*lol*

After the recent bad run, I decided to take a day off and so I did yesterday. Today I returned to my usual (new) feeding grounds, the 11$ Turbo HU matches on Stars. The first match started off with the usual bs and thoughts of logging off right after that match crept in immediately.

Instead of a W I’m sitting there with 840 in chips. Yuck. Oh well, no need to panic, just focus and continue to get your money in good. Some favourable flops, turns and rivers later and I’m in the chiplead again. The next time we get it in, I’m holding the better hand once again (A9o vs Q6o all-in push by him preflop). Flop A9x turn A…cya. W. Nice. I play three more matches and while I don’t hit the boards all that hard, at least my hands hold up when I put it in with the best. Add to that some favourable turn and/or river cards and my opponents let me see my draws cheap…and the draws hit. What a beautiful feeling to see a 14+ outs twice draw hit. Flopping a set against two pair was somewhere in there too. So…all in all…dare I say it, I ran good. Wheeeee. 4 matches 4 Ws and I’m outta here for tonight…

After the beautiful start of tonight’s session I should have cut my losses and logoff immediately. Did I do it? Ha ha…not really. I decided to test HU some more.

1. One 11$ turbo…runner runner my ass…then lose the classic flip AK vs QQ…cya.

2. One 22$ turbo later and this is how it all ended…god I love it when the dealer peels off the perfect turn card for the sucker…and if that isn’t enough…peel off the even better river card just to rub it in…

3. Logoff, down sixty bucks, stuck and steaming at it’s best…god I hate poker these days… 🙁

Started the session with a donktastic 8.8$ Turbo DS to the sunday million. After nearly 30 minutes I took down the first table and what a brutal suckout it was. We’re down to headsup and I’m down about 3:2 in chips. I win some small pots and I’m slightly ahead when the hand comes down. I look down at Ad7d in the BB….my opponent open-pushes…what do I do here? I opted to call and he shows A8o. So fugly I yelled…until the board produced a 7 and no 8. Ouch. My opponent was mighty pissed – understandable, but hey…about time I filled up the suckout column.

After that it was waiting time…although the other five tables finished up quite quickly thanks to the crapshoot blind increases. So after a combined 40 minutes we sat down at the final table. I win the first two hands (AQ brings broadway vs Q7o; and AJ c-bet on the flop takes it down). Within the first orbit we lose our first player (bubble boy) with a nice fugly cooler. He got AsKs, his opponent 89o. They see a flop with two spades and a 9. Turn is the 9s giving the AKs guy the nutflush and his opponent trips. Push comes to shove. River Q pairs the board and the poor guy with the nutflush is down to 40 chips. So fugly. I sit back and relax and wait for my next decent hand. I find TT on the button, shorty UTG has raised…I decide that I probably got the best hand here and I put him to the test reraising to 640 (his stack). He instacalls with KK…fugly.

So I’m back down to 1810 in chips and I wait for my next hand and wait and wait. As the blinds are increasing and increasing I’m force to play a hand sooner or later. T7o in the BB is good enough as we see an unraised flop. I flop TPNK + OESD. I lead out and he pushes. Hmmm…I’ll take my chances as he could be on a diamond-draw here, maybe a diamond-draw with a pair. He flips T9o. So fugly…this guy was really my personal cooler. Won the broadway hand against his monster Q7o…then he coolered me with Kings vs Tens and now this and I’m busto in fifth…FUGLY.

After that one I played some more 11$ Turbo HU matches and it started out mighty fine. First match W. Second match…one hand…W. Then it started to get ugly again. Third match and I can’t get rid of this donkbox. I take the lead, he comes back. I take the lead, he comes back. I take the lead, he sucks out. He sucks out and I’m behind. Then the usual shit comes down…

Fourth match L. Fifth match L. Sixth match finally a W again against a superfish who can’t fold any pair he hits on the flop or has in his hand, not even third pair or a pocket pair with five overcards on board. Still took me nearly sixty hands to finish him off, just tells you how hot I’m running, errrm, well, not really….anyway…after that match and being 3 and 3 I decided to quit before I get myself stuck again…

Another beautiful fugly session today. Headsup poker is the devil in disguise that’s for sure, even the stupidest donkey on the planet can win by getting lucky. All in all I played 11 matches today at 11$ a pop…LWLLWLWLWWW…so 6-5 in total.

A realistic look at the losses tells me that I dropped 3 making curious river calls with the second best hand…the other two can be summed up by the following screenshots.

Match 1: Back to back goodness…instead of a W…everything turns into apeshit and a big L.

Match 2: Back to back goodness again…robbed a pot from him in the hand before the first one below. He then min-raises (oooh aces?) let’s call…I flop two pair and when the money goes in he’s drawing mighty slim…runner runner goodness saves him though. Two hands later I’m finally done…

Well, well…after footie training I played an extended HU session of 10 matches and boy did it suck. I won the first two matches, then lost 4 in a row, won one, lost one, won three in a row. So after ten matches I’m 5 and 5 and all that’s left is to throw a fiver to pokerstars for the rake. Sigh.

Ups: Keeping my shit together even after some of the nastier ugly beats. Making sound decisions and only a few errors (curious river calls – I should start to trust my gut feeling which tells me “yuck that card hit him”, although it’s hard to do if the history of the hand up to that point is telling you something different…oh well…I guess that’s part of the donkey deception or could you put someone on Q6o if he called a 4BB raise preflop…he reraises you on the ace high flop and calls the re-reraise…he calls the huge turn bet…then he leads out again (1/3 of the pot) when the fugly queen hits to match his flop 6…well…I couldn’t as I would think that any sane person could laydown third pair no draw there against my ace…)…

I’m outta here and leave you with a beautiful fugly river card…lol…lead up to the hand….he rivers me twice for smaller pots…then this hand comes down and he can’t laydown second pair on the turn….

