Yup, today (already past midnight here, so it’s April 17th) is my birthday! So I guess I won’t squeeze to many hands in over the day or night, so I played a little now…4 SnGs…1x 1st, 2x 2nd, 1x 4th…Nice…I guess the poker gods are in a giving mood as it’s my birthday 😉
Alrighty…I’m outta here…a now 28 year old git shouldn’t be online at 2:30am… 😉
Catch you all on tuesday (WWdN)…
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:
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 🙂
Logged on after an evening of board games to find some card action, nothing much going on so I jump right into a donk-tastic SnG…first hand I’m dealt ducks (22) some limpers, one min-raise…I call…flop comes down 8-2-9 rainbow…I bet the pot…the original raiser pops another min-raise…I push…he calls with 77….nice, so he either needs a 7 or two running cards to make his straight…turn 6…river 10….bam! Although I love poker I could call it quits sometimes, am I too emotional about it? Probably, but I can’t help it…I guess I should order a titanium cup, at least the junk kickings won’t hurt as much then…
After that junk kicking in the first hand I looked around the tourney section and saw that there was one of the new WSOP Bracelet Races about to start. I checked my account and yup, one token left, so why not? 228 players entered, so the first two finishers are awarded a 2k WSOP package (1.500$ buyin to a WSOP tourney of choice + 500$ spending money) and the remaining final table players are ITM. I decided to play pretty tight, not taking any shots and so I played…grinded my way up to 2.2k in chips over the first few orbits, then looked down at AK…pop it up before the flop, one caller…flop and turn all low with a straight and flush chance…so I got the hell out of there…nothing much afterwards until I look down at AK again in the next orbit. I pop it up to 4xBB…one caller in LP…flop comes down K-10-9 two spades…now I hold the lovely TPTK once again, so I fire the pot…he reraises the pot…I go into the tank and think about what sort of hands would he call the preflop raise…not much info on the player, so I put him on a hand like K-x (if that x is a 9 or 10 I’m probably screwed) or two spades for a flush draw…so I raise the remaining 120 of my stack and I’m all in. He shows 9c-10c, so he was playing suited connectors, wanting to see a flop at all cost and connected perfectly…no help on the turn or river…and I’m out in 141st (of 228) after just 35 minutes of play. I guess I should have sticked with my original plan to abstain from playing until sunday (World Cup of Poker – Team Germany Qualifier), but the WSOP is starting to call my name…and I had to answer the call 😉
…so I didn’t feel like playing any ring games or bigger sngs/mtts today…just two hee-haw SnGs over at FullTilt. One 5th place one 4th place. Not bad, but this hee-haw playing is hurting me more than doing me any good…the play is just too awful. So I guess I’ll take a break for a day or two and come back recharged on sunday (I’ll try to win my way into the World Cup of Poker to represent my country: Germany! I couldn’t find the tourneys yet, but they’re in the schedule for 16th/17th April, so I guess they’ll appear once all the canadian/american satellites are finished…we’ll see….)
Stats of hee-haw:
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…
Played two 180SnGs at once this afternoon, one went fairly well the other was horrible (out rather quickly 121st or something) – can you spell outkicked at all times…in the first one I was able to survive quite long and when it came down to get some more chips (I was hovering quite a bit below average – I hold KhQh, min raise preflop…one other caller, so we’re looking at the flop three-handed…Ah xh Qs, I check, original raiser fires out 400 (= 2xBB), other caller comes over the top…I ponder
for a while and think that 9 outs seems to justify the chance to triple up…the other player calls…turn is blank, river is Jc…so no help for me…they both held AJo…out in 49th)…
Edit: Another 180 SnG this evening…almost three hours played and I bust out in 12th place…66 vs QQ ouch… :-( 😉
After today’s exam, which went fairly well to say the least, and an afternoon of hitting the books for friday’s exam, I decided to play another 180SnG…no boring hand histories…long story short: I played well, had some good cards in tight spots and even sucked out once (at the final table, Ax vs KK, Ace on the flop)…first final table in these buggers…came in third. W00t!
No poker tomorrow (or later on today to be precise) as I gotta hit the books one last time for friday’s exam – my last one at uni! Wish me luck… 🙂
…as I’ve got my second to last exam at uni tomorrow. Only poker I played today was a relaxing 180SnG at Stars…played tight…when we were down to around 50 players I look down at AcKc…loose cannon infront of me pushes All-In (he would push with any Ace)…I shove…to my surprise one caller behind me…loose cannon shows As9s (lol)…caller behind me shows KK…K on the flop and IGHN…overall I’m still happy with the play though, I would have busted the loose cannon and with a little bit of luck (namely an Ace and no King) I would have tripled up – which would have been at top 5 position at that time…
Alrighty…I’m outta here…gotta get up rather early tomorrow and write the exam…wish me luck 🙂
A day out of the “I shouldn’t have opened FullTilt today”-series…the complete opposite of yesterday, which equals losing all I won yesterday times 2. Nice, not. Damn! Losing boat over boat isn’t fun, seeing a guy getting his Aces cracked twice within one orbit (in a donk-masters turbo token satellite: once vs J10o, once vs KK; personally I busted out 10th…no token baby) was fun though, no replacement for my xxx lost BBs though…god bless that I’m playing strictly micro/low limits these days…side note: bankroll at FullTilt nontheless is down to an all-time low 🙁
Played some more shorthanded low limit ring games and what can I say: I had fun! All the cards that I haven’t seen in ages kept hitting me in the face (AA twice within 1 orbit, KK, QQ, 10-10) and they all held up…this is the side of variance that makes it enjoyable to play – at least while it lasts.
After winning an insane amount of BBs I broke two promises:
It didn’t hurt though and I can really recommend the 1$ SnG as the ultimate tilt-test – why? Because the play is so friggin awful that it’s almost not even funny anymore…if your mission is to not get on insta-tilt though, it’s both a really hard test and fun at the same time (watching all the donks playing Ace-rag like it’s gold at all times, calling All-Ins for a pot of 60 chips, etc)…I held off the tilt until we were down to three-handed – the implied tilt odds were just too damn high to no do it (I’m in the SB, the BB lost two hands to crap hands in a row)…didn’t work out, but I’m smiling nontheless as I write this…time to catch some sleep now…night night.