So, I went out on a little mixed game spree today and totally donked off my chips. First of all I jumped between Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Hold’em, Limit Omaha H/L and Pot Limit Omaha H/L, then I played a “little bit” above my limit (considering my low bankroll with Titan) and lost my remaining chips in one 0.25$/0.50$ PL Omaha H/L hand. Well, so the Buy-In at Titan Poker is history, but I’m not too worried as the lack of games (especially 7 Stud H/L in regular play and Omaha H/L in S&G and Tournaments) didn’t do me any good and I had no intention what so ever to reload – there were only limited possibilities:

1. Double my Buy-In (25$) and cash out
2. Double my Buy-In, clear the bonus (100%) in the process and cash out
3. Bust…go broke, whatever you like to call it…

So 3. is what happened, I really dislike to lose money, but that’s the game….now I’m going to focus on the remaining poker rooms where I’m either up (PokerStars, UltimateBet) or slightly down (AbsolutePoker)…

Alrighty, back with more action on TitanPoker and my quest for a birth in the 100 Million Dollar freeroll. After the prior cancelled tournaments yesterday’s 21ET tournament went really smooth the whole time, so nothing to complain about, yet, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

This tournament was by far the most exciting tournament I’ve played in a while. The setup: 136 players competed for 5 spots in the main tournament (April 30th 2006). I entered and felt good, although it was already 3am (German timezone = ET + 6), and right from the start all seemed to be going really well. The fourth hand brought the first major hand and I couldn’t resist to go All-In with it. My Q-Q was called by two other players who both showed A-Ko…lucky me, no King or Ace showed up and I tripled up to 4460 – up to 3rd place in chips at that time. Nothing unsual happened for the next 60 hands and I stayed away from all draw hands to head into the break with 4360 chips (65 hands dealt, Average: 3517, my position 17/58).

Right after the break, hand 66, I decided to donkey off almost all my chips with an Ace high…ouch down to 770. Now that’s no way to start after the break, now is it? So, hand 67 rolls around and I hold A-Q, All-In…one caller showing 5-7…flop: 7-7-J (ouch!), turn: 10 (hmm), river: K (yes :-)) up to 1690 in chips and back in the race. Hand 68 gives me 2-2 sitting in the SB…I push…BB pushes…I put him All-In, he calls…he shows Q-3, board is: 8-J-K-5-K…nice…up to 3860 in chips. Hand 69: 7-7…I push…all other fold, up to 4310 chips. Nice!

People are dropping out left and right and I sit back and relax, waiting for the next “big hand”. Hand 96 brings me A-5 and I push as a shortstack moved in, to my dismay he shows A-K…lucky me as the board is: 5-9-3-3-2 🙂 Up to 6820 in chips. Hand 97 my Ace high holds up, up to 7420 in chips. Hand 100: Only 21 players left, I’m in position 12. Hand 102 A-J, I push, two callers K-Q and 10-10…King flops…down to 3660…Hand 108 blinds are getting massive now: 400/800. Hand 111 K-Qh…I push…one caller 7-9h…Jh-3h-5h gives me the higher flush…booya! Back to 5180 chips. Hand 114: only 14 players remaining…I’m stuck at position 14. Hand 118: blinds raised again to 500/1000 – time to get something going.

Hand 127: I’m sitting in the BB and look down at 10-10, two pushers, I reraise them…one guy is All-In, whatever!, so my 10-10 vs. K-Q and ?? (mucked), board: 6-K-A-10-Q, woot! Up to 12440 chips. Hand 134: I’m in the BB again and once again 10-10, All-In, one caller…who shows…10-10…lol…Hand 135: blinds are now 750/1500. In the following hands I go on a Ace in hand All-In spree (AJ, A7, AA) – up to 14940 in chips, 11 players remaining. Hand 152: A-k vs A-J, board 10-6-4-7-8 and I’m looking good now: 21630 in chips and I busted the 11th player, so it’s down to the final 10.

