…as long as you give me your chips later on. Haha. Today I reverted back to my “old school”-approach in the HU section. Small pot poker: try to look at a lot of flops cheap, play aggressively with monsters or sometimes slow play them…let the opponent come to you, especially if he/she likes to overbet.

One of the downsides of this approach is the time it takes to finish a match…it usually takes a lot more hands to get the job done, but the swings and junk-kicks aren’t as massive, which is one of the big upsides. It’s similar to Phil Hellmuth’s approach…let them run you over for some time…then stick it to them once a really big hand comes down. One thing’s for sure, it isn’t easy to laydown some of the borderline hands, but I decided to keep two things out of my mind/from getting between me and the W today:

1. Ego – well, if he’s bluffing me once, twice or xxx…who cares? Let him feel good, let him feel that he totally owns you. He’ll think different soon enough. On the same note, refrain from getting chatty, especially after beats. Let him enjoy…complaining and thinking about it just takes away your focus from the current hand…

2. Not sticking with reads: If the first “hunch” is to fold, then fold…(unless it’s a significant underbet…pay off to get the info unless it’s getting you into trouble chip-wise)

I managed to stick to that and I was rarely all-in preflop (only against a shorty with the best hand, twice). I suffered some of the nastier beats too, got my only Kings of the night busted by K3o…he had the Kc and called off his stack on the turn with one card to come…fourth club hit the river…nice call sir..not really, but what can you do. I came back to win the match…

So…the results today speak for themselves…5 matches…5 Ws…without many “good hands”…had AA once (won 60), KK (cracked by K3o) and 77 (held up against K10o)…apart from that I had AK, AJ, A10 once each…the rest were the perfect small pot hands (T9o, J9o, Q9o, 75o, etc) which are gold if your opponent hits TPNK, especially if you flop two pair or turn a straight…really sad to see how many opponents don’t know the first thing about poker and overbet their “monsters” all the time…on the other hand…how beautiful to see just that…at least if your hands hold up once they called off their stack… 🙂

Not much poker playing today…too tired to play a long session. So I tried some new grounds, moving up a level in the HU matches. It worked out pretty good, although it might not be worth it if all the matches are similar to the one I played – it took a really long time as it was not the usual “TPNK = gold”-territory. I scored the W after a little over 100 hands. Quite a long ass match…

After that I played some “no-brainer” SnGs, one PL 5-Card-Draw and one SH NL HE…in both I didn’t get much going…oh well…can’t have a good run all the time. The 5-Card-Draw one was especially excruciating, I sat there folding hand after hand after hand…no pair, no draw…fold, fold fold fold fold…then I got some hands going…but then it was set over set over set time…at least I didn’t end up with the worst hand, the second best/worst it was 😉

To close out the session I played a donkey-level HU and it was good to see that donks will be donks…TPNK it is…good to see that if you flop the straight 😉

So I finish tonight 2-2…with a little profit to show for…I won’t complain about that 🙂

…hehe…after the last post I thought I was going into the right direction again, but oh well, not really. What can I say, had an awful session today and losing all those T$ doesn’t hurt any less than losing “real” dollars, the only win I could score today was in a turbo HU match. All others, I either donked out off (A9 vs AJ) or got pretty much cold-decked. It all started out in the PL 5-Card-Draw SnG. I totally annihilate the table, no I’m not exaggerating. I play aggressively when I had the goods…and after I showed down best hand after best hand and got payed off, the others were pretty careful about messing with me – and rightly so 😉

So..I bust the first one, I bust the second one and we’re down to three-handed with me holding roughly 55-60% of all chips in play. Then within 6 hands I’m gone, bubble boy. How did it happen? Set over set (he draws out with a boat), two pair over two pair (he draws out a boat) and two pair vs flush draw (he draws the flush). Oh well…had the luck of the draw earlier, now I got unlucky three times in a row…nothing new…nothing old, just the way it is sometimes.

