Wow, what a title. 🙂

Let me work through it in sequence:

I. Still running bad. I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t seem to catch a break these days. Maybe it’s just the bad side of variance, or what not, maybe it’s just me being not up to par. I don’t know. But I guess it’s a mixture of all of the above…

a) Nice: hitting your two pair with crap cards on a ragged board against an opponent HU and getting all his chips in the middle.

b) Not so nice: exact same situation but you holding the TPTK (or similar) and getting all the chips in.

This situation made me pause today. It’s weird how nice it can be to be in situation a – you basically outflopped your opponent and don’t give it a second thought. Once the opposite scenario b arrives you curse your opponent and call it bad luck. Hmm…

II. Tilt: This happened to me again today after getting sucked out on in consecutive hands. I jabbed my way to a 3:1 chiplead and hold a monster after the flop. We get the money in and my opponent is nearly drawing dead. He needs to go perfect-perfect to beat me. Turn perfect. River perfect. Hmm…now we’re even in chips again, aka back to square one and the tilt-bells are ringing in my head. The very next hand I’m looking more than good on the flop again and guess what…he still calls my overbet and we get the rest of it in after the blank turn. River…perfect…boom headshot. Now the tilt-bells are so loud in my head that I can’t get my normal game on. I should have taken a pause right there, but didn’t…so I put a little dent in my HU record and my bodog roll…nothing too dramatic though.

III. Playing beyond the push:

Waffles wrote something interesting about postflop play and pointed to a nice post by the oreo man about the same topic.

Not pushing All-In preflop all the time, not looking to take races at all times, etc is something that has really been on my mind in the last few weeks, especially since I started to play an excessive amount of HU matches. It’s funny to see how often people are pushing in those things – without any necessity to do so I might add.
A few months back, I would have called some of these pushes in a heartbeat – nowadays I think hard and more often than not, I’ll not call. Why? Because I have to take a look at the situation first and there are MANY situation that I don’t want to risk a lot of chips, especially with five cards to come. Let’s have a look at two of those situations (especially in the HU SnG situation):

1. I hold a strong drawing hand (e.g. AK), BUT I have a substantial chiplead. Why should I risk bringing my opponent back by taking a coinflip (or worse)? I’m not going to start saying that I don’t like coinflips because I never win one, because that would be bs, but I don’t like playing a big pot with marginal edges/deficits, especially if there’s no need to do so (e.g. level 1 – the classic donk move: pot is 15 chips, players start with 1000 chips…third hand in and the donk opponent pushes preflop…hmmm….I would have to call of 990 into a now 1015 pot…hmm…good odds…no wait…are you kidding me? Unless I got Aces/Kings here I hit the fold button so hard, it’s almost crumbling)
2. I hold a small or medium pair, BUT I have a substantial chiplead.

I don’t know if it’s the tv boom and all the all-ins that are shown all the time or if it’s just the “ultimate equalizer”-approach of many (inexperienced) players. One way or another all the pushing is crap. During my excessive series of HU matches I found my love for playing pots again. Nothing is more satisfying than having your opponent right where you want him, “knowing” what he’s holding and acting accordingly…beautiful! Although it won’t work out every time, it’s still so much more fun than looking down at your cards and playing the old two-gear-box…push or fold.

On another note: the push, depending on the situation, can be one of the biggest tells too. I mean, nothing is certain until the last card is dealt and the cards are turned over, but more often than not, the push will leave you with a hand full of explanations…you “just” have to make the right decision which one it is 😉

From my HU diary:

1. Push preflop as a massive overbet into a tiny bet…

I. Small pair [Player is scared to play postflop; 90% of the time at the low levels I play]

II. Medium to big pair [Player is sneaky trying to represent the “scare push” or totally inexperienced player or plain and simple a total donk]

III. Strong drawing hand (e.g. AK, KQs,…)

IV. Random hand
But enough talk about pushing. What’s even worse is all the fuss that is made about “taking coinflips”, especially over here in germany. With the poker boom finally hitting the main-stream television, it’s hard not to catch some sort of poker tourney [interrupted every 10 minutes by PokerStars or PartyPoker commercials] every other day and you wouldn’t even believe what crap some of the commentators are telling the viewer: (Paraphrased translations from their original (german) comments)

