Logged on to PokerStars and saw that the 5$ rebuy satellite to tomorrow’s 700k guaranteed tournament was about to start, so I hopped in and the wild ride began.

FYI: I’ve never played such a thing before and I really dislike rebuy tourneys as it seems that the more money some ppl throw at it the higher you can get (or fall). So my strategy was clear: no rebuy and no add-on, play tight/solid poker and try to take advantage of the rebuy-donkeys early on an you should be fine.

Sure enough my strategy payed off early on as I was getting some nice hands and the rebuy-donkeys were more than willing to “take a shot” with all sorts of crap shoot hands (like K-2o, etc). The fourth hand I look down at bullets, woot! Two callers, one showing Q-Q and one showing (Q-3), hehe…sure enough I take it down and have a nice stack of 3610T$ (starting chip count 1500T$). The next few hands are blank until I look down at K-K in the 16th hand…I push, but noone wants to deal with me, so I take it down and I am sitting on 4420T$, nice! The 29th hand brings me back to A-A…one caller with 6-6…my bullets shoot him and I’m up to 5980T$ and slowly I’m feeling the rush.

Sidenote: there were two-three rebuy-donkey-monkeys at the table who were on their fourth-fifth buy-in already.

The 31st hand brings me KQd and I check in the BB to find a nice flopped straight, J-10-9 rainbow board, one poor soul pushes and shows trip Jacks…to bad buddy – up to 9110T$. In the 50th hand I hold K-K, also again, and take down a nice pot vs Q-To, up to 14410T$. Shortly after that the first break begins:

• players remaining 447/647
• hi: 33595T$
• avg: 7880T$
• me: 14310T$ (45th of 467)
• Hands dealt: 56
• Showdown: 4 of 4, 1 without showdown

People are adding on like crazy, but I stick to the original plan and don’t buy another 2000T$ for 5$. Nothing much to report from the next hour of play as I’m literally card dead, nontheless I’m able to steal some blinds so not all that much change at the second break:

• players remaining 219/667
• hi: 57153
• avg: 16803
• me: 14560 (107th of 219)
• Hands dealt: 122
• Showdown: 4 of 4, 4 without showdown

As blinds and antes are rising now it’s time to make some moves. In the 137st hand I look down at K-Jo, not great but I limp in to find a J high flop, sure enough I push a little, although the two hearts scare me a little. Opponent calls, turn brings another heart. Hmm…he checks, I check (maybe I should have pushed a little here to see where I was at?!)…he calls. He leads out after the river…I ponder and call as I didn’t think he would slow-roll me, sure enough he did though (with a lovely 9h-2h hand, argh!) – down to 4610T$ and now I’m in a desperate situation.

Sidenote: the guy slow-rolling me busts out in the next hand K-K vs A-A…way to go…argh!

The following hands:

• 140th hand: 7-7, I push, one caller A-J, board 4-7-J-4-6, yeah baby up to 10220T$
• 151st hand: Q-Q, I push, one caller 2-2, board J-J-8-7-6, up to 30098T$
• 161st hand: Ah-9h, I push to pressure a short stack in the BB, sure enough he calls with K-Jo and wins the hand
• 162nd hand: Ac-8c, I push, once again another short-stack thinks K-Jo is good enough and wins the hand…argh! Down to 9803T$
• 167st hand: K-10 is good enough to steal the blinds and antes, up to 11228T$
• 170st hand is the final chapter as my A-10o get no help against J-J, board: K-8-8-9-6

…and I’m out in 118th place – first 21 would have been a ticket to the tourney tomorrow (worth 530$), 22nd would have been 515$. Ah well, I had fun for almost three hours, I guess I just used up my good cards and luck earlier on…

Slow day for me today. Just played a few orbits of PL Omaha H/L at UB again…it’s hard to step down and play at the pennies again, but at least I had a winning session again, so that’s a good note. Got bored pretty quickly though, so I moved to PokerStars and continued my quest to conquer the SnG throne…

