I played 13 NL HE SnGs yesterday, yes 13! The results weren’t all that good, although I managed to place ITM in 2 out of the first 3 and even managed to win one later on. The total score was: 4 ITM (1x 1st, 3x 3rd), 9 times busted (3x bubble, rest bubble +x). So I was already down a bit, so I decided to mix up thing by playing a 5+0.5 PL O8 Sng in which I bubbled, too. Argh.

Then there was the WWdN #13 – I thought that I better made the money to get me back to even, but it wasn’t to be. I had a chat with Garth and Waffles during the whole tourney and we all rooted for each other and wanted to make the final table together. Early on it looked like at least Garth and maybe even Waffles could make it (with both of them in the top 10 in chips), but it just didn’t work out that way.

The tourney saw a record crowd of 125 players, so it was the first time that the final two tables payed, although places 18-10 were “only” 15$ each (that’s not all that much considering the 10+1 buy-in) but 15$ = +4 is better than getting nothing 😉 Early on I was literally card dead with “huge” hands like 2-5o, 3-6o, 3-7o etc. So I folding, folding, folding – which in turn gave me a really tight table image, which should necessarily lead to some opportunities to steal some blinds. That didn’t happen though as there were usually multiple raises in front of me, when I was about to make a move. Then I looked down at my first real hand: K-K, I raise the standard 3xBB and it’s folded to me, woot, I get the blinds…some hands later I look down at A-A, I raise (3xBB again) and all fold, again! Argh! Then I’m back in folding mode with some small pots in between.

After 1h of play:

1. Players remaining: 73 of 125
2. Hi: 9265 (garth was second at that point with 8675, Waffles 8th with 4520)
3. Avg: 2568
4. me: 1343 (53 of 73)
5. Hands dealt: 100
6. Showdown: 2 of 2
7. Pots won without showdown 5

I was back in folding mode as I looked down at Q-Q, now I would usually play this hand in a heartbeat, but there was a raise and reraise in front of me, so I was really undecided. I had the feeling that I shouldn’t play the hand and I was right, I would have been up against 6-6 and A-K and sure enough the Ace hit…Just as I was nearing desperation mode I look down at A-A in the SB, some limpers and one raiser in front of me, so I push and get one caller…he shows A-K, yes sir and I double up. In the very next hand I look down at 9-9 on the button, I make it 4xBB to go…early position reraises me…what to do, what to do…I already commited half my stack, so should I fold…I guess, but I thought he might be on a hand like A-10, A-J or similiar…so I call…he showed AKo…the Ace on the flop sealed my fate and I was out in 44th place.

In related news: Waffles managed to run his stack into the ground even before me and busted out in 54th place, Garth was sucked out on a little later on and busted out in 31st – so no final table for any of us. Congrats to Wes for another top finish (2nd place) and all the others who made the money!

After I busted out we started a sidegame (or two to be precise). The first was a 6Max 0.05/0.10 NL HE table and I quickly joined. Who would want to miss a table with both Wil and CJ? Indeed it was great fun as Wil and CJ went at it right away, announcing their monsters and discussing who’s monster was more “monstrous”…lol…CJ quadrupled his 5$ buy-in within three orbits, I doubled my 4$ buyin as I slowroll trip queens…poor SERNE…Soon after that I switched over to the other sidegame, which to place in more “familiar grounds” at a .01/.02NL table. Soon enough I realized though that it has been a long enough day already as the clock was already approaching 5am…so I called it quits and logged off…

On another note: There were different people liveblogging the event this time, so if you want to have a look at their perspective have a look at the recaps of: Wil, RandomSam and CJ

If you’ve got 11$ to spare and want some good No Limit Hold’em action, play in the WWdN #13 tonight. You can find it via Tourney -> Private (#18610753). The password is: monkey

Logged on to PokerStars and saw that the 5$ rebuy satellite to tomorrow’s 700k guaranteed tournament was about to start, so I hopped in and the wild ride began.

FYI: I’ve never played such a thing before and I really dislike rebuy tourneys as it seems that the more money some ppl throw at it the higher you can get (or fall). So my strategy was clear: no rebuy and no add-on, play tight/solid poker and try to take advantage of the rebuy-donkeys early on an you should be fine.

