…just wait till I hit a bad patch again and start going on rant-tilt

For the time being, it’s good to be back…hopefully I’ll keep having fun while playing. Today it started off really good in the donktastic 4 player HU SnGs (3.5$)…can’t believe how bad some of the guys were playing…lol…ABC poker brought me this:

Let’s see how long this feeling and running good will last…I sure hope long, especially as I don’t intend on playing that much poker anymore…so let’s enjoy the moments while they last…

Played a little today, played good…disappointing end when I got kicked in the junk in the final two sngs of the night…one I get it in with AQ vs AJ preflop and get kicked in the junk – so instead of having 6k of the 9k in play, I’m busto…in the other one I get it in four ways with AK preflop against…errm some “random hands”…and instead of having 17k (2nd in chips), I’m down to 4k and out the next hand…oh well…at least my HU SnGs kept me in the black for the session…so I can’t feel all that bad…I’m outtah here…

So…WordPress, my favourite blogging platform got a new release…version 2.6…a painless upgrade later and Poker-tastic.com is running on the newest beast again…oooh the joy….

As for the poker, didn’t play a hand since saturday…maybe I’ll play some tonight…maybe not, we’ll see…

Just testing twitter update with my new mod…using ZZ.GD instead of tinyurl…even smaller link…

Edit: For all the wordpress-users, I just released the plugin, it can be found here

Merry Christmas to all my readers, fellow poker broggers and all poker fans and fanatics around the world. May the hammer be with you…

It’s weird how everytime something REALLY bad happens in the world, you tend to not only remember it for a long time, but also where you were/what you were doing when it happened. I still remember it like it was yesterday. 9/11/01 started out like every other day for me as I was chilling at home during the semester break from uni. I got up in the morning, enjoy my breakfast and newspaper and went on to play some XBox later on. Once I turn on the tv, flipping through the channels looking for nothing special, just zapping, I came to channel 23 (which is CNN on my tv) and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

I sat there in shock as the whole thing was evolving in front of the world’s eyes. As soon as the second plane hit, I knew that there was something horribly wrong…I watched the whole day until there was nothing new to report anymore…friends were calling in to talk about it and we all couldn’t believe what was going on. An attack on the USA? With american planes? In the middle of NY City? Wtf is going on? Is the world gone insane…

As I type this, six years later, I still can’t figure out how someone could do something like this and so all that is left for me is to say: my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their friends and families…may something like this NEVER happen again…

Crosspost from Ingoal.info

Well, well…today was the official donkmaha errm Omaha day. Played some headsup matches in PLO both on Stars and Tilt and despite hitting some quads and what not (not getting payed off because the deck is crippled), my opponents managed to felt me each and every time. 4 matches, 4 big Ls. Beautiful. Money goes in on the flop or turn every time and they’re in “very good” shape every single time: 2outs, 4outs, 6outs, 4outs….against my made hands (two pair or better, usually with at least 6 redraw outs)…but oh well…I guess they were praying in front of the donk mahal or something…

Yesterday, TripJax tagged me with the 7 Things Meme, but I was too tilted to even think about what I could write about…one good night’s sleep later and here it goes: A few days ago TripJax tagged me with the 7 Things… Meme…as I was a little tilted that night and went off to Cologne the following day, I didn’t have the time to do it…but now it’s done…so without further ado…7 (random) things…

1. Once upon a time, more than ten years ago, I was really into martial arts, Karate to be precise. I was pretty good too and I had some even better training partners – one of them has won numerous german and international titles by now. I had training instruction by the then reigning european champion. My specialty were Katas and although I liked Kumite it was the reason I finally quit, after breaking my wrist and almost missing some important stuff at school. I quit with the blue belt (5th Kyu). Karate taught me a lot about patience and self-control.

2. I’m always interested in learning new things. Because of that I’m considered “an expert” (aka the dude who knows something about that) in many areas, particularly in “the geek zone” (everything computer and gadget). That can be a blessing and a curse…if I had a dollar (euro) for every time someone starts a sentence with “Du wie ist denn das mit…” (Hey, do you know how …) I would be mighty rich…

3. Although my written english is considered fair to good by most people, my conversation skills aren’t up to par. The explanation is simple: written – plenty of practice via blogging and working as a mod (sitepoint.com, etc), spoken – no practice. The only time I had to speak english in the last few years was when I had to confirm my address and stuff with Neteller, lol. Oh well, I guess I’ll have the chance to do some brushing up once I finally hit Vegas in the future (after finishing my uni degree, see 6.), hopefully during a WPBT classic and/or the WSOP…

4. I’m a sucker for tv shows and original movies (not translated into german). My favourite tv shows (past and present) include amongst others: Charmed, Buffy, Angel, Dark Angel, er, Las Vegas, Heroes, High Stakes Poker, Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Cops, Pimp My Ride, “reality shows” (Hogan Knows Best, Osbournes, Runs House)…movies are too many to mention. Why do I like to watch the original version of shows/movies? Because most nuances and (inside) jokes are not translatable and so they’re usually translated with the german (language area) equivalent and tbh that takes away from the movies, a lot, at least if you are able to watch and understand the original (e.g. Die Hard “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.” – Stirb langsam “Yippee-ka-jee, Schweinebacke” = “Yippee-ki-yay, pig’s cheeck”…errm doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, now does it. There are many more examples, especially when there are references to current or recent events or persons and they’re totally replace with a german/european equivilant….not good…). …and by just looking at the number of shows I used to watch or watch now, it’s obvious I spend quite some time on the lazy boy, lol…

