I made a quick exit in the BloggerPods, I’m not big on excuses, but I’m just saying that I was a little bit busy watching the EPT Germany Final table…so I didn’t mind busting early…

Thanks going out to Mike from PokerOnAMac.com for hosting the tourney, appreciated…back to EPTLive.com to watch the final four, our own Sebastian “MiamiVice” Ruthenberg from Luckbox.de is the current chipleader after winning a monster-pot with trip eights…

Edit: Ouch…Miami self-imploded down to three-handed…A5 vs KK…he had outs…but why mess with the other big stack and not sitout and wait for the shorty to bust…damn…that was one costly hand (at least 160k Euro (difference between 2nd and 3rd))… 🙁

Well, the main event was a little bit different today. For the first time in ages we had a turnout smaller than 10 players, so we settled on a single table with 9 players. Usually we have at least two tables of 6 going and shorthanded play allows you to be a bit more aggressive and “creative” with your hands. With the full ring, not so much, tonight. Cards were so and so…my best hands were AhKh which split the pot with AsKs, AQ which I had to laydown preflop to three raises, a Kx which boated up to split yet another pot and some mini-pairs (2x deuces)…so sooner or later I had to make yet another move. Good thing I didn’t make that move in the hand I had deuces for the second time. Mini-raise preflop…hmm…maybe Aces? Maybe AK/AQ/AJ? I call with the ducks…flop comes down Q86…preflop raiser bets out half the pot…hmm…I honestly thought about pushing there for a while – my reasoning being that if he indeed had AK/AJ/A10/Ax…I might as well be ahead here…then again…if he’s on AQ or better…I’m toast…so I decide to lay it down…my instincts were right…he shows AA…

Soon enough I found myself in a desperate position, yet again, and I was forced to move…no joy and I exited in 7th place. The side game was a whole different game. We played 5 handed after the next two players had busted out of the main event…and after the first few hands I pick up the first superb hand of the night…KK in the BB…two limpers…I pop it preflop…one caller…flop comes down Kxx with two spades…I bet about half the pot…call…turn pairs the board no spade though…I bet out again…call…I hope that the river brings the third spade, but it doesn’t…I lead out again and start to talk…I talk my opponent into calling and I showdown my Kings full…he mucks…nice!

A few hands later I look down at AcAd…nice! I pop it preflop and get one caller…flop comes down KcJc10c…I check…errm not really a good move….he checks behind…turn pairs Kings…I check….errm not really a good move…he checks behind…river 6s…I bet out…he reraises…hmm…couldn’t have played that hand much worse…I make a crying call..he shows 78o for the straight…man did I blow that hand. I raised preflop, I have the goods…if I check the flop…that’s okay (although leading out would be much better)…but as the turn pairs the board I need to fire at it…I would have won a small pot…instead I lost a medium pot…oh well…my bad. After some more jabbing and grabling I was able to knockout two players and my opponent knocked out the third one, so we started headsup. I was ahead…but he fired at me relentlessly…in the end 35o was good enough to win though…..unraised pot, flop comes down 367…so bottom pair + gutshot for me…I bet he pushes I call..he got two overs…I win. Nice. Then I sat down in the next sidegame which was under way…I sat down as the blinds were 30/60 (1500 starting chips, I had 1300 remaining as they had started with me still being headsup in the other sidegame)…I take down some nice pots and find myself sitting comfortable at 2500+ chips. Then everything starts to unravel. I look down at AK in the BB…we’re four handed and the other three limp…no limping under my watch here…blinds are at 50/100…so 400 in the pot…I pop it to 700…one caller…hmm…flop comes down three rags…I fire the second bullet and he calls…we check both the turn and river…and he shows A8 for the pair of eights. Option 1: I fire another shell on the turn and/or river, he calls/folds…I guess he would have called after my hesitation…Option 2: He lays down the friggin hand for 600 preflop…as if 😉

