…another twenty HU SnGs, lol 🙂

Well, what can I tell you, I’m hooked! The purest of poker, heads up, mano-a-mano, whatever you would like to call it. I love the fact that it’s both a battle of cards, but also a battle of wits – and the fact that it’s a rather action heavy form of competition along with a shorter duration (than normal SnGs) makes it even more appealing.

So…I jumped in and won the first four in a row. Should have won the fifth one too, but the cards had another idea – AJ vs A10…he runner runners a four flush…ugh…Won two out of the next five, just had the second best hand every time there was a big pot…weird how often you see similar hands 47 vs 48…case two fours on the board, etc…Then I went on a bad streak of three lost in a row…too bad if you push in with AK vs AA headsup…even worse if you push in with KK vs 99 and lose to the lovely two outer. The third one wasn’t too cool either…I got my opponent slightly covered…I look down at 44 on the button…I raise…he reraises…now this tells me Ace…hopefully not Aces…I call and we see a flop of A45 rainbow…now I’m pretty sure I’m ahead and I overbet the pot…he raises…I push…he insta-calls with A6o…lol…nice…turn 3…river 7… 🙁

After that I considered logging off for the night, but I decided to continue playing and play I did. After some other random junk kickings (which I survived, sometimes down to less than 200 in chips) I went on a total rush winning the final seven in a row.

So the total for tonight is a little worse than yesterday, but still good…13/20…this brings my bodog HU SnG record to 29/44 Edit: 42 (20+20+2 != 44 ;))….not too bad 🙂

Alrighty…it’s late again…so I’m off…gl everyone…

…at least for now. After coming home from a Basketball Bundesliga match (Ludwigsburg won against Trier) I fired up bodog and hit the HU tables. Hard! Won nine out of my first ten matches and was smiling like crazy 😉

Then I won three out of the next five. Then I won only one out of the last four, bringing my total to 14 out of 20. Not too bad 🙂

Ups:

1. Totally dominating some of the players

2. Winning one match on the very first hand: I hold QJ s00ted…he holds 97o…I min-raise preflop. He calls. Flop comes 8910 rainbow…OMG…he bets 50 into the 40 pot…I fake the donkey insta-push…and to my surprise he insta-calls…lol…nice.

3. Playing 420 hands within two hours.

4. Totally crushing a donk within one orbit, just to be challenged to a 100$ HU match…lol…yeah right…as if I play a 100$ HU SnG against you lucky tard…

5. Going all out, all the time without fear of the outcome. To quote one of the greatest tag-teams in history (lol)…the Legion of Doom (Road Warriors): Ooooooooooooh….what a ruuuuuuuuuuush! 🙂

Downs:

1. Losing one of the first ten matches to an ultra-donk within the first ten hands. I won the first three or four pots. Then I have him dominated and he pulls out the three outer. Now he has me well covered and lucks his way to the win in the very next hand. I flop two pair…push and he insta-calls with two over…turn pairs the board (not my cards)…river brings one of his overs for the better two pair. If he didn’t get lucky the first ten matches would have been a perfect ten 🙁
2. Running into turned quads with a flopped full house.

3. Not hitting anything in the last three matches…besides the point: sure enough the donkeys were unable to laydown even third pair to my bets…ah well…

Alrighty…I’m out of here…weekend is over again…so I’m back at work, probably not able to play all that much during the upcoming week…we’ll see…maybe I’ll squeeze in some matches…

…ooh..and before I forget it: Some pimpin still left to do…tonight is the “blogger big game”…I won’t play due to the starting time…good luck to all anyway…have fun…and write about it so that I’ll have something to read about tomorrow night 🙂

…so I was hitting the tables tonight. I started the session with some donk-a-licious CAP NL25 and I was all over the place. Then the shit turned sour and I should have left, but I didn’t. So, I gave back all my winnings and then some. How often can you run pocket tens into pocket aces? Twice. Nice. Not!

Then I thought it would be a good idea to get my hands on a token…not such a good idea either. I had totally forgotten how long ass and boring these regular things (6+.6) are..should have played a turbo I guess. Didn’t do all that bad until the blinds went up and it was bubble time…card dead describes it best so I was literally left with two options: a) push with one of the next hands which would preferably be something at least resembling a good starting hand or b) get blinded out in a hurry. So I push within the next few hands and I even held the best hand…until the river…so I bubbled. Not good.

