So…I fired up PokerStars today and played in a double shootout to sunday’s million. Now I’m not a big fan of shootouts as there’s usually one dude at the table sucking out like the best vacuum cleaner you can buy, but hell…why not.

So we started off eight handed and I played pretty tight. The donks fooled around a little and traded chips back and forth. So after roughly half an hour we’re down to 6 players and I’m the short-stack. I play some decent hands though and chip up pretty quickly. Once we’re three-handed I’m the chipleader at the table, 2nd in chips is roughly 1k behind and the short-stack sits at just above 1k. The 2nd in chips takes out the short-stack and is slightly ahead once we enter heads-up. We trade chips back and forth for a while and then he slowly grinds away at me. I make a decent comeback and have a 2:1 chiplead. We play back and forth and he sucks out a flush on the river to get back to even. Two hands later it’s all over. I have A10 on the button and three-bet it. He calls. Flop comes down JJ10 two diamonds. He leads out, I call. turn is the 4d…he bets out small again. Now I’m a little concerned with the flush, but then again it’s two-handed…so maybe he’s got the jack? Hmm…river is an unsuspecting 3c…he pushes….

Now I’m stuck in decision land: basically two hands have me beat – three jacks or a flush…didn’t put him on Jacks earlier or I would have folded…so…is he really on the flush or on the stone cold bluff? Decision, decision. I call…and sure enough he shows KdQd…s00000ted!

So I’m out in 2nd at my table (10th overall – 8 at the final table)…damn! I need to go over my play again before making any bold claims, but basically I think the following statement is valid: I won too little with monsters (Qx – board QQx, J9o – board JJx; although the deck is pretty crippled here, but can’t he have the x and don’t believe me one time?) and lost to two suckouts…not bad-beats…suckouts…the first one was the diamond flush on the river (cough) to bring him back to even and the second one was the last hand (diamond flush on the turn, cough, should that have been a sign?)…oh well…DAMN! 😉

Hehe…that’s the question I’m asking myself after playing the PokerStars Rebuy Madness (TM) (lol) tourney…man is this some crazy stuff or what? Nearly 3.5k players playing with their starting chips + 9066 rebuys + 2135 add-ons…and you’ve got a 20k guaranteed with a price-pool of 44.025$, unreal.

Played for well over an hour before busting out AA vs JJ…yes, I had AA – for the first time in over 600 hands I might add and sure enough they get cracked by a 4:1 dog…only thing that is weird is that I could see it coming…I three-bet it preflop and he goes into the tank…after a long pause he pushes…I insta-call and see his JJ…before the flop is dealt I can literally see the Jack falling…and it promptly does…the only consolation is that if there’s such a thing like karmic payback that was the proof…I had cracked this guys Kings earlier on with KQ s000ted…oh well…I had my fun and with the top 30 all well over 30k the possibility to really go deep were limited anyway…I’m out of here…

So…I started the heads-up series against Veneno today. We decided to stick to my original “challenge” schedule of the following matches:

1. NL HE (L)
2. Pot Limit Omaha 8b (L)
3. Razz (W)
4. 7 Stud
5. PL HE
6. Pot Limit Omaha
7. HORSE

So…we started with the NL Hold’em and I sucked, sort off. Couldn’t get past the poison as she was hammering away on me, figuratively and literally, for the whole game. She took an early lead and I just couldn’t put her on a real hand, just on the “I know what you got? – Oh really? – Yes, you got what we call the best hand”-type of hand. So I was down, but not out, quite quickly before fighting back to take the interim chiplead. After that another downward spiral hit and I was soon very low on chips. The final hand was true poison style…I look down at AQ…ooh wee…but I have only around 2xx chips left, so no doubt she’ll call (almost with any 2)…she shows A3…the rest is history…

So..down 0-1…and off to the second match. Pot Limit Omaha High/Low split. Hmm tasty, directly from the torture chamber of hell…lol…after all we know that there can be some wild shit flying around your ears in this game, which makes it both fun and excruciatingly painful sometimes…the match is a blur as I can’t remember many hands…early on I took the chiplead with a scoop…took down another few smaller pots before giving back most of it and then some…the last hand was 10-8-6-2…board comes 10-8-6…I overplay my three-pair and we get the money in…V shows 7-9-9-K for the straight…I don’t improve and busto….0-2, yikes.