Some hands later I make my exit…I got roughly 1.1k left and I limp in the SB with Q8o…we see a flop of Q92 rainbow three-handed…I check…BB bets…MP calls…I push…BB ponders…calls…MP folds…I show my Q8…BB shows Q10…MP had folded AK…turn 9…river hmm….7…oh well…cya…

So…all in all I’m satisfied with my performance tonight…played the cards that were dealt to me, tried to play my opponent here and there, but it’s hard to win a pot if your opponent will call you down no matter what (especially if he/they keep hitting flops against you)…the only hand that I foobared was the Aces hand…but that one didn’t cost me much…so it’s all good…broke even for the night…not really good, but better than finishing the night down 😉 …I’m out…

If you can read this, everything should be fine. As the old server was slowly but steadily getting hammered (mostly by other sites on it), it was time to upgrade. Just in time my server company came along with a new server line…so I jumped at the chance to upgrade…old machine Opteron 148, 1GB…new machine…Opteron 1212HE (dual core), 2GB…I hope that this will keep the load in check and reduce site loading times to a minimum…

Well, the first ever EPT Germany started yesterday and Jan over at PokerStarsblog.de is doing the coverage (in german). For all fans around the world PokerStars is doing a little something that is even better than liveblogging though…can you say live webcast!!!

Webcasts will be running both saturday and sunday and will be available with german and english commentary…check EPTLIVE.com !!!

So, back in action today. First of all I was happy to receive the first issue of Card Player Europe today, nice! That was really quick, I didn’t have the time to really read it yet, but flipping through it, it seems that it’s just what CardPlayer’s description was: part of the US issue plus content specific to europe (including numerous ads of online poker sites I’ve never heard of before). Some more good news: next live game will be this saturday, w00t! Nothing better than some live card-flinging with friends.

Excited about those news, I thought I’d try my luck with some turbo SnGs tonight. First one went fairly well, busted two players early, busted two more later on and soon enough we were ITM. My opponent (fairly even in chips) busted the shorty and we are headsup…about 10 hands later I have a disgusted look on my face as he calls my preflop all-in (J10 s00ted) with the powerful 75 s00ted…sure enough flop comes down 567…thank you very much. Oh well, second place, not all that bad. So I open up the next one and I find myself with AQo in the SB in the very first hand. One limper in MP…all others fold…so I decide to pop it to 80…BB ponders and folds…limper calls…flop comes down Queen high…I bet out…he reraises me…I reraise him…he pushes…hmm…son…I think you’re full of shit…probably KQ/QJ or something…I call…he shows QTo…weeeeeee…..turn 10…thank you…

I congratulate him on his marvellous play and he defends his “groovy” play by saying “but I’m the one who pushed all-in and you called” errrm yeah donkbag…maybe, just maybe I’m supposed to call here with an 87%/12% edge…but maybe that’s just me…I’m out…

Not much poker today, just the WWdN. Played the hammer beautifully in the second hand: dealt the hammer on the button, one standard-raiser in MP, I reraise to 150…all fold…he calls…flop comes down three rags including a deuce…he checks…I bet 200 and take down the pot. A few hands later I find ducks…raise…one caller…flop three rags…check…I bet pot…call…turn rag…I check I bet half pot…call…river pairs sixes…he leads out with 300…I’m getting 2:1 and it might be a busted flush draw…but I fold…next hand I get AKo…standard raise preflop…one caller…flop comes down Ax2…check…I bet…call…turn 10…check…I bet…call…river Q..check…I bet…he calls…he shows 22…hmm…weird…why not a single reraise here?! Oh well…down to 700 odd chips…take some small pots…up to 1k…moved to another table…tourist in the BB…sox raises from the SB…I call…flop comes down 678 two spades…sox checks…I bet 60…sox calls…mistake nr.2…turn blank…sox checks…I bet 60…sox calls…mistake nr. 3…river 4s…Sox bets 90…i type “why do i think i’m a bluetooth here” and call…mistake nr. 4…sox shows…flush jack high…could I have played this hand any worse? It could have cost me more (if I push on the flop and he decides to call), but the way it went down…I lost minimum I guess…still horrible…

Next hand I fold A4…next hand I push with KJo from the button…BB wakes up with the s00ted tourist…good enough to call my 655 bet…and cya…

Summary: I don’t know what it is, but I played like crap. There I said it. I played like crap and I deserved to get knocked out early. Out in 37th of 47.