Played one PL Omaha H/L and two NL HE – with similar results: couldn’t get in the money to save my life 🙁

Couldn’t get much going in the Omaha 8b one and I’ll save you the “bad beat” stories of the two HE ones…just a quick note: whether it’s A-Ks or A-Ko it’s not enough to win against a dominated hand (K-J and A-10 respectively)…

I’m off now…got a dentist appointment tomorrow, yuck…this should be fun…NOT 😉

Once again it was time for the weekly WWdN and this time I even remembered that it was indeed already Tuesday again and that the WWdN would take place at the lovely starting time of 20:30 ET (= 02:30am in lovely GMT+1 land). I hesitated just a little before signing up as there were already MANY people signed up and I feared that this one was going to go on for a long time, but this “fear” wasn’t necessary as we shall see later on.

I sat down in the #3 seat on table 4 and only recognized Wes who was sitting in seat #6, said hi and gl to all and cards were in the air. Nothing exciting through the first orbit, but then it happened, the deck was on fire, literally! 😉 I got nice cards and the board matched them (6-6, flop 6-10-x; 10-10, flop 10-x-x; 9-9, flop 9-K-3, turn 3; etc) and the others kept betting into me until the realized that I really had an insane run of cards and it would be best to check in front of me. That’s when I got the first higher pocket pairs (J-J, Q-Q) which brought me the whooping SB+BB, yeehaw. One of the more interesting hands followed, I look down at A-A (on another note: the first in ages) and make it the standard 4xBB to go, only Wes calls. Flop comes down Kc 8d Kh, rainbow nontheless a little scary, I’m going to check it and wait what Wes does, sure enough he fires a shell (150), but does he really have a king? I don’t think so, but I only call, maybe the turn will bring me my boat…nope, no boat, the turn is: Jd. I check again, he checks right behind me and now I think I know I’m good, the river is a lovely 3h so no flush or straight draws after all. I fire out 180 and Wes calls…my A-A hold up. I pick up some more blinds along the way and find myself in a comfortable position of interim second with 4500k.

Most memorable hand of the first hour is the start of my downfall: I get dealt K-K, short stack in front of me pushes All-In (around 470 with BB150), I call – now this is questionable, the right move would have been to go over the top to isolate him, but as we will see as the hand unfolds I would have lost one way or another – one other caller who was commited from early position. The flop is scary for me as it is Qh-Kh-9h, I go into the tank and think and check. He bets out his remaining stack (1k). Now do I really put him on 2 hearts? Not really and I can’t and won’t laydown trip Kings. I call and sure enough he’s on a draw with A-xo the ace is the Ah though…the short-stack shows 5h-5c so he’s beat both ways…the turn is: sure enough a heart, argh! I think I made the correct play, although if I had raise All-In preflop, maybe, and this is a big maybe as this guy was catching and catching and hence calling and raising all the time anyway, I would have only lost the 600 something vs. the 5er heart flush…who knows. So I’m down to 2840 right before the first break.

First break:

1. 45 players remaining (hi: 6615, avg: 2600)
2. hands played: 82
3. showdown: 3 of 4 (see the KK above)
4. pots won without showdown: 7

After the break the tables turned a little on me and I was literally card dead. I guess my early stage run of cards hit the other side of the table as “RandomSam” stomped all over the table winning draw after draw (he really stuck to CJ mojo: 1. get in behind 2. suckout), until he ran into Drizz and another player in consecutive hands to bust out – ouch. I was then moved to a new table and was in a desperate position, either blind out slowly or try to get something going. I tried the latter and was able to steal some bets, before busting out in 28th:

I hold K-Js, I call flop comes J-Q-x, I bet out he raises…hmm…tank time…I’m committed with 1/3 of my stack, should I risk it here? The voice in my head says: don’t be a pussy, he’s trying to push you out! So I listen and push All-In, just to be insta-called by A-A…ouch…damn “Tiltboys style voice” in my head…

Enter the sidegame: Joanne setup a O8 PL table and I played a few orbits:

..but after donking of some chips and winning them back, I realized that it was already to early and my head wasn’t ready to play O8 at almost 5am. So I logged off and went to bed…aaaah sleep.

