Not much going on, besides mr. spambot x and y trying to spam every single post on this blog. Good thing that my antispam-solutions are holding up, I heart WordPress + Plugins 😉

Played a small session at Stars, the usual, some headsup and a double shootout. Won all three headsup matches. The first one was really only one hand, lol. I limp with Ad9d…he checks…flop comes three baby diamonds…I check…he checks…turn is the 10d…he bets out…I reraise him small….he reraises me small….I reraise him small…he reraises me small….I push….he insta-calls…now I’m looking forward to see his Kd…but instead he shows the Jd…lol….well, well, son…I could understand a call with the Kd (sort off), but with the Jd? Are you kiddin me? Nothing better than to flop the joint in the first hand and get all the chips. The second match was more of a grind, although the passive style of my opponent made it easy to see flops and get payed of when he had a piece of the flop or thought he had the goods – example: he min-raises preflop…flop comes down 642 rainbow…he min-bets…I hold J6o…I call…turn is another 6….he bets bigger…I repop him…he repops me…I push….he insta-calls…shows his Aces….turn and river don’t show the two outer and I’m home free. The third one was gold too….79…one of my new favourite, mega-juicy hands…no action preflop…flop comes down 684…he bets small….I call…turn is the beautiful 5…I’ve got the nuts….he bets big, I reraise…he reraises me small…I push…he shows Q7…drawing slim to a chop…river is blank and I win the third match.

After that I invested some of the dough into another try at the Double Shootouts. The games are really juicy as there are donkeys left and right more than willing to get their money in bad. Too bad if you can’t catch a hand to break em. So I sat there again winning some small pots while another player stacked donk after donk. Once it came down to playing a few bigger hands he had the chips to make the calls without much risk and got lucky here and there….I got unlucky against another player…33 vs 66…oh well…that’s that. Coming back to the second part of the title: Two views of the same situation: 1. I need to get lucky here 2. I just need to NOT get unlucky here…

1. was generally true for the other player

2. was generally not true for me

Sucks to be in that spot…oh well…can’t help it…keep choppin away I guess…3 tries down….more to go…but not tonight…

Yawn…pretty early, yet again, so no loooong ass post, but a quick wrap-up. Jumped into Stars and first of all I played a double shootout. Haven’t played these in a while and they seem to be quite juicy, first hurdle is to win the first table…from there on out you’re usually in the money and you’ve got a shot at one the entries to the sunday million, which is worth 215T$. As an SnG junky I would most certainly unregister from the tourney and take the T$, but first of all you need to get your game on and win one of those things. That’s what I tried. The first one wasn’t totally filled up, only 70 players, so there were 10 tables with 7 players each. We jabbed and grabbled for the first twenty minutes and I was able to bust on player. From there on out I went card dead for quite a while. In the meantime a player was running hot. He knocked out player after player with an unreal run of cards. He knocked out two players within two orbits, showing JJ and KK twice each in the process. Nice going sir, yuck. So we’re down to four-handed and I get my money in with AQ…not the greatest hand, but hey, it’s four-handed so I’ll take it. Mr. Cardrack instacalls with Kings…and knocks me out. Nice going sir. No way you can win the first table if you got a player at the table who’s catching like crazy. Oh well, can’t fault him, I’ll take such a run of cards every day, lol.

So I walk away and wait for the next double shootout, this time a turbo one. The thing is almost filled up and so this time we start out with a full table. Most hands are a blur, all I know is that I got my money in with the best and it usually held up. So after a long battle back and fourth we’re finally down to three-handed, then mr. big stack busts out the other player and we begin heads-up.

So we battle back and forth and he’s still out in front, but I see my chance to double-up into the chiplead with 22, the ducks….I limp and we see a flop, which makes me believe he doesn’t have a monster here. Flop comes down 4-6-7 with two clubs. He leads out and I push…he calls…showing Jc8c….hmm…okay…so he got two overs and the flush draw…I hold the 2c…so he got 6 + 8 = 14 outs twice….hold up one time please! 😉

Turn pairs sixes and the river is the Jack of Hearts…and I’ve never seen an uglier Jack at that…lol…oh well…so close and yet so far…better luck next time.

