Remember that I made a purchase in the PokerStars FPP Store not long ago? Underpromise and overachieve is the motto…promise delivery time of 6-8 weeks…deliver in under two weeks (order arrived this tuesday) with Online Order Tracking and the whole shebang…thanks PokerStars…you rock 🙂

Well, what can I say, I’m currently in a good place when it comes to poker. Why? Because I’m sticking to skinning the low-limit PLO8 donkeys and it’s working out pretty nicely. Always nice to see someone think his overpair no low draw is good…yeah right, that’s why I’m repopping you like crazy son. *lol*

So, what’s the difference between the normal NL Hold’em donk and the normal PLO8 donk? Well, first of all most of the PLO8-donks are Hold’em players (or really bad PLO8 players). Secondly, even if they grasp the concept of PLO8 they’re usually so impatient and all too curious. That being said: I try to play small-ball preflop and once I hit gin (or a monster-draw) I control the pot so that I can cripple the fish once the board is layed out. It usually works nicely and even if it doesn’t, I’m really calm about it…after all you can’t win ’em all…

On that note…to show you the difference between my (low limit HU) NL HE mindset and my (low limit HU) PLO8 mindset: if someone hits a 6-8 outer against me in NL HE, I’m mad…if someone hits a 1 outer on me in PLO8…I laugh and play on…(just happened tonight…I had him drawing to one out and the case 4 comes out on the river to give him quads…I laughed and rebuild my stack before busting him)…

I think I found my spot for now…tonight’s stats: 13 matches, 9Ws…alrighty 🙂

Just one more week and it’s going to be High Stakes Poker time again. Season 4 will kick off next monday, 9PM on GSN, and I gotta say, I’m really looking forward to it.

Browsing through the player lineup, I came across the following pic:

Phil “Best Hold’em player in the world” aka “Cash game donkey” Hellmuth Jr. is making a return and look at his promo shot for his player profile, totally hawesome!

Totally forgot: I fired up the PokerStars FPP Store tonight…after all I have racked up some FPPs since I redeposited…I “bought” Bill Chen’s book “The Mathematics of Poker”…6-8 weeks delivery time isn’t so groovy, but I was really looking forward to this book…next stop baseball jersey…although I hope they get a hockey jersey in the near future…after all Daniel Negreanu is with them now…so about time they would think about that?!!!

Played another beautiful session of HU PLO8 tonight and boy was I on fire. My spidey-sense worked beautifully and my opponents’ was missing, at least mostly.

I played 10 HU matches and won 8 of them.

Favourite opponent’s hand – a flopped royal flush:

PokerStars Game #11559444310: Tournament #58654277, $6.00+$0.25 Omaha Hi/Lo Pot Limit –
Match Round I, Level I (5/10) – 2007/08/18 – 17:37:10 (ET)
Table ‘58654277 1’ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Ingoal (1565 in chips)
Seat 2: Opponent (1435 in chips)
Opponent: posts small blind 5
Ingoal: posts big blind 10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [5s 6c Tc Jc]
Opponent: raises 20 to 30
Ingoal: calls 20
*** FLOP *** [Kd Qd Td]
Ingoal: checks
Opponent: checks
*** TURN *** [Kd Qd Td] [7h]
Ingoal: checks
Opponent: bets 30
Ingoal: calls 30
*** RIVER *** [Kd Qd Td 7h] [6h]
Ingoal: checks
Opponent: bets 100
Ingoal: calls 100
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Opponent: shows [Jd Ad 2c Ts] (HI: a Royal Flush)
Ingoal: mucks hand
Opponent collected 320 from pot
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 320 | Rake 0
Board [Kd Qd Td 7h 6h]
Seat 1: Ingoal (big blind) mucked [5s 6c Tc Jc]
Seat 2: Opponent (button) (small blind) showed [Jd Ad 2c Ts] and won (320) with HI: a Royal Flush

I swear as soon as the flop came down my spidey-sense told me: “He’s got the royal flush!”…but he made it cheap, so I call him down to see it. Beautiful. I won the match 😉

My favourite hand of the night – forgot to make a screenshot and/or grab the hand history…so just a wrap-up:

I hold Ac2cxx…I raise from the button…he calls…flop comes down 4c-5h-4s…bet…raise…call…turn 5c…hmmm…this is getting interesting…he leads out with a small bet and I call….river the most beautiful 3c I’ve ever seen…he leads out and I pop it….he calls…I show my club wheel of steel and scoop it and he’s crippled…I guess he had a boat or quads there…although I can’t understand why he wouldn’t jam with quads on the turn…oh well…good for me…

Well, well…did a little PLO8 HU SnG session today and while I finished ahead, it was still a little sick in the middle. In the end I had won 5 out of 9 matches, but I felt like it could have/should have been more like 6 or 7 wins…but I can’t help it if none of my monster-draws come through in such crucial hands. The other two matches I lost were fair and square, although mildly sick as well. AKQ2 double suited vs AKKQ…pretty sick…flop K99…cya…lol…

Then it was time for some donkalicious poker in Kat’s friday night rebuy madness and boy oh boy, it was madness. I’ve never been so card-dead ever. In a rebuy event, this doesn’t really matter early on, but it kind of sucks if you don’t get a hand in ages and you push and push and push and the best hand (your opponent’s hand) holds up every friggin time, how sick is that?!

Played 169 hands and had exactly four pocket pairs: 88 flopped a set against Ace rag and doubled up. 22 on the button had to fold to heavy action before it came around to me. 77 pushed, no caller….and my final hand presto != gold if you’re up against K6 s00ted…gg me…apart from that I had AJ once and AK once (both right after the first break). Besides that, nothing…and even if I had something (like the second nut flush) someone would have the better hand (e.g. nut flush) and don’t even get me started on draws…straight and flush draw with a pair…no g00t…flush draw…obv no g00t…etc etc…all in all a really shitty night (card wise), at least I had a good time at the tables with Acorn, Mookie and the others…cya all next week…when I’ll try to redeem myself and take less than 16 rebuys… 😉

…start with the worst hand and go all-in. *lol*

Tonight marked my “comeback” after a few days off and it was an interesting session. I played against two damn good players, more about that later, and against one fishcake. Guess which matches I won?

I started the session with the usual NL HE headsup and I played against a total fishcake. How do you manage to drop 4.9k playing 5-10$ SnGs? Well, I guess it happens if you play regularly and suck (and don’t suckout enough). At least he managed to hit the deck against me. It was an up and down battle, but in the end, it was a losing one for me as he got clobbered by the deck…he showed down TT, JJ, QQ, KK twice, AA, etc etc and in the end, I couldn’t hold the shit together against all those hands. The last hands was 73 against TT…I flop top pair and a gutterball and he comes over the top…oh well…I thought it’s next to impossible that he’s got yet another overpair (after showing two within the last 5 hands), I was wrong…busto.

After that I switched to PLO8…I don’t know why I didn’t play regularly in such a long time, after all it used to be my favourite game. I guess the whole “action jackson”- and “no hand is a substantial favourite (preflop)”-thing kept me away for a while and reading the FTP Strategy guide’s section about PLO8 made me remember how many fishcakes and bad (hold’em) players play this game. So I sit down in the first HU match and lo and behold, there’s no fish sitting there, but one of the better PLO8 players (top 15 on the 6-15$ HU leaderboard). I smoke him. I sit down in the next one. The same player comes along. I smoke him again. Nice. No doubt that I hit some pretty nice boards along the way -  having the luck that he hit the second/third nuts in the process – but still, I managed to dodge some uglier hands (no curious calls on the river), so I’m satisfied with my play.

After that I played one more and lo and behold, yet another good player comes along (top20 on the 6-15$ HU leaderboard). I smoke him too when he let’s me see the river for cheap and I hit the bigger boat. Wheeee.

So, to sum up the session: Played against one fishcake in NL HE and lost. Played three matches against top 20 leaderboard players in PLO8 and won all three. Hmm…maybe I should really think about playing some more PLO8 on a regular basis…probably a good idea, even if there’s going to be session where you will get punished badly (as it’s custom in PLO8)…

Today was the single most sick SnG session in a loooong time. Didn’t win a single match, not one. Bubble at a six-handed one to start of the session with this peach of a hand…

My reasoning for my call of the SB’s push: he was pushing a lot once we were down to three handed with all sorts of hands, so, even if I was behind (which I didn’t believe, but I was), I could still catch the diamond to win it. Once the chipleader button insta-called I knew I was toast…diamond on the turn just to rub it in.

