I just want to wish a Happy new year to all poker bloggers, players and especially my readers! I won’t be playing today as I’m almost ready to head to a New Year’s eve party. See you all in 2006 🙂

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! 🙂

I just read a beautiful piece about being “rivered” or like poker players like to call it “sucked out on the river”. Mike Caro talks about the reason for it and why it happens (or seems to happen) more to good players – because they just play more selective and enter (big) pots holding the best hand…true, so it’s basically an easy equation: if you enter pots while holding the best hand almost all the time, it’s natural that you will get sucked out more than a bad player who enters more pots while holding (possible) junk…

So does this mean I’m a good player? I guess it could be true as I rarely get eliminated from tournaments without suckouts and I’ve been very successfull in (private) live play (10 out of 12 times I’ve been in the money and/or heads up for the overall win taking down 1/4th of all money involved), but I’m not here to praise myself, as a student of the game I know that there’s always room for improvement, especially due to the fact that I’m pretty new in the poker circuit (I started playing regularly in the most played games (Hold’em, Omaha, 7Stud) in November 2005, before that the only poker I played was a simple 5 card draw poker every now and then…so I’m really a newbie to all of this, especially the online poker which speeds up everything and takes away stuff I use in live play (checking out the other players while they’re looking at their cards, evaluating their playing patterns in this particular session, a little trash-talk here and there, etc))!

Hat tip to Derek over at CardSquad for the link to the article.

I just played a little Stud H/L Limit S&G over at AbsolutePoker and what can I say – this is going to be the last one for quite a while. This was the first tournament of any sort that had me frustrated quickly…and not because of the cards that I was dealt. Let me explain: you sit at a one table S&G and play Stud H/L and one player at the table uses all the time he’s got on his hands all the time…so you’re basically sitting there waiting with each and every card that is being dealt – the other players weren’t too fast themselves which didn’t help either.

So I was trying to get out asap as after one hour of play we were heading nowhere and I’m right in the middle of it. This is the first and only time that I didn’t care if I won or not, I just wanted to get out asap, even if that meant taking last place – and this is what happened. I raised every card and busted myself with nothing in hand. So, I’m out of 2$+0.40$ fee, but more importantly I barely escaped with a sane mind and a few nerves less…

I guess a pic says more than thousand words…:

Sometimes you can do no wrong, other times you can do nothing but wrong. The latter happened to my in the last MTT over at PokerStars. The setup was similiar to my last Omaha H/L tourney at Stars: Buy-In 3$+0.30$ fee, 495 players entered, blind levels 15 minutes, this time top 45 in the money.

I took down some pots early on and kicked back into easy mode, before making some donkey moves within 3 hands – in the first hand I folded on the button after a raise and reraise in early position, I didn’t think my hand of 10-10-Q-2 would be any good as you are looking for possible high and low hands, what can I say…flop is 10-10-x…so I folded quads…great. In the following two hands I donked off a huge chunk of my stack when I bet into A-3 with my A-4…not a good idea. So I was in desperate position right before the first break (down to 800 chips with 100/200 limits, 50/100 blinds)…I took down a lovely pot when I rivered a set and was up to just under 2000 again as we headed into the first break.

Players remaining: 300, max: 10071, avg: 2475, me: 1928 (172/300). Right after the break I donked off some chips again and was soon stuck in desperate position again, but this time with 200/400 limits, 100/200 blinds. The end came slowly, in two hands, I look down at Ah-Qs-5s-2h and pushed UTG, some callers, flop is K-K-9…great…now I’m stuck in the BB with 200 odd chips left…All-In…and sure enough I hold the nuts flush on the turn, just to be sucked out by a river boat…argh!

Out in 203rd position… 🙁

So, as mentioned earlier on I played the Donkeys Always Draw Invitational over at PokerStars. What can I say, it’s really different to play NL with all the bloggers than playing at a regular table! There’s almost no limping or just calling the BB, but always a slight to huge raise out of various positions. I didn’t catch many cards so I folded most of the time and when I looked down at the first decent cards all night (A-Ko) on the button with 970chips left I decided that it was time…I pushed All-In as all folded to me, SB folds, BB (Pastmancer) calls and shows As-Js, no worries as the flop is: 4-9-7, turn brings a lovely 6, then the river bites me in the backside…yup the river was a J…and I’m out in 35th place 🙁

Now I could start to rant about outs and what not or call PokerStars Riverstars, but hey…it’s Poker, it can happen…although doubling up just prior to the first break would have been way nicer than to bust out after 53 minutes of play.

Side notes:

1. never underestimate the power of the hammer (7-2o)…WillWonka kicked a fellow player in the nuts when he rivered the boat vs. pocket Queens
2. Them Quads beetches! (penner42 – Alan screengrabbed it…I’ll post a link when I find it)
3. Beware of the river suckout at any times, ask Garthmeister, he was kicked in the junk two times on the river…
4. change100 won in the end…
5. Read more over at TripJax, HighonPoker

Just donked off some money with a little two table S&G. Turbo Limit Stud H/L was the game and making the final table (top 8 of 16) was no problem, but staying alive longer was as both the ante and the blinds were raised every 5 minutes. So that leaves you with little choices as even calling down a hand can put you all-in quickly (after all there are 5 betting rounds)…I guess I should stick with normal tourneys or S&Gs when it comes to Stud…

Now I’m going to play in the “Donkeys Always Draw Invitational” over at PokerStars…this will be my second poker blogger tournament…more of this later on….

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)…

Just updated the blog-engine to WordPress 2.0. The update was really painless and done in less than 5 minutes (including a prior security backup)! Nice 🙂

Played around four hours of Omaha H/L at the 0.01$/0.02$ Pot Limit tables, after all today was player appreciation day where UB was handing out free stuff from noon to midnight. As far as I can tell I didn’t get anything, at least I didn’t get any on screen messages or emails, so I guess someone else was luckier.

Donked of some chips in the first two hours, but was able to get everything and more back in the second session, I stayed away from most hands and played the once I had locked (at least the low or the high) aggressively – it payed of and I walked away with roughly 2.5x my Buy-In… 🙂