Off to bodog and I’m hitting like crazy…first two SnGs bring a win and a third place finish. I guess I should have left with a smile, but didn’t and promptly crapped my way out of the next two. That’s enough for the night…at least I’m still up a little.

Some interesting “facts/stats” of the night:

Times I ran pocket tens into pocket aces: 2

Times I sucked out with the pocket tens: 0

Times I folded quads preflop: 1

Times I ran my boat into quads: 1

Edit: Just went back to bodog, just didn’t feel like sleeping yet, so I fired up some Heads-Up matches…2 played…2 won…thank you very much. I guess this could be a new source of income…after all a HU is basically 50/50…although I see myself having an edge on most of the donkeys there, so it’s basically better than even money and the thing is much less time consuming than the regular SnGs…hmm…we’ll see…

…no time to play poker…just waiting for the weekend to finally come 😉

Quick notes:

• …the postman dropped off both Doyle Brunson’s Super System II as well as Phil Gordon’s Little Blue Book, sweet! Thanks Amazon and Alibris 🙂
• I just reloaded with FullTilt…not that I need it, but 50% reload bonus were just too sweet to pass on…(reload with 50% reload bonus still possible until tomorrow, Oct. 20th)
• Pimpin for DADI X and the blogger big game probably tomorrow/saturday…

Alrighty…that’s it for now…

There, I said it. Played an amazing set of 6 SnGs on bodog today and was able to finish ITM 5 times, 1 bubble…not too shabby…the last one just made me wanna puke though. We’re down to three-handed and one player is out in front, I’m in second and the player in third is about half my chipstack. I look down at AJ in the BB…shortstack on the button pushes, big stack folds, I call…he shows KK…flop K…turn K…nice, dem quads again. Sigh. Three hands later the big stack out of the SB pushes…I look down at AK…well…call…he shows AA…what the fuck is this bullshit about? I mean it’s cards and anything can happen, but come on! It’s three-handed, damn it! Gimme a break…

Still finished up for the day, but leaving on a down feeling…oh well…let’s see what the next few days bring (maybe I’ll try to sneak in some hands in the evening, maybe not)…as for tonight: I’m off…gotta get up early so I’ll miss the chance to play Rafe and Phil for a good cause for only 5+5$…3am is just too late/early on a monday morning…for everyone else willing to play…have a look at Kat‘s banner for details…

…and still come out a loser. Well, I’m not mad, although I had to blow off some steam in between some of the SnGs due to some horrific cards. Just weird how you can get your money in with the best hand, often dominating your opponent leaving him with 3 outs or less and they pull the rabbit out of the hat every friggin time. Oh well, “That’s poker boys…”.

In total I played 7 SnGs at bodog and 1 MTT (100 points buyin, 25T$ for every 17 players entered). 4 out of 7 ITM, not a single win though…it was just not to be tonight, was heads-up for the win two times, got my money in 4:1 in the first one (QQ vs 88), turn 8…got my money in 3:1 (AQo vs KQo), K on the flop…and the other beats weren’t any prettier either AK vs AQ rivered a Q and AK vs A8 he flopped two pair, turned a boat and rivered quad 8s…way to go 😉

So I’m logging out tonight being down a little, but hey…there’s always tomorrow. On another note: I just found a way to spend my last 4000 PokerSourceOnline Points…Amazon has the “Phil Gordon Box Set” up for grabs, including The little green book, the little blue book and the little black book for as little as 37.80$…cool stuff. The only problem is that I already ordered the Little Blue Book on the german Amazon site back in august, now it’s pending shipment, so I can’t cancel the order…I guess I’ll have to wait until it arrives to send it back right away…

Played some SnGs on bodog earlier on and although I’m not a “regular” anymore, some people still recognize me – I guess they’re keeping notes as I do. The only thing that I’m really missing isn’t playing x SnGs every day, well a little bit too, but the fact that I’m missing all the blogger tourneys (the weekly WWdN and Mookie and also the occasional DADI or charity tourney) – I would love to play, but with the new job deal (internship) I need to get up at 6am and I usually get home a 6pm or later and pretty much exhausted from sitting in front of the screen all day. Weird how you can do a 16-20h bender in front of your own computer and be so tired after 7-10 hours at the office – I guess it’s the fact that there’s no webradio, blogs, podcasts (e.g. AnteUp) or other “pleasant distractions” to keep you going…
…but enough of the babbling, let’s get to the playing. So, the usual bad beats, ups and downs aside, it was pure poker fun. Took off from work a little earlier today (3pm), so I was able to squeeze in some play before footie training.