5. After quitting Karate (and table tennis before that), I picked up football (that’s soccer for the americans). It’s a pretty good way to clear your head after spending most of the day infront of some sort of screen and it’s a really good excercise (as you try to build enough stamina to play 90 minutes). While I’m only involved as a reserve these days (which means pretty rare appearances on sunday’s squad), I still train twice a week (Wed, Fri) and score my goals in training. Football is where my screen name came from, too. It consist of my real life first name (Ingo) and the word goal (Ingo(+)goal ), that’s why I don’t like it when people write about InGoal (as in goal keeper) as that’s not my position, I’m a forward/striker, damn it 😉
As for my team, I’m part of the second team of a club called FC Marbach and after dropping down to the lowest german league a few years ago, we managed to built our team back up. We finished third in the first year. Then second in the second year after the rebuild – we won the relegation match against the higher leagued team and moved up to the next higher league. Then we finished second again last year (we had the same amount of points, but score three goals less, so we didn’t win the championship) and lost the relegation match so we remained in the same league. This year, we’re fighting for the championship again (which would bring us close to our first team, which currently plays two leagues above us). There are two matches left and we’re one point clear in first position. Two Ws will secure us the championship, I just hope that we can pull it of this year as last year was such a disappointment (on top all year, than blowing it in the last three matches). Boy that would/will be a party…

6. Just like many other (poker) bloggers, I’m a software guy. I’m about to finish my university degree (my diploma thesis is about to start and after that I’ll have my degree) at the university of Stuttgart – yes, education at a german university is really lengthy thorough and rarely does anyone do it in less than 5-5 1/2 years. That being said, I really don’t like “coding” all that much, I know how to do it and I can do it, I just don’t like it. I rather do the whole conceptual (architectural) parts and client interaction and let some code monkey do his thing afterwards. Oh well, I’ve spent numerous stints in interesting companies during and prior to studying at university (DaimlerBenz, DaimlerChrysler, Bosch, etc) and started my own little computer (service) business seven years ago…combine that with my grades (which are in the 1.x level (1.0 = best) so far with only the diploma thesis to go) and I should have all the opportunities in the world…at least I hope so…

7. I drive a 1993 VW Golf III, 1.8GL (90hp) and while I like my car and it get’s me from A to B, I’ll probably get a new one once I’m (finally) done with uni. I’m thinking something with a Daimler-star on it (aka Mercedes)…oh well, maybe not, we’ll see…after all gas is getting more and more expensive over here (1l super (95 octane) = 1,4 Euro; 1 gallon = 3.785 liters; 1 gallon = 5,29 Euro ~ 7.12$) and public transportation is a good way to beat traffic and horrendous gas bills, at least during the day…then again, an old car with a bad exhaust gas rating is getting more and more expensive too (yes apart from car insurance and horrendous amounts of gas tax, you also pay horrendous amounts of taxes based on environmental impact your car has and you won’t be able to drive into most inner cities with a bad exhaust gas rating starting next year…), so I’ll need a new(er) car sometime in the near future anyway…

So, there you have it. I guess I should tag some other bloggers, but after looking through most of my blogroll, I couldn’t find anyone not tagged already…so I’m ending the tag-chain here, shame on me…if you’re reading this and you haven’t been tagged with this meme, consider yourself tagged and tell us your 7 Things (we might not know about you)…thank you 🙂

Well, well…no poker content this time, just some random -ev gambling.

After a rather quick 120km drive to Baden-Baden, we, that’s a group of friends and yours truely, arrived right at the casino. Instead of going in right away, we first had a nice dinner in the inner city. After that it was time to gamb00l in the Casino Baden-Baden. Although they got some poker tables, I wasn’t really interested in playing, so it was all about the -ev gambling. Because most tables were really crowded placing your bets wasn’t all that much fun and playing BlackJack was next to impossible. So, in the end I settled on playing roulette for most of the night, only interrupted by some beer drinking at the bar, lol.

Really sick how much money is thrown on the table in general, but even sicker how much money some experts errm system players errrm degenerates place at any given time, sick sick sick. Oh well…I guess they know what they’re doing, or maybe not. In the end, some of my mates scored some nice bets (hitting single numbers like it was nothing), no such luck for me, but hey, I knew that playing total -ev roulette wasn’t a good idea anyway, so I already had the amount I played for in the losing column of my virtual sheet tracking my results…in the end I lost a measly 70 Euro…add to that a nice dinner and some money for gas and you’ve got a nice evening with friends for 100 Euro….not a bad investment at all… 🙂

That being said, I’m more than happy to jump back into poker where the minus in front of the ev isn’t set in stone 😉

…goes into round 3 next monday. High Stakes Poker Season 3. Nice! I thought it was starting this week, but nope, next week it is…so I head over to the HSP3 section on GSN to find out if any new players will be joining the game…and wow…there will be quite some new players:

1. Jesus

2. Phil Ivey

3. Bill Chen

and many others including some of the most recent “big tourney” high finishers like Jamie “Luckbox” Gold (WSOP 2006 winner), Paul Wasicka (WSOP 2006 runner up) and David Williams (WSOP 2004 runner up), …

Really looking forward to see if “tourney players” and/or “flukes” like Gold get their ass handed to ’em in this cash game 🙂