The final result is here:

As you see Gracie, Garth and Drizz all made it to the final table, woot! I’m looking forward to read a FT recap 🙂

…and finally, finally I made the final table at a blogger tourney! Yes!!!

PokerStars Tournament #18186252, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
67 players
Total Prize Pool: $670.00
Tournament started – 2006/01/17 – 20:30:00 (ET)
Dear Ingoal,
You finished the tournament in 5th place.
A $53.60 award has been credited to your Real Money account.
Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

After a little back and forth and a nice comeback by barclay1701, Bad Blood finished him off and took down 1st place. Congrats! Here’s the final result:

On another note:

1. 3rd place is marked in the pic above as I was aiming for that a the beginning of the tournament and forgot to change it to fifth once I busted out.
2. Thanks to Sires for railbirding in the ft chat and reminding me that the tourney would even take place. Thanks to Waffles for railbirding on yahoo chat (it was reciprocal railbirding as he was encouraging me during my tourney (WWdN 10) while I cheered him on in his tourney (O8 tourney at FTP)).

Update: Wil has a nice write-up about the tourney over at cardsquad*, I didn’t know that he was live-blogging the event, cool! Check 8:18pm (river suckout time) and “8:34 PM – Ingoal pushed with AT, OzCDN called with QJc, and paired his queen on the flop. Ingoal paired his T on the river, but it wasn’t enough, and he goes out in 5th. Great game, Ingoal!”* – Thanks Wil, I enjoyed to play once again. See you at the tables next week!

So we meet up for a private home game today and decided to play No Limit Hold’em. We were 9 players and I was literally card dead most of the whole thing, so all I could do was make a move every now and then and wait for some better cards – and that never happened (I held one ace throughout the whole game (A-7) which didn’t connect on the board 🙁 ), so I went out early, which really was the first time in ages that I dropped out early. The play dragged on and I waited for the second game to start, but the current round just wouldn’t finish…until finally the bubble broke (top 3 payed) and the play was a little bit more aggressive, going back and forth.

After the round was finished I was eager to play the second round in which all but one player entered, so we were down to 8. I was able to pick up some blinds every now and then and got some good hands, too (10-10, J-J, K-Q (which held up!), …). When it was time for the bubble (top two payed this time) the player UTG just called the BB, the SB went all-in…I’m in the BB and look down at 6-6…and I ponder if it’s worth to gamble at this momemt (I was the slight chipleader), I opted to fold…the player UTG call and we had our showdown…Qc-7c (SB) vs. K-x (UTG) the rag card connected and we were down to heads up.

A little back and forth…I was up maybe 60/40 in chips and pickup Qd-3d, I raise 4xBB…the BB calls. The board is a beautiful Q-3-5 rainbow and I check, trying to sandbag my opponent, after all I’ve got top pair + bottom pair. My opponent checks right behind me, so I thought that he was probably holding a King and something, I move all in after the turn comes down 7, he ponders and calls – yes! He shows the anticipated K-5. So it’s my two pairs (Queens and threes) vs. his pair of fives…the only card that can help him is another King on the river…but that never happens as the river comes down Jh. Yes! Finally a real life victory again after a long drought (I was one of the last 3 players and mostly even heads up for the last 7 out of 10 times, including today, but my last victory was some months ago)…

Sidenote#1: Although I still consider myself one of the best players, if not even the best, at our homegames, but ever since we started to play No Limit the balance of power has slightly shifted – after all an All-In bet is really a great equalizer, especially if you can’t put your opponent on something at any time…

Sidenote#2: I’m now up 7+ Buy-Ins at our homegames which is nice! 🙂

Oooh what a day. Played an even wider mix of games today in order to, hopefully, get my bankroll (which was micro to begin with) at AbsolutePoker back from life-support. I played in various HE games ranging from fixed limit 0.10$/0.20$ to 0.10$ NL along with the usual session of Omaha H/L. I couldn’t get much going and so I decided that it would be a good idea to play some S&Gs.

