Blogger Bracelet Race
Monday April 16th 2007, 3:35 pm
Filed under: Live Play,MTT,Opinionated,Tournaments

Wheeee….so Al is the first one of the broggers trying to send x bloggers to the WSOP 2007…I’m not signed up yet, as I’m waiting for the pw…if you’ve got a pokerblog and want to “donate” too…check out the details below and/or visit Al for more…

WSOP Blogger Bracelet Race



Home game at home
Saturday April 07th 2007, 2:14 am
Filed under: Live Play,No-Limit Hold'em,S&G,Tournaments

Well, tonight was our next (live) home game and this time, I hosted it. The only downside of this were the missing poker tables (which are at my mate’s place who normally hosts our home games) and copaq cards (which are also at my mate’s place). Apart from that, it was the usual card flinging group of friends and we had a good old time.

In contrast to the last few home games, I decided to go with my “feel” this time and push hands more than I normally would. Why should I let the other guys put the decision on me all the time? Let’s turn the tables and let them make their decisions for all the marbles.

This “strategy” worked out nicely. We started of 10 handed and I look down at AJ early on. I raise preflop in LP and get one caller. Flop is A9x. I lead out again and he calls. Turn pairs nines. I’m pretty sure I’m good here, although he could have me outkicked – then again, why wouldn’t he reraise preflop or on the flop with AK/AQ?! So I put him all in and he calls…showing A7…my AJ stands up and I eliminate the first player. A few hands later I hit the jackpot. I got A5o in the BB and I call a small raise from one of our loose cannons. Flop comes down 234…yatzee! I bet small…he calls…turn 6…yatzee^2…I check, trying to induce a “bluff” here…he complies and fires a nice sized bet at it…now I’m pretty sure he started off with a big pair here…and I push…he calls pretty quickly with pocket kings, dead to three fives for a chop. The five doesn’t come and I take out the second player and a nice sized pot. I’m sitting pretty with 1/3 of the chips in play, nice. From there on, I’m chasing a few pots to many and bluff into the nuts once.

But with the monster stack, that’s no big deal. Until I go on a complete card dead bender for three to four orbits. I can’t catch anything and my stack is dwindeling. Once we’re down to four handed (three ITM) I catch a small good run and eliminate the bubble boy. Nice. Three handed I take down another nice pot to knock out the third guy…but I’m trailing roughly 1:3 in chips. I decided to not bother “playing tricky” here and I push two of the next three hands.

The second time I push with J10o I get called with an Ace high…the flop gives me a four-flush…turn…flush…yatzee! Boom we’re even in chips. After that hand I forgot to switch back to normal mode though and I make a bad call all-in with TP+flush draw, he slowplayed and overpair and got the flush draw as well, but higher…I don’t improve and I’m out in second. No W, but at least I got down to headsup again and made some money.

After that we played a SH sidegame…busted out in 4th when someone caught a boat on the turn to eliminate both me and a shortstack…so no money there (top two ITM), but hey…I had fun..made some money…what more can I ask for?



Mixed live bag
Sunday March 11th 2007, 3:36 am
Filed under: Casual Play,Live Play,No-Limit Hold'em,S&G,Tournaments

Well, the main event was a little bit different today. For the first time in ages we had a turnout smaller than 10 players, so we settled on a single table with 9 players. Usually we have at least two tables of 6 going and shorthanded play allows you to be a bit more aggressive and “creative” with your hands. With the full ring, not so much, tonight. Cards were so and so…my best hands were AhKh which split the pot with AsKs, AQ which I had to laydown preflop to three raises, a Kx which boated up to split yet another pot and some mini-pairs (2x deuces)…so sooner or later I had to make yet another move. Good thing I didn’t make that move in the hand I had deuces for the second time. Mini-raise preflop…hmm…maybe Aces? Maybe AK/AQ/AJ? I call with the ducks…flop comes down Q86…preflop raiser bets out half the pot…hmm…I honestly thought about pushing there for a while – my reasoning being that if he indeed had AK/AJ/A10/Ax…I might as well be ahead here…then again…if he’s on AQ or better…I’m toast…so I decide to lay it down…my instincts were right…he shows AA…

Soon enough I found myself in a desperate position, yet again, and I was forced to move…no joy and I exited in 7th place. The side game was a whole different game. We played 5 handed after the next two players had busted out of the main event…and after the first few hands I pick up the first superb hand of the night…KK in the BB…two limpers…I pop it preflop…one caller…flop comes down Kxx with two spades…I bet about half the pot…call…turn pairs the board no spade though…I bet out again…call…I hope that the river brings the third spade, but it doesn’t…I lead out again and start to talk…I talk my opponent into calling and I showdown my Kings full…he mucks…nice!

