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… 🙂

you’re at the bad end of variance. Although we all know that it happens 😉

So maybe it would have been a good idea to call it quits after my unsuccessfull session over at PokerStars…but I couldn’t resist to try at Ultimate Bet. What can I say, drop another cool two Buy-ins, in part due to donkey play in part due to suckouts…ah well…tomorrow will be another day…and hopefully a better one at that…

Do pot-sized bets threaten someone these days? It seems not! I just played a little Omaha H/L over at PokerStars and after donking off my first buy-in I was able to get it back within two hands. So good so far, but then donkey-mania struck again. I raise preflop three-callers…board is 10d-Jc-Kc – I hold the broadway with my Ah-Qh-7h-Ks, I lead out and bet the pot – one caller. Turn is 7d. I don’t think about it all that long and make another pot-sized bet – he calls. I keep wondering if he’s really after a flush draw or a straight draw. The river is the 3d and I don’t think about it all too long either as I think: If he was on a flush draw that should be a clubs-flush-draw?! Pot-sized bet…call…showdown: I show my broadway and sure enough the caller shows his diamond flush-draw….

Are you kidding? If he would have hit his clubs-flush draw I would have said: okies! But a diamond runner runner flush draw? He held 3 diamonds, 1 on the flop…so I can see that with 9 outs he calls…turn is a diamond…so 8 outs for the river, but what are the chances of consecutive diamonds?!?

I guess sometimes people will take chances and hit…that’s poker, but it’s annoying nontheless if someone calls you down to the river with only one chance – to hit runner runner cards of the same suit. Argh! That’s it for tonight…enough ranting…time to catch some sleep… 😉

Today I tried something different: same level, but multitable, which is especially useful when you’re trying to clear your B$. In the first session I played on two tables of 0.01$/0.02$ at the same time and had no problem whatsoever, my focus was alright and the parallel action was minimal as I was getting junk hands on one table and okay to great cards at the other table. I was able to more than double my Buy-In in less than an hour. Nice, I think two tables is the way to go for now.

In my evening session I thought I’d give even more tables a shot – and so I did, although there were some problems:

1. Ultimate Bet doesn’t allow playing at more than 3 tables at the same time, so I was able to just add one more table
2. Although I’ve got a nice monitor (17″ TFT) it’s hard to play with > 2 tables as the monitor is a little too small for my needs – it’s alright with my resolution of 1280×1024, but I’m more comfortable if I can see the whole table. So maybe I should buy a bigger monitor (maybe a 24″ widescreen) once my bankroll has been built up a little bit more…

So, the session was stressfull as it’s always hard to play if you’re not really comfortable. Nontheless I was able to break even in the end, so nothing lost due to the experiment.

On another note: I’m close to doubling up my initial deposit at UltimateBet, groovy 🙂

So, I decided that I would end the night with some penny PL Omaha H/L over at PokerStars. Sometimes it’s just that you can’t get some people out of hands, even it Pot Limit. I can’t figure it out how you can call post-flop pot sized bets with nothing (besides a slim to none possibility that you catch your runner runner draw). Sigh. At least I know that it wasn’t my fault as I was entering the pots with the best hand (at least 2 out of 3 times)…donkey nation 1-0 Ingoal…So I donated one Buy-In to the world wide donkey movement, I wonder if I can deduct taxes on such a donation 😉

A little pic to illustrate my point: Never mess with the energizer donkey as he calls and calls and calls and calls….

Credit where credit is due: Image found at Bill’s Poker Blog, concept courtesy of fhwrdh.

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 🙂

…or the best way to start of the new year with a round of poker. So it’s rather late around here again, but I decided to at least play a short round of poker over at Stars. I sat down at one of the penny pot limit tables and played some Omaha H/L. What can I say…I could do no wrong and took down a low pot, a total scoop (Ace to Five straight for both high and low) and one high pot – dem quads beetches. Nothing better than flopping a boat and rivering it to quads…oooooh how sweet it is…

So, I went out on a little mixed game spree today and totally donked off my chips. First of all I jumped between Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Hold’em, Limit Omaha H/L and Pot Limit Omaha H/L, then I played a “little bit” above my limit (considering my low bankroll with Titan) and lost my remaining chips in one 0.25$/0.50$ PL Omaha H/L hand. Well, so the Buy-In at Titan Poker is history, but I’m not too worried as the lack of games (especially 7 Stud H/L in regular play and Omaha H/L in S&G and Tournaments) didn’t do me any good and I had no intention what so ever to reload – there were only limited possibilities:

1. Double my Buy-In (25$) and cash out
2. Double my Buy-In, clear the bonus (100%) in the process and cash out
3. Bust…go broke, whatever you like to call it…

So 3. is what happened, I really dislike to lose money, but that’s the game….now I’m going to focus on the remaining poker rooms where I’m either up (PokerStars, UltimateBet) or slightly down (AbsolutePoker)…

Played around four hours of Omaha H/L at the 0.01$/0.02$ Pot Limit tables, after all today was player appreciation day where UB was handing out free stuff from noon to midnight. As far as I can tell I didn’t get anything, at least I didn’t get any on screen messages or emails, so I guess someone else was luckier.

Donked of some chips in the first two hours, but was able to get everything and more back in the second session, I stayed away from most hands and played the once I had locked (at least the low or the high) aggressively – it payed of and I walked away with roughly 2.5x my Buy-In… 🙂