So…the footie team excursion to Cologne aka two and a half day drinking binge came to a close yesterday evening. As I was still on the “staying up late” rhythm, I played a few SnGs before hitting the mattress, 2W 1L in three HU SnGs.

Today, after the first good night’s sleep since thursday, I played a little longer session. To get things started I hit the 6$ turbo HU SnGs – although I don’t like turbos, they’re a better choice IMHO, as honestly, it doesn’t make that much of a difference anyway in HU; basically it all comes down to 1 to x crucial hands and that’s that. I won the first two and then lost the next 7. Yes, I lost seven in a row. Did I play worse than in the first two matches? Not really. I made some questionable plays when I assumed my opponent could laydown third pair with no kick (crazy me!?!), but apart from that my honest answer is “Not really. Errrm…NO!”. I just ran into some ugly hands, the best one was the following beauty of a hand…what’s the probability of you flopping a flush again? What are the odds of you flopping the third nut flush and your opponent flopping either the second or nut flush? Hmm…I think, not all that high…

While this was the best one, there were numerous other (less coolery) hands that just had me on the “second best” side at all times (A10 vs AJ, AQ vs AK, A4 vs A7 – lovely to have all those hands with the same theme: Ace hitting the flop and either both kickers hitting or the other dudes kicker playing, so fugly; straights vs flushes with the river card; counterfeited two pair, etc etc). I decided to play one more to round out the 10 matches and I won that one when I finally hit my first cooler of the session. I rivered the flush which gave my opponent the nut straight. Teehee.

After that one I decided to jump into some shorthanded SnG action and took down second. We started HU with me being down about 3:2 and my opponent did a great job leaning on me at all times. I couldn’t do much about it with my monster 9-, 8- or 7-highs…and when I finally had a face card (K9 s00ted) he had an Ace and it stood up…ce la vie.

Before quitting for the night, I jump up a level and hit the 11$ turbo HU SnGs. I won the first one. Lost the second one. Won the third, fourth and fifth one. So beautiful. No doubt that I hit some hands there, but it was a real pleasure to witness a few things I’ve been missing at the 6$ ones:

1. At least some opponents can laydown second or third pair.

2. At least some opponents can even laydown TPxK on a scary board.

So…even after losing 7 straight matches, I kept my shit together for the most part and came back to not only erase the deficit, but finish the session up a little…how sweet it is…let’s see if I can sustain the positive attitude and kick some ass at the 11$ level…

Well, well…I know that TripJax tagged me and rest assured, the post “7 Things…” is in the making, just didn’t have the time to finish it today, it’s coming soonish though.

Today was similar to yesterday’s play, I just couldn’t get anything going and my opponents caught like it was nothing. The only mistake I made was being a POW, yes a payoff wizard. I KNEW they caught and I still called. Not good. At least I made a little comeback at the end so the night wasn’t a total disaster…random fugly pic dump…

…of being shit out of luck, then puzzled, then tilted, then mega-tilted:

1. Being coolered the good old fashioned way: nut flush vs straight flush, boat vs boat, boat vs quads, flush vs higher flush, overpair vs higher overpair
2. Getting chased down the old fashioned way: runner runner straight, runner runner flush

3. Winning 1 of 5 coinflips

4. Losing to a guy that couldn’t even spell poker, but had the luck to turn me (catching the perfect card on the turn) 5 times in a single match before rivering me to put me out for good.

5. Not winning a single hand when AK-AT vs Ax…always a nice little chop or suckout coming (A10 vs A2…ace on the flop, 2 on the turn; AK vs A2…double paired board; AK vs AQ…chop…; AQ vs AJ…chop…;)…at least I won 0 with Ax vs A-biggerX to really make my day…
6. Winning exactly 0 hands with higher pair vs pair…the best one was on the bubble in a six handed SnG…he pushes with sixes vs my eights…I got him covered…spikes the two outer right on the flop…next hand I push in with A7 from the button…he holds A8…ty…

7. Be so tilted after yet another bs hand that you push your remaining stack in with K7 s00ted on the button just to see your opponent wake up with the real BB special (AA)…busto…

So…after that last bs six handed SnG, I finally quit, before I start to shit on the keyboard, I mean seriously, I thought I’ve seen it all and indeed I have, but seeing it all again in such a compressed format isn’t any less painful than it was the first time, or the second time, or the x-th time…good god…

Here’s a random pic dump of some lovely hands…

Better luck tomorrow…or whatever 😉

…so here’s a random pic dump of some of the nicer hands of tonight’s session…lol…cold deck after cold deck, sick beat after sick beat, especially on the bubble…all the good stuff…even had quads one time…opponent down to 6xx chips…still came back to runner runner me like it was nothing…making good decisions is an unthankful thing sometimes…

Never seen so many case cards either…lovely to see two Kings show up when you’re holding Kx…well, not really if your opponent is slow playing his AK from start to finish…sick sick bs…oh well…surprisingly enough I still managed to squeeze out some wins at HU (3) and one at a six-handed SnG…so despite the six junk-kickings I still finish the night up…wheeeeeee….

…I was on, early on in tonight’s session. Two pair vs set, two pair vs flopped straight, TP vs set, etc etc and sure enough not a single out came through on each of these hands. Shrug. Whatever. So I bubble in a six-handed SnG, then finished fourth, then lost a HU match, before going on a nice little comeback run with 3 HU wins. I’ll leave it at that, slightly down for the night…