Sure enough my strategy payed off early on as I was getting some nice hands and the rebuy-donkeys were more than willing to “take a shot” with all sorts of crap shoot hands (like K-2o, etc). The fourth hand I look down at bullets, woot! Two callers, one showing Q-Q and one showing (Q-3), hehe…sure enough I take it down and have a nice stack of 3610T$ (starting chip count 1500T$). The next few hands are blank until I look down at K-K in the 16th hand…I push, but noone wants to deal with me, so I take it down and I am sitting on 4420T$, nice! The 29th hand brings me back to A-A…one caller with 6-6…my bullets shoot him and I’m up to 5980T$ and slowly I’m feeling the rush.

Sidenote: there were two-three rebuy-donkey-monkeys at the table who were on their fourth-fifth buy-in already.

The 31st hand brings me KQd and I check in the BB to find a nice flopped straight, J-10-9 rainbow board, one poor soul pushes and shows trip Jacks…to bad buddy – up to 9110T$. In the 50th hand I hold K-K, also again, and take down a nice pot vs Q-To, up to 14410T$. Shortly after that the first break begins:

• players remaining 447/647
• hi: 33595T$
• avg: 7880T$
• me: 14310T$ (45th of 467)
• Hands dealt: 56
• Showdown: 4 of 4, 1 without showdown

People are adding on like crazy, but I stick to the original plan and don’t buy another 2000T$ for 5$. Nothing much to report from the next hour of play as I’m literally card dead, nontheless I’m able to steal some blinds so not all that much change at the second break:

• players remaining 219/667
• hi: 57153
• avg: 16803
• me: 14560 (107th of 219)
• Hands dealt: 122
• Showdown: 4 of 4, 4 without showdown

As blinds and antes are rising now it’s time to make some moves. In the 137st hand I look down at K-Jo, not great but I limp in to find a J high flop, sure enough I push a little, although the two hearts scare me a little. Opponent calls, turn brings another heart. Hmm…he checks, I check (maybe I should have pushed a little here to see where I was at?!)…he calls. He leads out after the river…I ponder and call as I didn’t think he would slow-roll me, sure enough he did though (with a lovely 9h-2h hand, argh!) – down to 4610T$ and now I’m in a desperate situation.

Sidenote: the guy slow-rolling me busts out in the next hand K-K vs A-A…way to go…argh!

The following hands:

• 140th hand: 7-7, I push, one caller A-J, board 4-7-J-4-6, yeah baby up to 10220T$
• 151st hand: Q-Q, I push, one caller 2-2, board J-J-8-7-6, up to 30098T$
• 161st hand: Ah-9h, I push to pressure a short stack in the BB, sure enough he calls with K-Jo and wins the hand
• 162nd hand: Ac-8c, I push, once again another short-stack thinks K-Jo is good enough and wins the hand…argh! Down to 9803T$
• 167st hand: K-10 is good enough to steal the blinds and antes, up to 11228T$
• 170st hand is the final chapter as my A-10o get no help against J-J, board: K-8-8-9-6

…and I’m out in 118th place – first 21 would have been a ticket to the tourney tomorrow (worth 530$), 22nd would have been 515$. Ah well, I had fun for almost three hours, I guess I just used up my good cards and luck earlier on…

Once again it was time for the weekly WWdN and this time I even remembered that it was indeed already Tuesday again and that the WWdN would take place at the lovely starting time of 20:30 ET (= 02:30am in lovely GMT+1 land). I hesitated just a little before signing up as there were already MANY people signed up and I feared that this one was going to go on for a long time, but this “fear” wasn’t necessary as we shall see later on.

I sat down in the #3 seat on table 4 and only recognized Wes who was sitting in seat #6, said hi and gl to all and cards were in the air. Nothing exciting through the first orbit, but then it happened, the deck was on fire, literally! 😉 I got nice cards and the board matched them (6-6, flop 6-10-x; 10-10, flop 10-x-x; 9-9, flop 9-K-3, turn 3; etc) and the others kept betting into me until the realized that I really had an insane run of cards and it would be best to check in front of me. That’s when I got the first higher pocket pairs (J-J, Q-Q) which brought me the whooping SB+BB, yeehaw. One of the more interesting hands followed, I look down at A-A (on another note: the first in ages) and make it the standard 4xBB to go, only Wes calls. Flop comes down Kc 8d Kh, rainbow nontheless a little scary, I’m going to check it and wait what Wes does, sure enough he fires a shell (150), but does he really have a king? I don’t think so, but I only call, maybe the turn will bring me my boat…nope, no boat, the turn is: Jd. I check again, he checks right behind me and now I think I know I’m good, the river is a lovely 3h so no flush or straight draws after all. I fire out 180 and Wes calls…my A-A hold up. I pick up some more blinds along the way and find myself in a comfortable position of interim second with 4500k.

