…so I was hitting the tables tonight. I started the session with some donk-a-licious CAP NL25 and I was all over the place. Then the shit turned sour and I should have left, but I didn’t. So, I gave back all my winnings and then some. How often can you run pocket tens into pocket aces? Twice. Nice. Not!

Then I thought it would be a good idea to get my hands on a token…not such a good idea either. I had totally forgotten how long ass and boring these regular things (6+.6) are..should have played a turbo I guess. Didn’t do all that bad until the blinds went up and it was bubble time…card dead describes it best so I was literally left with two options: a) push with one of the next hands which would preferably be something at least resembling a good starting hand or b) get blinded out in a hurry. So I push within the next few hands and I even held the best hand…until the river…so I bubbled. Not good.

Off to bodog and I’m hitting like crazy…first two SnGs bring a win and a third place finish. I guess I should have left with a smile, but didn’t and promptly crapped my way out of the next two. That’s enough for the night…at least I’m still up a little.

Some interesting “facts/stats” of the night:

Times I ran pocket tens into pocket aces: 2

Times I sucked out with the pocket tens: 0

Times I folded quads preflop: 1

Times I ran my boat into quads: 1

Edit: Just went back to bodog, just didn’t feel like sleeping yet, so I fired up some Heads-Up matches…2 played…2 won…thank you very much. I guess this could be a new source of income…after all a HU is basically 50/50…although I see myself having an edge on most of the donkeys there, so it’s basically better than even money and the thing is much less time consuming than the regular SnGs…hmm…we’ll see…

There, I said it. Played an amazing set of 6 SnGs on bodog today and was able to finish ITM 5 times, 1 bubble…not too shabby…the last one just made me wanna puke though. We’re down to three-handed and one player is out in front, I’m in second and the player in third is about half my chipstack. I look down at AJ in the BB…shortstack on the button pushes, big stack folds, I call…he shows KK…flop K…turn K…nice, dem quads again. Sigh. Three hands later the big stack out of the SB pushes…I look down at AK…well…call…he shows AA…what the fuck is this bullshit about? I mean it’s cards and anything can happen, but come on! It’s three-handed, damn it! Gimme a break…

Still finished up for the day, but leaving on a down feeling…oh well…let’s see what the next few days bring (maybe I’ll try to sneak in some hands in the evening, maybe not)…as for tonight: I’m off…gotta get up early so I’ll miss the chance to play Rafe and Phil for a good cause for only 5+5$…3am is just too late/early on a monday morning…for everyone else willing to play…have a look at Kat‘s banner for details…

…and still come out a loser. Well, I’m not mad, although I had to blow off some steam in between some of the SnGs due to some horrific cards. Just weird how you can get your money in with the best hand, often dominating your opponent leaving him with 3 outs or less and they pull the rabbit out of the hat every friggin time. Oh well, “That’s poker boys…”.

In total I played 7 SnGs at bodog and 1 MTT (100 points buyin, 25T$ for every 17 players entered). 4 out of 7 ITM, not a single win though…it was just not to be tonight, was heads-up for the win two times, got my money in 4:1 in the first one (QQ vs 88), turn 8…got my money in 3:1 (AQo vs KQo), K on the flop…and the other beats weren’t any prettier either AK vs AQ rivered a Q and AK vs A8 he flopped two pair, turned a boat and rivered quad 8s…way to go 😉

So I’m logging out tonight being down a little, but hey…there’s always tomorrow. On another note: I just found a way to spend my last 4000 PokerSourceOnline Points…Amazon has the “Phil Gordon Box Set” up for grabs, including The little green book, the little blue book and the little black book for as little as 37.80$…cool stuff. The only problem is that I already ordered the Little Blue Book on the german Amazon site back in august, now it’s pending shipment, so I can’t cancel the order…I guess I’ll have to wait until it arrives to send it back right away…

