After the ups and downs of today’s Omaha H/L play I decided to play a little S&G (9 players, 0.50$ + 0.10$ fee, top 3 in the money) over at AbsolutePoker and what can I say, I dominated the competition!

Look down at the first hand (5-5-Q-J) and watch as the board developed my way…up from 1500 starting chips to 4620 in the first hand…not a bad way to start a tournament:

A few hands later I looked down at 2c-3h-5h-5c and once again the board developed beautifully, flop: Ac-4c-10d almost nuts already, turn: 2d, river: 3c for my first ever straight flush and the nuts/nuts, too. Yeah baby!

Just played the really promising hands afterwards hence building up my stack to a massive chip lead (around 9000 of 13500 when hitting the money) – although I gotta say that most hands were promising for quite a while as I kept hitting full houses all over the place. When heads up started I was even further in front (9700 to 3600) played some donkey hands, but then was able to finish the deal and come out on top. Finally a S&G victory again! Nice

Played two sessions of Omaha H/L 0.01$/0.02$ antes, Pot Limit. Things really went my way, especially in the first session (this afternoon), went out with +3x Buy-In 🙂

Things didn’t go all that smooth in the second session and I donked out 1.5x Buy-In, but at least I had fun and got some more UltimatePoints to clear my bonus.

Favourite hands (session 2):
1. Four Kings – was too slow to make a screenshot, but here’s the hand history:

Showdown:
Ingoal shows 9h 6s Ks Js.
Ingoal has Ks Js Kh Kd Kc: four kings (high).
Ingoal has no qualifying low hand.
Player2 mucks cards.
(Player2 has Ac As Td Qc.)

2. Four Jacks: – a picture says more than thousand words (although I only yell the usual ‘Dem Quads Beetches!’ 😉 )

Played some Omaha H/L (or Omaha 8b how they call it at UB). I thought playing the 0.01$/0.02$ Pot Limit tables would be a good idea – and after donking my first buy-in off it really was. After the rebuy I kept hitting some nice nice cards (A-A-A-2, A-A-2-3, etc) and scoop quite some pots as there was no low hand or mine was the nuts. Groovy…especially when you play Pot Limit and it’s obvious that there is no low hand and you hold the nuts flush (in this case As-Ks) – one player not only calling but reraising…hmm…call! He holds Js-Qs 🙂

Nice one…played for over an hour and went out with roughly +2x buyin…nice…and I’m on my way to clear my bonus, too. Ever so slowly, but at least steadily…

Seems I’m hitting rock bottom at PokerStars. Played a little 7 stud H/L turbo S&G (16 players, Buy-In 1.5$ + 0.25$ fee, top 4 in the money). Played my game as usual and was able to scoop some pots early on, then I kept running into the chip-leader three times in a row…busted out at the final table in 8th position. Argh!

Another 7 Stud H/L tournament and another finish in the top 3 (of 7)…the best way to describe my playing: good. Just sitting around and waiting for good H+L hands to come around and at least taking down the low pot when I was in a hand…so no problem at all finishing in the top 3. Maybe I should have a look at the higher buy-ins (this one was 0.50$ + 0.10$ fee again).

I really pondered about entering tonight’s holiday bounty tournament over at Ultimate Bet. With a buyin of 10$ + 1$ fee the prices were quite nice: apart from the normal prices UB offered bounties for busting out their pros:

• Phil Hellmuth
• Annie Duke
• Antonio “The Magicianâ€? Esfandiari
• John Vorhaus
• Jack McClelland
• Roxci Rhodes
• Freddy Deeb

Price for busting one of them out of the tournament:

• $250
• UB Branded Poker Table
• UB Chip and Card Set
• 10 UB T-Shirts
• 10 UB hats

Nice, but I thought that with more than 2000 players the chances of even being at a table with one of them in the first place was slim to none. So I didn’t enter, but I watched Phil Hellmuth’s table…first of all he showed up late (like always?!), then he played some hands and busted out pretty quickly (A-9 vs. 4-4)…the best was not to see him play, but to see all the creeps crowding the chat and insulting the hell out of him…unbelievable…

Alrighty, back with more action on TitanPoker and my quest for a birth in the 100 Million Dollar freeroll. After the prior cancelled tournaments yesterday’s 21ET tournament went really smooth the whole time, so nothing to complain about, yet, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

