Yawn…pretty early, yet again, so no loooong ass post, but a quick wrap-up. Jumped into Stars and first of all I played a double shootout. Haven’t played these in a while and they seem to be quite juicy, first hurdle is to win the first table…from there on out you’re usually in the money and you’ve got a shot at one the entries to the sunday million, which is worth 215T$. As an SnG junky I would most certainly unregister from the tourney and take the T$, but first of all you need to get your game on and win one of those things. That’s what I tried. The first one wasn’t totally filled up, only 70 players, so there were 10 tables with 7 players each. We jabbed and grabbled for the first twenty minutes and I was able to bust on player. From there on out I went card dead for quite a while. In the meantime a player was running hot. He knocked out player after player with an unreal run of cards. He knocked out two players within two orbits, showing JJ and KK twice each in the process. Nice going sir, yuck. So we’re down to four-handed and I get my money in with AQ…not the greatest hand, but hey, it’s four-handed so I’ll take it. Mr. Cardrack instacalls with Kings…and knocks me out. Nice going sir. No way you can win the first table if you got a player at the table who’s catching like crazy. Oh well, can’t fault him, I’ll take such a run of cards every day, lol.

So I walk away and wait for the next double shootout, this time a turbo one. The thing is almost filled up and so this time we start out with a full table. Most hands are a blur, all I know is that I got my money in with the best and it usually held up. So after a long battle back and fourth we’re finally down to three-handed, then mr. big stack busts out the other player and we begin heads-up.

So we battle back and forth and he’s still out in front, but I see my chance to double-up into the chiplead with 22, the ducks….I limp and we see a flop, which makes me believe he doesn’t have a monster here. Flop comes down 4-6-7 with two clubs. He leads out and I push…he calls…showing Jc8c….hmm…okay…so he got two overs and the flush draw…I hold the 2c…so he got 6 + 8 = 14 outs twice….hold up one time please! 😉

Turn pairs sixes and the river is the Jack of Hearts…and I’ve never seen an uglier Jack at that…lol…oh well…so close and yet so far…better luck next time.

Just as I’m about to logout for the night a little reminder pops up. Aips 2 Event #2 is about to start over at FullTilt. For all of you who are not familiar with AIPS, it’s a series of tourneys initiated by the folks of AnteUp (the podcast…)and it’s stud tonight and only five bucks…so why the heck not…

The tourney starts like any good “chase me down, after all it’s limit, DUDE”-tourney…I start out rolled up and one player says “Heck, it’s so cheap, I’ll call you down no matter what”, well he doesn’t say it out loud, but I think it’s almost certain to assume that he thought along those lines. So I lose a third of my stack in the first hand…nice…NOT. After that I go on a three-to-the-wheel roll, too bad it’s not Stud 8…so I muck muck muck…until I catch some nice hands and I bring my stack up to over 2k. I get bounced around a lot until I finally land at a nice table just before the first break.

The dwarf bringing it in is Chris Cosenza, to my right is Scott Long…so I landed at the table where both Ante Up Hosts held court. Nice. Not so nice that I lost most of my stack in a nasty hand. I finally fold on fifth street as “Vorune” has three hearts showing and is betting like crazy, Chris isn’t far behind though, in terms of betting at least. He finally catches up on the river to suck out an ace high flush against Vorunes (King/Queen?! high) flush (Side note: I’m really looking forward to the next podcast and if Chris will have a comment on his play in this hand, lol)…I’m sitting with less than 1k and it’s not looking all that good. I get the money in a few hands later with a pair of Kings (K8K)…my opponents catches a King on fourth…hehe…too bad he had the Ace in the door as he had a King underneath…brick brick brick…the usual and I’m out…oh well….had fun…and now I can catch some sleep…. night…

Didn’t get the chance to write about my results yesterday, so here it goes:

1. Bodog: Same ol’ same ol’…busted some donkey balls…still only up a little on 6 of 10 Ws

2. Nine: Won’t give me a break, not even the tiniest. Down a nice junk…yet again.

3. FullTilt: No joy either. The session had everything…from the two outer on the river to the runner runner goodness of straights and flushes, nice to see that my opponents were running extremely good…someone’s gotta be lucky…

Today’s sessions were quite exciting. It was the first time in ages that I was on stone-cold-tilt, only for a short period of time, but still.