Played some SnGs on bodog earlier on and although I’m not a “regular” anymore, some people still recognize me – I guess they’re keeping notes as I do. The only thing that I’m really missing isn’t playing x SnGs every day, well a little bit too, but the fact that I’m missing all the blogger tourneys (the weekly WWdN and Mookie and also the occasional DADI or charity tourney) – I would love to play, but with the new job deal (internship) I need to get up at 6am and I usually get home a 6pm or later and pretty much exhausted from sitting in front of the screen all day. Weird how you can do a 16-20h bender in front of your own computer and be so tired after 7-10 hours at the office – I guess it’s the fact that there’s no webradio, blogs, podcasts (e.g. AnteUp) or other “pleasant distractions” to keep you going…
…but enough of the babbling, let’s get to the playing. So, the usual bad beats, ups and downs aside, it was pure poker fun. Took off from work a little earlier today (3pm), so I was able to squeeze in some play before footie training.

Played a total of 5 SnGs, 4 ITM, 1 bubble with 1 win…not too shabby…especially considering how I played, the A game is back 🙂
I guess I’ll be back at the tables tomorrow after a good nite’s sleep…

After yesterday’s bad run in the live game I wasn’t even going to play today, to hell with it, just a quick game 😉

I almost regretted it immediately as I took charge of the SnG table on WPX, just to have my straight cracked by a boat on the river, followed by my boat getting cracked by quads on the river in the very next hand. Nice…damn it!

So I left WPX and took a seat at a HU SnG on bodog. 14 minutes and I walk away victorious. Nice…although I almost lost it during the match…times I had Aces and AK sooted: once each, back to back…won a whoopin SB and a BB (which were rather small at that point)…times I ran my top pair into Aces: once…it cost me the chiplead and I had to fight back…which I did…so the 0 for 1 in coinflips (77 vs AQ) didn’t matter in the end…at least I can end the night on a high note…let’s see what the poker gods have in store for me tomorrow….

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 🙂

…must come down. Played four SnGs on bodog tonight and I’m pretty much speechless. Variance showed up and totally kicked my butt. Managed to finish ITM in one SnG, bubbled in two and busted out early in one. The weirdest part about both the bubbles and ITM finish: I think I should have one them all, but it just didn’t happen. All I can say is this: I played 162 hands…had Aces three times…won one small pot preflop and two huge pots as I flopped top set both times…in return I got sucked out on by dominated hands time and time again…so there was nothing much I could do…got the money in with the best of it (not in the hands after I was crippled respectively) and just got unlucky.

Whatever ;)  I’ll be back tomorrow (bank holiday over here, so probably my last chance to get some hands in before the weekend)…

…although not as nice as yesterday’s run. Played six SnGs tonight, finished ITM four times, not a single win though, bubbled twice. Weird how it goes sometimes, you totally dominate the table and hold a commanding chip lead just to go up in flames once you’re down to three-handed play. The worst loss tonight was back-to-back from chiplead to out of here: Hand 1 I hold AKs and lose a race to JJ, not a biggie…I got the opponent covered by almost 100%…so after the hand he’s got me covered by less than 50 chips….the very next hand I look down at AKo…we get the money in preflop again and he shows A10s…nice…give me back my chips…flop AxK…nice…turn Q…river…yes…J…ding…oh well, it’s the way it goes 😉

So I’m finishing the day slightly down…but no biggie I’ll be back tomorrow (as there’s a bank holiday over here on tuesday, I took monday off to have a super extended weekend)…

Bonus hunt update: I still didn’t go back to nine, I’m still too pissed off about all the suckouts I suffered on there. Good news though, I used the first part of my points I got for finishing the bodog promotion on pokersourceonline to get a 50$ amazon gift certificate…I ordered the WPT Season 2 Box Set a few weeks ago and it arrived this week…8 DVDs of Poker Goodness…I’m already through with watching the first 4 DVDs and I gotta say: I love it…although it’s not the newest stuff – in contrast, it’s rather old school, seeing some of the now well established players hitting their first final tables and all, but that’s the thing that makes it cool, especially as I hadn’t seen the second season yet.

