Well, yesterday was hammer day, but today was clearly donkey day. I met some of the most annoying people ever at the tables. Played headsup, nothing new there. Won the ones I was supposed to win, lost those which I was supposed to win. All in all in split six games. So down the rake and down some time which nothing can bring me back.

Highlights: Total donkey, fish, whatever you want to call it…he’s so bad, he already dropped over 1.1k in HU SnGs in the recent months. We get the money in preflop…my AKs vs his A9o…no surprise to see a nine on the flop and another one on the turn. Still no surprise that he tells me about “how he owns me” and all after that suckout. It made me laugh so hard that I couldn’t even stop talking some trash in the chat. He didn’t even understand half the things I told him, so I let it be and sucked it up. He got the last suck though as he sucked out again to bust me. Nice.

Then I played the slowest player I’ve ever seen, seriously. Well, not a bad tactic if you’re a donk. Play only a few hands during the first few levels as you’re taking like 20 seconds on every decision, then try to luck out on the more expensive blind levels. He did a fine job there, bored me to death until the blinds were at 50/100…then got his money in as a 80/20 dog and sucked out…very well played sir…

Man, this makes this session officially the lousiest and most annoying ever…spent too much time at the tables with absolutely nothing to show for…oh well, that’s the grind – at least sometimes. I guess I will take a hiatus from online poker tomorrow as the next home game is scheduled for tomorrow night…and as usual I expect to get sucked out on, at least in the critical hands, so I don’t want to put too much stress on my titanium cup 😉

Well, I hope you enjoyed your hammer day so far. I didn’t, at least not really. Grinded a little at Stars and the fish were turning into sharks once they had their helmet and face mask on. As expected the deck hit them smack in the face time and time again. Two outer boat, my QJ vs KQ on a QJKxQ board, my 36 vs 45 on a 5-4-7-6-5 board etc etc…it was nasty, still managed to grind out 3 wins in five matches though, so at least not a losing session.

Then it was time for the hammer event at Full Tilt and boy did everyone come out for this one! 158 players in total, it was like the blogger all-star parade, too many to name them all, but from Dr.Pauly to Daddy…everyone was playing. Had a nice starting table with JoeSpeaker and BloodyP. Won some nice pots early on, then donked off half my stack with pocket nines on a 8 high board…99 was no match for 10-10. Then I got some chips back by winning a coin-flip…then I lost my stack by losing a coin-flip…presto vs AQ…no g00t! Still enjoyed playing though…so ‘s all good.

Hammer stats of the day:

1. Hammers played: Stars/FullTilt – 4/1, Hammers won: 0

2. S00ted hammers (aka the velvet hammer) played: Stars/FullTilt – 1/0, Velvet Hammers won: 1

3. Euro hammers (82o/82s) played: Stars/FullTilt: 0/1, Euro Hammers won: 1

So…all in all…2 for 6…not all that bad…I guess the hammer didn’t like the fact that I didn’t reraise preflop…my mistake 😉

Almost forgot to pimp this, as it’s 4am over here, it’s already hammer day…07.02.2007…or 2/7/2007 for the americans…so…what’s up on hammer day?

Yes, a special hammer day event…come and play…all infos in the pimp pic below…thanks to Al and Mookie for the added  100$, get 7.20$ out of your wallet and play…thank you!

Played in the WWdN as usual and it didn’t go all that well. Started of with AA in the third hand, won a small one. Had to laydown AK on an all-under, straight heavy board, which was cheap though. Then I ran AJ into 77 on a A-7-9-6-10 board. That cost me half my stack. Not much action after that and when the blinds just move up to 50/100 I think A6o in LP is good enough to try to steal…only 700 chips left…so…I hoy and get one caller…well…essentially not a caller as he re-raises all in to isolate me from the button….he shows JJ…blank flop, blank turn…meaningless 6 on the river…gg me and I’m out 31/45…not even made it to the first break. Oh well, quite a change from the last three WWdNs…6th, 6th, 5th, 31st…d’oh!