At least I got some more reading material now as another book arrived today, the professor, the banker and the suicide king…I guess I’ll read that parallel to the Navarro stuff, which is kind of heavy…this one should keep me entertained…a little more uptodate entertainment should be provided by Card Player (Europe)…I was planning on subscribing to at least one of the major card magazines (Bluff, CardPlayer, ..) for a while now and I finally did it, although their international rates suck…so I settled for Card Player Europe for now…” Combining the best articles from the magazine’s U.S. edition with additional content customized for European readers, Card Player Europe offers local tournament news, European player and venue profiles, and advertising that uniquely addresses the needs and interests of European audiences. ” (Source: CardPlayer Store)…sounds good…sign me up…can’t go wrong with a 1-year subscription for twenty bucks…I’m looking forward to it…let’s see how long delivery of the first issue takes…I’m out…

…at least that’s what I keep telling myself and it worked out pretty good tonight – not that I won anything, close but no cigar, but at least I took the usual beats with a smile. So, basically…I’m still trying to get back to normal, but things aren’t coming together, at least not yet.

Just like I promised myself (and you, my readers), I didn’t play a single hand of poker over the entire weekend and tbh, I didn’t miss it all that much either. I guess that’s easy to say when you’re running as bad as I was/am. But really, it made me think that maybe I should incorporate the “poker-free day(s)”-concept into my playing schedule, after all the consistent grind can wear you out, especially if you take the worst of it on such a cold run. If you’re running bad enough, everything will go wrong…but I’ll come back to that topic later.

Before I get to a closer look of tonight’s session, I’d like to take a moment to talk about some other poker related things.

1. I started to read Navarro’s book on tells (or “non-verbal behaviour”) and so far, I really like it. Some of the things he’s talking about in the first pages of the book make you wonder: How many of these things have I thought about so far? Did I spot something like this before? As I said, I’m just through the first twenty odd pages and after the introduction and everything he’s talking about the most reliable source of tells…the feet…lol…never thought of that before…but if you think about it and watch closely…he may be on to something here…although looking under the table as the flop/turn/river comes down isn’t a real possibility…although he comes up with some hints about how to spot it anyway…I’m really looking forward to the rest of the book and one thing’s for sure: this stuff can and probably will improve my live-game…although it takes work! But I’m up for the challenge…

2. Although I’m currently running bad, I’m still going to do whatever it takes to keep online poker alive, hmm, that sounds a little weird, maybe I should rephrase that to “I’m going to support the people who will do whatever they can/it takes to keep online poker alive”. So I joined the PPA a while ago (see here) and on saturday my “welcome package” arrived. It contained a letter, the membership card, a pin and a nice T-Shirt…maybe I’ll get around to take a pic of the stuff tomorrow…to make a long story short: Because I’m over here in Europe this whole US legislation doesn’t affect me personally (apart from the fact that good games could be hard to come by in the next weeks/months), but I’m not too blind to see that one thing could lead to the next and before you know it, the games dry up for good and other countries could adopt a similar stance on online poker and I don’t want that to happen. Think about it, even if that doesn’t happen, it’s still going to be a loss. Online players turn into “full time live players”, full time live players have no hand histories, no tools to track their play (to the same extent as in online poker) and before you know it, other stuff, like poker blogs, disappear too…and although that might increase workplace productivity, it would be a real shame. So, if you are (remotely) serious about your (online) game, join the PPA!
3. Full Tilt’s downtime on sunday: Bad but good. Why? Just go back and read the second paragraph. As I promised myself not to play any poker this weekend, I would have missed the bloggerpods tourney on Full Tilt, fortunately (for me) they had some server issues, so the tourney had to be postponed. I guess it’ll be played next weekend and I’m looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll get close like last time, maybe I’ll get the junk kick earlier, maybe no junk kick at all and I listen to my favourite jams on an ipod soon…who knows…one way or another, this is a cool tourney, thanks again to PokerOnAMac for hooking us up!

