Played a little four-card bingo aka the Saturdays with Dr. Pauly tourney. The usual madness ensues early. I catch some good hands (preflop) and sometimes even connect lightly to the flop…still no dice (e.g. AsAcJc5s…flop with two spades…turn and river blank)…finally I manage to run Queens into Kings…money goes in post-flop with an all-under board…obv he’s got two small connectors to go with the kings and flopped a straight with ’em…me drawing dead…wheee…out in 25th of 30. Sucky suck…PLO just isn’t my game…I love PLO8, but really hate PLO…why? Because I can’t have a hand hold up and when a big pot comes down and I have 3/4 the deck to catch…well….the other 1/4 hits…all the time….

After that usual disappointment – why do I even play this tourney, it doesn’t make sense – I switched to headsup and crushed some donkeys. They were out in full force tonight and I managed to bust all but one going 4-1. Gem of the evening: Player raising to 140 in the first hand (10/20 blinds). I fold. Player raising to 140 in the second hand. I fold. Player raising to 140 in the third hand…I look down at A5s and shove. He thinks for 10 seconds then calls…he shows 35o…errm yeah…good move…lol…I’m outta here…gl at the tables everyone…

I finally got my new external hard-drive delivered today, so I could get things going with the reinstall. It actually took longer than expected to get everything up and running again, so no extended poker playing today. Still managed to get a small session in and boy, it was exciting. Played headsup against a really colourful mix of players. On one hand there were the real fish (sharkscope certified) on the other hand the real skilled ones (not sharks by sharkscope’s standard, but certainly good, winning players).

The funny thing was that it didn’t matter at all who I was facing, the matches were mostly decided by setup hands. I mean, yeah, it’s not mandatory to put your money in with TP and a flush-draw…but it’s pretty standard I would say. If your opponent flops bottom two in said hand, the hand basically plays automatically. I lost that hand. Similar occurrences in the other matches. So it was no surprise that I lost half my matches and won the other half. So down the rake, but still smiling as I’ve never seen so many setup hands in such a short amount of time in my life…oh well…glitch in the poker matrix or a statistical abnormity…who cares, it was sick and funny at the same time. I’m outta here…gl at the tables everyone…

Played some more headsup today. I guess I will take a break from it again once the Pokerstars 2x promotion runs out on headsup matches (sunday) as I’ve had enough of headsup for a while. It’s not the results or the “pressure” of constantly fighting over pots, it’s more or less the sick beats I took during play…it’s really sick and the number of beats you take in a small amount of time can be too much. I mean, yeah, if he’s x% to win the pot, he’s x% to win it. But how come that sometimes x < 10% = 99,9999999%? This is just stupid. Overall I had another winning session today, so I shouldn't even be complaining, but I still do. Made some questionable plays that cost me two matches, all good there, the rest was shoving in with the nuts (or close to it) and then getting sucked out on. I mean alrighty, you weren't stone dead when you put in your money, but why does the longshot redraw always have to hit? Sick....and don't get me starting on flips...had to take six of them today (either because my opponents were short, I was short or it was a no brainer hand, e.g. AQs both ~ 10BB (blinds 75/150 with 1500 starting chips), I'm not folding there anyway)...won exactly 0 of them. At least I won around 50% of the 60/40 situations, suboptimal, but better 50% than even less...alrighty...enough rambling....I'm outta here...good night and good luck at the tables everyone...

Dr. Pauly’s poker blog, the famous Tao of Poker turns 5 in August! Woohoo! To celebrate the fact, the good doctor pulled something out of his head: A special celebration tourney running at PokerStars on August 5th 9pm ET…all readers of Tao of Poker welcome. Read all about: here.

Congrats to the good doctor for kicking butt for 5 years!!! All the best…rock on man!