A few hands later I look down at AcAd…nice! I pop it preflop and get one caller…flop comes down KcJc10c…I check…errm not really a good move….he checks behind…turn pairs Kings…I check….errm not really a good move…he checks behind…river 6s…I bet out…he reraises…hmm…couldn’t have played that hand much worse…I make a crying call..he shows 78o for the straight…man did I blow that hand. I raised preflop, I have the goods…if I check the flop…that’s okay (although leading out would be much better)…but as the turn pairs the board I need to fire at it…I would have won a small pot…instead I lost a medium pot…oh well…my bad. After some more jabbing and grabling I was able to knockout two players and my opponent knocked out the third one, so we started headsup. I was ahead…but he fired at me relentlessly…in the end 35o was good enough to win though…..unraised pot, flop comes down 367…so bottom pair + gutshot for me…I bet he pushes I call..he got two overs…I win. Nice. Then I sat down in the next sidegame which was under way…I sat down as the blinds were 30/60 (1500 starting chips, I had 1300 remaining as they had started with me still being headsup in the other sidegame)…I take down some nice pots and find myself sitting comfortable at 2500+ chips. Then everything starts to unravel. I look down at AK in the BB…we’re four handed and the other three limp…no limping under my watch here…blinds are at 50/100…so 400 in the pot…I pop it to 700…one caller…hmm…flop comes down three rags…I fire the second bullet and he calls…we check both the turn and river…and he shows A8 for the pair of eights. Option 1: I fire another shell on the turn and/or river, he calls/folds…I guess he would have called after my hesitation…Option 2: He lays down the friggin hand for 600 preflop…as if 😉

Some hands later I make my exit…I got roughly 1.1k left and I limp in the SB with Q8o…we see a flop of Q92 rainbow three-handed…I check…BB bets…MP calls…I push…BB ponders…calls…MP folds…I show my Q8…BB shows Q10…MP had folded AK…turn 9…river hmm….7…oh well…cya…

So…all in all I’m satisfied with my performance tonight…played the cards that were dealt to me, tried to play my opponent here and there, but it’s hard to win a pot if your opponent will call you down no matter what (especially if he/they keep hitting flops against you)…the only hand that I foobared was the Aces hand…but that one didn’t cost me much…so it’s all good…broke even for the night…not really good, but better than finishing the night down 😉 …I’m out…



Roller coaster ride
Saturday February 10th 2007, 3:44 am
Filed under: Live Play,MTT,No-Limit Hold'em,Tournaments

Wow. Tonight we played our usual home game. It’s been almost 2 months since we last played, so I was pretty excited to see all the fellas. We had 12 runners tonight, so the price pool was nice. As usual the final 6 would compile the final table and I sure hoped to be one of them. One thing was different tonight though: I was there to play cards, have a drink or two or three and to enjoy the game, period. No intention to win it, play my best game or whatever. Just sit there, chat with the guys and play the cards I’m dealt – if I win, dandy, if not…no hard feelings.

I started out at table nr. 2 with two loose players and three other conservative players. The first bustout came pretty quickly (OESD vs trip Kings) and so we were down to five handed. I played tight, really tight. One of the loose players pushes all in and it’s “only” 20% of my stack to call him…so I call with QJo as I read him for being in the desperate mode. He confirmed my read as he showed J7 s00ted. D00minated he was…didn’t matter though…board: 892…turn blank…river 10…thank you very much (Edit: Errm, yup…found the error yet? I sure did, just after writing this post…I don’t even know why I didn’t see it at the table, or any of the other 5 players for that matter…7-8-9-10-J…sure…a straight…but doesn’t the 8-9-10-2-x board give me a straight also and a higher straight at that?! 😉 Well, well…8-9-10-J-Q…hmm…Queen High Straight beats Jack High Straight…or not?! Homer Simpsons says: D’oh!!! Oh well…I still can’t figure out why I didn’t see it, I guess it was due to the fact that someone “sucked out on me” yet again, which is basically a normal occurance at our game and so my brain crapped out for a few seconds or something…too bad I didn’t realize it at the table. For one, I would have been in much better shape with only two eliminations to go till the final table. Secondly, we wouldn’t have seen the first royal flush ever (see below)…so I guess this mistake was for a good cause :)). Some hands later, with the blinds increasing I push my measly stack in the middle and get three callers. Wow. I think I’m pretty much done with my pocket treys as overcard after overcard keeps hitting the board, but to my surprise I win the pot, eliminating one player in the process and I’m back. A few hands later I pickup A7 s00ted and as it’s four-handed, I’m pretty sure I can raise here in the SB…BB calls…hmm…flop is 10-high…I check…he pushes…well…I muck and he shows pocket Kings…nice shuffle. Some hands later I’m desperate again, but my AJo is not match to the powerful 94o (or something) and I exit in 7th place (6 at the final table)….oh well…got in with the best of it most of the time, couldn’t do much about the hands…and…I enjoyed the game…