What a wonderful start to the session, I guess I should have quit right there, but guess what, I didn’t…and so the carnage began. I was slaughtered in every game imaginable. NL Hold’em 0/2. PLO8…three outered for the deciding pot…Razz…up to 2600/400…he catches the 6 outer to double up and shit hits the fan a few hands later…guess what…calling down double-paired works these days as he only had to catch a 6/7/8 (me showing an 7 and an 8 )…so he had all the 7 outs…boom headshot…and I’m in dire straits and busto soon enough.

Oh well, let’s play another Hold’em HU SnG to close out the session, no matter if I’m winning or not, I’m quitting after that. And lose I did, made a bad call in the middle and once the blinds got big I was really short. No surprise that my opponent spikes his bs straight on the river to end my misery…gg me.

I can honestly say that I made something like 3 bad decisions all night…mostly losing the minimum (putting opponents on wrong hands)…but those ones weren’t the crucial hands…it was the auto-payoff hands (counterfeited two pair on the river, gutterball on the river) and some nice coooooooooool coolers…oh well…I guess I really should take another break as I’m getting crushed these days.

Sidenote: I admit that I’ve been up against some good players recently and I lost some matches fair and square, but in the grand picture of recent results, that’s not the deciding factor. It’s the bs hands that keep hitting me in the junk like a wrecking-ball. Every small edge (51-69%) seems like a 4:1 underdog these days…and don’t even get me started about some of the more ugly hands (4:1 favourite, boom headshot) and the card-deadness. My best hand in over a week was ONE pair of Kings which I had to muck once my rocky opponent came over the top of a A-high flop. Apart from that I’ve had plenty on 22-66…hitting exactly 0 sets. So sick…end rant.

…in a while. Really sick that I can’t get a streak going whatsoever. No chance in hell. I start with a six-handed SnG and I d00minate the table. Once we’re down to three-handed I hold the monster chiplead. At this point I’ve shown nothing but the nuts. I push all-in against shorty number one with QQ. He instacalls with K3o…brilliant play…after all I’m totally out of line all the time, wait not really. Sure enough he spikes the three-outer on the river. Good. A few hands later I push shorty number two all-in with JJ…he instacalls with 78 s00ted…flops middle pair and four flush…sure enough both turn and river are diamonds too…sure enough none of my Jacks is a diamond to beat him. A few hands later shorty number one kills shorty number two…that said, they’re not all that short after all after the good old double-up courtesy of me.

So I enter HU with a small deficit and sure enough he hits against me again…busto in second. Tbh I can’t even recall the exact hand, but it was the usual 60/40 shot for me and his 40 = 99,99999% these days. So sick. Then I fire up some HU SnGs and drop the first one, then I win the next two and I’m happy to quit with a little bit of dough in my pocket. Looking at my play it’s really so sick, I make good decision after good decision and I get kicked in the balls time and time again. I’m sooo curious to see when my ultimate-karma-balancing-unstoppable-winning-streak is going to come through as I’m due…at least I think so 😉

…are even worse than SnG fish, if you lose to them, you usually lose more than you normally would in a SnG. Well, I played a little .5/1 Razz tonight and it was brutal. People were trying so hard to give away their money (capping it on 5th street two cards behind (double paired)) and catching every god friggin time while I bricked up. So sick. After I dropped my buyin, I was so mad that I really thought hard about quitting for the night.

In the end, I didn’t. I fired up some SnGs (ranging anywhere from 5 to 20$) in both NL and PLO and I did pretty good (won 4 out of 5), although some of the fish got so lucky that I was almost incomprehensible (AQ vs A3…board 3xAx3, etc etc). I didn’t let it get to me though and crushed all but one of them in the long run. So…after three hours of poker I finish the session down 0.05$, lol, not all that bad after dropping almost 30$ in Razz and SnG-juice…