Not as good as I wanted it to be, but very good in contrast to yesterday’s and this morning’s session. In the end I went 9 for 15. Not all that bad, although I still feel like I could have done better. In the end it was a matter of me pushing draws and missing, over and over again. I mean it’s pretty sick if you’ve got an open-ender and a flush draw, or two overs + a straight + flush draw….that’s basically half the deck right there, still managed to miss. I guess it was one of those days. Coinflips were pretty even, at least on good thing. So…I’m outta here, not feeling elated, but not feeling as down as this morning…which is a good thing…back to the grind again tomorrow….gl at the tables everyone…

That about sums up what’s been going on yesterday and today so far. Played headsup non-stop and got kicked in the junk non-stop. Everything started yesterday evening when I won my first match easily. Then things started to fall apart, fast. I lost the next three matches in rapid succession and I logged off. It’s just no fun when you get some premium hands and see them go down in flames. You raise preflop with QQ. Opponent calls. Flop comes down 7J7…you pray that your opponent has the jack…you bet big…he shoves…hmm…you call…he’s got the hammer and busts you. Good calling preflop. That’s about the only flop you could win money with. Other brutal hands included QQ vs KJ…sure enough K…JJ vs Q9…Q…etc etc etc. So I logged off and called it a night.

I thought I’d squeeze in a little afternoon session today, I shouldn’t have. I played fish after fish after fish. In a total of six matches I faced exactly one winning player (according to Sharkscope). How many matches did I win? 0. Honestly, I’m so tilted right now, I’ll log off right after this post and I’m not sure if I’ll return tonight or not. It was so bad. The chased me and chased me and sure enough they connected on the river. Brutal. The one guy called my down with any Ace high and any pair (even lowest pair on board with 4 overcards) and to add insult to injury he sucked out on the river in four big pots. Yeah, decision wise there’s nothing to complain about, he commited all his money with crap and got lucky. But results wise it sucks big time. In the last 10 matches I’ve gone WLLLLLLLLL, so 1-9. Not that unusual if you figure in the brutal beats I took, still has me on the edge of full blown tilt. So sick how some lucksacks can keep hitting on you with no end. Sick. Oh well, I’m out for now…better luck soon, hopefully, it can’t continue this way, no can it? Here’s to having a hand hold up in a big pot….and good luck at the tables everyone…

Today I tried to get in touch with Microsoft again…ended up in a russian call center…all they were able to do is to tell me that I needed to get in touch with the retailer that sold me my copy of windows vista…errrm yeah…that would be Microsoft itself…*lol*…so it seems that I need to reinstall my system yet again (although it’s a fresh install)…unless the MS Technet forum guys come up with a solution (which I highly doubt)…oh well…just another bad beat right there.

I didn’t let it get to me though and played a little poker today. Just the lucky 7 HU SnGs…won 4…in the three losses there was one critical error, one that didn’t happen in a loooong time. I lost the match due to a misclick. The flop is all clubs and I got the Jack of Clubs and an open-ender to boot. He fires huge…and I misread his bet for 150 (an overbet to the 120 pot)…and insta-called…too bad the bet wasn’t 150 but 1050…lol…turn is a blank and we’re both commited, so I have to call and the river bricks me out of there. Pretty strange. The other two losses where okay, although the last one sucked. I’ve got my opponent down to under 400 with 25/50 blinds. I pop it preflop with JackAce and he shoves. Insta-call…he shows A3…3 hits and he doubles up. Next hand I look down a 88 and shove…he calls with KQ….both hit…he doubles up. Now I’m short as the blinds jump to 50/100. Two hands later I shove with some crap and he calls me with crap…which is worse than my crap. His crap hits the deck and mine the crapper…and I’m busto…oh well…I’ll take the small profit and the added FPPs (due to the 2x Promotion)…and I’m outta here…gl at the tables everyone….

…is sometimes grueling, sometimes boring, sometimes fun…and sometimes all of it combined. I don’t know if it has got something to do with the Pokerstars 2x-promotion or if it’s the norm these days, but most people suck at headsup. Good for me and any other player that doesn’t think and pair is the nuts and top pair is gold. Today my run was a little bit different than the last few days. Started off with a loss, then crushed 5 in a row, then lost two and quit. So 5 out of 8 and I was still feeling good. Why did I quit then? Because I felt a shake in the luck-matrix. The second to last match: the match lasted for 36 hands. Within those 36 hands my opponent had AA four times…two times I had nothing and folded. The other two times I had TP and a draw or better. Lost the minimum the first one…gone busto on the second one where I have K9 for TP + gutterball-straight-draw + flushdraw…none hits and I’m busto. Next match I get runner-runnered for a flush over my straight. Then I flop top set and get runner-runner-flushed again (money went in preflop)…that was enough. I got the message and logged off.