Just as I’m about to logout for the night a little reminder pops up. Aips 2 Event #2 is about to start over at FullTilt. For all of you who are not familiar with AIPS, it’s a series of tourneys initiated by the folks of AnteUp (the podcast…)and it’s stud tonight and only five bucks…so why the heck not…

The tourney starts like any good “chase me down, after all it’s limit, DUDE”-tourney…I start out rolled up and one player says “Heck, it’s so cheap, I’ll call you down no matter what”, well he doesn’t say it out loud, but I think it’s almost certain to assume that he thought along those lines. So I lose a third of my stack in the first hand…nice…NOT. After that I go on a three-to-the-wheel roll, too bad it’s not Stud 8…so I muck muck muck…until I catch some nice hands and I bring my stack up to over 2k. I get bounced around a lot until I finally land at a nice table just before the first break.

The dwarf bringing it in is Chris Cosenza, to my right is Scott Long…so I landed at the table where both Ante Up Hosts held court. Nice. Not so nice that I lost most of my stack in a nasty hand. I finally fold on fifth street as “Vorune” has three hearts showing and is betting like crazy, Chris isn’t far behind though, in terms of betting at least. He finally catches up on the river to suck out an ace high flush against Vorunes (King/Queen?! high) flush (Side note: I’m really looking forward to the next podcast and if Chris will have a comment on his play in this hand, lol)…I’m sitting with less than 1k and it’s not looking all that good. I get the money in a few hands later with a pair of Kings (K8K)…my opponents catches a King on fourth…hehe…too bad he had the Ace in the door as he had a King underneath…brick brick brick…the usual and I’m out…oh well….had fun…and now I can catch some sleep…. night…

I really didn’t feel like playing today, maybe due to the long run in the WWdN this morning, maybe because I’m just a little tired and busy with other stuff today. So, just a quick post about something I got in the mail this week:

I was sitting on some FullTiltPoints for ages now as I wasn’t able to “buy” anything nice with it – due to the fact that most items didn’t ship to europe. This has changed now though. I really don’t know if that’s because of the whole “Online Gambling” thing over in the US or if it just took them so long to start up european distribution, anyway, I’m happy that I can really order stuff now…so this is hopefully the first of many nice things I’ll get from the FullTilt store….next item on the wishlist: Custom hockey jersey…hmm…only 24k to go…*lol* 😉

Received an email from Mike (from PokerOnAMac.com) today that there’s going to be another bloggerpods event soonish. Three ipods up for grabs…I’m in…what are you waiting for?

Mac Poker

Well, well…played only a small session prior to the WWdN, won 2 out of 3 headsup matches. Then it was time to play the WWdN…and I did good…most hands are a blurr, but I made the right moves at the right time…the crucial hands were against Iak who first doubled me up to over 5k in chips and then doubled me up again with my AK vs his KJ.

So at the second break I was sitting pretty in the chiplead and from there on I rolled all the way till the final hand A9 vs 55, presto prevailed and I busted out 4th…not bad…quick pic dump and then I’m off to bed….

Today I was having mixed emotions at the tables and after yet another brutal suckout (pocket kings lost to the powerful ducks when a third duck said “quack” on the river) I asked myself: Is it really good to keep it all in(side) or is it better to get it all out? One thing’s for sure, to keep it all in is impossible in the long run, at least for me. Now I’m lucky in some ways, as I started this blog and so I’ve always got an outlet for my thoughts on hands, the way they were played and many other things. Sometimes this isn’t enough though. Tonight was one of these occasions where it wasn’t enough, I just had to get it out in the chat and so I went ahead and berate oned of the donks “Hellmuth style”. Is it good to do something like this? Well, the answer is yes and no. Yes, you get it out of your system and it’s a relief. No, for many different reasons:

1. While you get it out of your system, it distracts you from playing the current hand optimally as you’re busy typing whatever in the chatbox.

2. It can influence your opponent in a way that will come back to hurt you – at least sometimes. The read that you have on him/her might be useless from that point forward as he/she will switch up their game in order to punish you (and sometimes that works just fine if they suckout on you again, sending you into overdrive-tilt).