Good idea. I won the Omaha H/L one, bubbled in a HE NL and finished outside the money in the other one. Nontheless some solid playing time without risking too much. I guess going with multiple S&Gs Omaha 8b is the way to go if I want to rescue the remaining few dollars there.

So that’s what I’m going to do! Either I run up my bankroll at AP over the cashout threshold or I go bust…whatever…it doesn’t get me anywhere anyways…the ring games are just too tough (either you play against the calling stations hustling for a (re-re-)draw all the time – after all you can’t push a calling station out of a pot especially in limit or low-limit PL and even if the cards fall your way some of the time, it’s not enough to seriously build up your stack – or you face a NL crowd with a fat roll…you just can’t survive with a minimal bankroll…at least I can’t atm)…

But enough reporting/ranting…I’m going to watch the final table of the “Battleship at Atlantis” Heads Up tourney now…should be interesting!

Side Note: the main event of the PCA is a done deal, check out Brad’s (Otis’) coverage here if you haven’t already. Spoiler: 22 year old student and PokerStars regular Steve Paul-Ambrose has won the thing…1.363.100$ + the WPT championship seat (25k$) not a bad pay-day for a student(!), ka-ching!

I’m about to play the thurdays blogger tourney of Wil Wheaton. This is going to be the last one this year and my third poker blogger tourney in total so far (1x DrPauly (finished 42nd), 1x DADI (finished 35th), 1x WWdN) – and they have been totally -ev so far, but hey at least it’s a guaranteed good time 🙂 . I guess I better get myself a cup of coffee as it’s almost 4am already over here 😉

Update: I keep improving, not in the money though…finished 17th when my desperate All-In with pocket sixes was called by A-Q…the J-4-A-A-9 didn’t help me either 😉

Update #2: At least I lasted a little longer than some of my favourite bloggers (AlCantHang, DrPauly, CJ (Up4Poker), Iggy, etc), but I still made some crucial errors which basically setup my downfall:

1. I played waaaaay too tight. I layed down some decent drawing hands (K-10, Q-J) as I didn’t want to commit myself too much to a pot – which is quite hard when there’s only about 1 out of 20 where you’ll get a free flop (just BB to call)…to prove that point I just need to look at the statistics (39 hands played and saw flop: a total of 15 times out of 139 (10%))…so I basically just played 10% of all hands I was dealt…that’s way too tight to succeed.
2. I didn’t have much help on the board when I was in a pot…when you’re looking down at suited big slick (Ah-Kh) or suited As-Qs and the flop is J high or even lower on the second one, and no rainbow either and your opponent leads out with around half your stack, what are you supposed to do? Pray that (s)he’s got nothing on his/her hands, hope for the Ace to drop? It’s tough especially in a MTT…
3. I didn’t play aggressive enough…Just have a look at 2., specifically in those two hands it probably wouldn’t even have come this far if I made a decent preflop raise, but no, I need to limp in…which comes back and bites me

All in all my best performance so far in any of the blogger tournaments I played in – ranking wise with 17th place. I’ve played better poker in prior blogger tournaments though and I’ve been a little bit luckier when it comes to starting hands, too (once again I held some pairs, J-J twice, 7-7, 4-4, but no Q-Q, K-K or A-A). So I guess I’ll be trying to apply some changes next time I play in a WWdN event or in the Omahatards event (whatever happens earlier) and we’ll see if I can make the final jump (reaching the final table).

