…well, not quite yet, still another week of work before I’m free to celebrate christmas, the new year and get myself in the hunt for my diploma thesis. So, the “good to be back” refers to my game 😉

I started the evening with a token satellite on Full Tilt. Well, let’s just say that the first hand was the last one too. I just couldn’t get away from the hand, although all the signs were there – min raise preflop, reraise on the flop…I guess I was a little too excited about flopping two pair…oh well…

After that disappointment I took a seat at some crazy HA tables. It’s really surprising how many players are playing these without having the first clue about Omaha, lol. Still couldn’t start a bigger running and dropped a buyin. Not all that good.

So I fired up bodog and played some HU SnGs. Won the first two, then lost the next two. That really sucked, so I decided to quit HU for the night and as I checked the MTT tab I saw that the 2.5k guaranteed was about to start. The low buyin of 7$ + 0,50$ made the decision even easier.

Hours played: roughly 3.5

Times I was all-in and at risk: twice, early with a flip AK vs JJ…and then in the last hand..but more about that one below.

So I bumped and grinded and sometimes I really got a rush of cards (I must have held AA about four times, QQ about five times and some other lower pairs, but apart from that, well…not much). I had one goal for this tourney:

[Guess 1] Make money – nope

[Guess 2] Get down to last x players – nope

[Guess 3] Not get sucked out on – nope

The correct answer is: make correct decisions – and it worked out pretty good. It’s weird how sometimes a little pointer “back to basics” can really help you find your game again. After plowing through Super System II (highly recommended, but it’s sooo full of concepts and numerous games that you will have to read, re-read and re-re-read it on a regular basis), I started to read my next poker book entitled Pauly’s blog errm “The Tao of Poker”. It’s a set of 285 rules to “transform your game”. Well, I don’t know about the transformation part, but they certainly help. I only read the first 25 or something so far, as I said, I started to read it last night and I gotta get some sleep sometime, so can’t be reading all night. The first ones were really basic, but although you know all the concepts/ideas/rules (know when you’re beat; poker is a grind; ..) are clear and you probably have them all inside your head, but re-reading them really helps as they can’t get lost and/or blocked by other thoughts like “yeeehaaaw…donkey’s catch all the time, let me try this”…

But back to the tourney. There were 319 entrants, so the final four tables are ITM. As I already said, I went on a little rush early, before hovering around average most of the time. There are really only two hands I regret: one was when I bluffed off half my stack when we were about to get down to the last 3 tables. The last one was the last hand…at the final table 🙂 🙁

Yes, the final table…

…about time I saw one of these again. It’s been a while. (Side note: Don’t be fooled by the hand stats, this is for the whole session, so roughly the first 100 hands of that were HU with my usual 80+% flops seen)

Within the first orbit I busted though. After the first player was knocked out in the second hand of the final table, I was eager to play my AQo from LP…and why do I regret this hand?

[1] Remember the old “don’t go broke with a Queen in your hand”-mantra? It’s what crossed my mind before I raised preflop.

[2] I still had a chance to get away from the hand after the flop. Although the roughly 17k with 1k/2k blinds and 200$ antes would have forced me to make a move soon after that anyway (I started the hand with just under 23k, standard 3xBB preflop raise).

As you can see in the following screenshot, the flop came down Kc, 4d, Qc and my opponent insta-over-pushes. Well, what could he be pushing with? What was he calling with preflop? Basically it could have been any two cards preflop (BB, big stack), but after the push I should have believed the hand he claimed (Kx, maybe even with a flush draw) and waited for a better spot (within the next 8-10 hands). But oh well…I called and he showed KJ…turn K…river…K…them quads beetches! At least I lost to a really good hand…

Out in 8th of 319. I’m cool with that. Needless to say that I would have loved to move up some spots as the payout were starting to be really cool in the higher final table spots (1st – 625$, 2nd – 400$, 3rd – 277,50$, ..)…but hey…as I said earlier on, this one wasn’t for the money, it was for my mental game health – if there’s such a thing 😉

It’s still a few days away, but as it’s $24+2 or a Tier one token, it’s time to pimp the shit out of it. Get your tokens, fight the power. 6 handed power poker, baby.