I started out the first session with some NL25 at FullTilt and everything went quite well. Almost doubled up early before giving all back, including my buyin. Two hands in a row got the best of me:

1. I hold KhKd in the BB…button does the little 3xBB standard raise. Small blind folds. I reraise to 10xBB…all fold around to the button. He ponders and pushes his remaining stack (only around 10xBB more), so I’m pretty much insta-calling it, hoping for Ax. He shows AdAs. Flop doesn’t help me all that much, but it could have been worse: Ac10h8h…turn 9h…outs…outs!…outs…river…guess….Ah…yeah, make me my nut flush just to lose to Dem Quad Aces Beetches! Nice…not.

2. Next hand I’m in the SB and look down at AJ sooted. LP puts in the standard raise…I call…flop comes AJx rainbow…I push my remaining chips in, hoping that he has Ax or something…nope…Ac7c…turn xc…ooh…two clubs on board…river xc…nice…not. Dastard!

After that one I was on stone-cold-tilt, but as I had to run to footie training it didn’t hurt me. After I came back from footie training I fired up bodog to mix things up and the HU gods weren’t with me early on. Then I jabbed and grabbled my way back to being ahead, before a donk-face luckbox hit his miracle on the river three hands in a row…which lead to two tilt-outs in the first level. I got my shit together though and went on a little run to finish 8 out of 15…at least ahead a little.

Back to FullTilt and I hit the Shorthanded CAP tables…I leave after I bust two players. Nice. Then I fire up a Stud table and play around 10 hands. I didn’t want to push my luck any further after this hand happened:

I start out with (J8)8…I complete and two players stay in…10 for me…now obvious straight or flush draws just overcards, so I two-bet…one player folds…one calls…10 for me…I bet…he calls….10 for me…I bet…he calls…(10) for me…I bet…he ponders long and hard and folds, what he said was a boat 9s full of Queens – he had 9QQ showing..so I guess he was indeed telling the truth…this was the first time EVER that I received FOUR consecutive cards of the same rank…pair…to boat…to Dem Quads Beetches!

What a way to finish the night 🙂

That pretty much sums up my session at FullTilt. Started out with busting some donkey balls at the CAP Hold’em tables. Then decided that it was time to play some other games again. Stud went fairly well. Stud H/L in return didn’t go well at all. Then I fired up two PLO tables and the shit really got sour.

I mean, I’m certainly no expert at PLO (in contrast to one of my better games PLO8), so it might be that I played some hands the “wrong” way, but some hands just went so bad that I couldn’t believe it.

Example: I hold AsKs4c5c, flop comes 2s5sAh, so I’ve got top two with and inside straight draw and the nut flush draw…pot by my opponent…raise pot = CAP by me…admitted loose call by my opponent…he shows QQ77…hmm…turn 7c river Qd…nice, NOT!

Example #2: I hold As2sAd2d…now that’s not the best hand in the world, but not the worst either…pot preflop…two callers…flop Ah6dJh….EP pots it….I reraise CAP…other player folds…showdown 6s6h2h2c…wheeee….turn 7h…d’oh…one time dealer…pair the board….as if…damn it 😉 …river…10h…

Oh well…slightly down for the (playing) session, still slightly up due to some cleared reload bonus dough so ‘s all good…

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Damn it! Now that’s a hell of a start, lol. Starting already. I can’t catch a god-damn hand. Run run run. (Thanks Tony for lending me those words).

Well, what a crappy session at Full Tilt. Un-friggin-believable. I sit down at a shorthanded cap NL game as there was no full ring going. First hand I turn the nut flush (holding QhJh)…we push it all-in (CAP) and he shows Quads friggin Aces. Nice. I bounce all around the room for another twenty minutes, before I decide to leave, slightly down. I’m on the lookout for another game and I think it’s a good idea to fire up some Stud. Haven’t played that in a while and a while back I considered it to be my best game (as there’s so much information available).