Side note: I was really happy to find the host himself, Wil Wheaton, at my starting table. Now I can finally brag to my friends how I played with/against a Team PokerStars member, who’s also a famous actor (who doesn’t remember Wil as Gordie in “Stand by me” or even better as Wesley Crusher in my 2nd favourite Star Trek series TNG (sorry, but my favourite series is DS9))…wooohooo! 🙂

So, as mentioned earlier on I played the Donkeys Always Draw Invitational over at PokerStars. What can I say, it’s really different to play NL with all the bloggers than playing at a regular table! There’s almost no limping or just calling the BB, but always a slight to huge raise out of various positions. I didn’t catch many cards so I folded most of the time and when I looked down at the first decent cards all night (A-Ko) on the button with 970chips left I decided that it was time…I pushed All-In as all folded to me, SB folds, BB (Pastmancer) calls and shows As-Js, no worries as the flop is: 4-9-7, turn brings a lovely 6, then the river bites me in the backside…yup the river was a J…and I’m out in 35th place 🙁

Now I could start to rant about outs and what not or call PokerStars Riverstars, but hey…it’s Poker, it can happen…although doubling up just prior to the first break would have been way nicer than to bust out after 53 minutes of play.

Side notes:

1. never underestimate the power of the hammer (7-2o)…WillWonka kicked a fellow player in the nuts when he rivered the boat vs. pocket Queens
2. Them Quads beetches! (penner42 – Alan screengrabbed it…I’ll post a link when I find it)
3. Beware of the river suckout at any times, ask Garthmeister, he was kicked in the junk two times on the river…
4. change100 won in the end…
5. Read more over at TripJax, HighonPoker

Just donked off some money with a little two table S&G. Turbo Limit Stud H/L was the game and making the final table (top 8 of 16) was no problem, but staying alive longer was as both the ante and the blinds were raised every 5 minutes. So that leaves you with little choices as even calling down a hand can put you all-in quickly (after all there are 5 betting rounds)…I guess I should stick with normal tourneys or S&Gs when it comes to Stud…

Now I’m going to play in the “Donkeys Always Draw Invitational” over at PokerStars…this will be my second poker blogger tournament…more of this later on….

Alrighty, back with more action on TitanPoker and my quest for a birth in the 100 Million Dollar freeroll. After the prior cancelled tournaments yesterday’s 21ET tournament went really smooth the whole time, so nothing to complain about, yet, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

This tournament was by far the most exciting tournament I’ve played in a while. The setup: 136 players competed for 5 spots in the main tournament (April 30th 2006). I entered and felt good, although it was already 3am (German timezone = ET + 6), and right from the start all seemed to be going really well. The fourth hand brought the first major hand and I couldn’t resist to go All-In with it. My Q-Q was called by two other players who both showed A-Ko…lucky me, no King or Ace showed up and I tripled up to 4460 – up to 3rd place in chips at that time. Nothing unsual happened for the next 60 hands and I stayed away from all draw hands to head into the break with 4360 chips (65 hands dealt, Average: 3517, my position 17/58).

Right after the break, hand 66, I decided to donkey off almost all my chips with an Ace high…ouch down to 770. Now that’s no way to start after the break, now is it? So, hand 67 rolls around and I hold A-Q, All-In…one caller showing 5-7…flop: 7-7-J (ouch!), turn: 10 (hmm), river: K (yes :-)) up to 1690 in chips and back in the race. Hand 68 gives me 2-2 sitting in the SB…I push…BB pushes…I put him All-In, he calls…he shows Q-3, board is: 8-J-K-5-K…nice…up to 3860 in chips. Hand 69: 7-7…I push…all other fold, up to 4310 chips. Nice!

