…no, no, not back to the marathon-headsup-sessions. Something else. What has been missing around here for a while? Yes, the random pic dumps highlighting some of the hands that came down while I played. Today I had my snapshot-finger ready again and took some pics. Nothing spectacular really. Played 8 6-max SnGs this afternoon, finished ITM 4 out of 8 with 2Ws and 2 second place finishes. Went out fourth thrice and fifth another time when my AA ran into the monster KK preflop….King…boom headshot. Oh well, not much to complain about today. I guess I’ll be back later to play in the four card bingo lottery by the name of Saturdays with Dr. Pauly.

Now to the random pic dump and I’m outta here…

…that’s what I heard myself say over and over again today. It was nothing spectacularly brutal or anything, just the usual beats and bad beats along with the tease every now and then. I mean, it’s pretty standard to get your AA crack by AJo, or KK by A3, A8 and A4, but the stuff like AJo vs AJs (flushing) and the fact that you can’t win a 60% shot on the bubble in four consecutive matches is just brutal. Mix in the fact that you’re the one pushing in all four spots, get called by the usual KQo, KJo, K7o, etc and leading until the river everytime…then see the 6 outer hit on the river boom, boom, boom, boom is just sickening. Oh well…like I said to a fish berating anther fish: “What do you want man? You got all his money in drawing dead to 3 outs…what else do you want? Don’t tap the tank…ty”…*lol*

Stats: Played 18 six-max SnGs, finished 2nd six times and won one. Should have been at least 2 more ITM finishes (see the 4 60% shots above) and at least one W more…but hey, what can I do…cards speak…I’m out…

…because nothing else can explain why I still bother to play in my home game. Well, maybe that’s a little harsh, I keep going back because of the social aspect as well, but there’s no doubt about one thing: I like money, too – who doesn’t? – and it’s really disappointing to get coolered or extremely unlucky all the time. All the time? Maybe you think that that’s an exaggeration, but it really isn’t.

Everytime I play in the homegame, it’s like I’ve got the plague or something. Either I run into a cooler or I get a junk-kick – one of the two is usually my exit or cripples me. Sure enough it was no different tonight. What adds to the “unlucky-ness” is the fact that we’re playing tournament/sng-style in the homegame, so no cash-game – instead everyone buys in with a set amount and we play a freeze-out, usually paying the top 3 spots (or the top 2 if less than 7-8 players are playing). With all the chatter and stuff it’s a slow game, so if you’re card-dead you’re pretty much at the mercy of the cards and let me tell you, they’ve got NO MERCY at all for me. This has been going on for months now and I’m really puzzled. Is there anything I can do different? I doubt it as I’ve tried to change up, switch gears, play tight, play loose, always looking out for the current status of the table and the involved players….to no avail. Usually I set it up beautifully by making some bluffs, sometimes getting caught, sometimes not, sometimes showing it…all to generate action later on when I’ve got a monster. At least that’s the plan. The problem is that the plan does work out for the first part, getting the money in extremely good that is, but the second part, the holding up and raking in the pot part, isn’t working out at all.

We played shorthanded (6) tonight and the first hand that pretty much crippled me came up pretty early. There’s two limps, I’m on the button with Kd4d…I call…SB and BB stick around and we see a flop with two diamonds. Checked around. I check behind. Turn brings the third diamond. Yatzee! Cutoff check, I bet…SB calls…BB folds…cutoff calls. River is a blank. SB checks. Cutoff bets big. I’m puzzled…sure there’s a straight out there and the flush, but I’ve got the second nut flush here. So I call…the SB thinks for ages and then calls, too. Showdown: SB – straight…cutoff AdJd for the nut-flush, me Kd4d for the second nut-flush. Nice. Yuck. So I’m crippled and pretty soon I’m busto.

So I stick around for the second game, which we play turbo-style (6min blinds)…after all it’s the beginning of the week and ppl have to get their lazy behinds out of bed in the morning. Nothing much to report from this one…I push in with the worst hand twice and suckout the first time when a seven spikes on the turn (A7 vs AJ)…the second time I’m busto, all good there.