On another note: If you didn’t see the new Poker After Dark – Cash game yet, make sure you head on over to their site (you can watch it online)…it’s not quite High Stakes Poker (because it’s 6 handed and less money on the table)…but the first two episodes have been A+++….always makes for good television if Phil Hellmuth is involved and get’s beaten one way or another…

So, enough babbling…I’m outta here for the night, off to watch a movie or something…good luck at the tables everyone…

…the Points I get for playing headsup matches and I’m even more happy. I really like the Pokerstars 2x promotion…this time it’s headsup and you get 1.5x the points you would normally get. So after a short break from poker, due to a busy weekend, I returned to the virtual felt after having a good day. Today my new HDTV arrived…not a monster by any means, but it made my day…so…I just played three quick headsup matches and I won all three of them. Either I’m on the ultimate heater or the players on my “old level” (11$) are just what I needed. I think it’s the latter as they’re able to fold a hand, so bluffs, especially multi-street-bluffs that make sense, are back in the picture. This really helps my game as I’m not at the mercy of the cards that much as in the lower level (6$) where the regular donkey will call you down with SPNK without hesitation. Normally that would be a good thing, but as I had a rather dry spell when it comes to premium hands or premium hands connecting with the board to be precise, it wasn’t a good thing. Some I’m happy where I’m at now…and I guess I’ll keep hitting those suckers until I feel like doing something else…nn…and gl at the tables everyone….

I don’t know what it is, but I had to very different experiences in headsup play tonight and I’m not talking about matches here, I’m talking about levels. What’s working on one level (11$) isn’t worth a dime in the other one (6$). I got totally annihilated tonight in the 6$ ones. My donk opponents couldn’t fold second pair, no way to fold TPNK either…and don’t even get me started on overcards…hey I got two face cards call AWWWWWWWWW-in…totally ridonkulous. Now I would normally try to exploit that with value-bet after value-bet throwing in the occasional overbet and everything. It’s tough to do though if you don’t have a single premium hand in around 200 hands. Even harder if you can’t flop a pair, and if you do so it’s second best.

Oh well, the way it goes sometimes…finished an impressive 0-7 in 6$ headsup matches. So I decided to do the obvious…leak-time…lol….move up a level (the level I’m used to playing btw, so no big “ooooh” jump)…so I fire up some 11$ ones and yeah you guessed it, I annihilated the competition. My opponents (some of them real sharkscope-certified fish) were more than willing to pay off just about everything and once I pulled a string of hands together there was no stopping. So I took four donk-heads and logged off…4-0. So I’m slightly down for the night, thanks rake, under -2$ though…so I couldn’t be happier considering the bad run I had at the lower donk level. So, I’m outta here and I’ll probably won’t be back until sunday….tomorrow is a beer-football-tournament (that’s soccer for the americans). It’s called KoelschCup after the famous brew from cologne “Kölsch”. It’s a fun little private annual thing were new and old friends meet once a year to play a little footie and drink. The tourney is played two-on-two on a small field with small goals. It’s basically mandatory to get wasted….flat-rate time…the only thing that worries me a little is that

a) I’ve got to get up in less than 6 hours
b) The weather report predicted crappy, rainy weather for today

But oh well…it should be fun nontheless. After that I’m heading to a birthday party of a mate of mine…30 years…a big celebration…time to get even more wasted (if that’s even possible after the KoelschCup)…we’ll see….so I’ll probably have a little catching up on sleep on sunday…so probably nothing new to report on the pokerfront…maybe a little donkerama on sunday afternoon/evening…but not sure…anyway…enough babbling….time to catch a few hours of sleep….wish me luck and good luck at the tables everyone.

Oh…I almost forgot: A big shoutout to Iggy aka the blogfather aka the brogger midget…gg man, congrats on moneying the biggest donkament in the universe…the WSOP 2008 ME….well done!