Just read about the special promotion for poker bloggers over at doubleas’ blog :
Forgot to mention that one of the gifts I received was a gift certificate for my own “poker survival kit” consisting of a four colour deck of 100% plastic copag cards, a bottle of Jaegermeister and a Cohiba cigar…oooh…can’t wait to get that stuff…one for me (cigar) two for all of us (Jaegermeister + 4 colour deck)…nice one…here’s an edited scan of the certificate:
Hopefully the stuff will arrive till saturday – the date of our next live tourney 🙂
…let the donkeys in, but watch out and don’t let them run you over (too many times).
Played some SnGs (4 single table on FullTilt, 2 two table on PokerStars, 1 single table at UB) after coming back from my birthday bash. The only success I had was a second place on UltimateBet, all other finishes were outside the money (4th, 7th, 9th, 9th at FullTilt, 10th and 18th on Stars) – hands of the day: KK vs A4o and KK vs A9o…donks raise, I reraise and/or push All-In…they insta-call like they were holding the stone cold nuts…sure enough their donkey play is rewarded when an Ace hits the board….what to do, what to do?!
Hand History:
Seat 1: nokhead (2,060)
Seat 2: ak_girl18 (1,590)
Seat 3: pokerfan007 (1,455), is sitting out
Seat 4: Lewdini (1,765)
Seat 5: Danegus (1,395)
Seat 6: Ingoal (1,420)
Seat 7: BigRedDanK (1,675)
Seat 8: JBHAWKEYES (1,420)
Seat 9: gsrob (720)
JBHAWKEYES posts the small blind of 25
gsrob posts the big blind of 50
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [Kd Kh]
nokhead folds
ak_girl18 folds
pokerfan007 folds
Lewdini calls 50
Danegus raises to 150
Ingoal raises to 1,420, and is all in
BigRedDanK folds
JBHAWKEYES folds
gsrob folds
Lewdini folds
Danegus calls 1,245, and is all in
Ingoal shows [Kd Kh]
Danegus shows [As 9c]
Uncalled bet of 25 returned to Ingoal
*** FLOP *** [Qd Ad 7h]
*** TURN *** [Qd Ad 7h] [Qs]
*** RIVER *** [Qd Ad 7h Qs] [4d]
Ingoal shows two pair, Kings and Queens
Danegus shows two pair, Aces and Queens
Danegus wins the pot (2,915) with two pair, Aces and Queens
On one hand all the donkeys playing are really good for all of us, as they’re the main source of the money that goes into our pockets, but on the other hand they’re the ones taking the money from us (in the short run) and what is even more important is that they’re getting to us, or is it just me? – I guess it’s gotta be so much easier to be a donkey from a mental point of view: if you win (with the best hand, by sucking out, who cares?) you’re the king of the world, if you lose there’s always tomorrow and nothing to worry about…after all you didn’t put much effort into your play, so why worry? One thing’s for sure though: I don’t want to be a donkey, I’m in it to win it – although “winning” is hard to define: basically I like the equation “up amount/percentage x over amount of time y“ where x -> infinity and y > some months/years. Variance is part of poker, so the reality is that you can’t win every hand, but it’s still hard to accept when you’re losing a big hand to a donkey, yet again.
In the end it all comes down to the fact that luck or “getting lucky/sucking out” is just another facet of poker – after all this is the fuel that drives the donkeys: if they were punished for their donkey play at all times, there would be no donkeys left in the games soon enough, as they couldn’t win many hands – let me rephrase that to they could win as many hands, but (almost) no big pots!
Now that I’ve got that off my chest I’ll do what I do best: vent (done with this post), log off for today and come back with a vengeance tomorrow….heeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaw! 😉
Yup, today (already past midnight here, so it’s April 17th) is my birthday! So I guess I won’t squeeze to many hands in over the day or night, so I played a little now…4 SnGs…1x 1st, 2x 2nd, 1x 4th…Nice…I guess the poker gods are in a giving mood as it’s my birthday 😉
Alrighty…I’m outta here…a now 28 year old git shouldn’t be online at 2:30am… 😉
Catch you all on tuesday (WWdN)…
So, I tried to qualify for team Germany. The thing was setup as a heads up tourney and 143 players entered it, “paying” 50FPP in the process. The winner would win a spot in Team Germany. I started out at an empty table, like half of the field – you gotta love the format of PokerStars, so I sat out the first 40 minutes until the other tables with 2 players finished.
I used the time to chat with Sires, whom you probably all know from the WWdN tourneys. He was sitting at an empty table, too. After the whole wait I was ready to battle and battle I did, as my opponent wonm123 was hitting flops like crazy…he rivered me good two or three times…so I was down to 1k chips four times, before the decisive hand: I had battle my way back to 2.2k chips and hold 66, I push, he calls with AQ…66 holds up and I’m now up 4.5k to 1.5k soon after that he pushes with Q4…I call with K10 and win to advance to round 3. Sires put on a hard fight, but couldn’t get anything going his way either, he busted out in 77th place.
Round 3 was more or less the fastest HU game I’ve ever played: first three hands I get dealt the tourist (A7), AQ and KJ…my opponent donschmitz folds all three hands. In the fourth hand I get dealt A3 on the button…I min raises…lol…he calls…flop comes down 2-5-J…he checks…I check…turn is a 4 giving me the wheel…he bets 2k…I push…he calls and shows 5-4 for two pair…no rescue on the river (3) and I bust him…after the whooping playing time of 2 minutes in this match.