3. It’s bad etiquette.

4. In the long run you WANT your opponent to play that way, because pushing in with 1-20% chance is exactly what you want them to do. Why even make them think they could or should do it differently? (Assuming that some of the donks really aren’t that bad that they can’t learn from such situations)

5. Related to 1.: It can influence your game not only in the next hand, or the next, but for an extended period of time as your motive to play a hand can switch from “making the correct play/decision” to “I’ll show you donkey”…

6. etc

So, do I feel better now – absolutely. Did my outburst help my game, the decision making or the results in any way? Not really. Bottom line is, no matter how perfectly you played your hand or how bad your opponent played his, in the end the cards will decide the outcome. All you can do is make (near) perfect decisions and live with the results and I’ll pledge to stick to just that (and keep the ranting part exclusively to my blog ;)) in the future.

As for tonight, I think I played good, made sound decisions and won the matches I was supposed to win (4 out of 7). Out of the three losses, at least two were cruel, but hey, that’s poker, at least sometimes. I don’t want to go into greater detail about specific hands tonight, but I gotta at least break down one of the matches. This one could have been entitled “Just blind off, there’s no chance in hell you’ll win this match.”…I attack attack attack, hit some flops, don’t hit others, but I’m consistently grinding away at my opponent’s stack. I hold a significant chiplead and my opponent raises me preflop. I look down at QQ. Now remember, this is headsup and he’s in a desperate situation. I reraise him and he’s not commited yet. He pushes all-in. Can you laydown the queens here? I couldn’t…sure enough he shows AA and the rockets blast my queens. We’re almost back to square one as I’m ahead only a few hundred chips again. The grinding continues and soon enough I find myself in a commanding chiplead again. This time, I look down at KK. I raise from the button and he pushes all-in. Laydown Kings? Hmm, I can’t see him having Aces again here and if he does, then I’ll have to quote tuff_fish “God bless america, son of a god damn bitch!” 😉

I call and he shows the powerful 2-2, quack quack. Now I’m happy as I’m waaay ahead and he doesn’t hold the Kings nemesis, Ace rag. Flop is blank, turn is blank…river says quack, here I am. So I lose to a set of deuces on the river, lovely two outer. Wow, we’re almost even in chips, again. The grinding continues and soon enough I hold a bigger chiplead again. I hold KsQs…i standard three-pop it preflop and he flat-calls…flop comes down Kc-Qh-xc…I bet three-quarter the pot. He reraises me. I push. He insta-calls. Turn is Ac…River is xc…Showdown Jc7c…oh well…have a nice day. I’m down to slightly under 500 chips and the next time I look down at a semi-decent hand I push with A7 s00ted, he insta-calls with Q2 s00ted and sure enough a lonely duck is all it takes to beat me. Matches like these make me wonder if it would be a good idea to have some barf bags at my desk – hmm…maybe that’s a new business idea in itself, don’t you think that some players would spend a buck or two on the following one, after all what’s a buck or two compared to cleaning up your desk and keyboard 😉

But enough dwelling for tonight, I finished the session up, what more can you ask for…I’m out of here…

Oh me oh my, people were sucking (out) like vacuum cleaners tonight. *lol* 😉

Ran into a couple of fellows that play fairly well, so I had to play patiently and wait for my spots, the spots came and the money went in…let’s just say that the best hands, well my hands, didn’t hold up quite that often. I mean, clearly a hand like Doyle (10-2) vs 3-5 can be juicy, but only if you play it right…flop 10-10-4…check check…2….check check…river 6…bet…he reraises all-in…I smile and call…now that’s a clear hand…the other ones with cards to come, especially with only one to come were unreal. I mean, I understand that people play badly and usually I’m cheering them on – after all that’s where the money comes from – but today, I would have loved if they just folded in some spots as I could almost feel the perfect card coming before it even happened. Four-outer…boom…two-outer…boom…two-outer…boom…eight-outer…boom…three-outer boom…etc…it was brutal…oh well…better luck next time…I’m done for tonight 3 for 8…and to the donks: Keep playing like this, can’t betray the odds over the long run fellas 😉

Side note: Almost forgot, during the first few matches PokerStars had some minor problems with their connection…first time I ever witnessed something like this…

“Administrator: Many players have disconnected due to Internet routing problems,
additional time to act added [2007/02/11-18:30:47 ET]”

Well, well, I’m still a little puzzled as how I could overlook my hand yesterday evening. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter one bit and even if I won the hand, you never know how the tourney would have played out from there. But still, this is officially the first time ever that this happened to “Mr. Poker”, aka me myself and I. Oh well, it’s over, I wrote about it and that’s that, it sure won’t lose any sleep about it…

