It’s been a while since I’ve been happy with the results of a poker-session. Tonight the long wait is finally over, finally won something again. Played a double-shootout to the Sunday Million (8,8$, 6max, 36 players; 1st = ticket). I think I was “destined” to win it. Why? Because I won the first table after 61 hands on a coin-flip (33 vs KQ), now don’t get me wrong, even if I lose that pot we’re back to even, so no worries about taking the flip…although I rarely won one when it matters recently…

The second table was starting out pretty rocky. Not surprising as 6th is bubble. So once we lost the first player play opened up a little. I sat back and waited for my chance, picking up some smaller pots along the way, c-betting after a preflop raise. Then I found pocket tens in LP and popped it. Setup: 3 players are about even (around 2.2k) including me, 2 are rather short (one less than 1k, one slightly above 1k). BB, one of the other big stacks, calls. Flops comes down ten-high with two diamonds. He checks. I lead at it with pot. He calls. Turn is an off-suit queen. He checks again. I bet pot again, commiting myself and putting him to a decision. He pushes over the top with around 250. I instacall. He shows Ad5d. Please no diamond! No diamond on the river and he’s crippled. I bust two players in the next two orbits and we’re down to three with one shorty. My opponent busts the shorty and we’re headsup.

Stab stab, jab jab. I think it was the fourth or fifth hand of hands up when I find KcQc on the button. I pop it, he calls. Flop comes down K-high with two spades. He checks, I bet, he calls. Turn offsuit 9. He checks, I bet, he pushes. Hmmm….I’m pretty much committed at that point and I think I have the best of it, call. He shows K9…f00k me, but at least I got outs with the board being KT89 – so any queen and jack…not much…but please baby, let me resuck one time. River Jack! Boooom! It seems sometimes there is justice in poker….so I’m up T$ 215 for that baby and out of here with a grin…

What else can I say, two things happened tonight….

1. I got kicked in the junk so hard, my sack is going to hurt for another week I guess. It was pretty unreal, I made good call/bet/raise and read after another and got fucked on all of them. Sure..3 outs is plenty…or not…tonight it was more than enough to kick me in the junk.

2. I hit my first (real) royal flush ever. It only took me nearly 3 years of insane online play to hit one…

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Seat 1: il Priore ($2470)
Seat 2: spartana82 ($2160) –
Seat 3: Ingoal ($1760) –
Seat 4: n0valogick ($1260) –
Seat 5: gmu 6 ($1125)
Seat 6: knowjack ($225)

PRE-FLOP:

Ingoal posts small blind $15
n0valogick posts BIG blind $30
Dealt To: Ingoal

CALL gmu 6 ($30)
FOLD knowjack
CALL il Priore ($30)
CALL spartana82 ($30)
CALL Ingoal ($15)
CHECK n0valogick

FLOP:

Pot: $150
   

CHECK Ingoal
CHECK n0valogick
CHECK gmu 6
CHECK il Priore
CHECK spartana82

TURN:

Pot: $150
     

CHECK Ingoal
CHECK n0valogick
BET gmu 6 ($240)
FOLD il Priore
FOLD spartana82
CALL Ingoal ($240)
FOLD n0valogick

RIVER:

Pot: $630
      

BET Ingoal ($150)
CALL gmu 6 ($150)

SHOWDOWN:
Ingoal:

MUCK gmu 6

Ingoal collected $930 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $930 Rake: $0

Final Board:
     

Seat 1: il Priore folded on the Turn – Net Gain/Loss: ($-30)
Seat 2: spartana82 button folded on the Turn – Net Gain/Loss: ($-30)
Seat 3: Ingoal small blind showed [4d Kd] and won 930 with a Royal Flush – Net Gain/Loss: ($510)
Seat 4: n0valogick big blind folded on the Turn – Net Gain/Loss: ($-30)
Seat 5: gmu 6 mucked [Th Tc] – Net Gain/Loss: ($-420)
  
Seat 6: knowjack folded before Flop didnt bet – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

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First session: this morning, some NL cash and 8 NL HE SnGs…mostly good…3x1st 2x2nd in the SnGs….slightly up in the cash game.

Second session: this evening, 8 NL HE SnGs…1x 2nd…that’s it…the other time I totally lost it. I basically ran into more coolers than I’ve ever seen. Sure, there was the one or other bad play in between, but every time a big pot came down, it was pretty much a hand that automatically plays itself. QQ vs KK…JJ vs AA…along with some coinflips of which I won the grand sum of 0.00000000000. Pretty sick. Especially sick was one game where a donk ran so hard over the table that it was a done deal within 15 hands. He sucked out on two fellas in the first hand. Down to for. I was next along with another player…I had the best hand going in…He busted us both….headsup took two hands before he sucked out and won. I’ve never ever seen such a SnG before where a player ships it into the middle behind on every god damn hand and wins em all…he made CJ look like the unluckiest player alive…