After that we head over to the Razz-table and I think ran away with the match. The cards fell my way and I was even able to bluff a little here and there. In the last hand I held a chiplead of 2600 to 400 and sucked out on 6th and 7th street…ooooh the sweet taste of triple atomic antidote…lol…should have used that in the first two matches too 😉

So…I’m down 1-2 after 3 matches and it’s crunch time! Really looking forward to the next matches! You better be ready V, I sure will be 🙂

…and right away the first cash. Wheeeee! Way to start the new year, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I signed up for the WWdN cdog007 invitational after playing some serious hours of BJ over at Pacific (bonus grind). 69 players found their way to the tables and my starting table didn’t feature all that many people I recognized. That should change after a few minutes when the blogfather himself was moved to our table. I immediately welcomed him and won a pot against him when my KK held up. Combined with the chips of the first hand (where I had turn a flush with Kd10d) I was off to a good start. After that everything is a little blurry as I tried to focus fully on the game and not take any notes – then again, who needs notes when the video-feed is up and running… 😉

Here are two screenshots – final table and final result:

Back to the video: I had to cut some of the stuff as, although I forgot to turn it on for the first x minutes, it’s still over 2h of video…so I cut it down to some key hands (which you can see in the following video) – so without further ado…inspired by Tuff_Fish and Waffles-Rant-Cast (TM)…the inaugural Ingoal-Cast (without audio commentary), but with music…so please turn on audio (as it becomes critical at one point…you’ll see/hear ;)) and enjoy…Click here (opens in new tab/window – attention: requires Windows Media Player 9 or above, size of the video 66MB, so please be patient)

1. Played fairly well

2. Didn’t self-explode like others (*cough* Sox just before the final table)

3. Got unlucky sometimes to bring me back into a desperate chip position which lead to…

4. Got lucky when I needed to…

5. Thanks Wil for hosting!

6. It was fun…cya all soonish…

Oh god damn it! Oh god damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

Hehe…now that I’ve got that out of the way I can write a little write up about my latest adventure in 180SnG-land. Started out making some tough laydowns. Hovered around average for a while before making a great read…put him on AK (on an all under board) and was right…my 88 was good…so I’m double the average…cool…from there on I nurse my stack and play less pots, but if I’m in it…I’m letting it be know…

After the break I get moved to a quite bizarre table…the chipleader is there (suprise surprise, I was playing with the guy third in chips until this point)…then another player is moved to the table…yes…he’s 2nd in chips…so we got two dudes with over 18k at the table…then this hand happens…

I raise it preflop…he pushes back…what I’m I supposed to do here? Fold? Not really…too bad I ran into this again. Down but not out I get moved back to my old table right after the hand – this is out of the “are you kidding me”-category, isn’t it? Get moved to the monster stack table…run into this shit and get moved right back…

Oh well…the end comes a few hands later when I semi-steal with A9o from the cutoff…the button ponders and ponders and finally calls with AQ s00000ted….now I’m asking myself: you get 1.2:1 for your money and you’re anywhere from dominated (AK), in bad shape (pair) to dead (AA)…or slightly ahead (AJ down to Ax)…do you call 40% of your stack there? Well, he did…blank board…turn Q…river 9 thanks riverstars…the other 9 was supposed to be on the flop 😉

So I’m out in 47th and a little puzzled…play a game game for well over an hour…run into bigger pair…missed steal…and gone with the wind. This is frustration at it’s finest…why oh why can’t the fool have Jacks there? 😉

So…new year new luck…lol…or not. Anyway, redeposited at Stars tonight as I had planned to do so for a while, but I wanted to wait until they had another reload bonus…now the 25% bonus was up…

To celebrate my return to Stars I decided to play a good ol’ 180SnG…and with over 100k players online, sure enough most of the players were donkeys as expected. Fought back and forth for over an hour before busting out in 54th.

Key hands:

1. Early on AA in the cutoff…four bet it…one caller….flop is Q high two spades (I hold no spade), I fire a pot-size bet…he calls…turn is 8 of spades…pot size bet…call…now I’m wondering if he’s letting me hang myself with a made flush…oh well..let’s see what the river brings…9 spades…hmm…check…he fires a quarter-sized bet out there…I think about reraising, but then again…why should I? Call…he show 89o no spades…nice calling preflop, on the flop and on the turn donk…god damn it.

2. Down to just under 60 players after the first break…Ah10h in MP, EP with a huge stack min-raises…I decide to call, flop comes down KhKs10h…hmm…not bad…huge stack fires 1k at the pot…I ponder and call…(3.5k behind)…turn 2c…he fires 1k again…I reluctantly call (2.5k behind)…river 5d…he checks…now I’m wondering if he wants to let me bluff at the pot or what? Sure enough my outs no good…I check behind…he shows AJo….damn it.

3. Very next hand I look down at the suited Ace again (this time A5d)…I push…the same monster-stack insta-calls on the button…all others fold…he shows AA…have a nice day…

So, all in all not a good start…surprise surprise…as if I ever had a good start at PokerStars…lol…oh well…should have played 2. differently (either push on the flop…no way he can call there?!) or lay it down right there…then I’m not in a desperate state and don’t push into Aces..better luck/play next time…