So I jump into a double-shootout…and the donkey-department had a field-trip on my ass…so I’m thinking, slow down man, this is no good here…so I play a triple shootout…the play is fast and loose as expected and when I look down at 10-10 to a raise and call…I decide to repop it…one player between me and the original raiser calls, original raiser pushes, I push over the top…caller in between us calls…showdown me, 10-10, original raiser 8-8, caller AdQd….well…a coinflip…all three of us are looking to triple up…all good…flop is all rags with one diamond, why do I mention this? Well, if you haven’t guessed it by now…turn diamond…river diamond for the beautiful runner runner nut flush…here we go again. Now, as I said, it’s a coinflip when the money goes in, so all good, but the tease…I’m trying to sweat a Q, 8, or Ace and instead it comes runner runnering my ass again…not a thing I wanted to see…

So I’m 0-3 and I’m seriously thinking about closing the PS client…but I don’t…hehe…hmm…so I play a turbo HU match and I win it pretty easily. Wheeee…hope. I play a normal HU match and after a long-fought battle I lose. Damn! I try another triple shootout and it’s all the same mess again…once we’re down to three-handed I can’t get the job done. My exit comes at the hands of the beautiful ace rag, which proves to be gold again, at least on the river.

After that, I’m looking at my stats for the night and it’s not a pretty sight. 1-5. I decide that it’s time to play a little higher, which leads me to the conclusion that play should be a little “better” there…now…the 15-30$ region isn’t all that high and so it’s no real surprise that the play is even worse than I expected. A six-handed game should usually be somewhat aggressive, right?! Instead player after player is doing what donkeys do best – calling. Whether the have a monster, a draw, a small pair, big pair, middle pair, over pair, nothing…they call…bet after bet, street after street…as I witness that, I decide to sit back and relax, waiting for some big hand to take advantage of that. Haha. Oh well…let’s just say that I won a few, lost a few and then some really nice hands came down. The highlight was three-handed (bubble time)…I’m in the BB with 7s4s and I’m the shortest player of the remaining three…as I don’t like the 74 s00ted all that much, I’m delighted to see that the button and SB only call…I knock on the virtual felt and we see a flop of As2s2c…SB checks…I check…BB checks…turn is a beautiful Ks…SB fires…I think and call (maybe I should push here to keep him from hitting the boat if he’s on that draw, then again, he’s in the SB and could have any hand, I don’t put him on Ax or 2x here…so instead of pushing, I’m trying to get the button to call as well)…the button obliges and calls as well…river is blank…SB fires again…I push…and the button folds…SB shows? Qs3s…oh well…flush over flush…three-handed…nice. Cya…

So…I’m finishing the night on a low-note with a 1-6… 🙁

Edit: One last HU match…W…2-6…still not good…but feels better to go out on a W 😉

…aka how to get back from the road to insanity and turn 2$ into 215 (T)$ 🙂

Wow, after the last few weeks of ultimate bad luck, today was the quickest turnaround (money-wise) I’ve ever encountered. Oooooh what a rush. I’m still a little in shock. I started off by playing some PL 5-Card-Draw this morning. Back to basics, take a break from hold’em, plus it’s 6 handed (SnG), so it fits my style of tight-aggressiveness (basically start out with two pair/trips or better or a decent draw (OESD, OESD+Flushdraw, Flushdraw if it’s cheap early, etc), control the pot-size and fold when you think you’re beat). It worked out pretty nicely and I scored second. It should have been a W, but who cares? Should have, would have, could have is all hypothetical (when HU began I was 3:1 in chips, but I couldn’t finish him off after that, I had the chance once or twice, but he smelled that he was beat and got out with a few chips left; then he went on a total tear and I couldn’t do much about it…set over set…two pair over two pair etc and I had the worst of it).

Tonight, I started off with the same thing. PL 5-Card-Draw SnG. I did fairly well, despite not getting payed off with my monsters (pat nut flush etc). I had the best of it when a big pot came around and well…in the end it was a tough fight, but I had the best again (two pair over two pair). So a W it was and I was both relieved and energized, so I jumped into a triple shootout to the sunday million. It didn’t go all that well. No major suckouts or anything, it was just not going my way (draws not coming through etc). I thought about it and I decided to try another one…it was very slow to fill up, so I started to listen to the newest episode of Ante Up. Once the tourney began I paused and focused on playing the best I could. On table one, I was all-in one time with the best hand (coinflip 55 vs A6 and presto held up, what?! Yes, I won a coinflip right off the bat!)…so I was off to a good start. The rest of the first table is a blurr, I took it down.

After that I played the waiting game as there were still some tables going. After a while they were finally done and the second table was under way. I won some smaller pots early on, than lost some, than won some again. I just played a patient game and it was rewarded, boy was it rewarded. All the cards that I had been missing over the last few weeks came in, in a hurry. We are down to four handed and I went on a total tear. I had a hand-counted number of 4x AA and they all held up (I either won a small pot or busted someone)…and soon enough it was all said and done and I had won the second table, fittingly with the fourth pocket Aces of the night.

