…nothing to show for it… 🙁

Played numerous SnGs and MTTs at both FullTilt and PokerStars…and after hours of good play I’m down…sometimes I hate the whole MTT and SnG thing…ah well…better luck tomorrow, hopefully 😉

Nothing more than three SnGs today. Two at FullTilt – did I mention that the deck hates me over there atm? – one at Stars. Two 6th places on FullTilt, but one win at Stars. Finally a win again…nice 🙂

Played a crazy mix of games today including crazy pineapple on UB (damn that game can be fun) , Stud and different cash and SnGs/MTTs of NL HE. Got the first nut kicking by getting outdrawn time and time in the Stud MTT on Stars, not to worry though, it was a donkey 1$ tourney, so you can’t expect much. No cashes in all the other SnGs on both FullTilt and Stars with the best finish being 4th (bubble boy) on Stars.

Then I decided that it was time to finally play a WWdN again….so I logged back on just in time and registered. My starting table included PokerChamp (aka TouristHater 😉 ), Chris (drewspop), Dan (denials – live blogging the event once again) and others…

I didn’t think that this starting table would be the last one for me, but unfortunately it was. Dumped some chips in the first orbit with KJ sooted, standard raise preflop, one caller…I hit the king…on the rainbow flop and fire out another 100….call…turn is a queen…I fire out another 100…call…River is another Queen… now I check and get popped 200…sure enough I call…can’t put my opponent on AQ there…thanks dealer for a runner runner set for my opponent. Down to just above 1000 within the first orbit, damn. Next hand I decide to play is Jh10h…I flop an OESD + Flush draw + gutshot straight flush draw (as far as I remember the flop came down 9h-Kh-8c)…opponent fires 80 on every round and I call it down not hitting anything, no straight, no flush and damn sure no straight flush…and I’m down to around 900 chips. Next orbit I’m sitting in the BB with 88…drewspop pops it up to 80 (blinds still 10/20)…I ponder and call…flop is all rags 7-5-2 or something…I fire out 100 to see where I’m at…he reraises to 300…so now I’m faced with the tough choice (call – doesn’t make too much sense as I would be commited anyway, fold – not really, push – ding ding)…I push and he shows AA….noooooooooooooo! So I’m out in 95th of 98. Why do I have to run into those damn bullets…I guess I should call Phil Hellmuth, maybe he can teach me how to dodge bullets 😉

…let the donkeys in, but watch out and don’t let them run you over (too many times).

Played some SnGs (4 single table on FullTilt, 2 two table on PokerStars, 1 single table at UB) after coming back from my birthday bash. The only success I had was a second place on UltimateBet, all other finishes were outside the money (4th, 7th, 9th, 9th at FullTilt, 10th and 18th on Stars) – hands of the day: KK vs A4o and KK vs A9o…donks raise, I reraise and/or push All-In…they insta-call like they were holding the stone cold nuts…sure enough their donkey play is rewarded when an Ace hits the board….what to do, what to do?!

Hand History:
Seat 1: nokhead (2,060)
Seat 2: ak_girl18 (1,590)
Seat 3: pokerfan007 (1,455), is sitting out
Seat 4: Lewdini (1,765)
Seat 5: Danegus (1,395)
Seat 6: Ingoal (1,420)
Seat 7: BigRedDanK (1,675)
Seat 8: JBHAWKEYES (1,420)
Seat 9: gsrob (720)
JBHAWKEYES posts the small blind of 25
gsrob posts the big blind of 50
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [Kd Kh]
nokhead folds
ak_girl18 folds
pokerfan007 folds
Lewdini calls 50
Danegus raises to 150
Ingoal raises to 1,420, and is all in
BigRedDanK folds
JBHAWKEYES folds
gsrob folds
Lewdini folds
Danegus calls 1,245, and is all in
Ingoal shows [Kd Kh]
Danegus shows [As 9c]
Uncalled bet of 25 returned to Ingoal
*** FLOP *** [Qd Ad 7h]
*** TURN *** [Qd Ad 7h] [Qs]
*** RIVER *** [Qd Ad 7h Qs] [4d]
Ingoal shows two pair, Kings and Queens
Danegus shows two pair, Aces and Queens
Danegus wins the pot (2,915) with two pair, Aces and Queens

On one hand all the donkeys playing are really good for all of us, as they’re the main source of the money that goes into our pockets, but on the other hand they’re the ones taking the money from us (in the short run) and what is even more important is that they’re getting to us, or is it just me? – I guess it’s gotta be so much easier to be a donkey from a mental point of view: if you win (with the best hand, by sucking out, who cares?) you’re the king of the world, if you lose there’s always tomorrow and nothing to worry about…after all you didn’t put much effort into your play, so why worry? One thing’s for sure though: I don’t want to be a donkey, I’m in it to win it – although “winning” is hard to define: basically I like the equation “up amount/percentage x over amount of time y“ where x -> infinity and y > some months/years. Variance is part of poker, so the reality is that you can’t win every hand, but it’s still hard to accept when you’re losing a big hand to a donkey, yet again.

