…or at least most of it. Haven’t had such a rollercoaster session before in my “poker career”. As I said in an earlier post I moved most of my play to WPX, at least for now, as I really want to see how much the juice was really impacting my limited bankroll. So the majority of all events took place there today. Sidenote: I’m taking extended notes on all activities on all poker rooms, but I just noticed today that my notes were incomplete, so it’s nearly impossible for me to calculate all the juice I payed on rooms other than WPX. So from this day forward the notes are going to be extended by some more columns. Why? Because I think that what keeps me down (apart from the fact that my roll is pretty limited) is the juice. Given the usual limits I play (as I don’t play cash games as much as I used to, I often play NL10 or NL25, which equals .05/.10 or .10/.25 blinds), so I gotta stay ahead of the rake and a “normal” small winning rate is not nearly enough to move up. So I’m really forward to the final rake stats once I’ve got the first month of play down at WPX. It could be quite a revelation and for now I’ll keep attacking the cash games a little more often as the SnG suckouts against all those donks keep putting me down (not money-wise, but mentally)…

The session included:

1. Stacking some random fools in two different cash games…no, your second pair weak ass kicker is no g00t…even if they were s000000ted 😉

2. Getting hit by suckout after suckout in the SnGs…unbelievable with what crap people are willing to call off their whole stack, without any need to do so either, but that’s besides the point. The suckouts included: runner runner flush, runner straight, two outer on the river, three outer on the river, counterfeit two pair on the river (worse kicker for me with my small pair of course), Ace baby rivering aces up against my big ace, the usual cold-deck flush vs flush, rivered boat over boat. Nice to have all those things in a span of maybe 90-100 hands. At least I won some coinflips, heehaaw!

3. Having to deal with some jerk-heads calling player names because they alarmed support – there were some hungarian dudes at the table chatting in hungarian – the player objected and they didn’t listen. This fool then went ahead and tried to put him and others (including me) on bullshit-infected-tilt, which didn’t work of course. So the good ol’ mute switch got flipped and it was all peace and quiet again…

After the up and down I spotted another triple shootout on Stars, so I jumped in…big mistake once again. I’m not going to play one again, ever. While the format of shorthanded tables is groovy and all, I just can’t catch a little momentum. Isn’t the old rule that you should only hit the flop 1 out of 3 times? Not in this ones…or I’m the problem, my 1 out of 3 coincides with at least one other player at all times, needless to say that if I flop TP he will def have his TP+kicker playing, etc. So FUCK YOU triple shootout!

Logged on to find a triple shootout to sunday’s million guaranteed played on shorthanded tables. Groovy, so you need to take down the first two tables and finish 3rd on the last table to get a ticket. Nice. I’m sitting at the first table with one aggressive player and 4 weak/tight players. Sure enough the borderline maniac hits card after card. So once we’re headsup I’m down 1.3k/7.7k. Another 35 minutes later I’m sitting in the commanding chiplead 6.6k to 2.4k. We donk around a little and I’m sitting a 6k, he has 3k. Then one of the “groovy” RiverStars ( 😉 ) hands comes off. I’m seeing the flop with QJo, a queen hits the board and I decide to set him all-in. He calls with A5o…what happens next? To quote Barry Greenstein’s book cover “Ace on the river…”. Nice, another friggin three outer headsup…hmmm…tasty. So he’s up 6k to 3k now. Damn it. Another nice hand later (Trip treys with a flush draw not enough as the flush hits the turn, but no four-flush for me). So I’m back to square one: 1.3k I push again with trips and a flush draw…he insta-calls…because he flopped a friggin straight…oops…and I’m out.

Summary:

1. I’m very satisfied with my play, especially headsup. I came back from a 1.3k/7.7k deficit with only one coinflip (AJs vs 55 which I won). So I grinded out quite some chips by playing an aggressive post-flop game.

2. I’m still annoyed about the one hand that cost me the chiplead and ultimately the table-win. It happens, but come on…why always on the friggin river.

3. I did something that I don’t normally do: I wished him good luck with the footnote that he would need it…it’s true obviously he had no post-flop skills whatsoever…but still I would normally keep that comment to myself…

4. This rant has been brought to you by the letter “g”…gimme a fuckin break!

Wow. Now that was the blogger tourney with the biggest price-pool that I can remember. 1450$ in total, after 62 buys, 160 rebuys and 48 add-ons (including the 100$ addon from Mike’s site). Really nice to see that the winner could take home 435$ 🙂

It wasn’t me though, but I’m still satisfied. It was fun, although it was crazy early on. That’s what sets rebuy tourneys apart from most other tourneys. Players are not worried about pushing their (more marginal) hands early on as there’s always the chance to rebuy until the first break. So basically the first hour is really different from any other first hour of the regular brogger tourneys (WWdN, Mookie, etc). I was able to push my 1010 into Wes‘ QQ early on, but then, after my first and last rebuy and some nice pots, the hand happened: I look down at KK and they hold up against Wes and another opponents hand and I’m looking at a monster-stack of over 15k in chips (starting chips 1500). So I was in the chiplead after 35 minutes and should remain in the spot at the sun for another hour:

After that I went into the maintain stack modus. It was easy enough to steal some blinds here and there as we approached the first break and the end of the rebuy period. Most players took the addon (2k chips for 5$), I passed as I was still in the chiplead.

Then the card-deadness set in and I thought it’d be a long night, then I look down at the hammer in the SB…folded around and I raise to 800 (4xBB)…DuggleBogey in the BB only has a stack of slightly over 2k left, so he pushes…now I can’t laydown the hammer to a 1.2k raise, so I call…Duggle shows 66…sure enough the hammer does me good with a 7 on the flop and the not necessary 2 on the river. I bust Duggle and take a note to self: “Hammer g00t!” 😉

After that it’s more card-deadness…I swear I’ve never seen so many 47o, 48o, 36o in my life. In what feels like an eternity (I didn’t really have a look at the clock, so it could have been only 20 minutes) I didn’t see a single face card, so it was fold fold fold, even when in the BB as people starting to turn on the heat. Then I finally look down at a real hand again QQ…I raise the usual 3BB, one caller…flop comes down xKx with two hearts. I check, he bets…I call. Turn is another heart. I check he checks behind me. River is another heart. Now I don’t have a heart and I’m almost certain I’m done…I check, he checks. He shows flush King high (he held 44 with the 4h). Yuck. This hand got me thinking: First mistake – not betting at least half the pot. If I make a half-pot sized bet here he can either fold, call or reraise. If he’s reraising I can still think about the pot-odds and if I believe his King in the first place. So a informational bet would have been in order here. Second mistake – bet the turn, even if he had a King chances are good he doesn’t have a heart at all or at least a small or two small ones. Third mistake – bet the river (if it would have come down to this), he had “only” 5k left, which would have put a dent into my stack, but I’m not sure he would have called down in the first place with his measly 44…so this one was clearly my fault.

After that hand I’m down to 10k with the average stack size approaching 15k. Damn! A few hands later a short-stack pushes and it’s up to me in the BB to decide: fold or call the additional 2.5k with Q9. Now I’m the first to admit that this is a loose call, but Q9 was the best hand (apart from the QQ) I was holding in ages and the fact that a short-stack can push with such a huge range of hands made me call. He shows K10, K on the flop and that’s that. Now I’m stuck with roughly 7.5k. The biggest stack at the time was smokkee approaching 50k. Now I’m not on tilt or anything, but my card-deadness, the fact that it’s after 5am and the fact that I want some chips back lead me to play looser and looser. A few preflop raises called just to fold on the flop or turn quickly lead me to an all-time low and the back of the pack with just 2.6k left. So I basically have to push with the next semi-decent hand. I’m UTG and look down at A5, not really a decent hand, but hell, next hand I’m the BB which would cost me 800…so there’s no other option. One caller…his K10o beats my ass as yet another King hits the flop. Out in 22nd place 🙁

Ups:

1. Playing at a tough, but really entertaining starting table including our table rebuy-kings shadowtwin and Wes…

2. Holding on to the chiplead for quite a long time…

3. Playing with a lot of other broggers, including “The Blogfather Himself“, Wes, Bobby Bracelet and all the others…

4. Actually having a great time along with the chance to win some nice dough…

Downs:

1. Card-deadness, especially bad when playing with some of the most aggressive players you’ll find…

2. Some bad plays I made in the end…time to get down to the analysis on some of the hands…

Last but not least: Thanks again to Jordan and TripJax for setting up yet another classic brogger tourney!

In his most recent post he’s thinking about starting a last longer pool…

Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Chris Ferguson, Perry Friedman or Mikey the Monkey

🙂

My thoughts on this proposal:

Well, I don’t have a clue what they are thinking putting a monkey into the Main Event, although many people have already called this year’s WSOP a zoo, so it might be not that far out after all. That said, I don’t have a clue about what the monkey is capable of either, so it’s really hard to say…so I’m moving on to a comedy prediction…:

I. Phil Hellmuth will have a strong run in this year’s Main Event. One thing is for sure though: he will blowup sooner or later (I’m guessing later this time), but it inevitable – the super-donkeys-worst-players-ever-tilt is upon him for sure, especially due to the donkey/pro ratio which should be huge this year.

II. Negreanu: I hope he goes deep, I like to watch him. I guess it all depends on the run of cards in the end (remember last year where he got sucked out on time and time again and couldn’t make a hand in return when he was drawing?)..

III. Perry Friedman: Hmm…maybe his faces he paints on his hands sometimes can give me a clue :p

IV. Chris Ferguson: Jesus will do well, too. I don’t see him going ultra-deep though

V. Da Chimp: He will spend most of the time in the later stages of day 1 on the rail for dropping a p&p-bomb – yes that’s a poo&pee-bomb: after starting out pretty well by sucking out on some donkeys, it’s going to be his time to get sucked out on. After getting sucked out on, he’ll turn on the inner aggression monkey and crap all over the table…this will earn him a 2h penalty, which will be enough to almost blind him out. Shortly after that he’s going to be all-in with da bananas (77) and double up, which in turn will lead to yet another railtime as the “happy monkey dance” isn’t allowed on the dealer’s head…this time the penalty is only 1h, but it’ll be enough to blind him out… 🙂

So my last-longer guess is:

1. Friedman

2. Phil Hellmuth

3. Da Chimpster

4. Chris Ferguson

5. Daniel Negreanu

Anyone willing to put a banana split on that? 😉

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…

I’m registered in the Poker on a Mac BloggerPods tournament

Almost forgot, next week it’s time for yet another DADI. It’s almost guaranteed to be a donkeylicious event, after all it’s the first rebuy ever! There’s added prices and what not again, so check the following pic for all the details.

…and you can always check out the posts of Jax or Jordan or the official DADI blog to get the lowdown…

What many fellow bloggers and players in general already told over and over again is really true: (some/most/a lot of) players at PartyPoker are weak. So I hit the SnGs the last few days, although I mostly dislike the costs. What am I talking about? I mean at the limits I play (usually 5$ SnGs) Party is by far the greediest poker room I’ve seen in my life – 5$ for the SnG, 1$ fee (all other rooms I play charge .50$). So that sucks, but it’s not all that bad if you’re running good. I played 4 SnGs (3 shorthanded, 1 full) and cashed in 3 (would have been 4, but we’ll leave the bubble suckout of J7o vs my QQ out of here)…so I’m up with one win and two second place finishes. All good.

Tonight I decided to get some cash into Stars again and play the WWdN. 52 players showed up and I busted out in 44th. Really ugly if all you see is 23o, 24o, etc all the time. Then you see some semi-decent hands and bust out quickly. I hold AcJc and get the blinds, in the very next hand I hold AsJs and get reraised…what to do…roughly 900chips, blinds will reach 50/100 when they hit me…so nothing much left to do, although I could have let that one go, but no…I decide that this is a good time to call the push…sure enough opponent shows AKo…K hits the flop, not that she needed it…but better out quickly than to run low on chips again after x hours of poker. So I’m not all that bitter. Off to catch some sleep now…cya all at the WWdN next week…

Wow is all I can say to the final table lineup of the 50k H.O.R.S.E tourney at the WSOP:

1. Chip Reese
2. Doyle Brunson
3. Andy Bloch
4. Phil Ivey
5. Jim Bechtel
6. David Singer
7. Dewey Tomko
8. T.J. Cloutier
9. Patrik Antonius

I think it couldn’t get much better/harder than that…let’s see how this one works out in the end…play will start at 9pm tonight…excitement! The only thing that’s a little weird is that they have battle back and forth in 5 different games for 2 days and now the final table is strictly NL Hold’em, hmm, I guess it wouldn’t take too long to finish otherwise…

Slightly over an hour ago I logged into Full Tilt to check on the sunday tourneys just to find myself in the middle of the Event #3 Freeroll…the top 500 pickers in that tourney are entered automatically!!! Prize Pool: $1000

So best check your picks and/or the Registered in Tournaments part of Full Tilt, so that you don’t miss it, like many did in the one I was in…

On another note: I just had another look at the prizes page and nice…gooo me…I finished 4th in Event #3, so I win a FullTilt hat, yay me 🙂 !

Thanks again Bill for writing about it, I guess I would have missed it otherwise!

Edit: After over 3hours I made it into the top 20…in 14th place to be precise after two consecutive nine outers (flush draws) didn’t come through…so I’m heading for the WSOP 2007 freeroll in August, nice.