Random bubble hand (the usual in the second session):

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Seat 3: 11p0wner ($1965) –
Seat 5: xamou ($3615) –
Seat 6: Ingoal ($3420) –

PRE-FLOP:

xamou posts small blind $50
Ingoal posts BIG blind $100
Dealt To: Ingoal

FOLD 11p0wner
CALL xamou ($50)
CHECK Ingoal

FLOP:

Pot: $200
   

CHECK xamou
CHECK Ingoal

TURN:

Pot: $200
     

BET xamou ($100)
RAISE Ingoal ($200)
RAISE xamou ($300)
RAISE Ingoal ($400)
RAISE xamou ($3515)
CALL Ingoal ($2920)

RIVER:

Pot: $7635
      

SHOWDOWN:
xamou:

Ingoal:

xamou collected $6840 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $6840 Rake: $0

Final Board:
     

Seat 3: 11p0wner button folded before Flop didnt bet – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: xamou small blind showed [Ac Kd] and won 6840 with three of a kind, Aces – Net Gain/Loss: ($3520)
  
Seat 6: Ingoal big blind showed [As 5s] and lost with three of a kind, Aces – Net Gain/Loss: ($-3420)

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I was pretty satisfied with my play tonight…especially amusing was the last HU match though. I play against a pretty aggressive player. So I limp on the button with KK awaiting his pop…he obliges and I repop him….he repops me…hmm…I repop him…he shoves…no way I can fold…I commited myself after the repop….sure enough he shows Aces….as I say “nice cooler…gg”…he laughs….the laughing stops when the king hits the river. I say sorry and he goes ahead and berates me how he would have folded my hand preflop. Yeeeeeeah, right. If I ever meet a person that will fold Kings headsup in a 6$ tourney, I’ll let you know.

Moving on…I did a little catching up tonight…it’s been over a week that I had listenen to my favourite poker podcast (anteup)…to my surprise episode 159 was the last one…at least in the current setting. Chris and Scott are moving on…leaving the St. Petersburg Times to start their own poker magazine “Ante Up Magazine“…they said they’ll continue the podcast over there…I sure hope they do…but we’ll see if the “startup” is leaving them enough time to do it…we’ll see…I’m outta here…gl at the tables everyone….

*lol* where ppl can call pot-sized bets preflop, on the flop, on the turn and on the river….pretty nice…especially if you lose with trip aces…then the very next hand same deal, this time it’s pot-sized bets preflop, on the flop and on the turn (all-in) and you get call by TP and a gutshot against your Aces with the nut-flush draw…sure enough the gutterball hits on the river….*lol*…that’s so sick that I can laugh really hard about it…

Apart from that I went 2:1 in HU SnGs…and enjoyed myself listening to PokerRoad’s Crew (including Annette_15) ribbing my main man smokkee about his WSOP backing deal…who pitched it to them? The Smokkeester himself :p

Good night and gl at the tables….

That pretty much sums it up. It was pretty unreal what kind of hands came down tonight and I’m not talking about “some coolers”, it was like it was anarctica day – going both ways. It started on bodog where I donked around a little on the HU-SnG-killing-fields. I toasted a donk twice, he literally had no chance, I mean it was pretty sick how he payed me off even with his worst hands. It took quite a while to bust him though as he kept hitting two and three outers on my ass, but oh well, a W is a W and such a W is even sweeter because I didn’t let it get to me during play (not calling shoves etc, but continuing to play small-ball until I busted him). Then I jumped to Stars where I started with A HU SnG as well, busted the guy pretty quickly.

In the end I finished the session with a Double-Shootout to the Sunday Million on Stars…and it was an interesting match. I got coolered in the mid stages of the first table, then coolered the player right back in the next hand (QQ vs AA…Q on the flop…boom)…in the end I won the table.

Then came the second table and while the table was tighter than a virgin’s punani to begin with, it tightened up even more once we were on the money bubble (8 left, 7 payed). That’s when this hand came down. In retrospect I guess I could have folded after the big-stack cold-called my raise and the following shove by the shorty, then again, if they are both drawing to a flush or hold TPTK or something I’m golden and the only way I’m out of the money is if the shorty wins the hand and the big stack has my hand beat and on the upside, if I win the hand I’m the chipleader by a long-shot and can start to bully ppl around bringing me closer to the 215T$. So I went with it. Made my boat on the turn, but too bad that the big stack indeed held a set…making him a bigger boat…oh well…

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Seat 1: kent2ben ($1573)
Seat 3: bertbarndoor ($1692)
Seat 5: mistery31000 ($900)
Seat 6: dedor ($2495) –
Seat 7: zwerg12 ($2010) –
Seat 8: Ingoal ($1795) –
Seat 9: AnotherTran ($1210)
Seat 10: eltigre666 ($3325)

