Well, I guess I should have seen it coming after being put in the freezer after 30 minutes in the WWdN, but I didn’t. My first and only mistake today was that I broke one of my oldest rules: If you play well and get cold-decked and/or unlucky in the first x matches, log off and never look back. So, basically I should have quit after the first three matches, but I didn’t, so that’s on me, but the hands that went down, unbelievable. This is officially the sickest day I’ve experienced so far. Unless I held the stone-cold nuts, there was no way I was going to win the big ones. The small ones, yes, as my opponents had nothing in those hands, but the big ones? Not a single one of them.

The first two matches ended in similar fashion: jab, grabble…slightly down in chips…let’s flip it…opponent shows 10d-10c….I lose. 0-1. Second match goes down the same way…let’s flip it…opened shows 10d-10c…now I don’t get out my tinfoil hat, but what are that chances of that happening (and don’t even get me started on the “the deck has no memory” crap, ty)?! Result…tens hold up…I lose. 0-2

Third match was quite interesting too. I’m ahead a little (less than 300 chips) and I get my money in…with A10 s00ted on a 10 high board…turn gives me a flush draw…river is blank…opponent shows? 10-10…I can’t remember the suits and I’m too lazy to look it up, but wouldn’t surprise me if it was 10d-10c 😉

Oh well..down 0-3. The next match is the classic freezer. Opponent min-raises…I call with 10-3o…flop comes down K-10-3….opponent bets BIG…now I’m stuck, how can I lay this down? What beats me here…KK…why would he lead with such an overbet (unless he’s an absolute donk)…so I rule that out. AK…more than likely…so I call…he shows? K10o…ty very much…. Down 0-4. The fifth match, just before footie practice is an episode of “I’m on tilt, I know it, but I don’t care, let me just punish this dude and if not, I can always blame the cold deck”…I promptly lose and I’m steaming. Time to head out to footie practice. Now, this is totally unrelated to poker, but as soon as I head out to get in the car I notice that the central locking system isn’t working. Hmm…weird…all digital gages aren’t working…hmm…starter…dead. Nice. Wouldn’t surprise me, but then again I had the same problem last week and I put in a new battery and everything seemed to work just fine for the last week. Not so much today. My resident car guru tells me that it’s probably the generator. Damn! So I’m stuck without a car, but I’m more than happy to borrow my dad’s car. BMW 730i…time to cruise, lol.

After footie training I’m cooled off and after watching the latest episodes of Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker I’m ready to roll again. My goal is not to get even, but to get back just a little. Finishing this horror day on a high note would be really appreciated. Haha, says the dealer and throws everything at me that he can find in the freezer deck. Despite that I win the first match easily against a player who would make a rock look loose. Nice, so I jump into the second match of the “evening session” and shit hit’s the fan once again. I’ve honestly not seen so many draw-outs since Antonio Esfandiari vs Todd Brunson in the third match of the Poker Superstars III final. We played three bigger pots. I shoved three times with the best hand. He drew out on me three times. How did he do it? Backdoor flush, backdoor flush and flush on the turn with three dominated aces. Nice job sir, fry in hell! 🙂

So I’m sitting there…thinking…quit or try just one more match in an effort to at least finish one session up ahead. It all came down to one big hand again…the hach (73o) vs 10-4 s00ted….flop comes 7-10-3 rainbow…push comes to shove and we get it in…turn 4….river 4…not that he needed it. Thank you very much again sir, I’ll leave now before I crap on your virtual felt.

So…what does this teach us:

1. There’s no justice in poker (Who didn’t know that?)

2. If you’re cold, you’re cold and there’s shit you can do about it.

3. Even the most sophisticated play, even the most solid play, even the biggest advantage can’t win you a thing if you’re not 100% to win the hand.

4. Poker is a game of skill…that’s the skill to stay sane while continuing to play [ in the long run I will get it all back, in the short run shit like this is still hard to take… 😉 ]
This rant has been brought to you by cold-deck 2000, the premier pocket deck-freezer, exclusively used at PokerStars.com and a crappy ass 1 minute photoshop job….*lol*…good night 😉

*lol* Played some nice matches tonight. Played some of my opponents like a fiddle, got played by the deck in the others. Now I’m not one to argue that yeah, paying off, is kind of an error on my part, then again…if I crap my pants with a “monster” shorthanded or headsup I might as well stop playing…so…conclusion: Sometimes you’re bound to lose (your money) and there’s shit you can do about it…still makes me mad when a douche who can’t even spell poker (*lol*) is hitting like crazy and there’s nothing you can do but either pay it off or fold till eternity…
I leave you with my last hand which is presented by the “classic four-handed wheeee your hand was good enough to make the second best hand Inc.” 😉

Oh wheeeeeeee….played good for the most part tonight, just couldn’t help but pay some hands off. This is the ugliest part of poker if you ask me, hands where you just know you’ll have to pay your opponent off. Happened to me time and time again in one of the matches, just couldn’t catch a break. 10-10 vs JJ, AQ vs AK, etc…those are hands headsup where there’s not much choice, especially with heavy raising and reraising, whatcha gonna do? Lose. Oh well, I’ll remember what it feels like next time I hold the better hand in such a spot  😉