I’m outta here…oh almost forgot: Next live game is scheduled for friday! Has been almost 8 weeks since I traded the virtual cards for the real deal, really looking forward to it. Let’s see how it goes (recently it has been a nightmare as everyone was catching against me and I, wrongly, tried to force the action, which lead to an even bigger disaster)…

Hehe…what a nice title. Man, poker was brutal today. First of all I got my poker fix by watching yesterday’s episode of High Stakes Poker, not all that exciting. Then I wanted to watch the new week of Poker After Dark, but they’re doing their first re-run, so nothing there. So I hit PokerStars and start out pretty good. Win the first match easily, lose the second one. No biggie. In the third one, I sucked out for the first time in ages. 84o in the BB…he min raises…flop comes down 489…hmm…I bet…he repops me…I should repop him and get it over with. Instead I call and the turn is a K…he insta-pushes…hmm…K9 s00ted is def a likely holding here…if that’s the case, I’m basically screwed…curiosity get’s the better of me though and I call…he shows Kd9d…so K9 s000ted it is…oh well….river 4…boom headshot. So I’m up 2-1 and looking to play better in the next matches. I do, but I just can’t get a break. The lovely KQ vs AK hand on a board of AK9Q…the running quads against me…runner runner straight against me…Kings cracked…tens cracked…etc etc…I managed to win the fifth match though…so I’m quitting tonight even (3-3) minus the rake. I just can’t take much more tonight, so no point in continuing. I’ll try to stay awake for the WWdN though…so if you’re not signed up yet, get into gear, less than an hour left…cya at the tables…

Same ol’ same ol’ at the Stars tables today. Got off to a head start winning 6 out of the first 6 matches. They just wanted to pay me off so bad, it was unreal, lol. Anyway, the seventh match I lost – to a total fish, at least that’s SharkScope’s opinion 😉

He made an incredible/incredibly bad call that basically won it for him. We’re nearly 50 hands in and after taking the chiplead early on he made a nice comeback. He wore a helmet, so he kept his head together despite getting hit smack in the face by the deck on consecutive hands. Anyway, it all comes down to that one hand. We’re even in chips and he min-raises it preflop, big deal. I call from the BB with 10-6o. Maybe not a great play, but hey, can’t lay it down for a min-raise. Flop comes down A-8-4 with two spades. I check, he quickly checks behind. Now I don’t think he’s trapping here, he usually played it straight-forward, no matter if it was third, second or top pair which he had hit. So let’s see what the turn brings…7h…now there’s two spades and two hearts out there…I check…he bets 150 into the 200 pot. Hmmm….I ponder my options and this looks really weak to me…so I repop him to 450…he ponders for a while and calls…now the river brings the Jh…I lost heart there and checked…he bet 600…no there’s no way I can call and a push is out of the picture, no fold equity. He shows Kd2s…nicely played sir, or not?

My analysis:

1. I didn’t know he was such a fish, I should have looked him up prior to the match. Hence the play on the turn was wasted chips, I’m only supposed to do that here with Ax, two spades or two hearts. First mistake.
2. Second mistake, not betting the river…if he’s really such a fish…he could call…then I’ll say nh, nicely played sir and leave. Or he can fold…I’m not sure if that’s really a mistake here…the initial mistake was the play on the turn.

3. Too bad I couldn’t double up with 15 outs twice in the last hand, I think I could have still taken him down then…

So…all in all…more than satisfied with my play, except for the last match…bad decision…leads to the big L…oh well, can’t win ’em all I guess…but 6 out of 7 is fine with me…as I’m pretty tired, I’ll leave it at that tonight and hit the tables again tomorrow…and if I can stay awake that long, I’ll try to make the fourth WWdN final table in a row…see ya at the tables…

Well, well…what a lovely sunday for sports. We, as in the german team, won the IHF handball world championship today. W00t! What a dramatic game and we came out on top clinching our first title since 1978, on our own soil no less. Nice!

After that it was time to watch some football (soccer) and my home team VfB Stuttgart won, too. Nice!