So…I hit the table hard and everything is working, apart from one thing: I can’t win a friggin pot. Chaser #1 hits on 6th and 7th street like it was nothing. Runner runner flush to beat my straight. Runner runner straight to bust my two pair. Hell, even runner runner boat to beat my boat. That made me so fuckin mad that I only had two options:

1. Stay and donk off all my remaining chips.

2. Leave and curse the fuck out of all the lucky sobs catching all day against me – not in the pokerrroom, but on here. And so that’s what I did.

This post has been brought to you by the letter “L” – L for lucky chasing runner runner catching scumbacks taking my money 😉

That’s all…I’m out…weekend over…

1. Enter a limit Stud MTT 2.5h prior to the WWdN Ingoal Invitational
2. Hang in there for slightly over 3 hours
3. Run your hole Aces into rolled up Kings
4. Bust out in the process
5. Finish 20th of 296 for a huge ( 😉 ) profit of 1.26$ 🙂

Played a crazy mix of games today including crazy pineapple on UB (damn that game can be fun) , Stud and different cash and SnGs/MTTs of NL HE. Got the first nut kicking by getting outdrawn time and time in the Stud MTT on Stars, not to worry though, it was a donkey 1$ tourney, so you can’t expect much. No cashes in all the other SnGs on both FullTilt and Stars with the best finish being 4th (bubble boy) on Stars.

Then I decided that it was time to finally play a WWdN again….so I logged back on just in time and registered. My starting table included PokerChamp (aka TouristHater 😉 ), Chris (drewspop), Dan (denials – live blogging the event once again) and others…

I didn’t think that this starting table would be the last one for me, but unfortunately it was. Dumped some chips in the first orbit with KJ sooted, standard raise preflop, one caller…I hit the king…on the rainbow flop and fire out another 100….call…turn is a queen…I fire out another 100…call…River is another Queen… now I check and get popped 200…sure enough I call…can’t put my opponent on AQ there…thanks dealer for a runner runner set for my opponent. Down to just above 1000 within the first orbit, damn. Next hand I decide to play is Jh10h…I flop an OESD + Flush draw + gutshot straight flush draw (as far as I remember the flop came down 9h-Kh-8c)…opponent fires 80 on every round and I call it down not hitting anything, no straight, no flush and damn sure no straight flush…and I’m down to around 900 chips. Next orbit I’m sitting in the BB with 88…drewspop pops it up to 80 (blinds still 10/20)…I ponder and call…flop is all rags 7-5-2 or something…I fire out 100 to see where I’m at…he reraises to 300…so now I’m faced with the tough choice (call – doesn’t make too much sense as I would be commited anyway, fold – not really, push – ding ding)…I push and he shows AA….noooooooooooooo! So I’m out in 95th of 98. Why do I have to run into those damn bullets…I guess I should call Phil Hellmuth, maybe he can teach me how to dodge bullets 😉

I won’t be playing the WWdN (which starts in around 30mins) tonight as I’m just too tired and don’t feel like playing. I did my share of playing for the day already, too…with not much success either (4 SnGs: 1x3rd), busted out rather early out of the Stud and NL HE MTT…so I guess there’s no point in donking off another 11$ 😉

Have fun all and I’m looking forward to read some transcripts/recaps tomorrow…cheers 🙂

Update: Wow, it seems I’ve missed a quite nice showing by Waffles who took down 1st place, w00t!

So, I decided that all the S&G playing wasn’t really paying off (I’ll try to combine statistics somewhere in the near future) – so “normal” play comes to mind. It wasn’t a good idea to play a mix of Stud, Omaha and Omaha H/L though. Switching between the two games put me a little bit off apart from the fact that I kept making good hands, but nontheless still run into even better hands. One example: I hit the diamond nut flush and keep betting and betting until I’m all in with one caller…sure enough he makes his diamond straight flush on the turn 🙁

Results: 4$ donkeyed off in less than 30 minutes…

So, I continued my quest to become a better stud player and it’s looking good. I was able to get up from 1000 to 7000 chips in two hours over at FTP and from 57.000 to around 62.000 over at PP. Nice going so far, the only sad part is that most tournaments and S&Gs are really Texas Hold’em and not much going on the stud tables. Can anyone recommend a Poker room with a decent stud crowd when it comes to tournaments or S&Gs?