So…today I only watched a little poker on tv, a rerun at that, as the shows I’m waiting for (High Stakes Poker, Poker after dark) won’t be around until tuesday…apart from that, only a small session at Stars tonight. Won the first two matches easily…then stormed into the third one, took half his stack in the first two hands, then couldn’t finish off and lost to a nice runner runner spade four-flush with my AhKc vs his Ac10s…oh well…same ol’ same ol’…so I finish the night at 2-1…and with a big grin on my face…boy is my new display nice 🙂

Some news only remotely connected to poker…I thought it was time to get me some more screen real estate, not only for multi-tabling, but for more space for work in general. So I ordered myself a nice 22″ Widescreen TFT a few days ago…and today it was delivered…nice! 🙂

As I’m too lazy to get my cam and take a pic of my setup atm, a promotion pic + a screengrab will have to do for now…

That should be enough screen space to do some multi-tabling 😉

On another note: always good to “reward” yourself from time to time…after all, all grind and no play makes Ingoal go insane 😉

Wow. Tonight we played our usual home game. It’s been almost 2 months since we last played, so I was pretty excited to see all the fellas. We had 12 runners tonight, so the price pool was nice. As usual the final 6 would compile the final table and I sure hoped to be one of them. One thing was different tonight though: I was there to play cards, have a drink or two or three and to enjoy the game, period. No intention to win it, play my best game or whatever. Just sit there, chat with the guys and play the cards I’m dealt – if I win, dandy, if not…no hard feelings.

I started out at table nr. 2 with two loose players and three other conservative players. The first bustout came pretty quickly (OESD vs trip Kings) and so we were down to five handed. I played tight, really tight. One of the loose players pushes all in and it’s “only” 20% of my stack to call him…so I call with QJo as I read him for being in the desperate mode. He confirmed my read as he showed J7 s00ted. D00minated he was…didn’t matter though…board: 892…turn blank…river 10…thank you very much (Edit: Errm, yup…found the error yet? I sure did, just after writing this post…I don’t even know why I didn’t see it at the table, or any of the other 5 players for that matter…7-8-9-10-J…sure…a straight…but doesn’t the 8-9-10-2-x board give me a straight also and a higher straight at that?! 😉 Well, well…8-9-10-J-Q…hmm…Queen High Straight beats Jack High Straight…or not?! Homer Simpsons says: D’oh!!! Oh well…I still can’t figure out why I didn’t see it, I guess it was due to the fact that someone “sucked out on me” yet again, which is basically a normal occurance at our game and so my brain crapped out for a few seconds or something…too bad I didn’t realize it at the table. For one, I would have been in much better shape with only two eliminations to go till the final table. Secondly, we wouldn’t have seen the first royal flush ever (see below)…so I guess this mistake was for a good cause :)). Some hands later, with the blinds increasing I push my measly stack in the middle and get three callers. Wow. I think I’m pretty much done with my pocket treys as overcard after overcard keeps hitting the board, but to my surprise I win the pot, eliminating one player in the process and I’m back. A few hands later I pickup A7 s00ted and as it’s four-handed, I’m pretty sure I can raise here in the SB…BB calls…hmm…flop is 10-high…I check…he pushes…well…I muck and he shows pocket Kings…nice shuffle. Some hands later I’m desperate again, but my AJo is not match to the powerful 94o (or something) and I exit in 7th place (6 at the final table)….oh well…got in with the best of it most of the time, couldn’t do much about the hands…and…I enjoyed the game…

As the final 6 are heading for the final table we start our sidegame and after 5 minutes all hell breaks loose on the other table (the final table of the main tourney). The first ever royal flush has just been dealt. A10o vs Qsxc…board read As-10s-x…turn Ks…river Js…wow! That was one to remember. We’re playing our home game pretty regularly and for over a year now the “best hand record” was sitting at the flopped straight flush my mate flopped against me….now we got a new record…Spade Royal Flush…wow!

But back to our sidegame…it was pretty wild….once we were down to three-handed (ITM) it was pretty much push or be pushed…and push I did on some hands…in the end I took it down after my Qc10s sucked out a four flush over my mates A7 s00ted (lucky for me, no spade)….so I ended the night with some money in my pocket…nice!

Alrighty…that’s the quick recap of the night….I’m outta here…