So the other players battle it out and they’re still anxious to play another turbo. I’m in and things are looking good. I pick up a few pots early on. Then the following hand comes down. I’m in the BB with QQ. Nice. Action folds around to the button. He calls. SB moves all-in (I’ve got him covered by a longshot). I hesitate for 3 seconds before pushing in myself. The button thinks and thinks, and yes, I’ve got him covered by 1/3 too. So he pushes in. Now I’m thinking to myself: uh-oh, you’re probably dead…I put the button on AK and the SB on AT-AK…to my surprise the flip over K7 (button) and KT (SB). What the heck? I’m happy though…one overcard…two outs for them. Flop? K7x…turn bring the T for the SB resuck…river is a blank and I’m down to 1/3 of my original stack. So sick. Even borderline crazy I would say.

So I moan a little…but after all everybody in the homegame knows how bad I’m running…and that’s why they’re after me. They know that they’re usually a MASSIVE underdog, but they don’t care. The old saying goes “After all it’s Ingoal, I’ll suckout on him. I call.”…and call they do and tbh I LOVE IT. What else could you ask for? One or more player(s) willing to throw their money out the windows virtually drawing dead almost every single time? So the setup is perfect, the only problem, as already mentioned, is the fugly sickness that comes after those calls.

So as I’m short on chips I’m contemplating making a move, but I don’t until I’m UTG. I look down at QTo and I push. The BB ponders a call after everyone folded, after all it’s me, so why not? But he lays it down and shows 96o…I ask the dealer to rabbit-hunt the board and he does. I would have lost to a 6 on the turn. *lol*…the usual. So I’m in the BB and I’ve gotta fold the next hand. Then I’m in the SB and I look down at KK. After the button calls I move in over the top and the BB ponders a call. As I’m short it’s not all that much to call and after all he’s s00ted with 6s8s. He makes the calls. Right in the windows is a 6. The other two flop cards are two low spades, giving him not only a flush draw, but a gutterball as well. The turn is the third spade and I’m drawing dead. Just for good measure the river completes the gutterball straight as well, just to make sure that my kings get cracked for sure…*lol*…so I get up and out of there in a hurry…

Now I’m back home and still a little steamed up about this whole thing. Could it be that I’m unluckier than Mike Matusow? Looking at the results of the last months of the home game I would say: abso-fucking-lutely…and that’s scary…I’m outta here to get some de-tilt sleep…

Played two session apart from the SWDP tourney. One before it and one after it. Four 6max SnGs each…total score was almost exactly the same for both sessions (1st 3rd 2nd 1st and 1st 1st 4th 2nd)…so ITM 6/8 with four wins. Overall this seems to be working out like a charm. I fire up four of those bad boys and play them parallel, which not only keeps me busy, but is no problem with my new panel. I guess I’ll keep hitting those bad boys for a while now…let’s see how it develops.

As for the other part of the title: really insane how a poker blog attracts spam, especially trackback spam. It started a few days ago and I was really getting frustrated as trackback spam circumvents part of the antispam solutions I’ve got in place on here (namely the antispam pic). So I decided to finally activate the antispam atomic bomb, which comes with WordPress. It’s name is Akismet and all you need is an API-Key to activate it, which is available for free on wordpress.com (if you earn less than 500$/month with your blog – no worries there…lol). I activated it three days ago and it has done a great job so far. It blocked and/or caught well over 15.000 spams and counting in three days (for the exact number see the footer). Friggin spammers!

I’m out…

…I’ve kept myself to feeding on the 6max donks tonight…my new display comes in handy too…now it’s no problem to play four full sized tables (or even more tables resized a little)…1920×1200 is a nice resolution 😉

So…I played four of the 6max SnGs at once and I won three of them. Then I played two Step 1 WSOP satellites and won one of them (earning a Step 2 ticket (worth 27$)). Overall a nice session.

