Today’s sessions were quite exciting. It was the first time in ages that I was on stone-cold-tilt, only for a short period of time, but still.

I started out the first session with some NL25 at FullTilt and everything went quite well. Almost doubled up early before giving all back, including my buyin. Two hands in a row got the best of me:

1. I hold KhKd in the BB…button does the little 3xBB standard raise. Small blind folds. I reraise to 10xBB…all fold around to the button. He ponders and pushes his remaining stack (only around 10xBB more), so I’m pretty much insta-calling it, hoping for Ax. He shows AdAs. Flop doesn’t help me all that much, but it could have been worse: Ac10h8h…turn 9h…outs…outs!…outs…river…guess….Ah…yeah, make me my nut flush just to lose to Dem Quad Aces Beetches! Nice…not.

2. Next hand I’m in the SB and look down at AJ sooted. LP puts in the standard raise…I call…flop comes AJx rainbow…I push my remaining chips in, hoping that he has Ax or something…nope…Ac7c…turn xc…ooh…two clubs on board…river xc…nice…not. Dastard!

After that one I was on stone-cold-tilt, but as I had to run to footie training it didn’t hurt me. After I came back from footie training I fired up bodog to mix things up and the HU gods weren’t with me early on. Then I jabbed and grabbled my way back to being ahead, before a donk-face luckbox hit his miracle on the river three hands in a row…which lead to two tilt-outs in the first level. I got my shit together though and went on a little run to finish 8 out of 15…at least ahead a little.

Back to FullTilt and I hit the Shorthanded CAP tables…I leave after I bust two players. Nice. Then I fire up a Stud table and play around 10 hands. I didn’t want to push my luck any further after this hand happened:

I start out with (J8)8…I complete and two players stay in…10 for me…now obvious straight or flush draws just overcards, so I two-bet…one player folds…one calls…10 for me…I bet…he calls….10 for me…I bet…he calls…(10) for me…I bet…he ponders long and hard and folds, what he said was a boat 9s full of Queens – he had 9QQ showing..so I guess he was indeed telling the truth…this was the first time EVER that I received FOUR consecutive cards of the same rank…pair…to boat…to Dem Quads Beetches!

What a way to finish the night 🙂

Well, it was a bank holiday in germany today, so I had a little time for some poker. First of all I watched some of the WSOP 2006 coverage. Good stuff there, especially Dimitri telling CJ about how he would tighten up and all after spewing chips.

Then it was time for some poker of my own. Quick summary:

1. Nine: I’ll be damned, but once again, “cold-deck” after “cold-deck”…down a nice junk and still not in reach to clear the bonus. Sigh…

2. FullTilt: Busted some fish at the CAP SH tables…then thought it was a good idea to play some Razz and PLO8 SnGs…no g00t….still up for the night though…

3. Bodog: If you’re running not all that good and want to finish the night on a high note…fire up bodog…play some HU…won the first two…lost the third…

Time to catch some sleep now as I’ve got a grueling headache and I need to get up for work in 6 hours…so…night and night…and have fun at the Mook!

That pretty much sums up my session at FullTilt. Started out with busting some donkey balls at the CAP Hold’em tables. Then decided that it was time to play some other games again. Stud went fairly well. Stud H/L in return didn’t go well at all. Then I fired up two PLO tables and the shit really got sour.

I mean, I’m certainly no expert at PLO (in contrast to one of my better games PLO8), so it might be that I played some hands the “wrong” way, but some hands just went so bad that I couldn’t believe it.

Example: I hold AsKs4c5c, flop comes 2s5sAh, so I’ve got top two with and inside straight draw and the nut flush draw…pot by my opponent…raise pot = CAP by me…admitted loose call by my opponent…he shows QQ77…hmm…turn 7c river Qd…nice, NOT!

Example #2: I hold As2sAd2d…now that’s not the best hand in the world, but not the worst either…pot preflop…two callers…flop Ah6dJh….EP pots it….I reraise CAP…other player folds…showdown 6s6h2h2c…wheeee….turn 7h…d’oh…one time dealer…pair the board….as if…damn it 😉 …river…10h…

Oh well…slightly down for the (playing) session, still slightly up due to some cleared reload bonus dough so ‘s all good…

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Damn it! Now that’s a hell of a start, lol. Starting already. I can’t catch a god-damn hand. Run run run. (Thanks Tony for lending me those words).

Well, what a crappy session at Full Tilt. Un-friggin-believable. I sit down at a shorthanded cap NL game as there was no full ring going. First hand I turn the nut flush (holding QhJh)…we push it all-in (CAP) and he shows Quads friggin Aces. Nice. I bounce all around the room for another twenty minutes, before I decide to leave, slightly down. I’m on the lookout for another game and I think it’s a good idea to fire up some Stud. Haven’t played that in a while and a while back I considered it to be my best game (as there’s so much information available).

So…I hit the table hard and everything is working, apart from one thing: I can’t win a friggin pot. Chaser #1 hits on 6th and 7th street like it was nothing. Runner runner flush to beat my straight. Runner runner straight to bust my two pair. Hell, even runner runner boat to beat my boat. That made me so fuckin mad that I only had two options:

1. Stay and donk off all my remaining chips.

2. Leave and curse the fuck out of all the lucky sobs catching all day against me – not in the pokerrroom, but on here. And so that’s what I did.

This post has been brought to you by the letter “L” – L for lucky chasing runner runner catching scumbacks taking my money 😉

That’s all…I’m out…weekend over…

It’s still a few days away, but as it’s $24+2 or a Tier one token, it’s time to pimp the shit out of it. Get your tokens, fight the power. 6 handed power poker, baby.

