The old saying is true, you can’t do more than move your money in with the best. It’s what happened in 90-95% of all hands, still not that much joy. Played seven headsup matches, won 4…lost 3…out of those 3 I would say I deserved to lose 1, in which I clearly overplayed a hand which ultimately lead to my defeat. In the other two losses it was brutal though…dominated hands meant nothing as the three-outers would hit like crazy…oh well…what can you do. The last match was especially brutal….we battle for well over 100 hands, which is quite uncommon. Why did we play for such a long time? Because he just wouldn’t go broke. After a long long battle I’m sitting with around 3/4 of the chips…A10 vs A7…7 is all it takes…throw two coin-flips in the mix (I lose both, haha, no surprise here)….and he takes the match.
I threw another double shootout in the mix, a little torture can’t be bad for character building, lol. This time it filled up pretty quickly, 100 players. So the final table was all ITM with the top 4 claiming a ticket to the sunday million. The table started of like a madhouse. First hand…a player bluffs off all his chips. I’m sitting there cursing him for making such a donkey play as I layed down the winning hand (K9o in EP)…lol…I don’t have to wait long though…second hand…I’m in the BB…MP min-raises…LP calls…all fold…I call…with my powerful 69o…flop comes down 6A9 rainbow…now if he’s got Aces, sixes or nines I’m willing to go broke here….I bet out…MP reraises…LP pushes…I push…MP calls all-in….I show the two pair…MP shows A7o….LP shows 88….my two pair holds up…and I triple up in the third hand. The table is down to seven handed and I’m way out in front. From there on it’s a long ugly drag though…I can’t catch anything and when I do…I catch just enough to lose some chips to a better hand. AQ on a queen high flop….he shows Aces…etc….just nice to see everyone at the table showing their winning Aces one after the other. Weird. Another good 40 minutes of jab and grabble action and I just can’t catch a break. I keep myself in the game by stealing blinds. Nothing more nothing less….I finally go out in the last hand before the break…Ac7c on the button four handed…I’m not exactly laying that down….big stack calls with presto and he shouts just that as it holds up….damn….at least I had fun at the table as we had a really good time after the first three donks were busted, so after the second hand…at least something positive…

Totally unrelated to today’s session: Wheeeee….the AIPS leaderboard just got an update, not that I have any points yet…but at least I’m on it….tied for 30th (= last place) lol… 😉

Not much going on, besides mr. spambot x and y trying to spam every single post on this blog. Good thing that my antispam-solutions are holding up, I heart WordPress + Plugins 😉

Played a small session at Stars, the usual, some headsup and a double shootout. Won all three headsup matches. The first one was really only one hand, lol. I limp with Ad9d…he checks…flop comes three baby diamonds…I check…he checks…turn is the 10d…he bets out…I reraise him small….he reraises me small….I reraise him small…he reraises me small….I push….he insta-calls…now I’m looking forward to see his Kd…but instead he shows the Jd…lol….well, well, son…I could understand a call with the Kd (sort off), but with the Jd? Are you kiddin me? Nothing better than to flop the joint in the first hand and get all the chips. The second match was more of a grind, although the passive style of my opponent made it easy to see flops and get payed of when he had a piece of the flop or thought he had the goods – example: he min-raises preflop…flop comes down 642 rainbow…he min-bets…I hold J6o…I call…turn is another 6….he bets bigger…I repop him…he repops me…I push….he insta-calls…shows his Aces….turn and river don’t show the two outer and I’m home free. The third one was gold too….79…one of my new favourite, mega-juicy hands…no action preflop…flop comes down 684…he bets small….I call…turn is the beautiful 5…I’ve got the nuts….he bets big, I reraise…he reraises me small…I push…he shows Q7…drawing slim to a chop…river is blank and I win the third match.

After that I invested some of the dough into another try at the Double Shootouts. The games are really juicy as there are donkeys left and right more than willing to get their money in bad. Too bad if you can’t catch a hand to break em. So I sat there again winning some small pots while another player stacked donk after donk. Once it came down to playing a few bigger hands he had the chips to make the calls without much risk and got lucky here and there….I got unlucky against another player…33 vs 66…oh well…that’s that. Coming back to the second part of the title: Two views of the same situation: 1. I need to get lucky here 2. I just need to NOT get unlucky here…

1. was generally true for the other player

2. was generally not true for me

Sucks to be in that spot…oh well…can’t help it…keep choppin away I guess…3 tries down….more to go…but not tonight…

Well, well…played only a small session prior to the WWdN, won 2 out of 3 headsup matches. Then it was time to play the WWdN…and I did good…most hands are a blurr, but I made the right moves at the right time…the crucial hands were against Iak who first doubled me up to over 5k in chips and then doubled me up again with my AK vs his KJ.

So at the second break I was sitting pretty in the chiplead and from there on I rolled all the way till the final hand A9 vs 55, presto prevailed and I busted out 4th…not bad…quick pic dump and then I’m off to bed….

Today I was having mixed emotions at the tables and after yet another brutal suckout (pocket kings lost to the powerful ducks when a third duck said “quack” on the river) I asked myself: Is it really good to keep it all in(side) or is it better to get it all out? One thing’s for sure, to keep it all in is impossible in the long run, at least for me. Now I’m lucky in some ways, as I started this blog and so I’ve always got an outlet for my thoughts on hands, the way they were played and many other things. Sometimes this isn’t enough though. Tonight was one of these occasions where it wasn’t enough, I just had to get it out in the chat and so I went ahead and berate oned of the donks “Hellmuth style”. Is it good to do something like this? Well, the answer is yes and no. Yes, you get it out of your system and it’s a relief. No, for many different reasons:

1. While you get it out of your system, it distracts you from playing the current hand optimally as you’re busy typing whatever in the chatbox.