After that I head over to PokerStars to punish some donks and punish I did, although they got the best of me sometimes. Unlike yesterday they hit like crazy in some matches. Flush draw vs flopped straight – boom headshot, top set vs flush draw – boom headshot, etc etc…in return I cracked some aces and had fun nontheless. Won 6 out of 10 matches, so I can’t feel bad…still some matches away from my next goal, which is moving up to the next HU level once my bankroll hit a certain mark on PokerStars. It’ll come soon enough I think, so no need to rush it.

…and now…it’s time to watch the SuperBowl…at least the first half or something, depends, if the game is good I’ll maybe even watch the whole thing…we’ll see…

Edit: Well, well, Sir Choke-a-lot is finally coming through….29-17 with less than two minutes, that should do it for the Colts…nice…

Played another nice session at PokerStars tonight and boy did I get down to business. I stuck to my new formed LPM/MPM-strategy and didn’t let anything get to me. But let me explain the LPM/MPM-part a little bit more.

Least Possible Mistake: That’s what I’m aiming for. Even if I hold a “monster” preflop, I don’t get too excited about it. After all where’s the gain in pushing there? I know that I can outplay most of my opponents, especially if the flop is somewhat favourable to my hand, so why take the biggest risk and freeze me out of my own advantage? So, I personally try to make the least possible mistake. One of the things that I change in my game is that I don’t put it all on the line when I’m not sure. For example, I hold top pair with a good kicker, but the board could easily given my opponent two pair or better on the river…how big is the pot? Is it worth taking the shot right here? If nope, my cards fly into the virtual muck faster than my opponent can curse his bad luck for me not paying him off. Or let’s say I hit two pair, but I’ve got the feel that my opponent might have slowplayed his trips or whatnot…fold fold fold. Wait for a better spot and get the money in with all the cards out and me holding the nuts (or close to it). Because remember that folding a hand is usually only a small mistake. If he’s jumping for joy, showing his cards, after bluffing me out of a 200 chip pot (3000 chips in play), so be it, let’s see who’s got the last laugh…All the while I try to force my opponent to make the MPM…

Maximum Possible Mistake: I try to convince my opponent that he has the best hand. Once again, this usually doesn’t happen preflop, but mostly on the turn and/or river. Especially if he can’t put me on the hand. Let’s say I hold 97s and raise preflop from the button – after all you can’t be too predictable. He calls the raise and is first to act as the flop comes down A97. He’s sure as hell making the cbet and if it’s a pot sized bet I’m 90% sure he holds Ax and I sure as hell hope it’s not A9…or let’s say I hold the same hand and the flop comes down K99…I sure hope he has the king…and when I smooth call on the flop I know that he’s drawing to two outs…sure, you can lose some by slowplaying, but it’s worth the risk, at least if you can afford to lose the pot. I’m trying to force him to make the maximum possible mistake by overvaluing his hand.
After this basic outline, which could be discussed in a loooooong post by looking at many different hands – which I don’t feel like doing atm, I want to get to some more thoughts on hands and situations that occured tonight:

1. AA on the button. If there’s one monster preflop in headsup, this is it. Even better if your opponent reraises you preflop…you smooth-call and the flop comes down 33K…your opponent fires another shell…you smooth-call….turn is blank…your opponent fires again…you smooth-call….river is blank…your opponent fires another shell…you smooth call with every intention to laugh at him for making this play with Kx…he shows 83o…snow man tater legs just cracked your aces. Are you mad? Sure, but do you let it get to you? Not really. Why? Because he just made a 600 chip pot by cracking your aces, but he’s still under the starting stack. So, too bad, it happens.
2.  First hand of a match, you start with a decent hand, raise it preflop and your opponent smooth-calls. You hit the flop and fire a half-pot bet. He calls. Turn is a blank (5)…you bet…he calls…river is a blank (2)…you fire…your opponent calls. He shows 52o…second hand of the same match…you start with a decent hand…call…you miss the flop…check check…turn hits you, but puts three clubs out there…you bet…he calls…river is another blank, but also a club…you bet…he calls…he shows 7c4s…you look down at your stack and you had it rough so far. You lost 300 of your initial 1500 chips by him hitting runner-runner two pair and a four-flush to suck out on you. Oh well, at least you know that he a) calls too much; b) doesn’t reraise with the winning hand; c) isn’t afraid to fire with nothing. You continue to play him the same way, even letting him run over you for a hand or two, before you make a stand after the river…he called all along and well, he can’t lay his hand down after the river…not even if he’s holding only second pair. Thank you very much, you made the maximum possible mistake by handing me all those chips. The game ends a few hands later.
3. etc