As the final 6 are heading for the final table we start our sidegame and after 5 minutes all hell breaks loose on the other table (the final table of the main tourney). The first ever royal flush has just been dealt. A10o vs Qsxc…board read As-10s-x…turn Ks…river Js…wow! That was one to remember. We’re playing our home game pretty regularly and for over a year now the “best hand record” was sitting at the flopped straight flush my mate flopped against me….now we got a new record…Spade Royal Flush…wow!

But back to our sidegame…it was pretty wild….once we were down to three-handed (ITM) it was pretty much push or be pushed…and push I did on some hands…in the end I took it down after my Qc10s sucked out a four flush over my mates A7 s00ted (lucky for me, no spade)….so I ended the night with some money in my pocket…nice!

Alrighty…that’s the quick recap of the night….I’m outta here…



No four-peat for me
Wednesday February 07th 2007, 3:33 am
Filed under: Live Play,MTT,No-Limit Hold'em,PokerStars,Tournaments

Played in the WWdN as usual and it didn’t go all that well. Started of with AA in the third hand, won a small one. Had to laydown AK on an all-under, straight heavy board, which was cheap though. Then I ran AJ into 77 on a A-7-9-6-10 board. That cost me half my stack. Not much action after that and when the blinds just move up to 50/100 I think A6o in LP is good enough to try to steal…only 700 chips left…so…I hoy and get one caller…well…essentially not a caller as he re-raises all in to isolate me from the button….he shows JJ…blank flop, blank turn…meaningless 6 on the river…gg me and I’m out 31/45…not even made it to the first break. Oh well, quite a change from the last three WWdNs…6th, 6th, 5th, 31st…d’oh!

I’m outta here…oh almost forgot: Next live game is scheduled for friday! Has been almost 8 weeks since I traded the virtual cards for the real deal, really looking forward to it. Let’s see how it goes (recently it has been a nightmare as everyone was catching against me and I, wrongly, tried to force the action, which lead to an even bigger disaster)…



Weird weekend, from tooth pain to car wreck
Sunday November 19th 2006, 7:02 pm
Filed under: Casual Play,Live Play,No-Limit Hold'em

Unbelievable weekend. Left work earlier on friday afternoon as I was starting to feel a little pain in one of my teeth, no biggie I thought. Wrong. Fast forward a few hours and I’m in major pain. So I call the dentist to see if I can sneak in on short notice and yup, I can. So I drive to my dentist and he drills a little here a little there, I feel nothing due to the local anesthesia. I wish him a good weekend and he tells me that I should come back if the pain returns.

The pain doesn’t return until yesterday evening…what a brilliant timing…saturday night, time for yet another round of our home game and I’m in pain. Brilliant. Damn it. Ah well, I take some pain killers and make the trip to the home game. We’ve got a nice turnout of 11 players. I start at the 6 player table and the action is hot early on. In the third hand I suffer the first beat…I hold 10-2o, yup the Doyle Brunson, in the BB…two limpers, so I check. Flop comes 22J…nice…SB checks…I check hoping that the player behind me hit his jack or is at least taking a stab at it. He does as he bets out 2x pot. SB folds…I ponder and reraise the pot. He ponders and calls. Turn is a beautiful ten. Boat baby! I check again…he bets out again…now I’m thinking: two to the flush on board…if he really has the Jack I’m pretty safe…2 outs max…so…I just call…River…Jack (!)…great…I check…and I’m really disgusted, but I call his small bet on the end nontheless…he shows J4 for the higher boat…okay, so I’m a little steaming and thinking to myself: “great, just great. Third hand in and the first two-outer hits against me”…and before I can curse a little the SB chimes in…”Damn, I folded a Jack…my 3 kicker was so weak”…now I’m on insta-tilt as it was indeed a one-outer…damn!