Final table
Woot, so I’m sitting at the final table of this lovely tournament. I’m currently fourth in chips and looking forward to see 5 others go. I slow play a little and wait for the second break. Hand 159 lures me into the pot with the chip-leader, I hold..10d-10h, Flop: Jh-Qh-Ah, check, he bets 3k, I call, turn: 9d, he bets 6k, hmm…I ponder and ponder and fold (in retrospect I still wonder what would have happened if I had called to see the river – there are different possibilities: 1. Kh comes up I hold the Royal flush, 2. any other heart and I hold a decent flush, 3. any K or 8 comes up and I hold a nice straight, 4. river is blank and I’m out of another 6k for the turn bet). So I’m down to 14630 in chips and I tighten up, maybe even a bit too much. Hand 173: blinds are raised again to 1500/3000. Hand 175 I hold 9-9, but I’m not willing to call an UTG All-In, sure enough he shows A-K, but flop is: 9-A-5…so I would have flopped the set and would have won the hand, d’oh! Hand 177 there are 7 players remaining. Hand 178: there are 6 players remaining, the chipleader is turning into the push monster. Hand 188: still sitting around with 14630 in chips, I wait for the short-stack to be knocked out, it never happens as he doubles up of the chipleader and yes, I’m the short-stack now. The others are waiting for me to be blinded out or make a move. I don’t catch anything…and when it’s my turn with the BB (which is 4000 now), they pressure me…so I’m left with 2 choices: 1. Fold and be down to 4000 in chips with the 2000SB in the next hand…2. Risk it all….I decide to go with the latter as the player 5th in chips has put me All-In…10-2c for me, K-Qo for him….board is: 7-6-K-2-4 🙁 🙁

Argh! So close and yet so far! After 2h35 minutes, 201 hands played I’m eliminated in 6th position, leaving me without a ticket to the main event and feeling sad, angry and hurt at the same time. How unlucky can you be? – On another note: I had a unusual streak of “good cards” and have never been all-in so many times in any tournament in my life, so I can’t complain about my fortune, but it makes you wonder what you could have done differently, especially in two hands mentioned above (royal flush draw folded on the river, pair of 9s not played). Nontheless it was a good tournament and I genuinely congratulated the other 5 players at the table before heading of to bed (after all it was already way past 5am)…and let me tell you something: I couldn’t get to sleep right away, the cards and decision kept coming back infront of my closed eyes…just thinking about the possibilities this ticket would have brought (after all there’s not only 500.000$ up for grabs, but millions in jackpots)…maybe I’ll try to play enough raked hands to enter another few of those qualifiers…

Now I’m really annoyed with TitanPoker!!!

Support got back to me and told me that there were technical difficulties yesterday, so they offered to enter the players of yesterday’s cancelled tournament to the regular 16ET qualifier and the replacement qualifier at 17ET, sounds fine to me…but then the whole thing was messed up again.

The tournament at 16ET starts and I look down at K-K, All-In from MP, one caller…he shows 8-9h, board is blank…I double up in the first hand (3020), second hand is crap, third hand is A-A, I raise to 300..all fold…argh…up to 3040. The following hands are all crap so I fold. 15th hand of the night is A-Qh so I push reraised All-In, call, he shows 10-10, board is once again blank…down to 1772 chips. 23rd hand A-Jd, All-In one caller, he shows K-Qo, my ace holds up, up to 3384 in chips. No the tournament is frozen…but the time is running and the blinds rise and rise…support message pops up: they’re on it…oh well…how long can it take…a long time…about 30min later play resumes with a jump from level 3 (30/60) to level 6 (100/200)…a short-stack pushes from MP, I look down at A-5 not a major hand but I test him…all-in…he calls…9-9 which holds up…down to 800…great…ooh we’re on break for 5 minutes…a total of 31 hands played…great…I donkey off my last chips after the break to focus on the other tournament (which has already begun and I’m not really good at playing two tourneys at the same time)…so I make an early exit…great… 🙁 🙁 🙁