Played a total of 5 SnGs, 4 ITM, 1 bubble with 1 win…not too shabby…especially considering how I played, the A game is back 🙂
I guess I’ll be back at the tables tomorrow after a good nite’s sleep…

After yesterday’s bad run in the live game I wasn’t even going to play today, to hell with it, just a quick game 😉

I almost regretted it immediately as I took charge of the SnG table on WPX, just to have my straight cracked by a boat on the river, followed by my boat getting cracked by quads on the river in the very next hand. Nice…damn it!

So I left WPX and took a seat at a HU SnG on bodog. 14 minutes and I walk away victorious. Nice…although I almost lost it during the match…times I had Aces and AK sooted: once each, back to back…won a whoopin SB and a BB (which were rather small at that point)…times I ran my top pair into Aces: once…it cost me the chiplead and I had to fight back…which I did…so the 0 for 1 in coinflips (77 vs AQ) didn’t matter in the end…at least I can end the night on a high note…let’s see what the poker gods have in store for me tomorrow….

Yesterday we finally made it to the live tables again. It was really fun to hang out with the guys and the chipslinging and card-flinging was in full effect all night…I actually made my way home at close to 5am. That was the joy part…the no joy part was evolving in the games itself…

I chipped up early when I flopped a straight, which held up. From there on it was a grind as my chip-stack went on a roller coaster ride…up…and down…and up…and down…and down and down…it was not so much my bad cards (I actually held AA, KK, 1010, 99, 88 and 66 throughout the evening, but couldn’t capitalize on most of the hands as my opponents had next to nothing….and apart from those hands the old “keep missing flop”-dilemma was in full effect)…

In the end my exit was pretty cool and pretty fucked up at the same time: I look down at Q9 s0000ted…I’m UTG and push my remaining stack in the middle and the table goes fold, fold, hmmm….call…he shows 10c8c….alrighty then…double me up baby…flop Jc9c7c…I push the chips to my opponent and stand up as a meaningless queen hits the turn…

Then it was sidegame time and some weird hands happened to me again…let’s just say that the timing of these hands was not in my favour….I hold 8h9h…flop comes QA9…heads up pot…my opponent, who had min-raised preflop, checks…now I’m thinking…probably AK/AQ in his hand…if I catch another nine I’m probably stacking him…turn 9…he checks I bet he calls…river x…he pushes…now he’s either done a nice slowplay and my range I put him on was wrong or I got him…as the pot is laying me over 3:1 anyway I have to call…he shows QQ for the boat…

After that sidegame was done we played yet another one…and damn me, one-card-straights are ugly, especially if they’re gutshots and yes, the seemed to come EVERY time yesterday…I flop Kings up fire…call…turn makes the straight…unlucky me…I flop pair of Queens…fire..call…turn gives me queens up…fire…call…river makes the straight…hmm…another three-outer…boom! Headshot!…

Oh well…at least I had a great time 🙂

…must come down. Played four SnGs on bodog tonight and I’m pretty much speechless. Variance showed up and totally kicked my butt. Managed to finish ITM in one SnG, bubbled in two and busted out early in one. The weirdest part about both the bubbles and ITM finish: I think I should have one them all, but it just didn’t happen. All I can say is this: I played 162 hands…had Aces three times…won one small pot preflop and two huge pots as I flopped top set both times…in return I got sucked out on by dominated hands time and time again…so there was nothing much I could do…got the money in with the best of it (not in the hands after I was crippled respectively) and just got unlucky.

Whatever ;)  I’ll be back tomorrow (bank holiday over here, so probably my last chance to get some hands in before the weekend)…