Then it was time for the waiting game again…two tables were still battling it out and I waited…after another 10 minutes the final table started and I was a little nervous. You know how all those thoughts come creepin into your mind once it’s crunch time? I shook it off though and started to fold, fold, fold, fold. After a few hands and the x-th button steal(-attempt) I finally called…a pretty loose call with Ks5s, but hey, he can’t have the nuts every hand. Flop comes down with two spades and he fires a continuation bet in. I call, hoping to see a third spade on the turn. Dealer turns…and it’s the most beautiful Ace of spades I’ve ever seen giving me the nut flush. He pays my bets off and I’m sitting pretty with over 3k. Nice! From the on I went into rock-solid mode again. KK UTG, raise…all-fold…yay…another big pair and it held up…the next few orbits are a blurr and once we’re down to three-handed (bubble-time) the action is fast and loose and I look down at one 63o, 48o, 93o after the other. So I fold fold fold, at least I’m not getting into trouble, except for the fact that I’m slowly getting short…then “THE” hand occurs…I have slightly under 2k…the other two splitting the remaining 7k among themselves get into a raise-war preflop…after the second reraise they’re all-in! I jump up from my seat and can’t believe my luck…there are three scenarios here:

1. Player 1 wins…and it’s over with

2. Player 2 wins…and Player 1 is crippled (400 chips)

3. Split pot and we’re back to square one…

I like my chances as they show 77 and TT…the tens hold up…scenario 1 it is…and it’s all over!!!!!!!!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! How much one win can mean, especially considering the circumstances. Man, I’m so relieved now and this is the first time in weeks that the “destined to be”-part wasn’t me “getting busted”, but me “taking it down” 🙂

So…I jumped into the sunday million tourney tab to have a look…

Good to see my name there up on the “big one” list, but I’m not all too crazy about playing it. First of all, the win (215(T)$) will be a nice compensation for the recent bad run and secondly, I don’t want to push the envelope here. Playing such a tourney with such an unreal amount of players isn’t for me, at least not now. How’s the old saying? “It takes more than one swallow to make a summer” – and I think that’s exactly what it is…one swallow along a big group of big Ls or the first step on the road to redemption. So…I unregistered pretty quickly and I’m looking forward to use the tourney dollars to fuel my “comeback run” at the SnG tables…wish me luck 🙂

…crappin on my head all the time. I mean come on, this isn’t funny anymore and I’m seriously considering quitting, for good I mean – which most certainly comes down to a few weeks off and then coming back, because I just can’t help it.

Seriously though, I’m starting to feel like Negreanu on last season’s High Stakes Poker. Someone is having a blast torturing me, crapping on me, then kicking me in the nuts watching me fall, then crapping on me again as I lay on the ground. I’m about to go nuts…and I’m not even talking about the 60/40 hands (where I won exactly 0 going in as the 40% part and maybe 20% when I went in on the 60% part), I’m talking about the cold-deck bs…I’m starting to wonder if PokerStars has flipped the “must lose, all, fast”-switch on me or something, nothing better than to get a nice hand which is or evolves into the second best hand, at all times. Now I’m usually laughing at such claims, but this is getting so spooky that I need to blame someone, so why not Stars.

I realize that I’ve been in the same mood for what seems to be an eternity and I apologize for writing about running bad, injustice and/or suckouts post after post after post. It’s just that I’m currently cosumed by this whole mess. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m responsible for some of the losses along the way, because ultimately, I’m so insecure and tiltable atm that I tend to “give it a shot” here and there…or when was the last time you heard me writing about taking 40%-shots for all the money on purpose?! But still, even with that in mind, there’s no way I can lose that much, it’s just nearly impossible – although mathematically speaking it’s not…after all you can lose 100 coinflips in a row or more for that matter, it’s all within the normal variance they say, that fact doesn’t give you any comfort though if you’re caught in the bad zone where…

…you lose all coinflips

…you lose all hands where you are the underdog

…you lose all crucial hands (where you go in with the best (anywhere from 70-98% favourite) for all the marbles)
Examples of the usual hands: AQ…flop comes Ace high…bet, reraise, reraise, reraise, push…lemur shows A5 for a pair of Aces no kicker, no flush draw but a runner runner straight draw to the wheel…turn, there you go, river, there you go, boom headshot.