Stats of the night:

• Players entered in 16ET: 324; Ingoal’s finish: 221
• Players entered in 17ET: 420; Ingoal’s finish: 322

Two thumbs down for this whole thing…Titan is starting to annoy me beyond believe…I’m really thinking about cashing out…

Update:
Now the status for both those tournaments is interrupted/cancelled…maybe they’ll restart it or better reschedule it…I’ll wait for a support message I guess…

After qualifying through playing raked hands (> 50 is minimum, I played > 100) yesterday I was really looking forward to play in the event today (16 ET). So I fired up Titan and registered, just to find the thing cancelled when it was time to start. I really can’t say why it was cancelled yet as there were enough players around (> 300 with a 30 minimum) – I wrote a mail to support, maybe they can enlighten me…

Played some hands on regular money tables today and was able to catch a good run of cards at a 0.25$/0.50$ table (up around 5 dollars), but I guess I sticked around just a little bit too long though (dropping around 6 dollars). Nontheless it might be worth it as I played over 100 raked hands which brings me nearer to clearing my bonus and should give me an entrance to tomorrow’s 100 Million Dollar qualification satellite…I hope I’ll catch some cards tomorrow and make it to the real deal as there’s major cash up for grabs (in the main event tournament: 1 Million $ for a Royal Flush, 750.000$ for a straight flush, 500.000$ for Four Aces or Four Kings, 250.000$ for Four of a Kind Queens, Jacks or tens; even better: if you make it to the final table and hit a Royal Flush of Spades you’re the winner of 100 Million Dollars!!!!! – we all know the odds aren’t really good that anyone will do it, but if there’s a theoretical chance, you never know :-))

It has been a while since I played at Titan and it was a good decision to play a little bit tonight. I went out of my way and didn’t play a S&G or regular tournament, but just good old money play. Play at a 0.10$/0.20$ first and went up around 4$ in no time, couldn’t catch anything for a while so moved on to another table – in this case a 0.05$/0.10$ table as no other 0.10$/0.20$ table was running. Caught some hands early on and was able to stay ahead (+1.20$) until I decided to call it quits for tonight (or this morning as it’s already nearly 4am over here)…nice 🙂

To end my poker day on a low note I decided to play a quick Heads Up match for a buck…and promptly lost…I guess it’s not a good idea to switch from “relaxed” MTT action to heads up…although my scoresheet is still not looking all too bad on Heads Up matches at TitanPoker:

1$: Played/Won/Lost: 25/16/9
2$: Played/Won/Lost: 8/4/4

So I guess what cost me all the money at Titan is the mix of S&Gs and video poker (-6$ alone)…

Played a little S&G and once again got sucked out just outside the money…argh!

Placed 3rd/6 (1$+0.10, top 2 payed)

I just can’t seem to catch a winning run at Titan anymore…

Nothing going my way yesterday or today…can’t believe how unlucky I get sometimes, like in the 1$ S&G (6 players) I get Q-Q and push just to be re-raised all-in, I call and show the Hilton Sisters…just to look down at the Cowboys (K-K), argh!, out in 6th place…

Then I decide to play a little bit heads up (2$) and get both A-A and K-K twice…but to no avail as the opponent doesn’t respond and is sitting out (both times I had A-A) and is folding (both times I had K-K)…nothing major going on for a while then I push and he calls and get’s lucky on the river…out in 2nd place…

Enough Titan for a while…

Played one S&G earlier today and how stupid can you be…finished in 3rd of 6 (top 2 pay)…shouldn’t have pushed when it was bubble time…but hey…you live and learn… 🙁

Played a bigger S&G (2$ + 0.20$) with 20 players, top 5 in the money…finished 14th on a coin-flip…I guess I should rest my Titan account for a few days…not much going my way these days over there…