(Side note: as it’s on a thursday night – which is 3am friday morning around here, I might not be playing 🙁 )

Yesterday we finally made it to the live tables again. It was really fun to hang out with the guys and the chipslinging and card-flinging was in full effect all night…I actually made my way home at close to 5am. That was the joy part…the no joy part was evolving in the games itself…

I chipped up early when I flopped a straight, which held up. From there on it was a grind as my chip-stack went on a roller coaster ride…up…and down…and up…and down…and down and down…it was not so much my bad cards (I actually held AA, KK, 1010, 99, 88 and 66 throughout the evening, but couldn’t capitalize on most of the hands as my opponents had next to nothing….and apart from those hands the old “keep missing flop”-dilemma was in full effect)…

In the end my exit was pretty cool and pretty fucked up at the same time: I look down at Q9 s0000ted…I’m UTG and push my remaining stack in the middle and the table goes fold, fold, hmmm….call…he shows 10c8c….alrighty then…double me up baby…flop Jc9c7c…I push the chips to my opponent and stand up as a meaningless queen hits the turn…

Then it was sidegame time and some weird hands happened to me again…let’s just say that the timing of these hands was not in my favour….I hold 8h9h…flop comes QA9…heads up pot…my opponent, who had min-raised preflop, checks…now I’m thinking…probably AK/AQ in his hand…if I catch another nine I’m probably stacking him…turn 9…he checks I bet he calls…river x…he pushes…now he’s either done a nice slowplay and my range I put him on was wrong or I got him…as the pot is laying me over 3:1 anyway I have to call…he shows QQ for the boat…

After that sidegame was done we played yet another one…and damn me, one-card-straights are ugly, especially if they’re gutshots and yes, the seemed to come EVERY time yesterday…I flop Kings up fire…call…turn makes the straight…unlucky me…I flop pair of Queens…fire..call…turn gives me queens up…fire…call…river makes the straight…hmm…another three-outer…boom! Headshot!…

Oh well…at least I had a great time 🙂

Wow, when I went to sleep last night they were playing….now I get up and they’re still playing. Almost 12hours in and then final table is underway…nice.

Let’s see if they strike a deal or if someone really walks away with 1.15 million…

Update: Almost 13hours in and the remaining six players are talking about a chip-chop…

Lee Jones [PokerRoom Manager]: area23: $620,194
Lee Jones [PokerRoom Manager]: godfather: $540,793
Lee Jones [PokerRoom Manager]: Numie: $600,042
Lee Jones [PokerRoom Manager]: DEEZZ: $353,164
Lee Jones [PokerRoom Manager]: hannibal: $400,581
Lee Jones [PokerRoom Manager]: Lefort: $417,734
…and it’s finally a done deal…50k + the bracelet still up for grabs…

Just as I was about to submit a lovely post about DADI9 and how the poker dealers/gods crapped on my head again, the server foobared and the post was gone 🙁

As I’m too lazy to retype everything again, here’s a wrap-up:

DADI9 tonight! Be there or be squared! …Unfortunately I’ll be squared as my new real-life commitment (internship) has me on a new schedule, which is more related to my actual timezone, so poker tourneys at 3 in the morning (which is 9pm ET) are out of the picture for the time being 🙁

Have fun, nontheless and don’t let the donkey…errrm…horse kick you 😉

Attention:

1. DADI9 moved to FullTilt, so don’t wonder that you can’t find it on PokerStars 😉

2. The password is pokertrust

I finished the original post with a rant about how the dealer/poker god crapped on my head again (set over set, set to straight, etc)…I hope to be reporting better news soonish, after all I can’t lose all those monsters in the long run 😉

…in the live game. Tonight we played our home game – about time we got together to throw some chips and cards around again. I drew a seat at table two along with Mr. Luckbox and our resident maniac (aka “The Host”) to start off the tourney. Not a bad deal as I had position on both of em. The best hand I’ve seen all night was AA in LP in the first hand, which didn’t give me all that much.

