45 minutes before Mr. Luckbox outflops me…out in 4th. Damn! Ah well, time to get some rest…I hope to see you all around at the HUC3 – Round 1 tomorrow…

As I’m in the midst of what I like to call “extreme exam preparation” (the last 1-2weeks leading up to a major uni exam) there’s not much going on at the poker front as I’m just too knackered to really focus on the game, which isn’t a good thing if you’re trying your “luck” at a new (higher) level. So no poker played on saturday and little today (sunday).

After sticking my nose into uni stuff (mostly web-based integration and architecture of application systems) all day I didn’t feel the urge to really play, but playing a little poker won’t hurt to get your thoughts of the stuff, so what the hell. Donked around at AbsolutePoker for a little, playing a low limit NL HE MTT…which was a quick one despite holding AA early on (which held up on a scary board) and KK which was busted by pocket sixes to cripple me…the end was rather entertaining too…AQo vs KQs vs KQo…sure enough the two outer King hit…after that I donked off some dough at the cash tables when my pocket kings were crushed again, the hiltons held up though so only down a half buyin for the night…at least something.

In other news: I’m going to play in the HeadsUp Challenge 3 (aka HUC3)…should be fun…if you’re interested in participating and/or in reading the latest news, head over to the HeadsUpChallenge Blog

Started the day with some nice going PLO8 SnG action – went into heads up down roughly 1:2 in chips and won the whole thing in two hands. Awesome way to start a session, but it wouldn’t last all that long as I kept running into nuts hands (when I thought my hand was the nuts). Example? I hold A-3-8-8, flop comes down 8-5-5…so I’m in good shape with a flopped boat and the second nut draw…turn and river are blank and sure enough I’m out in 10th of 10. How come? Another player flopped quads (5-5-x-x) and another one was holding A-2…too bad…

Things didn’t improve in the following 2 SnGs so I switched to the NL HE ones…took down 3rd and busted out in 10th of 10 again as my flopped trip 10s were rivered by trip queens:

Nothing exciting in MTT play either…Limit just isn’t my game (anymore). At least I finished the session on a high note…in preparation for DADIII – The HU Championship – I played a HU match on Absolute Poker and totally owned my opponent. I’m so looking forward to play DADIII!

…and a not totally satisfying 9th place finish.

60 players had entered the 5$ Omaha H/L Fixed Limit tourney and I was really looking forward to yet another good session of Omahatastic Poker. Early on I was establishing myself as the table-captain and long time chipleader. Then I almost donked of all my chips in 2 hands and was desperate with a not all that good hand of J-9-4-5, the J-9 connected for a nifty boat on the river though and so I was back in good shape. Then, as we approached the bubble, I asked myself: continue to play like you did the whole tourney or stall? I did the latter and barely made the final table being desperately short-stacked, but hey, at least I was in the money…and in the BB immediatly (800 – my stack 2400), so I pushed with my A-K-4-8 but couldn’t connect for the high or low (as I lost to a A-3-x-x hand). So I’m out in 9th place, not too good, not too bad and I’m back in business (given my micro bankroll at AP).

Oooh what a day. Played an even wider mix of games today in order to, hopefully, get my bankroll (which was micro to begin with) at AbsolutePoker back from life-support. I played in various HE games ranging from fixed limit 0.10$/0.20$ to 0.10$ NL along with the usual session of Omaha H/L. I couldn’t get much going and so I decided that it would be a good idea to play some S&Gs.

Good idea. I won the Omaha H/L one, bubbled in a HE NL and finished outside the money in the other one. Nontheless some solid playing time without risking too much. I guess going with multiple S&Gs Omaha 8b is the way to go if I want to rescue the remaining few dollars there.

So that’s what I’m going to do! Either I run up my bankroll at AP over the cashout threshold or I go bust…whatever…it doesn’t get me anywhere anyways…the ring games are just too tough (either you play against the calling stations hustling for a (re-re-)draw all the time – after all you can’t push a calling station out of a pot especially in limit or low-limit PL and even if the cards fall your way some of the time, it’s not enough to seriously build up your stack – or you face a NL crowd with a fat roll…you just can’t survive with a minimal bankroll…at least I can’t atm)…

But enough reporting/ranting…I’m going to watch the final table of the “Battleship at Atlantis” Heads Up tourney now…should be interesting!

Side Note: the main event of the PCA is a done deal, check out Brad’s (Otis’) coverage here if you haven’t already. Spoiler: 22 year old student and PokerStars regular Steve Paul-Ambrose has won the thing…1.363.100$ + the WPT championship seat (25k$) not a bad pay-day for a student(!), ka-ching!

I played a wild mix of games today ranging from the usual penny PL Omaha H/L to 0.25$/0.50$ Limit Hold’em. Was able to stay ahead in Omaha over at UltimateBet, but busted myself out of 10$ over at Absolute Poker, although I held quads twice…just a bad swing today I guess as I wasn’t able to catch anything while holding good hands (Hold’em: K-K…nothing apart some aces on the board; A-K – blank board; Omaha: A-2-3-x, board is something like 2-3-K-10-Q, etc etc)…

Played some orbits at UltimateBet at the penny PL tables and I rocked…totally back in business now and almost up to double my original deposit. Groovy.

In preparation of DADI special Omalympics I thought it would be a good idea to play a S&G of Omaha H/L PL over at Absolute Poker – and indeed it was a good idea, despite me being the bubble boy. Usually I tend to freeze up on the bubble which is:

• a safe way to get in the money (most of the time)
• a safe way to not take any sort of chiplead

This time I said to myself: “Don’t fear the bubble! Play as you usually would” – so I did and it came back to bite me as I ran into the chipleaders A-A-2-K with my A-K-3-4…to bad so I’m out in fourth place (3 in the money), but not feeling all too bad about it. At least I played aggressively on the bubble and with one other card on the board it would have payed off.

On another note: it doesn’t hurt as much to bubble in a 0.50$ S&G than it does in a “major” tournament

After yesterday’s bad run I had a rather good run at Ultimate Bet and was able to get back almost all I lost yesterday, along with some UP…so I’m heading towards clearing my bonus. Good stuff. Even got them quads once, beetches!

The cards didn’t fall my way in my other session over at Absolute Poker, always hard to lose boat over boat…dropped one Buy-In…not in the mood to play anymore today…

Sidenote: Thinking about the term “in the grind”, “grinders” or “rounders” – I started to tag all the known grinders with a yellow user note at the current level I’m playing, this way it’s easier to see who the known faces are and if it’s even worth playing a table…

Although I wanted to change one thing in the new year 2006, I just played another late night round as I’m not tired yet and what’s the point of going to be if you’re not tired?!

So I sat down at a Pot Limit 0.10$ Omaha H/L table over at Absolute Poker which was fairly crowded. One thing was obvious: one player, let’s call him Mr. Bully, was raising every pot preflop. So the first chance I got with a decent hand I was in the middle of it…sure enough he caught his donkey runner runner flush draw and my first Buy-In was history.

I thought about leaving right then for a moment, but I thought “this can’t be happening”. So I rebought and reentered the game. I sat the for two hands and then I looked down at a beautiful Ad-2d-3c-5c…flop, turn and river were perfect…I held the nuts low (6-5-3-2-A) and high (2-3-4-5-6) and scooped the pot to almost quadruple up. Sure enough Mr. Bully busted out in the next hand against another player…serves him well for trying to take my chips

I sat and folded the remainder of the orbit as I was happy for the time being…up 1.5x Buy-In…that put’s me above my initial deposit again…and so I’m up on all PokerRooms now