This tournament was by far the most exciting tournament I’ve played in a while. The setup: 136 players competed for 5 spots in the main tournament (April 30th 2006). I entered and felt good, although it was already 3am (German timezone = ET + 6), and right from the start all seemed to be going really well. The fourth hand brought the first major hand and I couldn’t resist to go All-In with it. My Q-Q was called by two other players who both showed A-Ko…lucky me, no King or Ace showed up and I tripled up to 4460 – up to 3rd place in chips at that time. Nothing unsual happened for the next 60 hands and I stayed away from all draw hands to head into the break with 4360 chips (65 hands dealt, Average: 3517, my position 17/58).

Right after the break, hand 66, I decided to donkey off almost all my chips with an Ace high…ouch down to 770. Now that’s no way to start after the break, now is it? So, hand 67 rolls around and I hold A-Q, All-In…one caller showing 5-7…flop: 7-7-J (ouch!), turn: 10 (hmm), river: K (yes :-)) up to 1690 in chips and back in the race. Hand 68 gives me 2-2 sitting in the SB…I push…BB pushes…I put him All-In, he calls…he shows Q-3, board is: 8-J-K-5-K…nice…up to 3860 in chips. Hand 69: 7-7…I push…all other fold, up to 4310 chips. Nice!

People are dropping out left and right and I sit back and relax, waiting for the next “big hand”. Hand 96 brings me A-5 and I push as a shortstack moved in, to my dismay he shows A-K…lucky me as the board is: 5-9-3-3-2 🙂 Up to 6820 in chips. Hand 97 my Ace high holds up, up to 7420 in chips. Hand 100: Only 21 players left, I’m in position 12. Hand 102 A-J, I push, two callers K-Q and 10-10…King flops…down to 3660…Hand 108 blinds are getting massive now: 400/800. Hand 111 K-Qh…I push…one caller 7-9h…Jh-3h-5h gives me the higher flush…booya! Back to 5180 chips. Hand 114: only 14 players remaining…I’m stuck at position 14. Hand 118: blinds raised again to 500/1000 – time to get something going.

Hand 127: I’m sitting in the BB and look down at 10-10, two pushers, I reraise them…one guy is All-In, whatever!, so my 10-10 vs. K-Q and ?? (mucked), board: 6-K-A-10-Q, woot! Up to 12440 chips. Hand 134: I’m in the BB again and once again 10-10, All-In, one caller…who shows…10-10…lol…Hand 135: blinds are now 750/1500. In the following hands I go on a Ace in hand All-In spree (AJ, A7, AA) – up to 14940 in chips, 11 players remaining. Hand 152: A-k vs A-J, board 10-6-4-7-8 and I’m looking good now: 21630 in chips and I busted the 11th player, so it’s down to the final 10.

Final table
Woot, so I’m sitting at the final table of this lovely tournament. I’m currently fourth in chips and looking forward to see 5 others go. I slow play a little and wait for the second break. Hand 159 lures me into the pot with the chip-leader, I hold..10d-10h, Flop: Jh-Qh-Ah, check, he bets 3k, I call, turn: 9d, he bets 6k, hmm…I ponder and ponder and fold (in retrospect I still wonder what would have happened if I had called to see the river – there are different possibilities: 1. Kh comes up I hold the Royal flush, 2. any other heart and I hold a decent flush, 3. any K or 8 comes up and I hold a nice straight, 4. river is blank and I’m out of another 6k for the turn bet). So I’m down to 14630 in chips and I tighten up, maybe even a bit too much. Hand 173: blinds are raised again to 1500/3000. Hand 175 I hold 9-9, but I’m not willing to call an UTG All-In, sure enough he shows A-K, but flop is: 9-A-5…so I would have flopped the set and would have won the hand, d’oh! Hand 177 there are 7 players remaining. Hand 178: there are 6 players remaining, the chipleader is turning into the push monster. Hand 188: still sitting around with 14630 in chips, I wait for the short-stack to be knocked out, it never happens as he doubles up of the chipleader and yes, I’m the short-stack now. The others are waiting for me to be blinded out or make a move. I don’t catch anything…and when it’s my turn with the BB (which is 4000 now), they pressure me…so I’m left with 2 choices: 1. Fold and be down to 4000 in chips with the 2000SB in the next hand…2. Risk it all….I decide to go with the latter as the player 5th in chips has put me All-In…10-2c for me, K-Qo for him….board is: 7-6-K-2-4 🙁 🙁