After that I decided that it was time to buy my first poker software ever…I’ve used some testversions of different poker softwares before (including PokerIndicator and TourneyManager), but I couldn’t convince myself that I should buy any of it, until tonight. I just ordered a license for TourneyManager. I hope that it’ll help me analyze my game a little more, especially when it comes to results. We’ll see. On another note, I’ll also buy PokerTracker soonish, but I’m waiting for Version 3.0 to appear, which should be in the near future.

Speaking of spending dough…I also ordered some new books to keep me company…I bought two of Schoonmaker’s books…”Your worst poker enemy: master the mental game” and “Your best poker friend: increase your mental edge”…and I even ordered some stuff which didn’t cost me anything (apart from FPPs)…a nice little sports jacket from the PokerStars store…nice.

Back to the new panel…here’s a pic of it…hmmmm….tasty…

I’m out…

…couldn’t get a foot on the ground today. Some of the usual coolers and once I pushed it in with the best of it, shit hit the fan…so it was about time to take a break. I guess I’ll stick to my second favourite occupation. shorthanded SnGs. Took first in three out of four, which was nice. But even more important than the result: I made good decisions, mostly, and in the instances I made a bad decision (headsup with a monster chiplead, twice), it didn’t matter…in one it was over in the next hand and in one I even sucked out, yes, I GOT LUCKY with J8o on an 8 high rainbow board…sure enough my opponent has KK…turn J…right in the heart…god I know how that stings…the difference…I apologized, even if that’s no consolation…

…and right back on tilt…

It’s just hawesome how you can totally pwn the competition and still get kicked in the nuts again and again…I didn’t even bother to do screenshots tonight…I was too steamed up…still kept my shit together and tried everything I possibly could to bust my opponents….no joy though…one of the typical hands, which is my final hand of the night as I can’t be bothered to play a single god damn hand more…

PokerStars Game #15552948619: Tournament #78722082, $22+$1 Omaha Hi/Lo Pot Limit – Match Round I, Level III (15/30) – 2008/02/25 – 20:23:22 (ET)
Table ‘78722082 1’ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: talisain51 (1860 in chips)
Seat 2: Ingoal (1140 in chips)
talisain51: posts small blind 15
Ingoal: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [Js Tc 4d Ah]
talisain51: calls 15
Ingoal: raises 30 to 60
talisain51: calls 30
*** FLOP *** [Jd 8d Jh]
Ingoal: bets 60
talisain51: calls 60
*** TURN *** [Jd 8d Jh] [5c]
Ingoal: bets 150
talisain51: raises 540 to 690
Ingoal: raises 330 to 1020 and is all-in
talisain51: calls 330 –mmmmm yummy you got 9 outs, I totally got you both ways…
*** RIVER *** [Jd 8d Jh 5c] [Ks] — boom headshot, thanks stars for yet another evening from hell
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Ingoal: shows [Js Tc 4d Ah] (HI: three of a kind, Jacks)
talisain51: shows [Ts Kd 2d Jc] (HI: a full house, Jacks full of Kings)
Ingoal said, “come on”
talisain51 collected 2280 from pot
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2280 | Rake 0
Board [Jd 8d Jh 5c Ks]
Seat 1: talisain51 (button) (small blind) showed [Ts Kd 2d Jc] and won (2280) with HI: a full house, Jacks full of Kings
Seat 2: Ingoal (big blind) showed [Js Tc 4d Ah] and lost with HI: three of a kind, Jacks

I’m off…pictures from my vacation coming soonish….

After my sporadic on and off relation with poker the last few weeks, errm months, I made my way back to the tables yesterday…finally.

It was a real weird session to start with…couldn’t get much going…and when I finally got it going, it was going downhill again faster than I could hit the break. Pretty sick actually…had all sorts of beats again, the usual three outers and stuff. But oh well….here’s what my session looked like:

Lose 8 in a row to start with (= down around 100)
Win 6 in a row or something (= only down 20) – note to self: quit here next time 😛
Lose 1, win 1, lose 2, win 1, etc (= down around 100 again)…the end.

