Well, well…today was the official donkmaha errm Omaha day. Played some headsup matches in PLO both on Stars and Tilt and despite hitting some quads and what not (not getting payed off because the deck is crippled), my opponents managed to felt me each and every time. 4 matches, 4 big Ls. Beautiful. Money goes in on the flop or turn every time and they’re in “very good” shape every single time: 2outs, 4outs, 6outs, 4outs….against my made hands (two pair or better, usually with at least 6 redraw outs)…but oh well…I guess they were praying in front of the donk mahal or something…

Really had a good time in tonight’s rebuy donkfest…our table was crazy…all-in all-in all-in…pretty uneventful early on…won the first hand with the worst hand…up to 6k or something….soon enough down to 0…rebuy…0…rebuy…0….rebuy….0…you get the idea. Finally chipped up again…then lost a huge pot….QQ vs 99 vs 88…river 8 gives MiamiDon a set and the other guy a straight….heeehaaaw….so instead of 25k I sit with 5k…

After the break, addon. After that pretty uneventful again, sometimes makes you wonder how many times you can get K5o facing a raise and or reraise….quick answer: a lot. Doubled up one final time with KK vs 33….after that mostly card dead again…then finally pushed the tourist into QQ…turned straight over straight…cya in 12th just before the second break….I guess I could have waited a while longer to make my move, but I just felt like doing it right there…oh well…at least I got to have fun with BuddyDank, Waffles and many others once again…fun times….

Random pic dump:

Tonight was a real rollercoaster in the rebuy donkfest and at the headsup tables, well not that much at the headsup tables, it was more or less crash and burn.

Rebuy: Start out with 1k…push in first five to six hands…up to 8k…a little while later…0…a little while later…10k….a little while later 3k….and then it’s crash and burn in seventh. Oh well…didn’t have any “premium cards”, dropped two hammers, biggest pair 55, lost 16k pot with KQ to QJ….lost the final hand with QJ vs KQ…fitting…random pic dump, this time no hand dumps, just a random pic dump…

Curious sidenotes:

• Only 10 runners
• Final table within the first 30 minutes
• Some players just don’t get the rebuy donkarama blogger donkfest’s first hour, 5% flops seen, are you kidding me?

Headsup play: Only played two, the first one was HORSE and my opponent was really lucky early on in Hold’em. I survive with 600 chips. Come Omaha8 I’m grinding my way back. Come the first Razz hands and I’m ahead. Then he starts to chase like there is no tomorrow capping the pot being at least one card behind and/or board-locked…sure enough he runner-runners my ass to beat me. The second match was PLO8 and although I took down some nice pots I only won one of the three big pots…busto…nice to see that your opponent has got the nut-low every time you have the second nut-low and the best draw…sure enough he scoops…oh well…I’m out of here…

Presented by (pot)limit games united, the word of the week:

Ridonkulous – to start out with a clearly inferior starting hand, preferrably board-locked when playing any form of stud, and hitting perfect cards to pull out an unlikely win.

That’s what happened for the most part today, people so eager to chase as if there was no tomorrow. Oh well…didn’t bug me too much though as I knew I would eventually catch them…and that’s exactly what happened in 3 out of five matches. Too bad donks, luck can only get you soooo far.

Headsup stats of the day:

NL: 0/1

PLO8: 1/2

PLO: 1/1

Razz 1/1

Decided to stick to my plan today and play only a little at FullTilt. As Hold’em, especially headsup, is treating me so bad these days, I decided to start out with some “old school” stuff, PLO8. That is one of my favourite games and after reading about it in FullTilt’s Strategy Guide again, I felt the urge to play a little. Headsup PLO8 can be brutal, but on the other hand really rewarding, especially if your opponent doesn’t understand the basic concepts (e.g. lock on low with counterfeit protection and a high draw….bet the living jeebus out of the pot; don’t chase, unless you got a lot of outs to make THE NUTS; etc). Won two out of two. Then I jumped over to a little razz and really enjoyed it, until the blinds got huge. Lovely if you start with three to a wheel, got four to the wheel by fourth street and brick up on fifth, sixth and seventh street. Lovely! Oh well…

After that one I jumped over to some NL Hold’em action and it was the usual stuff. Won two, lost two. Can’t get a winning streak going these days, but hey, maybe that’ll change soon again…

As for the WSOP ME: Nice to see such a humble guy win, at least that’s how he came across in the PokerNews interview…I’m really looking forward to see the coverage…so far the preliminary event coverage was good, HD, I like! Can’t wait to see the HORSE championship, too…I’m out….