Here’s the link to amazon as I’m too lazy to take a picture of the box myself 😉

So…I’m finally back at the tables, still need to adjust my playing to the new work schedule, so I guess my playing time will be limited to the weekends for now. Tonight I first sat down at the tables at FullTilt to try out the new CAP games – the concept behind that is that you’re playing a capped NL format…the cap being 30xBB. So the most money you can win (from any single player) and lose is limited…sounds strange and might not be appealing to some of you, but I gotta say that it really suits me.

I don’t know what it is, but moving up in limits is always hard on me – not so much because of the “big leap” in skills of the opponents, but due to the fact that I tend to play like “scared money” for a while, which ultimately lead to some pretty ugly loses in earlier attempts and resulted in me moving down again. With the CAP in place it’s a whole different matter though. I sat down and I wasn’t playing scared a bit. I brought my A-game and left the table with slightly over a standard/suggested buyin – which is “only” 15 bucks at the .10/.25 CAP game not bad considering the fact that I’m on a mini-bankroll now as I had withdrawn most of my dough from FullTilt in order to pad my “bonus-hunt-bankroll”.

After that success I thought it was time to have a good time at fish city aka Bodog. Some three quick SnGs and I’m logging off with a big smile on my face. Why?

1. Because I won two and finished 2nd in the third one (sidenote: I should have won that too, but I’m not too worried about the extra 5% I could have won) 🙂

2. Because I withdrew 80 bucks before starting to play (I deposited 50$ when I started the bonus hunt on bodog) and I still have over 50$ sitting in bodog…add the 9000 points on pokersourceonline I got for completing the bonus and all I can say is w00t! 😉

3. Because bodog support/processing get’s an A+ for quickness…about a minute after I requested the withdrawal I got an automated mail telling me that it was being processed in the next 24h, just to find another mail telling me that the money was waiting for me in my neteller account just over 2h later. Nice one, thumbs up bodog!
4. Because I brought my A++ game and the cards went along just fine too. I had AA three times, won one small pot preflop and two big pots as the rockets held up. Had JJ hold up twice and made some pretty good plays including a tough laydown (QQ) when I correctly assumed I was beat (turned small set). Hand of the night (which didn’t pay out much and wasn’t all that crucial, but nice as I haven’t seen a straight flush in ages)…

…what else can I say?! Stacked some fools at the cash tables. Cool. Then in return got stacked by some chasing mofos who can’t even spell poker ( 😉 )…

I’m really doubting that I’ll be able to even finish the bonus on nine, so, I guess it’ll be either bust or getting the remaining 80 points with a next to nothing roll, as I don’t see myself putting any more money into this trash-can…

I’m not getting too deep into the tinfoil-hat stuff, but it’s just mind-boggling how often this crap (see the following hands of the night) happened to me over the last few weeks…and I can’t even really blame the donkeys for chasing – after all the money card hits with such a regularity that you can almost forget about odds and outs…this is just sick…
Hand #1: Jc8c, flop 6s7h9h, I lead out…two callers…turn 10c…bingo…I lead out, player to my left reraises, player to his left calls….I push…both players call and I’m shouting at the screen “no heart…one time!”…Qh hits on the river…damn you nine, damn you fucking chaser(s)….showdown…me: straight Q high, player to my left: Js8s, straight Q high…player to his left…4h5h…flush Q high…

Hand #2: This one pretty much had me laughing as I didn’t have much business to be in this hand in the first place, but still: what the heck? 6h2h on the button…three limpers…I call…blinds stay in…flop comes down 7hQcKs…checked around…I check…turn 10h…EP min-bets…one caller…I call…river Ah…EP bets…MP reraises…now I’m pretty sure that at least one of the donks has a higher flush, on the other hand one could have slowplayed broadway on the turn, the other a week ace or even KQ/AK/AQ/…so I call…showdown: me: 6h2h, EP: QhJh, MP: Kh10h…nice shuffle mofo!!!!
Hand #3, 4, 5: flopped set lost to rivered flush, turned top two lost to a rivered straight, turned straight lost to a rivered, ugly, four flush…

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