Played my heart out for 1.5h and pushed in with the nuts on a rainbow board, still wasn’t enough as I would have lost the hand no matter what…both opponents sucked out…one on the turn, locking us both out, but just to rub it in the other opponent rivered a better hand than mine – just for good measure. So I sit here a little bit frustrated as I cruise to the final table if I win that final hand, but oh well…I had fun and the fish I busted in a HU match prior to the tourney payed my way in…so all good…still sucks though 😉

Well, I took off into the weekend early today, chilled out a while and then I decided to play some ten-handed double or nothing SnGs. Pretty good deal there, if you can dodge some coolers and just ride it out. That’s not quite how it went down today though. I got into some bad spots, which I could have prevented, but hey, overall I’m satisfied with my play. Memorable hand of the day: I cold call a minraise preflop with JJ on the button, no need to commit myself here. Flop comes down Th Jh Qh…so I flopped middle-set…I’m weary of AK though and any heart on the turn or river could be it if I’m not beat already (any AK, K9, QQ, two hearts or one big heart) – not to sound too “pro” here, but the first thought that crossed my mind was “Bingo…I guess he has it, wouldn’t it be sick if he really had the Ah Kh”. Preflop-raiser checks – suspicious, but hey, I fire at it nontheless 350 into a 320 pot. He calls. Even more suspicious. Turn comes the As. Doesn’t change much imo, if he had nothing so far, good, unless he’s got a king here. He checks, I check behind hoping that the board pairs. No such luck as the 6h hits the river. He goes all-in for 515. Everything inside me tells me that I’m beat, but I have to see it. I call and he flips: Ah Kh…a royal flush. Well played…*lol*…what are the odds of flopping a royal flush: 1 to 649.740 seems to be the number…what are the odds of me flopping a set, my opponent flopping a royal flush: do I really even want to know 😉

Anyway…I’m outta here…enjoy the pic dump, including some lucky hands on my part….and gl at the tables…

After a quick loss in a headsup match, I decided to switch gears for the day. It ended up being the longest session in quite a while. I played 6 rounds of 4 Double or Nothing SnGs. Won 15 out of 24. Won 15 out of 24? Well, those stats are not that impressive when you take into consideration that you need to place first through fifth to win (out of 10). The payout…double your buyin, hence double or nothing. It was a night of beats, bad beats, good beats and loads of bad plays (a few on my part, a lot on my opponents’ part)…and in the end I walked away with a nice little profit and a flurry of screengrabs…enjoy while I head off to bed for some well needed sleep…nn…and gl at the tables…

…that’s all I have to say about the (minimal) playing time I had over the last few days. It’s not so much that there were that many coolers, I had my fair share of suckouts, too, but I was unlucky in the sense that I lost the big pots and won the small ones with suckouts, I couldn’t extract much value out of monsters and I didn’t find any joy in 40/60 shots. Oh well, what can you do…enjoy the not so random pic dump, two weeks in and we’re back at it *lol*…night…and gl at the tables…

Well, well, 2009. Happy new year to all my loyal readers, fellow poker bloggers, regular visitors and new visitors!

Today I was able to squeeze in the first session of the new year, a rather short one due to some technical difficulties on pokerstars. I don’t know what was the root cause for this, but I played some headsup matches. Then logged off. Came back later on and played some razz ring games and then wanted to jump back into the HU SnGs, but there were no new ones spawned and I couldn’t sit down at any tables either. I guess it’s time for PokerStars to invest some of the multi-billion-dollars they’re earning to get some additional servers as 250k+ concurrent players is the norm these days (at least around the time of the “big tourneys”). But back to play, rather uneventfull. I played my regular game, although I’m slowly trying to incorporate some of the concepts I read in Moshman’s Headsup No Limit Hold’em book (I’m about half way through it and enjoy it so far, I guess it’s save to say that all regular Headsup players can take away a few things from this book).

I lost track about how many SnGs I did play, a rare occurance as I usually take excessive notes of every session, but I’m lazy today and I’ll reconstruct the number played via the FPPs later on (too lazy now). The stats are good though, so it’s not a case of lazy stats due to losing 😉 I won all matches but one. The funniest two matches were the last two. The second to last was against a supernova player. Yeah, you read that right. A supernova player playing 11$ HU matches…I asked him if he was busto (like the other supernova I played a little while back), but he didn’t chat at all. Too bad. I busted him after I resucked in a big pot. He got lucky on the turn, me on the river. The last match was funny. The guy sits down at the table and starts the conversation with the good ole donk “all-in first hand?”…I reply “donk?”…he comes back with “just asking?”…I come back with “just sayin!” lol…end of conversation. True to his word he pushes in in the first four hands. I hold gin in the fourth one and he’s down to 60. lol. He doubles up. Doubles up. I chop him down again. He doubles up. Doubles up. I chop him down again. Then he finally makes another big mistake. How can you call a raise to 200 with a stack of 450 and fold to my push on the flop? lol. I bust him a few hands later with JT vs J8.

Enjoy the three pics…two featuring the supernova (unbusted and busted) and the conversation with mr. all-in first hand, so the pics are 100% whining-free, bad-beat-free and easily enjoyable. One of the things I’m looking forward doing this year: posting more happy screenshots than sad ones…let’s see if PokerStars cooperates 😉

Good luck at the tables…