As for tonight’s session…I started with some “new stuff”. A cheap-ass triple shootout to the sunday million. Two bucks, short handed, chance to take down one of two seats. The first table was a real up and down and when all was said and done, I took it down. Almost an hour played, shorthanded, didn’t make any bad decisions (had to push one time with a marginal hand, because I got short, but that worked out okay…and not really a bad decision…or is it if you’re “forced to play”?). The next table was totally different though. Four out of the other five players where really “pushy”. The played almost every hand and the deck wasn’t too kind to me. I started out with the best…didn’t connect…had to let it go, time and time again. Made my exit with a 60/40 kind of hand, so not really a bad beat…it just wasn’t meant to be, but at least I got an hour of play…out in 22nd of 216.

After that I decided to try a three-table SnG and play was worse than I could imagine in my worst nightmare, really, it was THAT bad. I kicked one player out before getting my junk kicked yet again by a lovely two outer. Oh well, what else is new.

After that I went to the HU section and thought I’d give it a whirl. It was a good match, although it was kind of boring, not much between my opponent and me…first in usually takes the pot as we were battling 6-high vs 7-high on a regular basis. He was cool though, we chatted a little and I predicted that soon enough it’ll come down to one hand and to quote Scotty Nguyen “…it’s going to be all over” and I said it’s probably going to be something of the regular HU-nature, two pair vs set or something. Guess what? I was right…lol…although this isn’t too hard to predict either as it’s basically around a 33% shot (either that, T/M/BPxK vs x or monster vs monster are the usual scenarios).

I hold A4o on the button and I fire it up to 3x preflop…he calls…pot is 180 (blinds 15/30). Flop comes down A46 rainbow. Groovy! He leads out with a pot-sized bet (180). I reraise to 480, he insta-calls. Hmm…pot is 1140 (of the 3k in play) and the turn is blank (8)…he checks…I bet 400…he calls…pot is now 1940…so there’s basically no way the money isn’t going all-in…river is Kh…he pushes…now I’m worried about a small range of hands here…either AA (which would be a real cooler with the case Ace on board), AK (which would suck less, but still suck)…or he could have made a really bad call on the flop and turn and hit a set here (KK)…or I totally misjudged the situation and he had a hand similar to mine and his kicker plays as well (A6, A8)…or coolered by a flopped/turned set (44, 66, 88)…man, if you’re running bad…too many (bad) scenarios creep into your mind…maybe he has a hand that would make sense here, which is second best (AQ, AJ, A10, A9, …)…I make the crying call…and he shows?….KK for the set…now, if he any other hand mentioned above…I go straight to my closet, get out a hat and write “payoff wizard” on it…but KK…come on…two outs…again…sigh…now I don’t want to sound like a broken record here and repeat it over and over…but I just can’t help myself…why oh why? Why….oh why?