So…all in all I played 8 matches tonight and despite taking some horrible beats (Aces cracked, Kings cracked, runner runner flush, runner runner straight, two outer trips, etc) I didn’t lose a single match. Yes, I won all 8 matches. Now I’m not blind to the fact that there’s always some luck involved and this could really be one of the nice little upswings that variance grants us every now and then, but I’m still confident that the victories can be attributed to me playing good, maybe even better than good. Let them come to me…if they suckout…well, that’s the game…but it’s about the only way they can beat me…I’m sure the time will come again, when I have to lose some matches (e.g. two pair vs two pair, where you just have to pay it off), but considering my new, patient, approach to those matches, there’s room for a few of those. I even took some of those beats tonight. Those hands weren’t for all my chips though, so there was always room for my opponents to make their own, bigger than mine, mistake… and that’s what I’ll be aiming for in the next matches…make the LPM and force my opponent to make his very own, deluxe MPM…I’m outta here…good luck at the tables everyone…

Gotta make this a quick one as I’m pretty tired…

Football training kicked off today (that’s soccer for the americans), time to get in shape for the rest of the season (the season is currently on winter break) as the challengers will come out and try to take the lead from us (we’re currently ranked 1st in our division). Funny how 6 weeks of doing nothing but sitting on your ass can take away your breath…was pretty short of breath after the first 15 minutes…ouch. Let’s see if my bones hurt tomorrow from all the running…

But back to poker, had the chance to jump into the 5 Card Draw MTT which I final-tabled yesterday, but just didn’t feel like it. After all it would have taken around 3h if I made it deep again…and I wasn’t really into “long poker night” mode after eating a nice whopper menu with onion rings at BKs after training…*lol*…nothing better to get the pounds right back on your hips after you worked out 😉

So I just played some HU SnGs at Stars…won 4 out of 5 by using a simple strategy…be patient, let them come to you, make good decisions. They handed me there chips close to drawing dead practically every time. The best one was a dude that min-raised every hand preflop and bet out pot-sized every time. Not a bad strategy – you’re not giving away anything and it’s hard to put him on a hand. Then again, this strategy will only work if he’s able to get away from a hand himself once his opponent, me, plays back. Obviously he couldn’t. He’s on the button and min-raises, no surprise there. I repop him 4x with KK…he repops me to 8x….I repop him to 16x…he repops me to 32x…I’m convinced he has some sort of hand, hoping that it’s not aces, so I push…he calls after 10 seconds of deliberation…showing J3o…errm…very well played sir…*lol*…flop 7-8-9 rainbow and I’m thinking…are you serious?…turn 7…river 2…thank you very much sir.
The only match I lost came down to one tough hand…opponent min-raises preflop…this could be anything, after all it’s headsup and I don’t have any infos about my opponent yet (no this wasn’t the first hand, but the first few hands didn’t give away much)…flop comes down 8-9-10 rainbow…not a bad flop for my Q2o…*lol*…my opponent checks…I check behind…turn brings a 2…opponent bets the minimum…well…for all I know my deuces could be good here (maybe he has AK?), or they’re a (huge) dog…but for a min bet…I’ll see the river…the river is a beautiful J…giving me the Q-high straight…my opponent insta-pushes…now I’m faced with a tough decision…what could he have:

