A short summary of today’s play:

• Playing best hands hard on scary boards*: -5 Buyins
• Winning everything back with a single hand**, clearing another 5% of the signup bonus in the process and finishing the night slightly up: priceless 🙂

* (i.e. 10-10 on a 7d-10d-Qc board – flush draw, most certainly a 9 outer, at least it’s going to be a hard decision to draw with my All-In to call…)

** (beautiful when you smooth-call a preflop raise with 7-7 to see the flop come down Q-Q-7…even better if someone decides to reraise you All-In with A-7…)

So I played two sessions of 0.05/0.10NL HE today. The first one was really cool, I couldn’t do much wrong and ended up 4 Buyins. Tonight I played in a 5+0.50$ MTT and found AA in LP on the 12th hand of the tourney…folded to me…damn…so I pop it up to 3xBB…1 caller…flop comes down K-Q-J…argh…that can’t be good, but I hope that my opponent only hit a part of the flop, so I shove after his min bet…he insta-calls…and flips over 10-9…damn…sure enough no 10 on the turn or river, so I’m out in 197th of 277. What does this tell you: even if you’re holding Bullets you can still easily lose a hand…especially if you don’t jam preflop (In this case it wasn’t a real error I think, with the blinds at 30/60 the save variant would have been to push preflop and take down the 90 chips, but who wants to win 90 chips with AA?!? Bad thing that he totally connected on the flop…)

Another session of ring games later and I’m down one buyin…one noteworthy hand: I hold 3-3 on the button…3 limpers…I pop it to 3xBB…two callers…flop comes down 3c-Qc-Ac, EP leads out with 2xBB…LP calls…I call…turn is blank….EP shoves…LP calls…now I’m faced with a tough one…did or didn’t he hit the flush or is he just holding a drawing hand like KJ or maybe just Ax….I fold…river is another blank…and to my surprise EP shows AQo and takes down the pot…argh…I would have so busted his behind…damn.

After that hand I think I was on slight “chicken tilt” and donked off my remaining winnings of the session in the next few hands (I was up 1Buyin at that point)…ah well…still slightly up for the day…so nothing to complain about.

After I missed the 17ET tourney I started the night with a donkfest (9player SnG with a HUGE buyin of 1$ + 0.25$ fee). I gotta say that this format is the biggest crapshoot I’ve seen in my life. It was really fun to watch the donks draw and draw and draw and hit…unbelievable…I guess it’s safe to say that I’ve never had more fun for a dollar…on another note: I’m never playing that again.

Just as I busted out in 6th place I noticed that one of the 90 player 1$ SnGs was red, so I checked it out and sure enough Andy Bloch played in it. That’s what rocks at FullTiltPoker (affiliate link) – although the pros mostly play higher stakes ($3/$6 and above, mostly above $10 though) they do play in low buyin SnGs and MTTs, too! Name me another site were you can play with the pros for a dollar? Cool stuff!

After the donkfest it was time to mix up my game a little again…so I hopped into a 5$ PLO8 SnG. The main hands I play in PLO8 are the 3 card wheel hands, but you gotta mix it up a little, so I took down a nice pot with pocket Kings which made me a nice full house. Five hands in the board exploded in my face though and I couldn’t hold myself back…sure enough I only flopped the 2nd best boat and yes another player held the nut boat. Too bad…out 9th of 9. But I don’t feel bad about that one, if you think you’ve got the nuts, play’em like that…

After the PLO8 distraction another try at the token front was in order and to make a long story short: after 1h 31m of ups and downs I finished 2nd and won my first 26$ token. W00t!

Sidenote: I know that with 5 tries (1 token, 3 busts, 1x 5th place = -2.6) the 26$ token cost me 30.4$, so not really a good deal – but I hope to win more of these buggers in the long run with fewer tries, so everything should work out

In related news: I’ve changed my avatar from the donkey to the lemur (I think that’s what it is, right?)…I just couldn’t stop laughing at the following pose, so I just had to get this avi..

Nothing much to report today – with the dentist appointment today (he repaired three teeth in one session, yummy) and exams approaching I only play one MTT. Despite finishing as bubble boy + one I had fun playing for over 2 hours and broke the suckout-cycle.

After getting sucked out on time and time again I thought it was time to turn this thing around. Early in the tournament I felt that KdQd was good enough to push on a 10 high flop with 2 diamonds…two callers….no diamond on the turn…no diamond on the river…still I won…I was up against 88 and AQo and I spike the King on the river to push me up to 5.6k (average at that point was 1.8k)! Now I know how all the donks, who usually suck out on me, feel 😉

Played my usual tight game after that and ran into the same problem as usual: getting short stacked when it comes to the bubble. There’s some things to be learned here though – I just noticed tonight. I have to loosen up at or prior to the bubble and not just a little, but a lot. I just play to tight and if I don’t catch a decent starting hand (didn’t hold any pair higher than 5 tonight, AQ once and AJ once) I’m in a tight spot. The blinds are usually so high at that point that my All-In push with two decent cards are no scare to anyone anymore…hence it’s inevitable that I get called at least by one player who usually has me dominated.