2. It can influence your opponent in a way that will come back to hurt you – at least sometimes. The read that you have on him/her might be useless from that point forward as he/she will switch up their game in order to punish you (and sometimes that works just fine if they suckout on you again, sending you into overdrive-tilt).

3. It’s bad etiquette.

4. In the long run you WANT your opponent to play that way, because pushing in with 1-20% chance is exactly what you want them to do. Why even make them think they could or should do it differently? (Assuming that some of the donks really aren’t that bad that they can’t learn from such situations)

5. Related to 1.: It can influence your game not only in the next hand, or the next, but for an extended period of time as your motive to play a hand can switch from “making the correct play/decision” to “I’ll show you donkey”…

6. etc

So, do I feel better now – absolutely. Did my outburst help my game, the decision making or the results in any way? Not really. Bottom line is, no matter how perfectly you played your hand or how bad your opponent played his, in the end the cards will decide the outcome. All you can do is make (near) perfect decisions and live with the results and I’ll pledge to stick to just that (and keep the ranting part exclusively to my blog ;)) in the future.

As for tonight, I think I played good, made sound decisions and won the matches I was supposed to win (4 out of 7). Out of the three losses, at least two were cruel, but hey, that’s poker, at least sometimes. I don’t want to go into greater detail about specific hands tonight, but I gotta at least break down one of the matches. This one could have been entitled “Just blind off, there’s no chance in hell you’ll win this match.”…I attack attack attack, hit some flops, don’t hit others, but I’m consistently grinding away at my opponent’s stack. I hold a significant chiplead and my opponent raises me preflop. I look down at QQ. Now remember, this is headsup and he’s in a desperate situation. I reraise him and he’s not commited yet. He pushes all-in. Can you laydown the queens here? I couldn’t…sure enough he shows AA and the rockets blast my queens. We’re almost back to square one as I’m ahead only a few hundred chips again. The grinding continues and soon enough I find myself in a commanding chiplead again. This time, I look down at KK. I raise from the button and he pushes all-in. Laydown Kings? Hmm, I can’t see him having Aces again here and if he does, then I’ll have to quote tuff_fish “God bless america, son of a god damn bitch!” 😉

I call and he shows the powerful 2-2, quack quack. Now I’m happy as I’m waaay ahead and he doesn’t hold the Kings nemesis, Ace rag. Flop is blank, turn is blank…river says quack, here I am. So I lose to a set of deuces on the river, lovely two outer. Wow, we’re almost even in chips, again. The grinding continues and soon enough I hold a bigger chiplead again. I hold KsQs…i standard three-pop it preflop and he flat-calls…flop comes down Kc-Qh-xc…I bet three-quarter the pot. He reraises me. I push. He insta-calls. Turn is Ac…River is xc…Showdown Jc7c…oh well…have a nice day. I’m down to slightly under 500 chips and the next time I look down at a semi-decent hand I push with A7 s00ted, he insta-calls with Q2 s00ted and sure enough a lonely duck is all it takes to beat me. Matches like these make me wonder if it would be a good idea to have some barf bags at my desk – hmm…maybe that’s a new business idea in itself, don’t you think that some players would spend a buck or two on the following one, after all what’s a buck or two compared to cleaning up your desk and keyboard 😉

But enough dwelling for tonight, I finished the session up, what more can you ask for…I’m out of here…

Oh me oh my, people were sucking (out) like vacuum cleaners tonight. *lol* 😉

Ran into a couple of fellows that play fairly well, so I had to play patiently and wait for my spots, the spots came and the money went in…let’s just say that the best hands, well my hands, didn’t hold up quite that often. I mean, clearly a hand like Doyle (10-2) vs 3-5 can be juicy, but only if you play it right…flop 10-10-4…check check…2….check check…river 6…bet…he reraises all-in…I smile and call…now that’s a clear hand…the other ones with cards to come, especially with only one to come were unreal. I mean, I understand that people play badly and usually I’m cheering them on – after all that’s where the money comes from – but today, I would have loved if they just folded in some spots as I could almost feel the perfect card coming before it even happened. Four-outer…boom…two-outer…boom…two-outer…boom…eight-outer…boom…three-outer boom…etc…it was brutal…oh well…better luck next time…I’m done for tonight 3 for 8…and to the donks: Keep playing like this, can’t betray the odds over the long run fellas 😉

Side note: Almost forgot, during the first few matches PokerStars had some minor problems with their connection…first time I ever witnessed something like this…

“Administrator: Many players have disconnected due to Internet routing problems,
additional time to act added [2007/02/11-18:30:47 ET]”

Well, well, I’m still a little puzzled as how I could overlook my hand yesterday evening. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter one bit and even if I won the hand, you never know how the tourney would have played out from there. But still, this is officially the first time ever that this happened to “Mr. Poker”, aka me myself and I. Oh well, it’s over, I wrote about it and that’s that, it sure won’t lose any sleep about it…

So…today I only watched a little poker on tv, a rerun at that, as the shows I’m waiting for (High Stakes Poker, Poker after dark) won’t be around until tuesday…apart from that, only a small session at Stars tonight. Won the first two matches easily…then stormed into the third one, took half his stack in the first two hands, then couldn’t finish off and lost to a nice runner runner spade four-flush with my AhKc vs his Ac10s…oh well…same ol’ same ol’…so I finish the night at 2-1…and with a big grin on my face…boy is my new display nice 🙂

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 😉

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…