I guess the (short) weekend break wasn’t enough, as I can’t stand it…at least not any better than last week…I find myself in the same spot, complaining, moaning about the bad luck, feeling empty and annoyed and (maybe) annoying you with it…maybe I’m waaaay to deep into it all atm and I should take a longer break from it all? Maybe I should just learn to deal with it in another way? Maybe I shouldn’t play anymore at all? I really don’t know, one thing I know for sure though is the reason for all of this: I care about winning! I care about making good decisions! I care about “being better”! I care about beating my opponent(s)! I want to win every game I’m playing! I expect to win if I outplayed my opponent(s)! (I despise people “stealing” from me! I despise people making horrible plays and still winning with it! …) …I care about winning!
Maybe a bit too much – at least for a poker player?! Most certainly, as this whole “correct decision, correct play, wrong outcome, no reward”-stuff is still taking too big a toll on me. There’s no such thing as justice in poker – love it or hate it. All poker players do both…you love it when you’re running good and/or if you made a good/great play and it worked out, you hate it when you’re running bad and/or if you made a bad play or a good/great play that isn’t rewarded. The best way to deal with this fundamental “flaw” of poker, would be to be totally indifferent to results.

I’m trying to get there…but hell, it’s not easy, no, it’s HARD…and how could it be any other way?

He’s back…but just for a quickie. Stuck to my original plan not to play and full table SnGs today, only played two HU matches and no, luck didn’t change a bit, I will spare you going into too much detail as it’s obvious that I’m on a nasty unlucky downswing…so what’s the point of repeating the same sentiment over and over again (just two quick examples: K4 vs K5…flop KK5…we both slow play each other into oblivion and by the third min-re-raise I call to see the grim news…I still wonder how I could not go broke on that one; A2 vs 45 (happened twice in the same match) flop A24…major betting…turn 3….no, I didn’t go broke the first time, the second time did me in though)…

So…just a quick note that I won’t be playing this weekend, not a single SnG, not a single MTT, not a single hand, period. I think this is the kind of unlucky spell that you can’t play through, so why ruin my weekend? I’ll probably see you all at the WWdN on tuesday…until then…may all your monsters hold up and your opponents draw dead 😉

Damn. Just as I’m about to finish the uber-rant here, my computer crashes. Thank you very much. So, here goes the second try. After yesterday’s horror-session, I thought that things would be a little more normal today. Haha! Think again, dummy. It was exactly the same today, exactly the same. I mean, there’s no doubt in my mind, that I’m on a very very cold streak here, but honestly, how do you do it donkeys? How do you do it? If there’s some magical donkey mojo juice, you better not tell me where to get it or I will be an unstoppable force. I mean imagine if my monsters held up and I sucked out all the time, I would be invincible. Stop! Reality Time!

In the beginning, I thought this whole “back to (one/full table) SnGs”-deal was a good one. But now, after only 14 SnGs I’m so tilted, annoyed and about to hit someone, that I’m not so confident that it was a good decision to switch. I mean, everyone can lose here and there and if you’re on a cold streak, well…you’re shit out of luck. This doesn’t make it any less nerve wrecking or annoying though. If poker was like this all the time, I would stop playing immeadiately. I mean, yeah, that’s the reason all the donks play, because even though they don’t know shit about it, they can win, even by playing like a blind monkey. I’m cool with that, as long as the “shit factor” is in the green to orange zone. With all the hands that went down the last 48h though, the shit meter hit blood red on me…

Two examples out of the last one I played, after that, there was no way I was playing another one…

Hand x (down to five handed, I’m second in chips, I put him on a bullshit move with a weak to medium ace, I’m playing to win so no way I laydown this hand here)….