(Side note: as it’s on a thursday night – which is 3am friday morning around here, I might not be playing 🙁 )

Well, depending on your style of playing, especially in a pressure situation like in HU, the FullTilt HU SnGs might be just right – for me they’re not. Why? Because they’re friggin boooooring and long-ass. Let me go into detail:

1. They start with 1500 chips

2. They start at blinds of 10/20

3. They got 6 minute levels

So…in contrast to that the bodog HU SnGs have got a far better structure (at least for my style):

1. They start with 1000 chips

2. The blinds start at 5/10

3. The blinds levels are 10 hands

So…10 hands < 6 minutes for sure, so a regular tourney takes 5-x minutes (sometimes even quicker, sometimes a bit longer, but I guess 6-8 minutes is the average). In contrast to that the FTP HU SnGs take ages. I just played one and at about level three I was so bored as nothing was happening. I got Aces three times and won the regular xx chips twice as my opponent had nothing, then he cracked my third Aces with the good old "but they were s0000ted hand". Nothing wrong there, it can happen. But after that it was jab-jab-duck-dover-jab-jab for another 20 minutes before he finally won with presto against my AQ. So, I won't be playing any HU SnGs on FTP in the future, I'll stick to CAP ring games... 🙂

…is the number of HU SnGs I played over the last few days, lol. It sounds a lot, but it really isn’t all that much if you think about the fact that, depending on the opponent and the cards, a match can last anywhere from 1-15 minutes. I guess the average was around 6-8 minutes/match.

Today’s session close the deal on 100 SnGs and I’m not satisfied with today’s result, but totally satisfied with the overall result.

Today: HU SnGs played: 16, HU SnGs won: 8

Total: HU SnGs played: 100, HU SnGs won: 66

So, I won 66% of the matches. Not bad I guess, although the number could have been even higher without some major suckouts…then again I had my share of suckouts in return, so I guess it all evens itself out. And why should I complain? 66% won matches is actually quite good, I guess?!

Some more stats:

Money wagered: 100 x 5$

Juice payed: 100 x .25 = 25$, wow…quite a bit, but I consider this a “tip” to bodog for handing me all the fish 🙂

Money won|net won: 66 x 10 = 660$  | 660-525 = 135$ 🙂
I think I’ll take a break from bodog and HU matches for now…after all I still got the FullTilt Reload-bonus to clear and I’m still planning on grinding out the last few points at nine to clear my PokerSavvy bonus there….so expect to hear about some more ring games and “normal” SnGs in the near future…

Got back from work late, so I didn’t have much spare time before footie training…only 3 HU SnGs…won all three…now that I’m back from training I fired up bodog again and hit the HU SnGs…won the first four (so the first 7 in a row in total today)…lost the next one…won the next two. That’s enough poker for me today as I’m pretty tired and I don’t like to give back money to the donkeys because I’m not really focussed….so…

Today: HU SnGs played: 10, HU SnGs won: 9

Total: HU SnGs played: 84, HU SnGs won: 58  🙂

After hitting the headsup tables once again tonight, I started wondering: Can this really last? Can I keep beating the competition in 60-66% of all matches? Well, the answer isn’t a clear “yes” or “no”…depending on my focus, the run of cards and many other factors, everything is possible, but sometimes even the biggest suckouts against me can’t stop me from winning. There, I said it. Oooooh, let’s hope that the poker gods don’t put the curse on me, lol…but back on topic…it’s really amazing how some of the concepts I recently read/seen/thought about are coming to life in some of the matches. Being really aggressive and unpredictable early on. Never showing anything unless it’s called down. Always raising, always playing, almost never folding. “Any two cards will do”, especially if my opponents are so intimidated (?!) that they let me see flops for free all the time…disaster my friends…like in the one match which lasted exactly one hand. Opponent on the button min raises to twenty (blinds start at 5/10), I reraise to fourty with J6o…he calls…flop comes 66Q…I lead out the pot…he ponders and calls…turn is blank…I bet the pot…he calls…river blank….I push….he calls…shows AA and is out. Hard for him to get away from the hand as he most def put me on a weak queen…but still not totally impossible to laydown the hand. On another note: most suckouts against me are just at that point in the match when I finally hold a “quality” or even premium starting hand…the most money (stack time) is when I play my “high stakes poker”-style game…57o…gold! 46o gold! 53o platinum! lol…unreal how many players really think their TPSK/TPTK is good…

Anyway..enough babbling…cold hard facts: Won 9 out of 15 bringing the total to 49 out of 74 and a nice profit. I just requested another payout…lovely to see your “freeroll” money grow and grow (I had withdrawn my original deposit along with some profit after completing the PSO bonus) 🙂

Edit: And just as I post this, the money is already sitting in my Neteller account again. Wow…withdrawal request till processing/money in Neteller: 18 minutes! 🙂

Played some HU SnGs again…this time I didn’t make it to twenty as I got to run in a few minutes. Nontheless I managed to play 17 🙂

Got off to a really really rough start winning only one out of the first five. Probably should have won at least 3, but you know that both variance and the poker gods can be cruel some time. Move my money in with AQ vs A9…river…9…moved my money in with QQ vs K10…flop K10x…apart from that the usual same ol’ same ol’ which sometimes makes you chuckle…even though it’s disastrous for the match you’re in…like these two lovely hands: I hold AJ…raise…reraise..call…Axx on the flop…bet…raise…reraise…push…he shows AK…or the other lovely hand…I hold AK…raise…reraise…Ace on the flop…bet…raise…push…he shows AA…nice shuffle! 😉

Anyway…got the aggression monkey out again and was able to win 10 out of the next 12…bringing my total for the day to 11 out of 17 (40 out of 61 Edit: 59 (20+20+17+2 != 61 ;)) total)…not bad..nah..that’s not the right wording…it’s great! Three days of HU SnGs and I double my roll at bodog 🙂 🙂 🙂