So, note to self: even if it’s boring, review hand histories of recent MTT and analyze which hand selection should be the “bread and butter” during that phase of the tourney.

Argh. Another try at a 26$ token and another bubble boy finish (or bubble boy + 1 as I finished 6th, top 5 paid, but only top 4 get a token). I don’t know what it is, but I can’t seem to get through in these buggers. Side note: Thanks Garth and TripJax for the encouraging comments on yesterday’s post. I guess I just have to try again, although I’m starting to lose confidence and motivation – whatever I do I just can’t win the “deciding hands”, maybe it’s the 5 minute crapshoot format or the poker gods laughing at me, whatever it is it sucks!

Evertime I push my stack in the middle with confidence (and the best hand at that particular time) a donk turns over his crap and connects (i.e. 77 on a Q-10-7 board, i have him covered, he decides to call with J8o and sure enough the turn is a 9; AQo preflop All-In he calls with A-10, and guess what? – see below)

No joy today may mean more joy tomorrow, we’ll see, although I doubt it with a dentist appointment coming up tomorrow 😉

Help a brother out: Please send me some suckout mojo, cheers!

I played my usual NL HE today and was able to finish ahead more than 5 buyins. Nice. Because of that I played another 2 table 6$+0.60$ token satellite (top 4 get a 26$ token, 5th gets 4$). One player at the table had the deck hit him in the face most of the first half dozen orbits and so he busted out 6 players in no time to chip up to 9k (1.5k starting chip count). Wow, haven’t seen that before – although I imagine that this has got to be a cool way to play such a SnG (get cards at the right time or maybe even cards at all time, then just sit around and watch the others bust out as the token is a lock unless you do something stupid). No such joy for me, but I hang in there until we were down to 5 players…at least I was down 2.6$ at most…unfortunately I was a big dog with 1.3k chips to over 4k (places 3 and 4), so I had to get something going with blinds at 100/200. I’m in the BB and look down at AKo…All-In…UTG who tried to limp in calls…the rest folds…he shows Ad5d…5 on the flop…no help for me…so that makes me 0/3 in those 2 table satellites for a 26$ token. Hmm…can it be so hard to get one of those? Not really as I’ve seen bad players hit it big more than once now…I guess it’s just a matter of time until I can catch a break on one of those buggers. Until then I’m going to win the buyin on the cash-tables first and then try again 🙂

Wow, I think that’s the new record for title length. I don’t want to go on and rant all the time about getting sucked out on, after all nobody wants to hear the same “Bad beat” stories over and over again, but hey, this is my blog…so here it comes:

I played the usual 17ET tourney at FTP and was running good…there weren’t all that many hands to remember, but I picked up bluffs, played a solid game, so nothing to cry about. What sucks though is that I can’t win THE hand – when it counts. Two critical hands (at least IMO) and two times I can’t win the thing:

1. I’m sitting in late position and look down at 4-4, not the best hand in the world, but a small pair in LP, folded to me, so I pop it up to 3xBB…two callers (Cutoff + Button)…flop comes down 4-K-6…now I’m thinking…yatzee…bottom trips, but I doubt that someone would have limped with K-K at this point…that and the fact that I got both players covered by a long-shot makes the decision easy: All-In…both call…CU shows 10-Q (wtf?) and button shows Q-Q…at least I’ll only have to dodge a one outer (Q) and two perfect running cards…sure enough the latter happens…J on the turn…Ace on the river…
Summary: I would have busted two players and as a side effect would have been up to over 10k (around 1.5x the average at that point)…

2. The second critical hand was just before the bubble. I’m in the BB (800 + 100Ante already in the pot) and look down at A-Q…considering my chipstack of < 3k it's time to test the water...Cutoff+2 raises to 2k...it's folded to me...what to do what to do...I read his move as a at least semi-steal as he's a big stack (> 10k) and probably hopes to pick up the blinds + antes easily (2.1k)…so I push…he reluctantly calls…with Q-J…totally dominated…as the flop comes down 9-Q-K I’m in a half-happy/half-worried mood and yell something along the lines of “no ten, no ten, no ten” at the screen…to no avail…the river kills me…

Even my opponent can feel my pain and apologizes…I say “It’s all good…” and leave. After all I didn’t do anything wrong, maybe I could have sneaked my way into the money (which starts really small…remember that this is a 1$ tourney, so 54th-46th is 1.76$), but as mentioned above isn’t really worth it without a (at least half-) decent stack. So this was the chance to double up right before the bubble when (at least some) players tend to stall, but it wasn’t to be. Nontheless a fun tourney again with 2h of ups and downs (mostly ups)…

In related news: At least play at the cash tables went fairly well, so nothing to dwell on.. 🙂

Played the usual 17ET tourney, passed the top 50% mark before busting out. So no joy there. More joy at the cash and SnG tables though. I think i’m getting used to the 0.05/0.10 NL HE tables…busted some balls…had my balls busted some times…came out ahead some bucks and cleared the first 10% of my signup bonus! Cool. Finished 2nd in a 5$ SnG (6 Max) for another 5 bucks…not bad…

Now I’m going to log off and relax a little before the NBA All-Star Saturday begins: Go Dirk! Get the 3 Point trophy 🙂

Played two Horses today. The first one was heads up and I couldn’t hit a flop to save my life, so nothing to win there (-5.25$). Then I thought that it would be a good idea to test the donkeys at the 5+0.50 HORSE SnG with 8 players. Same shit different tourney. It’s funny sometimes when you can’t catch a hand and if you get one there’s sure as hell (at least) another player holding a better hand (i.e. J-J vs. K-K vs A-A)…I don’t know what it is, but this really makes me think that I’ve run out of luck somehow…(-5.50$).