Most memorable hand of the first hour is the start of my downfall: I get dealt K-K, short stack in front of me pushes All-In (around 470 with BB150), I call – now this is questionable, the right move would have been to go over the top to isolate him, but as we will see as the hand unfolds I would have lost one way or another – one other caller who was commited from early position. The flop is scary for me as it is Qh-Kh-9h, I go into the tank and think and check. He bets out his remaining stack (1k). Now do I really put him on 2 hearts? Not really and I can’t and won’t laydown trip Kings. I call and sure enough he’s on a draw with A-xo the ace is the Ah though…the short-stack shows 5h-5c so he’s beat both ways…the turn is: sure enough a heart, argh! I think I made the correct play, although if I had raise All-In preflop, maybe, and this is a big maybe as this guy was catching and catching and hence calling and raising all the time anyway, I would have only lost the 600 something vs. the 5er heart flush…who knows. So I’m down to 2840 right before the first break.

First break:

1. 45 players remaining (hi: 6615, avg: 2600)
2. hands played: 82
3. showdown: 3 of 4 (see the KK above)
4. pots won without showdown: 7

After the break the tables turned a little on me and I was literally card dead. I guess my early stage run of cards hit the other side of the table as “RandomSam” stomped all over the table winning draw after draw (he really stuck to CJ mojo: 1. get in behind 2. suckout), until he ran into Drizz and another player in consecutive hands to bust out – ouch. I was then moved to a new table and was in a desperate position, either blind out slowly or try to get something going. I tried the latter and was able to steal some bets, before busting out in 28th:

I hold K-Js, I call flop comes J-Q-x, I bet out he raises…hmm…tank time…I’m committed with 1/3 of my stack, should I risk it here? The voice in my head says: don’t be a pussy, he’s trying to push you out! So I listen and push All-In, just to be insta-called by A-A…ouch…damn “Tiltboys style voice” in my head…

Enter the sidegame: Joanne setup a O8 PL table and I played a few orbits:

..but after donking of some chips and winning them back, I realized that it was already to early and my head wasn’t ready to play O8 at almost 5am. So I logged off and went to bed…aaaah sleep.

The final result is here:

As you see Gracie, Garth and Drizz all made it to the final table, woot! I’m looking forward to read a FT recap 🙂

…and finally, finally I made the final table at a blogger tourney! Yes!!!

PokerStars Tournament #18186252, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
67 players
Total Prize Pool: $670.00
Tournament started – 2006/01/17 – 20:30:00 (ET)
Dear Ingoal,
You finished the tournament in 5th place.
A $53.60 award has been credited to your Real Money account.
Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

After a little back and forth and a nice comeback by barclay1701, Bad Blood finished him off and took down 1st place. Congrats! Here’s the final result:

On another note:

1. 3rd place is marked in the pic above as I was aiming for that a the beginning of the tournament and forgot to change it to fifth once I busted out.
2. Thanks to Sires for railbirding in the ft chat and reminding me that the tourney would even take place. Thanks to Waffles for railbirding on yahoo chat (it was reciprocal railbirding as he was encouraging me during my tourney (WWdN 10) while I cheered him on in his tourney (O8 tourney at FTP)).

Update: Wil has a nice write-up about the tourney over at cardsquad*, I didn’t know that he was live-blogging the event, cool! Check 8:18pm (river suckout time) and “8:34 PM – Ingoal pushed with AT, OzCDN called with QJc, and paired his queen on the flop. Ingoal paired his T on the river, but it wasn’t enough, and he goes out in 5th. Great game, Ingoal!”* – Thanks Wil, I enjoyed to play once again. See you at the tables next week!

…and a not totally satisfying 9th place finish.