After a long back and forth battle we were finally down to the last 6 (on both tables combined) and the outlook was rather grim: From our table I was one of the last three players standing, but the chipcount was rather disheartening: Me – 7.2 Euro, Player 2 – 3.2 Euro, “Luckbox” 109.6 Euro, yikes…

So it was pretty obvious that I didn’t have much options at the final table – the blinds at 1 .2 / 2.4 Euro with a .30 Euro ante. I drew a nice seat, but I was the first BB…I look down at AsQs and watch the situation unfold…Player 2 (from my first table) calls the BB and has got .80 Euro left…Player 3 calls…Player 4 and 5 fold…I push….both player 2 and 3 call…they show..AKo and AKo…wtf????!!!! No help on the board, Player 2 and 3 split the pot and I’m eliminated…damn! Even better: Player 2 went on to win the whole thing…an amazing run of cards I would assume, as coming back from 3.2 Euro with 240 Euro being in play isn’t your everyday display of superior skills 😉

After I busted out of the Main Tourney I sat down at the second chance tourney and did quite well, but in the end I just couldn’t catch anything when I needed it, so I busted out fourth (2 ITM)…overall not a good result, but at least I played my A-Game….the cards just didn’t fall my way…

Wheeeeeeeee! DADI 9 has just been announced. The newest edition is called “Back in the saddle”. Why? Because it’s HORSE. Nice! You gotta love the banner too:

I’m still laughing at the donk on the horse and the first thing that came to my mind while looking at it: the true catchphrase for this tourney should be: Heeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaw meets yeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw! 😀

For further information and updates, just checkout the DADI homepage…

Played the WWdN tonight and once again did not fare all that bad. I would say that it was the elevator tourney for me – straight up at first, then someone cut the wires and doooooooown we go. Final hand was my typical exit: a coinflip, what else is new? AKs vs QQ…boom headshot…out in 29th.

Thoughts about my play tonight: can’t find a bigger mistake I made, what stood out was the fact that I didn’t have a hand when I was in the BB after level 1. I mean it’s easy to call 60 chips or something in the beginning (standard 3x raise), but in the later stages I won’t call of that much with the hands I held in the BB (short, but representative selection: 103o, 104o, 83o, 94o, 23o, 24o, 75o, …). So all in all a nice tourney yet again with Kat, surf, hoy and numerous others at my table with the usual finish – I don’t have exact notes, but I think that I busted out of the WWdN (and brogger tourneys in general) in the last 8 out of 10 times. Damn you rigged coin 😉

Token in hand, satellite to qualifier about to start, nothing else to do, let’s go 🙂

80 entered, Top 5 go ahead to tonight’s qualifier, 3 other places receive cash. I like those chances. Up and down, up and down…final two tables, AJ on the button, BB thinks his hand is good…

…and of course he’s right, at least they were s00ted…out in 15th place, yuck 🙁

Man, you wouldn’t even believe how long a friggin SnG can take if everybody, and I mean everybody literally, is a total rock at the table. I tried to switch my style accordingly, but it’s a dance on the razor’s edge as mr. rock x..y will play his Aces just like his old limping ass hand. Sometimes I doubt the randomness of the shuffle and while I know that that’s bs it’s sometimes the only way to cope with the shit, just put it on the rigged deck, lol. I can’t count the number of times I waited for good cards tonight just to push them right into the nuts and I’m not even counting the vicious dominated hand-suckouts (AK vs AA three times, AQ vs AK two times, etc, and  as sure as hell (one of the) case ace(s) showed up every friggin time). Anyway, so I was able to win one nontheless and score a third place to end the SnG session just a little down for the day. Not bad, so I jump into a MTT and the same shit happens. So I decided that tournament poker was not very kind to me today, so ring game time it was.

Donk around a little on the NL10 tables, but was quickly bored with the scared folks folding even to minor bets. So I jumped into some NL25 action and came out ahead by a longshot. Nice one, especially the one hand I stacked a player flop J93 rainbow, he checks I bet, he calls, turn is another J,  he pushes…now he either has the case Jack (with a hopefully worse kicker, which is not playing) or a boat. I call…he shows QJ, I show KJ, river is blank. So all in all a nice session tonight and I’m a step closer to getting the 200 points I need to clear the PSO bonus (9000 points).

I didn’t have the time to finish up a long ass post which I started yesterday, hopefully I’ll have the time to finish it soon – it’s working title is “The Poker Preacher (Part II)”…should be interesting to read, at least I think so, so stayed tuned…