Oh well…after that I took some hands off and then went back to the tight-aggressive game-plan. It worked out pretty well for the next x orbits as I was able to build my stack again. Then there were some consecutive sucky-sucky hands (four outer on the river, runner runner two pair to beat my TP, lost coinflip) and I was down to half my original stack. The blinds slowly but steadily eating me up…so I look down at A7s in the SB…the BB is basically auto-all-in as he’s got less than another BB left…one limper in front of me…I push…BB calls (no surprise) but then the EP limper calls. Hmm…I show my A7..BB shows his K7…EP limper shows QJ s000000ted….flop QQx…and IGHN in 7th place (6 make the final table, top 3 ITM)…damn!

In other news: our resident “luckbox” had a little bit of luck again…all-in with less than 3BB…oooh he got QQ…they hold up….fast forward to the final table…ooh…all-in again with less than 5BB…ooh he got AA…they hold up…etc etc…in the end his luck ran out as he lost back to back coinflips (77 vs AJ and 22 vs some random hand)…nontheless, yet another second place finish…it’s going to be a hard one to catch him in the POY race…

Now back to the tooth pain and car wreck…my teeth were still hurting like crazy, but I decided that I would play a sidegame if there was one. Two players took off to fetch some burgers from McD…and they took quite a while. Then another while..and they still weren’t back as the phone rang…”…What?…anyone hurt?” – uh oh…turns out the took a left turn (were it wasn’t allowed) and another car hit them smack in the middle with around 50-60 km/h…ouch…

My teeth are still hurting like crazy…was at the hospital today, but they couldn’t help me (apart from giving me more painkillers), so I’ll have to pull through it until I can visit my dentist again…

So…I leave you with my personal favourite hand of the night…dem quads biotches!! (Way to go, I eliminated a player and won the huge amount of 2xBB with it; sorry about the bad quality, but I forgot to switch to night vision on my good ol’ nokia mobile – the felt should actually be green, not blue 😉 )…

dem quad nines



Joy, but no joy…
Saturday October 07th 2006, 12:56 pm
Filed under: Casual Play,Live Play,No-Limit Hold'em,Tournaments

Yesterday we finally made it to the live tables again. It was really fun to hang out with the guys and the chipslinging and card-flinging was in full effect all night…I actually made my way home at close to 5am. That was the joy part…the no joy part was evolving in the games itself…

I chipped up early when I flopped a straight, which held up. From there on it was a grind as my chip-stack went on a roller coaster ride…up…and down…and up…and down…and down and down…it was not so much my bad cards (I actually held AA, KK, 1010, 99, 88 and 66 throughout the evening, but couldn’t capitalize on most of the hands as my opponents had next to nothing….and apart from those hands the old “keep missing flop”-dilemma was in full effect)…

In the end my exit was pretty cool and pretty fucked up at the same time: I look down at Q9 s0000ted…I’m UTG and push my remaining stack in the middle and the table goes fold, fold, hmmm….call…he shows 10c8c….alrighty then…double me up baby…flop Jc9c7c…I push the chips to my opponent and stand up as a meaningless queen hits the turn…

Then it was sidegame time and some weird hands happened to me again…let’s just say that the timing of these hands was not in my favour….I hold 8h9h…flop comes QA9…heads up pot…my opponent, who had min-raised preflop, checks…now I’m thinking…probably AK/AQ in his hand…if I catch another nine I’m probably stacking him…turn 9…he checks I bet he calls…river x…he pushes…now he’s either done a nice slowplay and my range I put him on was wrong or I got him…as the pot is laying me over 3:1 anyway I have to call…he shows QQ for the boat…

After that sidegame was done we played yet another one…and damn me, one-card-straights are ugly, especially if they’re gutshots and yes, the seemed to come EVERY time yesterday…I flop Kings up fire…call…turn makes the straight…unlucky me…I flop pair of Queens…fire..call…turn gives me queens up…fire…call…river makes the straight…hmm…another three-outer…boom! Headshot!…

Oh well…at least I had a great time 🙂



No joy…
Saturday September 09th 2006, 3:43 am
Filed under: Live Play,MTT,No-Limit Hold'em,Tournaments

…in the live game. Tonight we played our home game – about time we got together to throw some chips and cards around again. I drew a seat at table two along with Mr. Luckbox and our resident maniac (aka “The Host”) to start off the tourney. Not a bad deal as I had position on both of em. The best hand I’ve seen all night was AA in LP in the first hand, which didn’t give me all that much.