In the end it all comes down to the fact that luck or “getting lucky/sucking out” is just another facet of poker – after all this is the fuel that drives the donkeys: if they were punished for their donkey play at all times, there would be no donkeys left in the games soon enough, as they couldn’t win many hands – let me rephrase that to they could win as many hands, but (almost) no big pots!

Now that I’ve got that off my chest I’ll do what I do best: vent (done with this post), log off for today and come back with a vengeance tomorrow….heeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaw! 😉

So, I tried to qualify for team Germany. The thing was setup as a heads up tourney and 143 players entered it, “paying” 50FPP in the process. The winner would win a spot in Team Germany. I started out at an empty table, like half of the field – you gotta love the format of PokerStars, so I sat out the first 40 minutes until the other tables with 2 players finished.

I used the time to chat with Sires, whom you probably all know from the WWdN tourneys. He was sitting at an empty table, too. After the whole wait I was ready to battle and battle I did, as my opponent wonm123 was hitting flops like crazy…he rivered me good two or three times…so I was down to 1k chips four times, before the decisive hand: I had battle my way back to 2.2k chips and hold 66, I push, he calls with AQ…66 holds up and I’m now up 4.5k to 1.5k soon after that he pushes with Q4…I call with K10 and win to advance to round 3. Sires put on a hard fight, but couldn’t get anything going his way either, he busted out in 77th place.
Round 3 was more or less the fastest HU game I’ve ever played: first three hands I get dealt the tourist (A7), AQ and KJ…my opponent donschmitz folds all three hands. In the fourth hand I get dealt A3 on the button…I min raises…lol…he calls…flop comes down 2-5-J…he checks…I check…turn is a 4 giving me the wheel…he bets 2k…I push…he calls and shows 5-4 for two pair…no rescue on the river (3) and I bust him…after the whooping playing time of 2 minutes in this match.

I sit around and wait slightly under an hour until the next match in round 4 starts. We’re now down to the last 32 and we’re all sitting on 12k in chips. Back and fourth for some minutes, but I can’t get anything going…when I hit piece of the flop (mid pair) I push…to my dismay he calls with 65, two pair and IGHN…bluff0r moves on to the last 16. Edit: bluff0r took it down and will be one of the players representing Team Germany. So at least I lost to the eventual winner…:Edit
So I finished 28th of 143. Not a bad showing, but I really wanted to win this one…ah well…at least I made it pasted the first few rounds. What sucked though is that I was in the tourney for over 3hours and I played the total amount of 52 minutes (0minutes R1, 40minutes R2, 2 minutes R3, 10 minutes R4)…

Massive rant ahead…move along…there’s nothing much to see….you’ve been warned!

Sometimes it’s hard to believe in the “skill part” of poker, especially after losing hand after hand after hand to crappy, dominated hands. I guess the low limit SnGs and ring games I’m currently playing shouldn’t be classified as poker, they should be classified as “donkey-stack-slinging-odds-defying-card-game”…the sad part about this form of the game is that raises, odds and cards for that matter are irrelevant. So it gives you no edge to be a 90% favourite with your hands…it’s like every player is playing in the dark – all the time…so luck 99.9999…9%, skil 0.000000…1% – the skill you need is to NOT go insane putting up with this crap….examples:

Stars SnGs:

1. AQs vs Q10o in the first hand, flop comes down Q-8-2 rainbow…I bet…he raises All-In…hmm maybe a set…but I guess not…call…turn is a 10 enough said
2. AJo vs Q10o, rivered flushes are nice if you’re holding broadway
3. J10s vs Q9o – I raise preflop and go all-in on the J-10-6 flop, sure enough he calls (after all donkeys always draw – but then again: in some hands where I decide to draw because the odds are “in my favour” I tend to be kicked in the junk (17outs, or roughly 50% at that given time) – so I guess it would be best to rephrase the “donkeys always draw” part to “donkeys always draw and connect almost every time!”…) and the OESD hits on the river and IGHN

Now that I’ve got that out of my system I can come to the second part of this post which is rant free. I logged off Stars and opened FullTilt and played another low limit SnG there…nothing spectacular, besides that I didn’t get sucked out on more than once and that was when I was in commanding position…a nice little tourney and I even got to heads up play and in the end took it down! A win, a win…the joy. Now I’m going to get the hell out of dodge and get some rest…World Cup of Poker 2006 – Team Germany Qualifier coming up at 8am ET = 2pm here…wish me luck 🙂

Tonight at 9pm ET the final of the HUC3 will take place on PokerStars. While I won’t be able to watch it, I still want to wish good luck to both WillWonka and FishyMcDonk! May the best man win!