1. Small-medium pair…flopped trips – possible, but wouldn’t he bet to find out if it’s good/to get money into the pot?

2. AK/AQ…flopped nothing but a gutshot…now made his straight (AQ) or has two napkins (AK)

3. QJ…flopped the stone-cold nuts and wanted me to take the lead, I didn’t comply

4. KQ…maybe sooted…that’s the only hand I’m really worried about…preflop raise – yes…cbet – yes…check on the turn – yes…push the river – yes

Hmm…so I’m thinking…in 3 out of 4 cases we’re chopping or he loses…he has got to have exactly the KQ to beat me…I call…he flips KQ…bingo! Well, the only thing I did wrong there is that I could/should have gotten away from the hand, after all there wasn’t that much money in the pot…I would have still been in the game virtually even with the chance to wait for a better spot…then again…if I’m right…we chop, I retain my lead, or he loses…I win…sometimes it pays off to be greedy, sometimes it doesn’t…bad decision…noted…moving on…

Well, played some headsup at FullTilt to start off the evening, but I lost interest quite quickly. I did win 2 out of 3, but the opponents were such jerks that I didn’t have any fun. Well, that’s not entirely true, I had some fun making fun of them…yes it’s always a good idea to (over)push after the river…hmm…no I don’t believe you had the nuts every time…so…it’s a donkplay and a nice “heeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaw what a donkey play, you only get called if I have you” is in order. If you can’t take that, play a better game donk. After that I jumped over to Stars and found that a lot was going on, but nothing that sounded really interesting…apart from one MTT…the lovely PL 5 Card Draw MTT that was 1 minute away from starting. I jumped in and play my usual game, start out with a decent hand and hope not to get unlucky. The next well over 2 hours are a blur, but I’m getting ahead of myself…quick pic dump…

105 players remaining at the first break and yes, you guessed it, the chipleader was just moved to my table, lol. I’m wondering if it’s only me, but I can’t remember a MTT (with a shitload of tables left) where the chipleader wasn’t moved to my table. It’s been ages since that didn’t happen, but hey, what can you do. He tried to run over the table and he was out in less than 20 minutes after the break. Way to go dude donking off all those chips. No, a reraise for all their chips doesn’t mean they’re holding a good hand. Wait…it does. Surprise surprise. Continued to play my game and watch as donks busted themselves left and right.

Final four tables and I’m sitting not all that pretty in 19th, time to catch some hands. I do and this time I don’t care for the money – yes we’re already ITM, but the “real” money starts at the final table as usual – so I wait for a decent spot and go with my hand. I start out with two pair and I don’t boat up. My opponent draws one too and I’m more than happy to see that he didn’t make his gutshot straight. Nice. Double me up. The way to the final table is a blur, I did play some nice hands though, so this time I don’t come in as the shortstack.

I wait two orbits before I play my first hand and when I do I win it. Small pot, but fine with me. Then I go on a roll. I get dealt a made flush and a made straight back-to-back. No customers though. The next hand I get dealt two pair, queens up. I three-bet it as usual and the other player within the mid 40k repopps me. Now I’m faced with a tough decision. Does he have a real hand or is it that he doesn’t believe my “rush”? And even more important: do I want to commit to this hand? I ponder my options and decide to go for it. I repopp him to put him all-in and he calls. I draw one…brick…he draws two…uh-oh…that’s most certainly trips and yes, he shows trip eights. Now I’m crippled with 10k. I don’t feel bad though. I made my play and if I won the hand (by boating up), I would have been slightly under 100k and second in chips with a real chance to cruise into the top 3 spots paying in xxx figures. Oh well, can’t be too mad. Made my play, didn’t work out. Apropos out, I wasn’t out yet. Next hand…I start with slighlty over 10k and get dealt two pair again. I push and the huge chipleader insta-calls. I draw one, he draws one. I brick he bricks…he has trips though. Now I’m still not mad. What can you do? Back-to-back two pair, five handed, ran into trips back-to-back. It just wasn’t in the cards for me to claim the W or the 2 or 3 spot and who knows, if I sit around and wait for the next “big hand”, I might be blinded out in 5th quicker than you think with blinds at 2k/4k…so all in all…a nice showing…gg me… 🙂