PokerStars Game #8689644256: Tournament #44234991, $5.00+$0.50 Hold’em No Limit – Level V (75/150) – 2007/03/01 – 18:12:04 (ET)
Table ‘44234991 1’ 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: DAWGS6 (4040 in chips)
Seat 2: pokersonbill (1720 in chips)
Seat 3: alpacas (2175 in chips)
Seat 6: amiel123 (2580 in chips)
Seat 8: Ingoal (2985 in chips)
Ingoal: posts small blind 75
DAWGS6: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [Ah Ks]
pokersonbill: folds
alpacas: calls 150
amiel123: raises 2430 to 2580 and is all-in
Ingoal: raises 405 to 2985 and is all-in
DAWGS6: folds
alpacas: folds
*** FLOP *** [Kd 6d Ts]
*** TURN *** [Kd 6d Ts] [Qs]
*** RIVER *** [Kd 6d Ts Qs] [Th]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Ingoal: shows [Ah Ks] (two pair, Kings and Tens)
amiel123: shows [Jc Ac] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
Ingoal said, “good damn it”
amiel123 collected 5460 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5460 | Rake 0
Board [Kd 6d Ts Qs Th]
Seat 1: DAWGS6 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: pokersonbill folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: alpacas folded before Flop
Seat 6: amiel123 (button) showed [Jc Ac] and won (5460) with a straight, Ten to Ace
Seat 8: Ingoal (small blind) showed [Ah Ks] and lost with two pair, Kings and Tens

Thank you very much…mr. donkey…lucked out on me again and instead of sitting pretty in the chiplead with four players, I’m sitting crippled in 5/5. Nice job there donkface. The very next hand I chip up to slightly over 1k. Nice. Next hand…I look down at AA…

Now, if I was the only one in the hand…I could find a grain of reasoning in his decision to play his hand (the donkey reasoning is clear “wow, I have two face cards and they’re s00000ted! Gold! When can I push in”), but the other player reraised after me…how can you call there? Are you kidding me? And yes, thanks again for the nice deal PokerStars, you brought the term “shit out of luck” to a whole new dimension over the last 48h…

So…that’s the straw that broke the camels back…I mean, this is hmm I think the 8th straight time that I went from “I’m going to take this thing down” to “Out the door within the next two to three hands”…and not only with significant better hands, but by absolute donkey donkey donkey play by my opponents…may the all rot in donkey hell…I’m out of here and don’t expect me to play any of these SnGs at any level over the few days maybe even weeks…I just can’t take this bs anymore…seriously…

Edit: Sharkscope says, Form: Super Tilt….Ingoal says, Form: Super, Luck: Unlucky as hell…

Me again…while I’m still in rant mode I forgot about something. The long time it recently takes to get a poker book delivered. Now I’m usually patient and all, but 4-8 weeks for books that have been out a while? Well, I could have ordered them from Amazon.com, but there’s really not much point as I won’t save anything as the shipping and handling (and the occasionally added customs) eats up the difference, so why not order from Amazon.de. So, I went ahead and ordered a bunch of new books as I’m all out of poker books for the moment (yes, Super System II, Little green book, little blue book are all books that you can re-read over and over, but sooner or later I need something new to keep me entertained)…so I thought I’d go for a good mix of strategy/entertainment…

The one part of poker that I’m more and more interested in is the “playing the player”, “reading the player”, etc part…online it’s pretty basic…watch out for “online tells” (stalling, fast-check, etc) and most important of all: betting patterns. Live, there’s a whole lot more to consider…well, maybe consider is not the right word here…after all there’s lots of information right in front of you and noticing all the bits and pieces is only one part of the deal, the other part is interpretation and analysis of the seen in relation to betting patterns and hand history. Add the , “player behaviour” (“real world tells”) to it and you’re in the area that I’m really interested in, at least atm. Tells.

Now I was torn between getting the classic (Caro) or the “new school stuff” – Joe Navarro, Ex FBI Agent. As I was pretty impressed with Joe Navarro on Ante Up in one of the recent shows, I went with that one…and after only a week’s wait, it was delivered today. Yay, new material that should really rock, I’m really looking forward to reading this one and I’ll start as soon as I’m done with this post…

Back to the title though, the other books I order back in january are still MIA…with ETA March 6-13th Professor, Banker and the Suicide King…and even worse with an ETA May 29th-31st Hunting Fish: A cross-country search for America’s worst poker players…good god, how can it take almost four months to get that one delivered to me? On another note: I’m really looking forward to that one, I just hope it won’t be a one-pager: “Log onto PokerStars.com day and night. The End”…pun intended 😉