The old saying is true, you can’t do more than move your money in with the best. It’s what happened in 90-95% of all hands, still not that much joy. Played seven headsup matches, won 4…lost 3…out of those 3 I would say I deserved to lose 1, in which I clearly overplayed a hand which ultimately lead to my defeat. In the other two losses it was brutal though…dominated hands meant nothing as the three-outers would hit like crazy…oh well…what can you do. The last match was especially brutal….we battle for well over 100 hands, which is quite uncommon. Why did we play for such a long time? Because he just wouldn’t go broke. After a long long battle I’m sitting with around 3/4 of the chips…A10 vs A7…7 is all it takes…throw two coin-flips in the mix (I lose both, haha, no surprise here)….and he takes the match.
I threw another double shootout in the mix, a little torture can’t be bad for character building, lol. This time it filled up pretty quickly, 100 players. So the final table was all ITM with the top 4 claiming a ticket to the sunday million. The table started of like a madhouse. First hand…a player bluffs off all his chips. I’m sitting there cursing him for making such a donkey play as I layed down the winning hand (K9o in EP)…lol…I don’t have to wait long though…second hand…I’m in the BB…MP min-raises…LP calls…all fold…I call…with my powerful 69o…flop comes down 6A9 rainbow…now if he’s got Aces, sixes or nines I’m willing to go broke here….I bet out…MP reraises…LP pushes…I push…MP calls all-in….I show the two pair…MP shows A7o….LP shows 88….my two pair holds up…and I triple up in the third hand. The table is down to seven handed and I’m way out in front. From there on it’s a long ugly drag though…I can’t catch anything and when I do…I catch just enough to lose some chips to a better hand. AQ on a queen high flop….he shows Aces…etc….just nice to see everyone at the table showing their winning Aces one after the other. Weird. Another good 40 minutes of jab and grabble action and I just can’t catch a break. I keep myself in the game by stealing blinds. Nothing more nothing less….I finally go out in the last hand before the break…Ac7c on the button four handed…I’m not exactly laying that down….big stack calls with presto and he shouts just that as it holds up….damn….at least I had fun at the table as we had a really good time after the first three donks were busted, so after the second hand…at least something positive…

Totally unrelated to today’s session: Wheeeee….the AIPS leaderboard just got an update, not that I have any points yet…but at least I’m on it….tied for 30th (= last place) lol… 😉

Not much going on, besides mr. spambot x and y trying to spam every single post on this blog. Good thing that my antispam-solutions are holding up, I heart WordPress + Plugins 😉

Played a small session at Stars, the usual, some headsup and a double shootout. Won all three headsup matches. The first one was really only one hand, lol. I limp with Ad9d…he checks…flop comes three baby diamonds…I check…he checks…turn is the 10d…he bets out…I reraise him small….he reraises me small….I reraise him small…he reraises me small….I push….he insta-calls…now I’m looking forward to see his Kd…but instead he shows the Jd…lol….well, well, son…I could understand a call with the Kd (sort off), but with the Jd? Are you kiddin me? Nothing better than to flop the joint in the first hand and get all the chips. The second match was more of a grind, although the passive style of my opponent made it easy to see flops and get payed of when he had a piece of the flop or thought he had the goods – example: he min-raises preflop…flop comes down 642 rainbow…he min-bets…I hold J6o…I call…turn is another 6….he bets bigger…I repop him…he repops me…I push….he insta-calls…shows his Aces….turn and river don’t show the two outer and I’m home free. The third one was gold too….79…one of my new favourite, mega-juicy hands…no action preflop…flop comes down 684…he bets small….I call…turn is the beautiful 5…I’ve got the nuts….he bets big, I reraise…he reraises me small…I push…he shows Q7…drawing slim to a chop…river is blank and I win the third match.

After that I invested some of the dough into another try at the Double Shootouts. The games are really juicy as there are donkeys left and right more than willing to get their money in bad. Too bad if you can’t catch a hand to break em. So I sat there again winning some small pots while another player stacked donk after donk. Once it came down to playing a few bigger hands he had the chips to make the calls without much risk and got lucky here and there….I got unlucky against another player…33 vs 66…oh well…that’s that. Coming back to the second part of the title: Two views of the same situation: 1. I need to get lucky here 2. I just need to NOT get unlucky here…

1. was generally true for the other player

2. was generally not true for me

Sucks to be in that spot…oh well…can’t help it…keep choppin away I guess…3 tries down….more to go…but not tonight…

Well, well…played only a small session prior to the WWdN, won 2 out of 3 headsup matches. Then it was time to play the WWdN…and I did good…most hands are a blurr, but I made the right moves at the right time…the crucial hands were against Iak who first doubled me up to over 5k in chips and then doubled me up again with my AK vs his KJ.

So at the second break I was sitting pretty in the chiplead and from there on I rolled all the way till the final hand A9 vs 55, presto prevailed and I busted out 4th…not bad…quick pic dump and then I’m off to bed….