Argh! So close and yet so far! After 2h35 minutes, 201 hands played I’m eliminated in 6th position, leaving me without a ticket to the main event and feeling sad, angry and hurt at the same time. How unlucky can you be? – On another note: I had a unusual streak of “good cards” and have never been all-in so many times in any tournament in my life, so I can’t complain about my fortune, but it makes you wonder what you could have done differently, especially in two hands mentioned above (royal flush draw folded on the river, pair of 9s not played). Nontheless it was a good tournament and I genuinely congratulated the other 5 players at the table before heading of to bed (after all it was already way past 5am)…and let me tell you something: I couldn’t get to sleep right away, the cards and decision kept coming back infront of my closed eyes…just thinking about the possibilities this ticket would have brought (after all there’s not only 500.000$ up for grabs, but millions in jackpots)…maybe I’ll try to play enough raked hands to enter another few of those qualifiers…

Now I’m really annoyed with TitanPoker!!!

Support got back to me and told me that there were technical difficulties yesterday, so they offered to enter the players of yesterday’s cancelled tournament to the regular 16ET qualifier and the replacement qualifier at 17ET, sounds fine to me…but then the whole thing was messed up again.

The tournament at 16ET starts and I look down at K-K, All-In from MP, one caller…he shows 8-9h, board is blank…I double up in the first hand (3020), second hand is crap, third hand is A-A, I raise to 300..all fold…argh…up to 3040. The following hands are all crap so I fold. 15th hand of the night is A-Qh so I push reraised All-In, call, he shows 10-10, board is once again blank…down to 1772 chips. 23rd hand A-Jd, All-In one caller, he shows K-Qo, my ace holds up, up to 3384 in chips. No the tournament is frozen…but the time is running and the blinds rise and rise…support message pops up: they’re on it…oh well…how long can it take…a long time…about 30min later play resumes with a jump from level 3 (30/60) to level 6 (100/200)…a short-stack pushes from MP, I look down at A-5 not a major hand but I test him…all-in…he calls…9-9 which holds up…down to 800…great…ooh we’re on break for 5 minutes…a total of 31 hands played…great…I donkey off my last chips after the break to focus on the other tournament (which has already begun and I’m not really good at playing two tourneys at the same time)…so I make an early exit…great… 🙁 🙁 🙁

Stats of the night:

• Players entered in 16ET: 324; Ingoal’s finish: 221
• Players entered in 17ET: 420; Ingoal’s finish: 322

Two thumbs down for this whole thing…Titan is starting to annoy me beyond believe…I’m really thinking about cashing out…

Update:
Now the status for both those tournaments is interrupted/cancelled…maybe they’ll restart it or better reschedule it…I’ll wait for a support message I guess…

So, I decided to try my luck with 7 stud H/L on absolute poker and couldn’t get my feet on the ground here either. Played on a 0.10$/0.25$ table with a 0.01$ ante and could only scoop one pot before donkeying off my stack (2$) again…back to the drawing board…

After the cancelled tournament over Titan I decided to try my luck in my new favourite game, 7 stud H/L, over at Pokerstars and I gotta say the competition is good, maybe even too good for me today. Played three sessions: the first two at a 0.04$/0.08$ Limit table with a 0.01$ ante…see stats below:

During current Stud H/L session you were dealt 72 hands and:
– saw fourth street 50 times (69%)
– saw fifth street 37 times (51%)
– saw sixth street 30 times (41%)
– reached showdown 20 times (27%)
Pots won at showdown – 10 of 20 (50%)
Pots won without showdown – 6

Result: -1,30$

So I decided to look for another table and found a pretty tight 0.10$/0.20$ with a 0.02$ ante…caught some nice cards, but fell quick to some unbeatable hands…who could have thought that I was sitting with the “bike convention” 🙁

During current Stud H/L session you were dealt 9 hands and:
– saw fourth street 4 times (44%)
– saw fifth street 4 times (44%)
– saw sixth street 3 times (33%)
– reached showdown 3 times (33%)
Pots won at showdown – 0 of 3 (0%)
Pots won without showdown – 0

Result: – 2.00$