People are dropping out left and right and I sit back and relax, waiting for the next “big hand”. Hand 96 brings me A-5 and I push as a shortstack moved in, to my dismay he shows A-K…lucky me as the board is: 5-9-3-3-2 🙂 Up to 6820 in chips. Hand 97 my Ace high holds up, up to 7420 in chips. Hand 100: Only 21 players left, I’m in position 12. Hand 102 A-J, I push, two callers K-Q and 10-10…King flops…down to 3660…Hand 108 blinds are getting massive now: 400/800. Hand 111 K-Qh…I push…one caller 7-9h…Jh-3h-5h gives me the higher flush…booya! Back to 5180 chips. Hand 114: only 14 players remaining…I’m stuck at position 14. Hand 118: blinds raised again to 500/1000 – time to get something going.

Hand 127: I’m sitting in the BB and look down at 10-10, two pushers, I reraise them…one guy is All-In, whatever!, so my 10-10 vs. K-Q and ?? (mucked), board: 6-K-A-10-Q, woot! Up to 12440 chips. Hand 134: I’m in the BB again and once again 10-10, All-In, one caller…who shows…10-10…lol…Hand 135: blinds are now 750/1500. In the following hands I go on a Ace in hand All-In spree (AJ, A7, AA) – up to 14940 in chips, 11 players remaining. Hand 152: A-k vs A-J, board 10-6-4-7-8 and I’m looking good now: 21630 in chips and I busted the 11th player, so it’s down to the final 10.

Final table
Woot, so I’m sitting at the final table of this lovely tournament. I’m currently fourth in chips and looking forward to see 5 others go. I slow play a little and wait for the second break. Hand 159 lures me into the pot with the chip-leader, I hold..10d-10h, Flop: Jh-Qh-Ah, check, he bets 3k, I call, turn: 9d, he bets 6k, hmm…I ponder and ponder and fold (in retrospect I still wonder what would have happened if I had called to see the river – there are different possibilities: 1. Kh comes up I hold the Royal flush, 2. any other heart and I hold a decent flush, 3. any K or 8 comes up and I hold a nice straight, 4. river is blank and I’m out of another 6k for the turn bet). So I’m down to 14630 in chips and I tighten up, maybe even a bit too much. Hand 173: blinds are raised again to 1500/3000. Hand 175 I hold 9-9, but I’m not willing to call an UTG All-In, sure enough he shows A-K, but flop is: 9-A-5…so I would have flopped the set and would have won the hand, d’oh! Hand 177 there are 7 players remaining. Hand 178: there are 6 players remaining, the chipleader is turning into the push monster. Hand 188: still sitting around with 14630 in chips, I wait for the short-stack to be knocked out, it never happens as he doubles up of the chipleader and yes, I’m the short-stack now. The others are waiting for me to be blinded out or make a move. I don’t catch anything…and when it’s my turn with the BB (which is 4000 now), they pressure me…so I’m left with 2 choices: 1. Fold and be down to 4000 in chips with the 2000SB in the next hand…2. Risk it all….I decide to go with the latter as the player 5th in chips has put me All-In…10-2c for me, K-Qo for him….board is: 7-6-K-2-4 🙁 🙁

Argh! So close and yet so far! After 2h35 minutes, 201 hands played I’m eliminated in 6th position, leaving me without a ticket to the main event and feeling sad, angry and hurt at the same time. How unlucky can you be? – On another note: I had a unusual streak of “good cards” and have never been all-in so many times in any tournament in my life, so I can’t complain about my fortune, but it makes you wonder what you could have done differently, especially in two hands mentioned above (royal flush draw folded on the river, pair of 9s not played). Nontheless it was a good tournament and I genuinely congratulated the other 5 players at the table before heading of to bed (after all it was already way past 5am)…and let me tell you something: I couldn’t get to sleep right away, the cards and decision kept coming back infront of my closed eyes…just thinking about the possibilities this ticket would have brought (after all there’s not only 500.000$ up for grabs, but millions in jackpots)…maybe I’ll try to play enough raked hands to enter another few of those qualifiers…