Oh me oh my, people were sucking (out) like vacuum cleaners tonight. *lol* 😉

Ran into a couple of fellows that play fairly well, so I had to play patiently and wait for my spots, the spots came and the money went in…let’s just say that the best hands, well my hands, didn’t hold up quite that often. I mean, clearly a hand like Doyle (10-2) vs 3-5 can be juicy, but only if you play it right…flop 10-10-4…check check…2….check check…river 6…bet…he reraises all-in…I smile and call…now that’s a clear hand…the other ones with cards to come, especially with only one to come were unreal. I mean, I understand that people play badly and usually I’m cheering them on – after all that’s where the money comes from – but today, I would have loved if they just folded in some spots as I could almost feel the perfect card coming before it even happened. Four-outer…boom…two-outer…boom…two-outer…boom…eight-outer…boom…three-outer boom…etc…it was brutal…oh well…better luck next time…I’m done for tonight 3 for 8…and to the donks: Keep playing like this, can’t betray the odds over the long run fellas 😉

Side note: Almost forgot, during the first few matches PokerStars had some minor problems with their connection…first time I ever witnessed something like this…

“Administrator: Many players have disconnected due to Internet routing problems,
additional time to act added [2007/02/11-18:30:47 ET]”

Well, well, I’m still a little puzzled as how I could overlook my hand yesterday evening. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter one bit and even if I won the hand, you never know how the tourney would have played out from there. But still, this is officially the first time ever that this happened to “Mr. Poker”, aka me myself and I. Oh well, it’s over, I wrote about it and that’s that, it sure won’t lose any sleep about it…

So…today I only watched a little poker on tv, a rerun at that, as the shows I’m waiting for (High Stakes Poker, Poker after dark) won’t be around until tuesday…apart from that, only a small session at Stars tonight. Won the first two matches easily…then stormed into the third one, took half his stack in the first two hands, then couldn’t finish off and lost to a nice runner runner spade four-flush with my AhKc vs his Ac10s…oh well…same ol’ same ol’…so I finish the night at 2-1…and with a big grin on my face…boy is my new display nice 🙂

Well, yesterday was hammer day, but today was clearly donkey day. I met some of the most annoying people ever at the tables. Played headsup, nothing new there. Won the ones I was supposed to win, lost those which I was supposed to win. All in all in split six games. So down the rake and down some time which nothing can bring me back.

Highlights: Total donkey, fish, whatever you want to call it…he’s so bad, he already dropped over 1.1k in HU SnGs in the recent months. We get the money in preflop…my AKs vs his A9o…no surprise to see a nine on the flop and another one on the turn. Still no surprise that he tells me about “how he owns me” and all after that suckout. It made me laugh so hard that I couldn’t even stop talking some trash in the chat. He didn’t even understand half the things I told him, so I let it be and sucked it up. He got the last suck though as he sucked out again to bust me. Nice.

Then I played the slowest player I’ve ever seen, seriously. Well, not a bad tactic if you’re a donk. Play only a few hands during the first few levels as you’re taking like 20 seconds on every decision, then try to luck out on the more expensive blind levels. He did a fine job there, bored me to death until the blinds were at 50/100…then got his money in as a 80/20 dog and sucked out…very well played sir…

Man, this makes this session officially the lousiest and most annoying ever…spent too much time at the tables with absolutely nothing to show for…oh well, that’s the grind – at least sometimes. I guess I will take a hiatus from online poker tomorrow as the next home game is scheduled for tomorrow night…and as usual I expect to get sucked out on, at least in the critical hands, so I don’t want to put too much stress on my titanium cup 😉

Well, I hope you enjoyed your hammer day so far. I didn’t, at least not really. Grinded a little at Stars and the fish were turning into sharks once they had their helmet and face mask on. As expected the deck hit them smack in the face time and time again. Two outer boat, my QJ vs KQ on a QJKxQ board, my 36 vs 45 on a 5-4-7-6-5 board etc etc…it was nasty, still managed to grind out 3 wins in five matches though, so at least not a losing session.

Then it was time for the hammer event at Full Tilt and boy did everyone come out for this one! 158 players in total, it was like the blogger all-star parade, too many to name them all, but from Dr.Pauly to Daddy…everyone was playing. Had a nice starting table with JoeSpeaker and BloodyP. Won some nice pots early on, then donked off half my stack with pocket nines on a 8 high board…99 was no match for 10-10. Then I got some chips back by winning a coin-flip…then I lost my stack by losing a coin-flip…presto vs AQ…no g00t! Still enjoyed playing though…so ‘s all good.

Hammer stats of the day:

1. Hammers played: Stars/FullTilt – 4/1, Hammers won: 0

2. S00ted hammers (aka the velvet hammer) played: Stars/FullTilt – 1/0, Velvet Hammers won: 1

3. Euro hammers (82o/82s) played: Stars/FullTilt: 0/1, Euro Hammers won: 1

So…all in all…2 for 6…not all that bad…I guess the hammer didn’t like the fact that I didn’t reraise preflop…my mistake 😉