Shit out of luck, that’s how I feel on Stars these days. No matter how good, mediocre or bad I play a hand, I’m going to lose it if it’s a big pot. Now, it’s a given fact that you’re going to lose some matches due to errors, but it seems that I tend to lose the matches in the following order:

1. Getting unlucky.

2. Cooler.

3. Error.

It’s really frustrating to say the least. Today’s session had it all again, from the usual coolers (JJ vs KK, 77 vs QQ, AT vs AQ, etc) to the outright bs hands (QQ vs 62o overpair vs bottom pair…bottom pair obv good by the river when he hits his bs “kicker”, 56 vs 45 two pair vs straight draw…..gutter ball obv good). So sick I could puke. Unreal how bad I’ve been running the last few days, it’s not even funny. I had a look at some of the more “entertaining” hands and there’s a small error percentage on my part as far as I can tell – e.g. “slow playing” in some spots (e.g. not betting the pot, but half of it if I put the opponent on less than 6 outs) isn’t really an error in headsup, unless your opponent hangs around to catch the gutterball (or some other low percentage draw)…then he looks like a (idiot errrm) genius. The prime example was the QQ vs 62o hand. I raise it to 3BB preflop. He calls. 6BB in the pot. Flop comes  Tx2. I fire out half the pot. He calls. Turn 6. I lead out and he raises. I think a while and can’t put him on a hand that makes sense. How could the 6 help you here? So I push and he obv insta-calls. River brick. Well…how can I dodge that bullet? I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. How can you call preflop with 62o? Well, easy, if you hit two pair or better you can bust a big pair, all good. But after you hit your duck with no kicker, how can you call on the flop? It’s a mistery to me, but oh well…

So…I’m going to take a break at PokerStars for a few days as it’s obvious that I can’t win anything on there atm. I mean, I’m not ready to get out the tinfoil-hat just yet, but it’s starting to get mad annoying. Everytime I’m about to bust a move again (e.g. hitting bankroll x) I run into such a bullshit run on Stars…amazing. Oh well…WSOP is about over…I’m annoyed with PS…so I’m going to take a break and focus on some FullTilt action for now.

…that’s exactly what I did after the shitty run on Stars. The result, one bubble and two wins. Amazing…I’m out….

So beautiful. I really managed to walk into every god damn donkey there is on Stars. Even third pair was good enough to call me down on straight and flush heavy boards with overcards galore…didn’t matter. At least I managed to lose only some chips to get the valuable information that my opponents wouldn’t fold ANY pair. Good stuff, unless you get so card dead that you miss the flop 17 times in a row. So beautiful. After that I managed to push A9 into AJ, AT into AQ, AQ into AK…all headsup…pretty hawesome. All in all I managed to pull out one W in four matches.

After that I jumped over to Full Tilt and played some Razz and NL headsup. Managed to win both although it seemed that I wouldn’t. In the Razz one it was brutal. Start with the best hand, brick out. Start with the best hand, brick out. So I had him down to 300 three times before I was finally able to bust him. So sick. Oh well…at least I did win in the end…still makes me want to puke, it’s just ridiculous…

It’s not a big score money-wise, but it sure as hell feels good to finally take down a blogger event. Big shoutouts to Kat for hosting and BuddyDank for the music and commentary, very much appreciated. As it’s after 5:30am, no time to write a long review of tonight’s play, just a random pic dump of the more interesting hands of the night…

…and ain’t a damn thing changed. After a nice, pokerless, weekend I returned to the tables tonight and it wasn’t pretty. I started off with some donk action at FullTilt – it’s been a while since I played there, but I decided to redeposit some dough to play in Katitude’s friday night rebuy madness last friday. Played some headsup and managed to pull out 3 wins in 5 tries.

After that, I jumped to PokerStars and shit hit the fan, again. To start things off I play a six-handed SnG and after beating up some donks in a few pots I’m sitting pretty, second in chips, trailing the chipleader only by 200 despite the fact that he had already eliminated a player. So things are good and I look down at JJ. Push comes to shove and sure enough I have the best hand…he has TT…board TxAxx…cya…so fugly.

So I jump into headsup mode and all is good. I win the first two matches easily and then it happens again. I can’t have a god damn hand hold up. Gutshot, boom. Runner runner, boom. Two outer, boom. Three outer, boom…and ain’t it the best when you hold a significant chiplead, then someone runner runners you good to get close to being back in the game and then the following hand comes up…

Guess how that match worked out after that hand? Yup, another lovely bottom pair + gutshot hitting the gutshot on the river a few hands later. Poker is so beautiful sometimes. So…all in all I lost the next 6 matches in a row. Gutterballs, counterfeited two pair, two pair against set etc etc, all the beautiful hands out of the freezer. Lovely. Somehow I managed not to tilt off too badly and won two matches to close the session.

Consolation prize of the night: my bad luck was good enough to finally clear the 10 Billionth hand bonus, so at least my losses for the night are covered, still sucks though. I mean, come on, not a single god damn 4:1 (AA vs KK (see above), 88 vs 55 – he flops a set, JJ vs TT – he flops a set) hand held up for me, I took sick beat after sick beat, how long can this happen to a player? God damn it… oh well…better luck next time…and I’d better have some “more normal” luck soonish as this is just unreal 😉

…it’ll get you. After tonight’s session I could be really pissed, but I’m not, at least not really. It was just one of these lovely days when you can do everything right and you still get kicked in the balls, repeatedly. I’m really tired, after 5am over here, so just a quick wrap-up and a random pic dump…

Stats, PokerStars: Headsup – 12 matches, 6W 6L; Six handed – 2 matches, 1x 2nd, 1x 3rd (bubble)

FullTilt, Friday night Donkarama: 1x Buyin, 4 rebuys, 1 addon, kicked in the balls every time I was about to get my hands on a big stack…final touch KK vs K3 s00ted…totally flushed out in 7th…so fugly…I’m out…nn…
Random Pic dump: