Had a blast last weekend in Austria. Drinking, drinking and drinking with the guys. Some snow on the mountain tops, not much in the lower areas, so we mostly resorted to the local pubs most of the days and nights.

I thought I could get away from Poker completely on the trip and I almost did. I didn’t play a single hand, although some of my teammates had brought a chipset and some nice PokerStars cards…it seems that the “poker virus” is spreading fast over here in germany. People who had no interest whatsoever a while back are suddenly playing (both live and online) – tells you a little about the advertising efforts of the major players in the market (PokerStars and Party), it pays off. But back to poker, the only thing I did in relation to poker was talk a little strategy and watch a rerun of the EPT while we were waiting for the others to get ready for dinner and booze.

So, I’m totally relaxed and ready to hit the tables again. Well, tbh, I already did that and it was horrible. The only upside is that my mood isn’t influenced by this (yet). I played something in the neighborhood of 15 HU SnGs and I’ve seen it all again, from the beautiful one-outer, to the usual resuck or two-outer…I even kept track of it while playing. So what’s different? I’m relaxed after the weekend break and so all I did after those beats was type a quick, “wow one outer” or “nh” in the chat and that was that. No tilting, no swearing – well, that’s a lie…I back-trashtalked as one of the suckers goes on and tells me off after sucking out on me. This was a disturbing trend tonight – move in with the best, get sucked out on and then the donk goes ahead and tells me how he “owned me”…lol…this happened in four different matches. Really classy donks…you’ll make it far in this “business”…

Some stats:

1. Times I lost to one-outer with one card to come: I

2. Times I lost to a two-outer with one card to come: II

3. Times I lost to a two-outer with two cards to come: I

4. Times I lost to a 3-8 outer: II

5. Times I lost to a 8+ outer: not counted

6. Times I lost to a runner runner straight/flush: II

7. Times I lost with dominating hands: II

8. Times I lost to the hammer with Kings: I

Being crippled after that hand: ouch

Coming back to even and then taking the chiplead: nice

Losing to a 2 outer some hands later: Priceless 😉

Well, running bad, check. Still a token remaining? Check. Log onto FullTilt, see what’s going on…find a FTOPS satellite to event #1, 35 entrants, 1-3 ticket, 4-6 money, not bad. Register. Sit down and go card dead early on. Not bad either, at least I’m building a rock-tight image early on, this might come in handy in the middle stages. Some pots left and right and I’m hovering around the starting stack, nothing much in any direction. Sit tight, focus, wait for your spots. Prior to break one the first spot occurs, Ac10c in the BB…button makes the standard three-bet…hmm…steal? My rock-tight image should give me some resteal-fold-equity here, unless he’s really on a monster. We’ll see, I take my chances. He ponders and calls…with Kings…ouch…cold decked again? Maybe, let’s see…he doesn’t have a club, maybe there’s some life. Flop with one club, no ace to be found…turn club…river club…weeeeeee….I did what my opponents tend to do…suckout against a monster. Weeeee….so I’m 0-2 with my monsters in the last few days and 1-0 against a monster. Maybe luck comes in waves after all.

After the break the final table is approaching and I can’t help but watch my stack dwindle as I fold fold fold. Finally another shorty pushes in, I look down at A6o and decide to go with it. He shows A4o…we chop on AJ93J board…still short, but at least we got some blowups coming up, gotta love big-stack vs big-stack on a draw-heavy board, especially if both are drawing and willing to risk all…

Short, short…oh well…I’ll wait for a good spot and push…the good spot comes when I look down at my dreaded Kings…big-stack calls with Qc4c…flop only one club…I’m good, I’m good….turn is another club….I’m worried, I’m worried…river….blank…Thanks…back in business…We lose two players in the next orbit and we’re on the bubble. Two players are pretty short, another player and me and the others already expressed their feeling that they’ll sit it out and watch until the bust one of us. Nice. Implicit collusion, lol…a beautiful thing if you’re not short-stacked 😉

Long story short: The other small-stacks pushes every hand. By the time he does so for the third time in a row I look down at AK in the BB…now…do I fold here or push? I push…he got me covered by a little bit…and shows 99…is it just me or is it almost certain that he had two napkins the two prior pushes?!

Anyway…flop doesn’t help me all that much…runner runner straight or A or K it must be…turn gives me the straight draw, but the river is blank…so I exit in 7th…mr. bubble boy…oh well…can’t do much about it, once again no joy in a crucial hand and yes, I was the underdog, by some percent, so ‘s all good…just would have been nice to win this one and make a run at the ticket with some money secured…oh well…

That’s it for now…no tokens left, no real desire to play anymore tourneys in the immediate future (apart from maybe the occasional WWdN)…

Good thing: I won’t be tempted to play online at all as I’m heading to Austria, a weekend in the snow with the footie team. As I don’t ski or board, I’ll stick to enjoying the sun and partying my ass off, apres-ski, baby! See you all on the other side (sunday late evening, monday)…have a great weekend…

PokerStars Game #8006365327: Tournament #40897120, $5.00+$0.25
Hold’em No Limit – Match Round I, Level II (15/30) – 2007/01/18 – 18:10:34 (ET)
Table ‘40897120 1’ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: HOGIECRF888 (1360 in chips)
Seat 2: Ingoal (1640 in chips)
Ingoal: posts small blind 15
HOGIECRF888: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [Qd Qc]
Ingoal: raises 60 to 90
HOGIECRF888: raises 60 to 150
Ingoal: raises 1490 to 1640 and is all-in
HOGIECRF888: calls 1210 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [8d Qh Kh]
*** TURN *** [8d Qh Kh] [5h]
HOGIECRF888 said, “gg”
*** RIVER *** [8d Qh Kh 5h] [6h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
HOGIECRF888: shows [Th Ac] (a flush, King high)
Ingoal: shows [Qd Qc] (three of a kind, Queens)
HOGIECRF888 collected 2720 from pot
Ingoal said, “or not”
HOGIECRF888 said, “wow”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2720 | Rake 0
Board [8d Qh Kh 5h 6h]
Seat 1: HOGIECRF888 (big blind) showed [Th Ac] and won (2720) with a flush, King high
Seat 2: Ingoal (button) (small blind) showed [Qd Qc] and lost with three of a kind, Queens

Can I get a hell yeah? Yeah. Can I get a hell no? No. Can I get a “fuck this bs”? Hell yeah!

Just one of these days, yet again, where I’m sitting here, typing this in silence and utter frustration. It’s starting to bother me so much, I can’t even begin to tell you. It’s like the odds are stacked against me, everytime, everytime the odds should be stacked in my advantage that is. I’ve written it over and over and it’s just as much part of poker, as sucking out yourself. It hurts though, especially if it comes down to one crucial hand, you got your opponent right where you want him, he’s nearly dead, making an incorrect play (bad call) and still you can’t win it. Now if that’s in a meaningless pot early on – hell, it bothers me, but I can brush it off, say “nice catch” and play continues. But in such crucial hands, it’s almost impossible to stay sane and surprisingly enough I kept my head up despite being on MAJOR steam.

The setup: Double shootout to the sunday million, we’re seven handed after I busted a player JJ vs J8 on an 8-high board. Blinds are at 15/30. I start the hand with 2925 in chips.
I get dealt [Ks Kh] in the SB. MP pops it to 90, standard preflop raise, cutoff calls, button folds. I ponder a re-raise, but hell…I’ll let the flop come down, the BB might reraise anyway as he’s an aggressive player. He just smooth-calls and we see a flop four-handed. – Side note: I layed down kings earlier today on such a setup as the Ace hit the turn. So not overcommiting might not be the worst thing.

Flop: [3c Tc 2h]

I lead out with 480 (pot 360). BB smooth calls again instantly. Now I think he’s either hit his set or he’s drawing to the flush. Pot is now at 1320.
Turn: [2d]

I ponder and decide that I’m going to go with my gut feeling and I push.

Ingoal: bets 2355 and is all-in

He ponders for around 20 seconds
fatjim: calls 1430 and is all-in

River…[4c]

Showdown:

Ingoal: shows [Ks Kh] (two pair, Kings and Deuces)
fatjim: shows [6c Jc] (a flush, Jack high)

Now I’m sitting there in disbelieve. How can you call off your whole stack when you a) had only 33% in the pot which not even remotely counts as pot-commited and if you’re looking at a paired board after the turn. For all I know he could have been dead by then…the way it was he was dead to 7 clubs (2c gives me the boat, Kc gives me the boat)…
Now remember, this is a shootout, so it’s all about winning the table, but is that a bad play on my part? What more can I do? Throw away my hand after the turn because the flush is going to come anyway? Are you nuts? What in the world is going on here..I’m starting to feel like I was Daniel Negreanu on the second season of HSP…every single time they suck out on my, not in the small pot…in the BIG ONE.

So…after that I’m sitting with 925 chips instead of with 5k chips…too bad…cry me a river, damn it. I didn’t tilt it off though and instead I played a mean short-stack. Doubled through another player when my JJ held up against the AJ, woohoo me. So I’m back with 2k, but still not sitting pretty. We lose two players and I’m kind of desperate with just over 1400. I look down at A10 in the cutoff. Three big stacks behind me, so I decide to push…sure enough, Mr. Suckout insta-pushes over the top…uh-oh…well..he shows JJ and damn sure, there’s no way in hell I’m going to resuck on him…and I’m out in 5th at the table…

“Crucial hand stats”:

Preflop: 83/17

Flop: 63/37

Turn: 84/16 – it’s were the money went in

Result: 0/100 – surprise surprise

After this bs, yet again, I’m seriously considering retirement from the (online) tourney scene, as I just can’t take it anymore, at least not atm. What good is it if I’m xx-xxx% better than the donks and I’m 7x-9x% favourite everytime a big pot evolves, when I get kicked in the balls precisely in that particular moment ALL THE TIME? Can someone answer me that? That’s not normal. It’s no temporary phenomenon. It’s the way it is, period. Or maybe it’s just me seeing the shadow on the wall, I don’t know, but seriously, I can’t remember the last time I won such a crucial hand going in the BIG favourite in the last xx tournaments* – SnGs are a bit different, I’m more to the normal variance there, but not in MTTs, not even close to normal. It’s like I’m Mike Matusow’s lost twin brother in bizarro world minus the blow-ups or something.

*I mean, the last time I can remember that a big hand held up for me was in the WWdN two weeks back, but still, that’s just a drop in a bucket. I mean, I played so many MTTs in the last few weeks and it’s creepy, really creepy. I mean, you can look at it that way: 84% means 84 out of 100, now we all know that those 100 don’t need to be consecutive, but let’s assume that for a moment. Then variance is kicking me in the balls, while cutting them right off of me. I mean seriously. An 84% ball is currently a 1 out of 15 shot for me and I’m not kidding. (And I don’t even start to count the other “usual things”, like the 15% balls which hit like precisely 15% of the time or the 50% balls which kick me in the junk 12 times in a row before winning one then losing six again, etc)

But enough of the ranting, I’m too fed up to even write anymore about this huge mountain of horse manure. I’m going to log off now and relax a little, and maybe I’ll come back online later on to play me some cash games to win some of my money back…we’ll see…

Here’s the original hand history…:
PokerStars Game #7988166388: Tournament #40508277, $10.70+$1.00
Hold’em No Limit – Match Round I, Level II (15/30) – 2007/01/17 – 18:03:49 (ET)
Table ‘40508277 9’ 10-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 3: Ingoal (2925 in chips)
Seat 4: fatjim (2000 in chips)
Seat 5: soundshooter (2505 in chips)
Seat 6: jaap (2605 in chips)
Seat 9: mr2trout (1965 in chips)
Ingoal: posts small blind 15
fatjim: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [Ks Kh]
soundshooter: raises 60 to 90
jaap: calls 90
mr2trout: folds
Ingoal: calls 75
fatjim: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [3c Tc 2h]
Ingoal: bets 480
fatjim: calls 480
soundshooter: folds
jaap: folds
*** TURN *** [3c Tc 2h] [2d]
Ingoal: bets 2355 and is all-in
fatjim: calls 1430 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [3c Tc 2h 2d] [4c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Ingoal: shows [Ks Kh] (two pair, Kings and Deuces)
fatjim: shows [6c Jc] (a flush, Jack high)
fatjim collected 4180 from pot
Ingoal said, “oh god damn it”
Ingoal said, “what a call”
Ingoal said, “unreal”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4180 | Rake 0
Board [3c Tc 2h 2d 4c]
Seat 3: Ingoal (small blind) showed [Ks Kh] and lost with two pair, Kings and Deuces
Seat 4: fatjim (big blind) showed [6c Jc] and won (4180) with a flush, Jack high
Seat 5: soundshooter folded on the Flop
Seat 6: jaap folded on the Flop
Seat 9: mr2trout (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

Do you have that inner feeling that something is going to happen sometimes? I do…it was just one of these days today…first off the donks bust my balls at Stars in PL 5-Card-Draw catching like crazy (yes, it’s an absolutely correct play to call 40% of your stack with a flush-draw, yes it’s also correct to draw three against my three jacks, as long as you catch your own set with it). Then they busted my real good in some 6-handed games on Full Tilt. It was about time I took a break, so I went to a friends house to play some Skat…nice little run and won my dinner 😉

Came back…sat down in a 90-person-SnG at Full Tilt…hadn’t played those before, seems like a good format – much like Stars’ 180s, but only half the size…everything went pretty good…made some tough laydowns Kings on a Ace high board…etc…then lost a flip AKs vs JJ…this crippled me…with just 600 and blinds of 100/200…I waited for the next playable hand and tripled up. Next time I look down at 9s..flop gives me trips and I’m back in the game…fold…fold…fold…I look down at Kings…table-captain calls in a hurry with AQ…flop all low…turn…low….river….Ace…thank you very much.

Oh well, can’t be too mad…just another day at the office…at least I had fun at the tables with some players chatting it up…I would have loved to go deep though…not going to happen if you lose such hands…finished 30th…better luck next time…

…yeah, that’s right, I found my ultimate tilter. While some games are really bad at getting me on tilt, like for example one of my favourite games back a while – Omaha 8b, I found the ultimate tilter tonight…and it’s Fixed Limit 2-7 Triple Draw. My oh my! I played a little SnG and looked forward to bust some donkey balls and the donks sure as hell cooperate beautifully, the bad part: the cards didn’t. Start out with the best (stick to two card draws, never going without a deuce, etc). The followed the old Matusow song “Poker, oh Poker, it’s all skill…start with the worst and go uphill”. After the first few hands I honestly asked myself (and the other players in the table chat) if I was stuck in the middle of the “hidden camera show”. Unbelievable. Brick-city, yeah, I like pairs, next draw, yeah I like pairs, next draw yeah I still like pairs. The worst hand was were I’m starting out with 10-7-5-3-2. So I got the 8, 6 and 4-ball all working for me…first draw, I get a 10…next draw…I get a 10…last draw…I get the case 10 and I’m about to puke on my keyboard as my opponent wins with a 9-6…unreal. After that I went on a stone-cold tilt…

…at least the last 0.000001% of sanity kept me away from the cash tables. Instead I stumbled into a 1$ NL HE tourney…what better way to blow some steam than in such a donk tourney. Honestly, I tried to put some bad-beats on donks on purpose…and even that didn’t work out…i.e. Q5o limpi-limpi preflop…LP min-raises…hmm…donk…is that AA…hmmm….like 99% sure…call…flop comes a beautiful QQ9…I bet the pot he insta-pushes…I insta-call and he shows AA…I laugh and I’m getting ready to blow of a trash-talk-bomb in the chat when the Ace hits the turn…damn!

So, that didn’t help either, so instead of walking away I sat in a 180…and boy oh boy, play can’t get any worse than this…as does the attitude of some of those fuckers playing at my table. Someone calling down with K5 s000ted on an Ace-high board after I four-bet it preflop and you say “nh”, “nice call” etc? Wth are you doing at my table moron? But anyway, I didn’t really honor poker-etiquette and just told’em off “a little”…that helped…no more donkin for the day…I’m out of here, before I go bezerk 😉

Awww…almost forgot to talk about something else, because of all that steamin…watched the first two weeks of Poker After Dark and boy oh boy, I love it! It’s good to see that live poker is rigged sometimes too – the beauty of the one-outer and suckout…really nice. My favourite hand so far: Mike vs Daniel K7 vs K9…7 on the flop…turn K…Daniel pushes…Mike calls in a heart-beat…Daniel is all but dead…the 7-8-10-K leaves Daniel with sixes, eights, nines, tens, jacks…sure enough the 6 rolls off and the Mouth is out…brutal…

Looking forward to High Stakes Poker Season 3, which kicks off tonight., too..

Hit another 180 SnG tonight and it went pretty well…played my patient game early on, playing a token satellite on FTP while doing so helped a bit. Got my money in with the best and took the chiplead. Held onto it until just before the first break, still sitting pretty in 2nd though.

Second hour is a blur as there was not much action, 73o, 52o, 62o, K2o, Q3o, … you catch my drift…

15th out of 32, not all that bad…but I can’t catch a hand if my life depended on it and I wait and wait and wait…finally I look down at 77…EP min-raises…hmm…do I wait for a better spot or do I take the flip – at least that’s what I think it is. Lucky sevens, come on! One time! *lol*…not really…he flips AQo…so good so far…flop QQ3…thank you very much…two outer doesn’t come and I’m crippled (2k)…a few hands later I take my chances with 92 s00ted…at least I got a shot here if the flop comes uncoordinated…two callers though…pair of Aces crushers me…and I’m out in 26th…

Oh well…that could have gone another way, but hey, I’m not really disappointed…didn’t make any real mistakes…played a solid game and move my money in with the best of it (excluding the last hand shortstacked)…do I mull over the 77-call? Yes a little, but then again, if my read is correct (which it was) I’m moving my money in a slight favourite and I can bring myself in a position to be in the top 5 chip-wise. Didn’t work out…what can you do.

“Stats:”

1. Coinflips played: 1 real one 77 vs AQ…lost that one (another hand was no real-coinflip as the money didn’t go in preflop AK vs 88…flop was Axx, won that one though, so you could take that one and call it 1-1 on coinflips)

2. Suckouts: 0 / 0 (suckouts witnessed at the tables – too many to count, playing like a rock early on really pays off, that way you can watch em and not feel em ;))

So…no final table, no money…but at least I enjoyed myself and won the token at FTP 🙂

It’s my dad’s birthday today, so no poker during the day…but a little night session isn’t too bad even…so I fire up PokerStars and jump into a 180SnG…jab jab, grabble, grabble…break one….avg stack…suckout count: 0/0…basically only junk hands…next hour is interesting…Kings…against the big stack…he shows AK…the cowboys hold up…I’m comfortable way over the avg…next hand AKo…smaller stack (5k to my 13k) pushes from the cutoff…

…observation #1: the BB is sitting out…

…observation #2: I’m on the button…he could push with many hands…I’m the only player in his way…

So I call and he flips A5o….big slick holds up…and I’m sitting pretty in the chiplead with 19k…after that I go on a garbage hand-card-deadness streak, but I stay calm and fold, fold, fold, fold…some more folding before I hold Kings again…I make a sneaky “half-steal-looking” preflop raise (5.5x BB)…BB loves to call with sixes…my cowboys hold again and I’m back in second chip position….card deadness here I come again…nothing much to report for the next x minutes as we’re approaching the bubble. Then a heart-crushing suckout hits…but not me…another big stack pushes from the cutoff…BB is more than happy to insta-call with Aces…cutoff shows AKo…doominated…flop KJJ…turn…10…river K…ouch! Shortly after that the bubble bursts and we’re ITM.

I’m still card dead and when I finally look down at a semi-playable hand, 44 in MP, I’m already facing a raise and a re-raise…I throw them into the virtual muck…see the player behind me re-reraise…and I’m happy…until they get the money in the middle…AK, A10 and K9 are their hands and the flop comes down Q94…oooooh….turn and river are blank…and the worst hand takes the pot to triple up…that was the key hand…if I move in there…and win the hand…I’m sitting in the top 3 in chips with 13 players left…oh well…what can you do? Call all-in to a raise, re-raise and re-reraise preflop with fours? Not really…

The final table bubble burst after some big-stacks clinch in a preflop pushfest…and I’m happy to sit down at the first final table in a while…last in chips though…

After three orbits of blind stealing and folding I look down at the first “good” hand in a while and decide to push it in…KdQd…is not match to some random hand though and I bust out in 9th place…ooh well, final table..from the bottom…

I’m happy though, I played my A-game like I always did in the last few weeks, but with one difference: my hands, especially the really clear ones (70-75%+) held up…that’s all that is to it…

“Stats”:

1. Flips played: 1, won 1

2. Suckouts from me: 0

3. Suckouts against me: 0

4. Mood: happy 🙂

That’s the angle my cards made in contrast to yesterday. No chance in hell…5 Card Draw…thank you for making the second best hand at crucial times (incidently it was always a 1-card vs 1-card draw, I hold two pair, my opponent holds a flush or gutshot draw, guess who’s draw get’s there). Same goes for Razz and NL in a token satellite.

Last hope: WWdN…no joy…get Aces early…win small pot…then invest invest invest…no joy…Once I’m down to half my starting stack I bluff off half my remaining stack on a busted nut flush draw…and the rest is history…out in 29th of 44…oh well, at least I had a good time with V and the others at the table…

*lol*

Had a pretty bad run today, just couldn’t catch a break. Made wrong decision after wrong decision running into hands like it was the norm (JJ vs QQ, AJ vs AQ, 77 vs 88, etc etc). So, it sucked pretty badly today, but hey, there’s always tomorrow and that’s why I decided to quit for the day rather quickly.

I just came across Daniel Negreanu’s latest video blog – the mullet chop, funny stuff! Enjoy…