Read more about the whole event on the official Heads Up Challenge (3) blog…

Damn! Damn! Damn! That pretty much sums it up. My fastest exit from the WWdN ever (20 minutes). My starting table featured doubleas, Hammer player and CJ just to name a few.

The tourney starts out with a dropped hammer (on me) by hammer player aka Hoyazo in the first hand, which should pretty much set the tone for the night. I don’t play many hands, win a small pot, then I invest a third of my stack on a 9977 board, can’t get Hoyazo to lay down his hand though…so I think he held either a 9 (questionable), a 7 (questionable) or an Ace. So I’m down to under 1000 chips…in the next orbit I find JJ in midposition – I pop it up to 120 (4xBB) all fold, but not Hoyazo. Great, flop comes down A-x-x, two hearts…I fire another shell (120)…he reraises to 350…now I’m wondering if he’s really holding the Ace…(in retrospect I should have known that he did. What kind of hands would make you call 4xBB?) Nontheless I push…he ponders and calls…and to my dismay he’s holding AKo…no help on turn and river…so I’m out in 59th (of 65)… 🙁

Note to self:

1. Stop playing at 2:30am – damn it – or at least only play if you’ve got quiet surroundings and if you’re focussed.
2. Back to the training room: Relearn to think, before acting…[why risk all your remaining chips on such a hand when you’re almost certainly behind…a moment of thinking “what happened in this hand so far” would have been enough to come to the right conclusion: fold]
3. Stop moaning and overanalyzing everything…stop bitching…the deck has no memory…

On another note: Hoyazo, well played…I would have called the weak bet over the top, too if I was holding AK – especially if the over the top bet was only and additional 400 (like it was in this case)…hope you put the chips to good use 🙂

Update: Yup he did, making the final table and finishing 8th, congrats. Seems like 23skidoo was unstoppable and took down the win, congrats to you too!

Nothing working late in the 180s. Played one yesterday, made some moves busted out 96th. Today I played another one and built up my stack to well above average. Then I hold my precious AA again…pop it up preflop…two callers…flop comes down all spades…you guessed it, I don’t hold the As…checked to me…I fire another shell…one caller…turn is blank…checked to me…I check…river is blank…now he fires out 800…now I suspect I’m beat – bs I know I’m beat, but I’m on “I hold bullets and it can’t be true that they get cracked yet again, so I’m the sheriff for this hand”-tilt…sure enough he holds As5s…well…too bad he couldn’t lay it down preflop to a 4xBB raise…next hand is bs and I fold preflop…next hand I hold 66…all try to limp in, so I pop it up…3 callers…this table is full of calling stations, damn. flop comes down A-3-3…I fire a shell…short-stack pushes All-In (another 350 to call)…all others fold…I call and show my 66…he holds AA…[thanks poker gods for mocking me time and time again both with and against AA, thanks!]. So I’m down to 350 chips now and can’t believe what just happened….so I built my stack back up and I’m up to 5000k in three orbits…we’re down to the final 36 now, but no joy when my flopped Jack is dusted by a Queen on the turn…out in 29th.

Lesson learned: AA is from now on my personal nemesis. I’m fed up with this bs hand! 😉

Let’s see if I’m still awake at 2:30am, maybe I’ll join the WWdN again then…it’s been a while since a played the last one…

• Hours of poker watched: 7h
• Hours of donkey poker witnessed: 6.75h
• Learning experience? Yup, just because it’s a 1 Million $ tourney doesn’t make the players any better (in all fairness there are some good players in the field, but most players are really playing heehaw-get lucky-or not-poker and to navigate through a field of 5k+ players you will need some kind boards along the way)…basically a real crapshoot for the most part…so this is def one I’m not going to try out for…
• Player that impressed me most: Per-18, knocking out almost everyone from his table to reach the final table with nearly 3Million in chips

Now it’s past 6 am and I need some sleep…the final table is still at 9 players, so I guess I’ll read about the result on the pokerstars blog later today… 🙂