60 players had entered the 5$ Omaha H/L Fixed Limit tourney and I was really looking forward to yet another good session of Omahatastic Poker. Early on I was establishing myself as the table-captain and long time chipleader. Then I almost donked of all my chips in 2 hands and was desperate with a not all that good hand of J-9-4-5, the J-9 connected for a nifty boat on the river though and so I was back in good shape. Then, as we approached the bubble, I asked myself: continue to play like you did the whole tourney or stall? I did the latter and barely made the final table being desperately short-stacked, but hey, at least I was in the money…and in the BB immediatly (800 – my stack 2400), so I pushed with my A-K-4-8 but couldn’t connect for the high or low (as I lost to a A-3-x-x hand). So I’m out in 9th place, not too good, not too bad and I’m back in business (given my micro bankroll at AP).

So, it was gamb00ling time this morning as the DADI Special Omalympics tournament was held over at PokerStars. The “fear” of Jordan and others that there would be significantly less players than in the inaugural DADI event (NL HE) was totally unnecessary as 47 players tried their luck with Omaha 8b PL and I think, at least, most of ’em – including me – had fun.

First newsworthy thing: It took over 20 minutes before the first player busted out. I think that’s a new record for any blogger tournament (?!), although it’s pretty normal in split games (with a High and (possible) low pot).

As for myself, it took a little over 2h for me to bust out, just prior to the second break for my highest finish in blogger tournaments so far: 14th place, just 5 shy of the final table and the money (previous high finish was 17th in a WWdN thursday tourney). I was kind of short-stacked (a little over 2k chips) and looked down at A-A-K-7…here’s what went down:

Table ‘17497958 7’ Seat #3 is the button

Seat 1: yosoyveneno (8282 in chips)

Seat 2: ZeemJr (3582 in chips)

Seat 3: mowenumdown (5881 in chips)

Seat 5: Jestocost (8669 in chips)

Seat 6: Ingoal (2412 in chips)

Seat 7: dbirider16 (12187 in chips)

Seat 9: SirFWALGMan (3861 in chips)

Jestocost: posts small blind 200

Ingoal: posts big blind 400

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Ingoal [7c Kc As Ac]

dbirider16: folds

SirFWALGMan: folds

yosoyveneno: raises 400 to 800

ZeemJr: folds

mowenumdown: folds

Jestocost: folds

Ingoal said, “hmm…i got the antidote!”

Ingoal: raises 1612 to 2412 and is all-in

yosoyveneno: calls 1612

Jestocost said, “That no chat during an all-in feature is about the most annoying thing”

*** FLOP *** [5d Qs 8d]

*** TURN *** [5d Qs 8d] [4c]

*** RIVER *** [5d Qs 8d 4c] [9d]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

Ingoal: shows [7c Kc As Ac] (HI: a pair of Aces; LO: 8,7,5,4,A)

yosoyveneno: shows [7h Ah Kh 6s] (HI: a straight, Five to Nine; LO: 8,6,5,4,A)

yosoyveneno collected 2512 from pot

So I was basically dead at the turn and double dead on the river as veneno’s OESD hit on both ends. Not really a bad beat, after all Omaha 8b is all about draw/re-draw/re-redraw, so I wasn’t too frustrated. If my hand would have held up (for the high) it would have been a split pot nontheless, so I would have been stuck in the same situation again.

My summary:
Ups:

1. Playing with some really great people (including but not limited to: Daddy, Iggy, SirFWALGMan, veneno, Garthmeister, BoobieLover, …)
2. Playing solid poker all night (playing the (possible) nuts extremely aggressive, not taking any chances with possible second best hands etc – see stats below)
3. Chatting with some of the guys and gals on yahoo during the tournament!
4. Having a good time!

Downs:

1. Not reaching the final table, yet again…
2. Staying awake till after 5am can really screw up the following day 😉

Stats:

You finished in 14th place (eliminated at hand #3608628522).

166 hands played and saw flop:

– 7 times out of 21 while in small blind (33%)

– 11 times out of 22 while in big blind (50%)

– 15 times out of 123 in other positions (12%)

– a total of 33 times out of 166 (19%)

Pots won at showdown – 6 out of 9 (66%)

Pots won without showdown – 16

See you all at the tables next time…maybe even very soon (April’s HORSE tourney at FTP – I would need to learn RAZZ first though…hmm…we’ll see…)

Oooh what a day. Played an even wider mix of games today in order to, hopefully, get my bankroll (which was micro to begin with) at AbsolutePoker back from life-support. I played in various HE games ranging from fixed limit 0.10$/0.20$ to 0.10$ NL along with the usual session of Omaha H/L. I couldn’t get much going and so I decided that it would be a good idea to play some S&Gs.