I sit around and wait slightly under an hour until the next match in round 4 starts. We’re now down to the last 32 and we’re all sitting on 12k in chips. Back and fourth for some minutes, but I can’t get anything going…when I hit piece of the flop (mid pair) I push…to my dismay he calls with 65, two pair and IGHN…bluff0r moves on to the last 16. Edit: bluff0r took it down and will be one of the players representing Team Germany. So at least I lost to the eventual winner…:Edit
So I finished 28th of 143. Not a bad showing, but I really wanted to win this one…ah well…at least I made it pasted the first few rounds. What sucked though is that I was in the tourney for over 3hours and I played the total amount of 52 minutes (0minutes R1, 40minutes R2, 2 minutes R3, 10 minutes R4)…
Massive rant ahead…move along…there’s nothing much to see….you’ve been warned!
Sometimes it’s hard to believe in the “skill part” of poker, especially after losing hand after hand after hand to crappy, dominated hands. I guess the low limit SnGs and ring games I’m currently playing shouldn’t be classified as poker, they should be classified as “donkey-stack-slinging-odds-defying-card-game”…the sad part about this form of the game is that raises, odds and cards for that matter are irrelevant. So it gives you no edge to be a 90% favourite with your hands…it’s like every player is playing in the dark – all the time…so luck 99.9999…9%, skil 0.000000…1% – the skill you need is to NOT go insane putting up with this crap….examples:
Stars SnGs:
Now that I’ve got that out of my system I can come to the second part of this post which is rant free. I logged off Stars and opened FullTilt and played another low limit SnG there…nothing spectacular, besides that I didn’t get sucked out on more than once and that was when I was in commanding position…a nice little tourney and I even got to heads up play and in the end took it down! A win, a win…the joy. Now I’m going to get the hell out of dodge and get some rest…World Cup of Poker 2006 – Team Germany Qualifier coming up at 8am ET = 2pm here…wish me luck 🙂
Logged on after an evening of board games to find some card action, nothing much going on so I jump right into a donk-tastic SnG…first hand I’m dealt ducks (22) some limpers, one min-raise…I call…flop comes down 8-2-9 rainbow…I bet the pot…the original raiser pops another min-raise…I push…he calls with 77….nice, so he either needs a 7 or two running cards to make his straight…turn 6…river 10….bam! Although I love poker I could call it quits sometimes, am I too emotional about it? Probably, but I can’t help it…I guess I should order a titanium cup, at least the junk kickings won’t hurt as much then…
After that junk kicking in the first hand I looked around the tourney section and saw that there was one of the new WSOP Bracelet Races about to start. I checked my account and yup, one token left, so why not? 228 players entered, so the first two finishers are awarded a 2k WSOP package (1.500$ buyin to a WSOP tourney of choice + 500$ spending money) and the remaining final table players are ITM. I decided to play pretty tight, not taking any shots and so I played…grinded my way up to 2.2k in chips over the first few orbits, then looked down at AK…pop it up before the flop, one caller…flop and turn all low with a straight and flush chance…so I got the hell out of there…nothing much afterwards until I look down at AK again in the next orbit. I pop it up to 4xBB…one caller in LP…flop comes down K-10-9 two spades…now I hold the lovely TPTK once again, so I fire the pot…he reraises the pot…I go into the tank and think about what sort of hands would he call the preflop raise…not much info on the player, so I put him on a hand like K-x (if that x is a 9 or 10 I’m probably screwed) or two spades for a flush draw…so I raise the remaining 120 of my stack and I’m all in. He shows 9c-10c, so he was playing suited connectors, wanting to see a flop at all cost and connected perfectly…no help on the turn or river…and I’m out in 141st (of 228) after just 35 minutes of play. I guess I should have sticked with my original plan to abstain from playing until sunday (World Cup of Poker – Team Germany Qualifier), but the WSOP is starting to call my name…and I had to answer the call 😉
Tonight at 9pm ET the final of the HUC3 will take place on PokerStars. While I won’t be able to watch it, I still want to wish good luck to both WillWonka and FishyMcDonk! May the best man win!
Read more about the whole event on the official Heads Up Challenge (3) blog…
…so I didn’t feel like playing any ring games or bigger sngs/mtts today…just two hee-haw SnGs over at FullTilt. One 5th place one 4th place. Not bad, but this hee-haw playing is hurting me more than doing me any good…the play is just too awful. So I guess I’ll take a break for a day or two and come back recharged on sunday (I’ll try to win my way into the World Cup of Poker to represent my country: Germany! I couldn’t find the tourneys yet, but they’re in the schedule for 16th/17th April, so I guess they’ll appear once all the canadian/american satellites are finished…we’ll see….)
Stats of hee-haw:
Damn! Damn! Damn! That pretty much sums it up. My fastest exit from the WWdN ever (20 minutes). My starting table featured doubleas, Hammer player and CJ just to name a few.
The tourney starts out with a dropped hammer (on me) by hammer player aka Hoyazo in the first hand, which should pretty much set the tone for the night. I don’t play many hands, win a small pot, then I invest a third of my stack on a 9977 board, can’t get Hoyazo to lay down his hand though…so I think he held either a 9 (questionable), a 7 (questionable) or an Ace. So I’m down to under 1000 chips…in the next orbit I find JJ in midposition – I pop it up to 120 (4xBB) all fold, but not Hoyazo. Great, flop comes down A-x-x, two hearts…I fire another shell (120)…he reraises to 350…now I’m wondering if he’s really holding the Ace…(in retrospect I should have known that he did. What kind of hands would make you call 4xBB?) Nontheless I push…he ponders and calls…and to my dismay he’s holding AKo…no help on turn and river…so I’m out in 59th (of 65)… 🙁
Note to self:
On another note: Hoyazo, well played…I would have called the weak bet over the top, too if I was holding AK – especially if the over the top bet was only and additional 400 (like it was in this case)…hope you put the chips to good use 🙂
Update: Yup he did, making the final table and finishing 8th, congrats. Seems like 23skidoo was unstoppable and took down the win, congrats to you too!