After the double horse manure I went back to the normal game (NL HE)…first playing the 1$ tourney at 17ET…nothing spectacular to report, busted out in 127th (of 440), but play a good game. So the last resort were the ring games, so I busted some balls at the 0.05/0.10 NL tables (+10$) to come up almost even for the day…cool.

Now I’m going to relax a little before the DADIII starts…where my last funds at PokerStars will be on the line – don’t expect me to be scared money though 😉

After my prior rant, I want to get back to a more “normal” post. After the disturbing tourney/SnG session earlier on I decided to give the ring games a whirl as this seems to be the quickest way to clear my signup bonus – after all you get points for every raked hand you’re in, so multi-tabling is definitely an option. So that’s what I did.

I finished the night slightly up despite running into some slow played made hands – sometimes it’s really ironic when you think that you’re slow-playing someone with a made hand, but (s)he thinks the same as his/her made hand is even stronger which happened on numerous occasions tonight (note to self: have another look at the board and if your current made hand isn’t the nuts try to find out where you’re at).

Preface: This is not a post about how online poker is rigged 😉 I know that it isn’t. I’m just trying to figure out what happened today..so I need to do a little bit of thinking aloud. I guess it could all be related to the fact that you’re paying more attention to “bad beats”/”miracle cards” (happening at the table not necessarily including you in the hand) when you’re experiencing a bad day poker wise…

Looking closer at the post title:

1. “miracle card” – What is a mircale card? I would define it as a card that saves your behind when you’re behind, usually on the river – although that definition is a little bit loose as this would be the same as an out (outs). So I guess it’s better defined as a single card (or a single card of one kind) that can save your behind, usually on the river (i.e. your opponent is holding 8c-9c, you’re holding K-Q, board 10c-Jc-8h-8s- ? The miracle card you need is any Ace which isn’t a club…so basically a three outer, even better: opponent J-J, you 10-10, board 8-7-8-3-? the only card that can save you is a ten – this example came quite easily as I’ve seen that exact hand and the miracle ten drop in one of the ring games).
2. “miracle cards” – you need two running perfect cards to beat your opponent, possibly while having to dodge some of those outs (i.e. you need a running 9 and 10, but neither of those can be of a suit (i.e. no spade)).

How often does a miracle card hit?

1. We all know a little “outs-theory”…so if you’re in need of ten to hit and you don’t hold any or see any there’s 4 outs…or if you need to hit a card of a certain suit and you hold two and see two..there’s 9 outs (unless one of the cards completes a better hand for your opponent)…I would say that a miracle card is more in the ranges of a one-three outer…
2. If we consider one-three outers to be a “miracle card” how come that I’ve seen such a miracle card around five times in 3 orbits on three different tables this evening? I mean the chances of a miracle card to hit the river is 2/52 (in case of a two outer…although this isn’t considering some information that we have got and some we haven’t got…hmm…how should I explain that: …you know that the deck consists of 52 cards…10 player table…10x 2 hole cards dealt (20 cards gone)…burn a card preflop (21)…drop the flop (24)…burn a card prior to the turn (25)…drop the turn (26)…burn a card prior to the river (27)… – so we know that 27 cards out of 52 are already gone…in an online scenario you only know 6 of them atm (your hole cards + flop + turn as the chance of peeking at your neighbour’s cards are non-existent)…and you know that there are 25 cards remaining…what you don’t know is if the miracle card is even still left in the remaining deck…I guess that’s why poker is considered gambling (to a certain degree) – after all if we all knew the “shuffling-algo” and all cards what would be the point of playing… 😉 )…pfeew…I lost my train of thought a little now…okay…
3. …so I guess you could say that the name is deserved and a miracle card shouldn’t hit the river all that often (after all that’s why such draws are often referred to as belly-buster or gutshot…)
4. I guess it was just a coincidence that all those miracle cards dropped on numerous tables at the same time…and that’s that? Or is there more to it? I guess not. At least nothing that could be proven without a huge amount of tests (and who wants to deal hundreds of thousands of hands manually and calculate the exact percentages considering that there are roughly 2.6 million (2.598.960 if I didn’t miscalculate) different hands (consisting of five cards))

Now that I’ve got that off my mind I can get some well-deserved sleep (and maybe laugh at the stuff I’ve written above tomorrow morning…although I’m getting more and more excited about getting to work on some of the math that is poker related – maybe I’ll even (at least) try to refine some of the concepts for my use…we’ll see)…night night…