Good idea. I won the Omaha H/L one, bubbled in a HE NL and finished outside the money in the other one. Nontheless some solid playing time without risking too much. I guess going with multiple S&Gs Omaha 8b is the way to go if I want to rescue the remaining few dollars there.

So that’s what I’m going to do! Either I run up my bankroll at AP over the cashout threshold or I go bust…whatever…it doesn’t get me anywhere anyways…the ring games are just too tough (either you play against the calling stations hustling for a (re-re-)draw all the time – after all you can’t push a calling station out of a pot especially in limit or low-limit PL and even if the cards fall your way some of the time, it’s not enough to seriously build up your stack – or you face a NL crowd with a fat roll…you just can’t survive with a minimal bankroll…at least I can’t atm)…

But enough reporting/ranting…I’m going to watch the final table of the “Battleship at Atlantis” Heads Up tourney now…should be interesting!

Side Note: the main event of the PCA is a done deal, check out Brad’s (Otis’) coverage here if you haven’t already. Spoiler: 22 year old student and PokerStars regular Steve Paul-Ambrose has won the thing…1.363.100$ + the WPT championship seat (25k$) not a bad pay-day for a student(!), ka-ching!

So, it has been confirmed. The second DADI event is set to go and his time it’s not going to be a Hold’em event, but Omaha 8b PL! Woohoo! The tournament is already available for early registration and can be found via: PokerStars -> Tourney -> Private (#17497958). So spread the word and see you at the tables…(Side note: don’t wonder, I might be talking about “good morning”, “coffee anyone” or similiar topics as the start time of 9pm ET is 3am on thursday morning in my time zone 😉 ).

All additional infos in the pic below. Hat tip to Jordan and TripJax

I’m about to play the thurdays blogger tourney of Wil Wheaton. This is going to be the last one this year and my third poker blogger tourney in total so far (1x DrPauly (finished 42nd), 1x DADI (finished 35th), 1x WWdN) – and they have been totally -ev so far, but hey at least it’s a guaranteed good time 🙂 . I guess I better get myself a cup of coffee as it’s almost 4am already over here 😉

Update: I keep improving, not in the money though…finished 17th when my desperate All-In with pocket sixes was called by A-Q…the J-4-A-A-9 didn’t help me either 😉

Update #2: At least I lasted a little longer than some of my favourite bloggers (AlCantHang, DrPauly, CJ (Up4Poker), Iggy, etc), but I still made some crucial errors which basically setup my downfall:

1. I played waaaaay too tight. I layed down some decent drawing hands (K-10, Q-J) as I didn’t want to commit myself too much to a pot – which is quite hard when there’s only about 1 out of 20 where you’ll get a free flop (just BB to call)…to prove that point I just need to look at the statistics (39 hands played and saw flop: a total of 15 times out of 139 (10%))…so I basically just played 10% of all hands I was dealt…that’s way too tight to succeed.
2. I didn’t have much help on the board when I was in a pot…when you’re looking down at suited big slick (Ah-Kh) or suited As-Qs and the flop is J high or even lower on the second one, and no rainbow either and your opponent leads out with around half your stack, what are you supposed to do? Pray that (s)he’s got nothing on his/her hands, hope for the Ace to drop? It’s tough especially in a MTT…
3. I didn’t play aggressive enough…Just have a look at 2., specifically in those two hands it probably wouldn’t even have come this far if I made a decent preflop raise, but no, I need to limp in…which comes back and bites me

All in all my best performance so far in any of the blogger tournaments I played in – ranking wise with 17th place. I’ve played better poker in prior blogger tournaments though and I’ve been a little bit luckier when it comes to starting hands, too (once again I held some pairs, J-J twice, 7-7, 4-4, but no Q-Q, K-K or A-A). So I guess I’ll be trying to apply some changes next time I play in a WWdN event or in the Omahatards event (whatever happens earlier) and we’ll see if I can make the final jump (reaching the final table).

Side note: I was really happy to find the host himself, Wil Wheaton, at my starting table. Now I can finally brag to my friends how I played with/against a Team PokerStars member, who’s also a famous actor (who doesn’t remember Wil as Gordie in “Stand by me” or even better as Wesley Crusher in my 2nd favourite Star Trek series TNG (sorry, but my favourite series is DS9))…wooohooo! 🙂