AJ…flop comes down Ace high (AKx)…bet, reraise, reraise, reraise, push…lemur shows AK…wheeeeeee….no miracle for me…

77 vs AA…

Side note: I didn’t have any pair higher than Jacks in ages, no Queens, no Kings, no Aces and if I have them, they get me busted and not because I can’t lay them down if the boards + betting tell me too, I do lay them down there, but not against runner runner draws or 2-4 outers…AK/AQ/AJ is usually worthless and even if I hit it, someone hits better or sucks out on 4th/5th street…and don’t even get me starting on hitting sets with small pocket pairs…I can’t even count the number of times I had deuces, treys or fours over the last few weeks…and low and behold I flopped two sets….losing one to a runner runner straight…
Can someone shoot me, please…?!

Well, same ole same ole on the poker front. Nothing, I repeat nothing, going my way. Logged on to Stars and stumbled upon the WWdN. I didn’t expect to see it happening so “early” (1:30am), I had missed that DST had kicked in so ET isn’t +6 atm but +5. So…the WWdN had already begun (1min), so I jumped right in. In retrospect I wish I had missed it all together.

Played almost no hands until it was time for some coin-flipping. Someone raises in MP, I reraise in LP…he pushes…I’m stuck here with JJ and I think I have the best hand, although it’s probably a coin-flip. I got the pusher covered by slightly under 500…and I decide to go with it. Sure enough he shows AK. Flop…contains…a King….wheeeeeee….what a surprise. Turn and river are blank and I’m sitting there with one third of my original stack. Was I forced to play that coin-flip? No. Did I believe I had the best hand? Yes. Did I have the best hand? Yes. Did I win the coin-flip? Hell no. I don’t keep that statistic, but it feels like I haven’t won a coin-flip in a SnG or MTT for ages. I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t win one these days and it doesn’t even matter if I got the overs or the pocket pair. One way or another I’ll lose the hand, whether it’s my opponent hitting the overcard, the runner runner flush/straight, or me not hitting my overs. It’s sad, really and if I wasn’t running so bad anyway, I probably wouldn’t even mention this hand, but as it is, it’s just another chapter in the “can’t I win a god damn hand”-book. So I’m basically crippled (or close to it) and I decide to go with the next semi-playable hand. I wait and wait…then I get Jacks again in the BB…and I get a walk…nice…at least I didn’t lose the coinflip (which would have evolved most certainly there if someone decided to play with me in that hand)…so I wait and wait again until I finally hold A5o on the button, which was basically a monster at that point. I pop it to 120 (blins 15/30). I got slightly under 300 left behind, so this is clear indication that I’m going to go with it. Nontheless the BB calls. Hmm…maybe I should have open-pushed here? I don’t know. Flop comes down 9c4s5c…he checks…I push…he insta-calls…he shows 10c7c…hmm…flush draw…alrighty…turn 6h…river 7d…that’ll do it. So…I’m out after slightly over 30 minutes of play and I’m frustrated…two hands…one coinflip lost and one lemur-donk-call preflop with the monster T7 s0000000000000000ted and I’m gone…the joy…

So, I was about to log off, but then I remembered that Al wrote about a HORSE freeroll tonight and as it turns out (thanks to the DST) it’s about to start…wheee…limit…HORSE…nothing better than playing against a bunch of chasing donks who don’t have a clue how limit is supposed to play – if you got a good hand, isolate preflop, if someone is raising and you got a strong hand reraise ffs, get the lemurs out or at least make them pay dearly for their donk-calling. As you can imagine, no such joy though for the most part, so I was pretty tilted after the first round of HORSE and I lost it in the second Omaha round. I decided to donkey-raise every friggin street no matter what. Result: I sucked out a flush on the river against Bobby Bracelet and took down a nice pot. What does this tell us? You should realize that that’s one of the, if not the, reason why donkeys play the way they do, because getting lucky isn’t so far fetched, especially in games like Omaha…anyway…to make a long-story short I tried to play solidly again after that tilt-episode and it just wasn’t happening. I began to sing my “brick brick brick really makes me sick”-song after the next round of Razz where I clearly started out with the best hand numerous times and caught lovely bricks either on 4th, 5th and/or 6th or 5th, 6th and/or 7th street. Just lovely…I survived the second horse though and my run finally ended in the third Omaha round. Thanks again to Al for hosting, it was fun, at least some of the time…here’s a random pic dump from the first break and my final result…

Edit: I just had another look at some stats/graphs…so for all of those who don’t believe or doubt that I’m on a cold streak…just have a look at the following graph…wow…can you say free-fall-tower…(or maybe it’s just the yang to the yin (heater) I was on some weeks ago?!)