After a long back and forth battle we were finally down to the last 6 (on both tables combined) and the outlook was rather grim: From our table I was one of the last three players standing, but the chipcount was rather disheartening: Me – 7.2 Euro, Player 2 – 3.2 Euro, “Luckbox” 109.6 Euro, yikes…

So it was pretty obvious that I didn’t have much options at the final table – the blinds at 1 .2 / 2.4 Euro with a .30 Euro ante. I drew a nice seat, but I was the first BB…I look down at AsQs and watch the situation unfold…Player 2 (from my first table) calls the BB and has got .80 Euro left…Player 3 calls…Player 4 and 5 fold…I push….both player 2 and 3 call…they show..AKo and AKo…wtf????!!!! No help on the board, Player 2 and 3 split the pot and I’m eliminated…damn! Even better: Player 2 went on to win the whole thing…an amazing run of cards I would assume, as coming back from 3.2 Euro with 240 Euro being in play isn’t your everyday display of superior skills 😉

After I busted out of the Main Tourney I sat down at the second chance tourney and did quite well, but in the end I just couldn’t catch anything when I needed it, so I busted out fourth (2 ITM)…overall not a good result, but at least I played my A-Game….the cards just didn’t fall my way…



First time players win it all?
Saturday July 22nd 2006, 4:37 am
Filed under: Bonus hunt,Live Play,MTT,No-Limit Hold'em,Tournaments

Sometimes you gotta wonder if the old myth of the first time luckbox is really true. Tonight we played our 15th home game with three premiers and a surprise:

1. We bought two real poker tables to replace our old setup of two “normal” tables with some felt overlay.

2. We started our “championship race” – we will play our home game tourney like always, but we take out a small percentage of the prize pool and the final table players will receive points for their finish. At the end of one year from now, the top three in the championship will receive something extra (we haven’t decided yet if it’s going to be cash or prizes).
3. We welcomed a new player

4. The surprise: we’re getting some t-shirts made for all the (regular) players…I’ll post a pic of the logo as soon as I get my hands on the digital files.

The rest was the usual: the usual crowd, the usual setup, the usual payout, etc. So we start off at our first table and I’m running good early on (up almost 100%). Then I’m bouncing up and down until we’re at the final table. I’m sitting in the middle of the pack and after some players bust out we’re on the bubble. Sure enough I’m card dead and have been for a while. So I’m happy to push once I look down at a rag ace…just to be called by our new player, who holds, what a surprise, AK…no help for me and I’m out on the bubble. A few hands later he busts the remaining two players with a pair of threes (vs AKo and A5s)…so first game, first win. Nice…he played well, but he got lucky not only once but on a few occasions. All good though…we all know that variance will kick in sooner or later 😉

After the results were written down we decided to start a second tourney, this time with half the buyin and just one table (only 5 players wanted to play again)…quick summary: Got some good cards early on and maintained my stack until we were headsup…yes…against the new player…it all came down to one hand…I look down at 1010 on the button, but I just call…he checks out of the BB and is first to act after the flop comes down AA5…he pushes…now I’m either in big doo-doo or I’m golden, I decide that I don’t believe he’s got an ace (why would he push there with one?)…so I call and he flips K2o…my 10s hold up and I win the second tourney…w00t.

Now I come home to write this down along with the results and I find that my mail-server is acting up…great to see that all mails of the entire day were rejected (yup, that’s rejected, so no queue…gone…), great…I found that the antivirus software was the culprit…I hope that an update will solve this mess, if not this thing is out of here…alrighty…enough babbling…gotta catch some sleep…see you all on sunday (blogger pods)…if you didn’t signup already head over to pokeronamac and register – it’s more competition for me and the other players who already signed up, but it’s good for Mike (dbirider) and what’s good for Mike is good for us in the long run as I would love to see similar promotions in the future 😉 so get your lazy behind in gear and register, before it’s too late…



Live game experience
Sunday June 04th 2006, 3:26 am
Filed under: Live Play,No-Limit Hold'em,Tournaments

There’s nothing like playing poker in a live environment. It would rock more though if you would get the hands to go along with that feeling. The only playable hands that I got prior to the final table were rare (QQ…which I layed down after a possible/obvious flush board presented itself, an AQ which I layed down to yet another possible/obvious flush board and AA – just when I needed it). So I made the final table again, but I was unable to take control of the table as I was on the shortstack and so the possibilities to push one of the pot were rare given the huge blinds. So my end came in 6th place when my KdQd received no help vs 1010…too bad…at least I made the final table again….

Sidenote:

  1. Being on the shortstack – sucks
  2. Sitting in the BB at the same time – sucks
  3. Having three limpers in front of yourself – sucks
  4. Looking down at AA and more than doubling up against the other shortstack to reach the final table – priceless 😉