Tonight I’ll make my comeback in the homegame, too….let’s see if I can lay some coolers on other ppl for a change… 😆

Good luck at the tables….

…and I hate it back. God damn it. I should have kept my promise not to touch PokerStars until the new year…guess what, I didn’t and I regret it.

No doubt, it comes with the territory…but how the hell can I lose match after match after match and it doesn’t even matter if I play the 11$ or the 22$ ones? So sick…I’ve been coolered, one outered, two outered three times in a single match, two outered, three outered, runner runnered, etc etc and all those hands are headsup…I didn’t even bother to take a snapshot of all the sick fucking ridiculous cocksucker donkbox lucksack hands…so just a random selection of my good run…

All I can say is that PokerStars has bend me over like a cheap whore and put a whole poker table up my rear end, then twisted it, then pulled it out and slapped me silly with it…just before laughing at me and taking my $$$….so sick, I’m going to puke now and I’m seriously thinking about pulling all my money out of there…I know I know…it probably won’t come to that…but I’m really close to really do it…I just can’t take this bs anymore…every god damn time I clawed and grinded my way up to the next big step (e.g. double my roll) by doing the old letterass grind thing, I get hit in the junk for just long enough that I’m back to square one.

Now, I’m not about to get out the tinfoil hat yet, but this pattern really makes you (me for sure) wonder what the hell is going on. I play hundreds of matches, so it’s normal to see a cooler here, a cooler there, some sick shit, but the sheer amount of compressed sick shit happening to me every single time I’m getting close to permanently moving up…hmmm….weird….to quote Yoda “Meditate on this, I will!”…
Anyway…I’ll log off now before I smash the god damn screen. Best of luck at the tables (my share of it is clearly unused these days)…and have a very happy and successfull 2008. See you on the other side…(this time for real)…

It’s been a while since I last posted and tbh, I didn’t play that much recently…over the last few days I tried to play a little though and it was horrible. “Bad beat” after bad beat, cooler after cooler…and I’m not making this shit up either…

Summary of a few of those lovely hands:

headsup NL HE: KK vs A7…A, next hand KK vs AA…nada; QQ vs 77….7, JJ vs 66…6; AK vs A5…A5xxx, etc etc

PL O8b: AAK2 vs A2xx…flush for him after going all-in preflop (deep stack); A2KK vs A2xx…no low he rivers a flush; etc etc

Razz: three to the wheel vs 8 low draw…capped all the way…I lose; rinse repeat; rinse repeat…

Coinflip and related bs statistics: update, pokerstars featuring a new eighteen aces deck…but not when I’m holding an ace…they’re switching it for the 0 Aces and 0 Kicker deck in that case…JJ vs Ax…A; QQ vs AK…A; JJ vs AQ…A; 66 vs A9…A; 77 vs A8…A; AK vs 77…nada, AQ vs A7…7….AK vs AJ…QTK; etc etc

60/40 bs: AJ vs KQ..K; AT vs QJ…Q; K9 vs QT…T; K8 vs Q7…7; etc etc

Other bs: AA vs KK…K; KK vs AA…nada; KK vs QQ…Q; JJ vs QQ…nada…; AA vs J9…he flops a straight; QQ vs K6…he rivers a 7 high straight; etc etc

I’m so fucking steamed up now…I guess I won’t be playing another hand this year…ridonkulous shit going on there, this isn’t about variance, this is about bs…and I won’t take it and throw away my money anymore…this is the biggest downswing I’ve ever seen and there’s shit I could have done about it (except logging off after the first cooler of a session…but what good is that?)…so fuck you PokerStars! Thanks for crapping on my christmas present. Once again: FUCK YOU! You won’t be seeing me online for the next few weeks…thanks again…for nothing.
On a brighter note: Happy holidays…and if I really stick to my promise: A happy new year! Cya on the other side…and better luck at the tables!