…running really bad is harder, running really bad is even harder. I’m glad that the running really really bad seems to be over, although I’m still in the bad level “orange”…example from an early SnG hand…he’s short and calls my raise preflop (!)…he then pushes on the the flop…I push over the top..all fold…

So not only did he call short preflop with T6o out of position, no, he also pushes on the flop with second pair no kicker and hits the turn and river like a champ. Nicely played sir. You just made my day…NOT. So instead of sitting second in chips with five players, I’m sitting with 1k with six players. Win some lose some and I’m in for the exit in 5th with A10 vs AQ…too bad I was the BB…too bad he was the SB…too bad there was an Ace on the flop…too bad that I didn’t smell it…oh well…what else is new. The next one was quite similar. Lost some big pots with the best hand, then donk-trapped myself to make yet another 5th place exit.

I then gave myself a last shot in a HU match, which I ultimately won once his card-luck ran out…he pushed his flopped MPNK into my overpair…but before that…wow…no chance the turn and/or river didn’t hit him BIG, no matter what I bet on the flop or preflop…sometimes I wonder if you have to play donkey-strategy to win at those donkey levels…then again…I was winning consistently before this bad run…playing how I always play(ed)…patient but aggressive when the hand(s) commanded it…

On another note: I don’t know if it’s all the “bad luck” I experienced recently, but in the six-handed games tonight, I felt like I lost it. I just couldn’t put some opponents on hands, even after some orbits. Now this isn’t out of the ordinary if you consider that some of the opponents you face at the donk levels are soooo out of it that it’s next to impossible to put them on a hand, but still. I feel like the cards are against me and the rest is going with it…maybe it’s time to do something different…maybe I’ll try to get my feel back by playing some MTTs again…or maybe even some cash games…we’ll see…

I made a quick exit in the BloggerPods, I’m not big on excuses, but I’m just saying that I was a little bit busy watching the EPT Germany Final table…so I didn’t mind busting early…

Thanks going out to Mike from PokerOnAMac.com for hosting the tourney, appreciated…back to EPTLive.com to watch the final four, our own Sebastian “MiamiVice” Ruthenberg from Luckbox.de is the current chipleader after winning a monster-pot with trip eights…

Edit: Ouch…Miami self-imploded down to three-handed…A5 vs KK…he had outs…but why mess with the other big stack and not sitout and wait for the shorty to bust…damn…that was one costly hand (at least 160k Euro (difference between 2nd and 3rd))… 🙁

Well, the first ever EPT Germany started yesterday and Jan over at PokerStarsblog.de is doing the coverage (in german). For all fans around the world PokerStars is doing a little something that is even better than liveblogging though…can you say live webcast!!!

Webcasts will be running both saturday and sunday and will be available with german and english commentary…check EPTLIVE.com !!!

So, back in action today. First of all I was happy to receive the first issue of Card Player Europe today, nice! That was really quick, I didn’t have the time to really read it yet, but flipping through it, it seems that it’s just what CardPlayer’s description was: part of the US issue plus content specific to europe (including numerous ads of online poker sites I’ve never heard of before). Some more good news: next live game will be this saturday, w00t! Nothing better than some live card-flinging with friends.

Excited about those news, I thought I’d try my luck with some turbo SnGs tonight. First one went fairly well, busted two players early, busted two more later on and soon enough we were ITM. My opponent (fairly even in chips) busted the shorty and we are headsup…about 10 hands later I have a disgusted look on my face as he calls my preflop all-in (J10 s00ted) with the powerful 75 s00ted…sure enough flop comes down 567…thank you very much. Oh well, second place, not all that bad. So I open up the next one and I find myself with AQo in the SB in the very first hand. One limper in MP…all others fold…so I decide to pop it to 80…BB ponders and folds…limper calls…flop comes down Queen high…I bet out…he reraises me…I reraise him…he pushes…hmm…son…I think you’re full of shit…probably KQ/QJ or something…I call…he shows QTo…weeeeeee…..turn 10…thank you…

I congratulate him on his marvellous play and he defends his “groovy” play by saying “but I’m the one who pushed all-in and you called” errrm yeah donkbag…maybe, just maybe I’m supposed to call here with an 87%/12% edge…but maybe that’s just me…I’m out…