PRE-FLOP:

zwerg12 posts small blind $25
Ingoal posts BIG blind $50
Dealt To: Ingoal

RAISE AnotherTran ($100)
CALL eltigre666 ($100)
FOLD kent2ben
FOLD bertbarndoor
FOLD mistery31000
FOLD dedor
FOLD zwerg12
CALL Ingoal ($50)

FLOP:

Pot: $325
   

CHECK Ingoal
CHECK AnotherTran
BET eltigre666 ($300)
RAISE Ingoal ($600)
RAISE AnotherTran ($1110)
CALL eltigre666 ($810)
RAISE Ingoal ($1695)
CALL eltigre666 ($585)

TURN:

Pot: $5425
     

RIVER:

Pot: $5425
      

SHOWDOWN:
Ingoal:

eltigre666:

AnotherTran:

eltigre666 collected $1170 from side pot 1eltigre666 collected $3655 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $4825Main pot: $3655
Side pot: $1170
Rake: $0

Final Board:
     

Seat 1: kent2ben folded before Flop didnt bet – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: bertbarndoor folded before Flop didnt bet – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: mistery31000 folded before Flop didnt bet – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: dedor button folded before Flop didnt bet – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 7: zwerg12 small blind folded before Flop – Net Gain/Loss: ($-25)
Seat 8: Ingoal big blind showed [7d 4d] and lost with a full house, Fours full of Sevens – Net Gain/Loss: ($-1285)
Seat 9: AnotherTran showed [Ks As] and lost with two pair, Aces and Fours – Net Gain/Loss: ($-1160)
  
Seat 10: eltigre666 showed [5h 5s] and won 4825 with a full house, Fives full of Fours – Net Gain/Loss: ($3030)
  

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So I’m logging off up a little…and I’m happy with that…gl at the tables….

…as I’m still on the mini-hiatus, calming down a little, regrouping…don’t worry though, I’ll be back soon enough, once I get “the itch” again.

Not playing doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about the game or in this case reading about the game. I just finished Tom Schneider’s book “Oops I won too much money…”. I gotta say it’s one of the few books that I read cover to cover in less than two days. I did that not because it doesn’t contain much – well it’s not strategy book like the book I read before this one (NL Hold’em Theory & Practice) – it does contain a lot, but not strictly poker strategy…the book is made up of 60+ little chapters covering various aspects of poker/business/life…and every chapter has a lesson….really entertaining, at times funny, too and overall a really enjoyable book. I can recommend it…

Next up on my reading list is Johnny Hughes’ “Texas Poker Wisdom – A novel”…you see, my poker library is growing and growing…that’s all for today, I’m off to sweat the (german) Luckbox at the Stud8 WC final table…Poker-News.com-coverage making that possible….double thumbs up…gl at the tables and stand by for “real poker content” – it shouldn’t be long 🙄 😉

If so, and I’m talking about playing RAZZ with poker bloggers here, make sure you check out Brickin the nutz (just click on the pic below) to find all the details about the new 200+16$ KORS…

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This whole SnG grinding thing is really starting to get me. It’s not so much the hours, the dedication or the frustration, it’s the realisation that you can only be profitable if you get a few less junk-kicks than you’re willing to hand out, that and the fact that the rake (“tourney fee”) keeps eating you up when you try to grind it out in the low-end of the pond.

I know that everyone is about to be fed up with the constant whining and complaining – after all all sorts of beats are part of the game – yeah, well, easy to acknowledge and to deal with it if you’re sitting on a good roll. I’m not, so it’s tougher, maybe even tougher than you are realizing. It really eats me up that I can win and win and then lose and lose and win and win and that it’s a slow but steady downwards spiral, because I can’t win enough to constantly beat the rake. There I said it, I just can’t.

Why? Because no matter how good I run, someone else seems to be running better and guess what, the house doesn’t care, all it’s digital representation says is “kaaaaaaaa-chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing, ty for your money, come again”. For those who still care, the rake at the current donk-level I’m playing is 8,3%.

In a good night I can easily crush that mark and then some. In an average night (like tonight) I might win (in a general game-related sense) but still break even or finish a small loser (due to the rake)…and don’t even get me started on a bad night. So I’m starting to think about my “strategy” in general and the future I have in online poker (if any). Maybe I should sit down and have a look at my extensive stats (both automatically logged via TourneyManager and manually kept in form of my own “results sheets”) and take it from there, as what I’m currently doing is obviously not working (side note: maybe it’s really the biggest losing streak I’ve had so far and it’s a mixture of down-swing, bad luck and bad decisions; maybe it’s just that I can’t beat the game; maybe it’s ???; to give you an idea about my downswing I can tell you this much: within the last 9 months I slowly lost 77% of my roll)…

To quote the great old green fella: “Meditate on this I will”…until then enjoy the (not so random pic dump), enjoy the kickass WSOP coverage of DrPauly and PokerNews and enjoy life…I sure will…away from online poker…cya on the other side…nn and gl at the tables…