1. “What is he thinking about, he’s looking at a coinflip. […] He’s the big-stack, he should look for such situations” – yeah right, did you have a look at their respective chip-counts? Table-image? Prior hands? Nope? Didn’t think so…
2. “Coinflips, the situations you should look to take advantage of, especially in tournaments” – errm excuse me, what the fuck are you talking about? Are you retarded or what? How can you take advantage of a coinflip? Wheeeeee I’m a 2% favourite…I guess there won’t be a better spot in the next gazillion hands I can play with my stack…yeah right…

3. etc etc

Sidenote: Now we all know that you will have to win a coinflip or two (or some more) in order to win a big tourney, but why in the world would I look for those situations? Don’t you think that I would like to get my money in with the best (let’s say 60/40, 70/30, …)? Yeah, thought so…but that’s not something that isn’t said in those broadcasts…

So maybe it’s really the tv shows that are putting the “race me and push me for all my money”-crap inside many players’ heads…sad…sad…but enough of the rambling for today…

Lesson learned today: You should stop playing immediately if you see/you’ve got the feeling that the cards are against you ALL THE TIME!

– If you get stacked in a cash game in the first orbit because your opponent catches a lovely two-outer on the river. That sucks. If you go ahead and close the cash tables and head over to another site to play heads up and you lose the first match to a two-outer on the turn (top two vs mid pocket pair), the second one to a two-outer (top two vs low pocket pair) on the turn and the third one to a three-outer on the river, while choping unreal hands that should have busted your opponent (Did you EVER see hands like 24o turning into trips…then boating up…just to see your opponent holding 24o too? I did and laughed…I didn’t laugh as it happened again five hands later 35o vs 35o, trips, boat, all-in, chop). That sucks even more.

Price of this lesson: xx$

Realising that you can be 1 gazillion percent better than your donk-opponents and it ain’t going to matter one bit if you get cold deck after cold deck in such a horror-session and you should quit now without a second thought: priceless.

Should have learned that already, but now I’ll hopefully stick to it in the future.

Have fun in the big game tonight and a great week… 🙂

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 🙂

Well, it was a bank holiday in germany today, so I had a little time for some poker. First of all I watched some of the WSOP 2006 coverage. Good stuff there, especially Dimitri telling CJ about how he would tighten up and all after spewing chips.

Then it was time for some poker of my own. Quick summary:

1. Nine: I’ll be damned, but once again, “cold-deck” after “cold-deck”…down a nice junk and still not in reach to clear the bonus. Sigh…

2. FullTilt: Busted some fish at the CAP SH tables…then thought it was a good idea to play some Razz and PLO8 SnGs…no g00t….still up for the night though…

3. Bodog: If you’re running not all that good and want to finish the night on a high note…fire up bodog…play some HU…won the first two…lost the third…

Time to catch some sleep now as I’ve got a grueling headache and I need to get up for work in 6 hours…so…night and night…and have fun at the Mook!

…is the number of HU SnGs I played over the last few days, lol. It sounds a lot, but it really isn’t all that much if you think about the fact that, depending on the opponent and the cards, a match can last anywhere from 1-15 minutes. I guess the average was around 6-8 minutes/match.

Today’s session close the deal on 100 SnGs and I’m not satisfied with today’s result, but totally satisfied with the overall result.

Today: HU SnGs played: 16, HU SnGs won: 8

Total: HU SnGs played: 100, HU SnGs won: 66

So, I won 66% of the matches. Not bad I guess, although the number could have been even higher without some major suckouts…then again I had my share of suckouts in return, so I guess it all evens itself out. And why should I complain? 66% won matches is actually quite good, I guess?!

Some more stats:

Money wagered: 100 x 5$

Juice payed: 100 x .25 = 25$, wow…quite a bit, but I consider this a “tip” to bodog for handing me all the fish 🙂

Money won|net won: 66 x 10 = 660$  | 660-525 = 135$ 🙂
I think I’ll take a break from bodog and HU matches for now…after all I still got the FullTilt Reload-bonus to clear and I’m still planning on grinding out the last few points at nine to clear my PokerSavvy bonus there….so expect to hear about some more ring games and “normal” SnGs in the near future…

Got back from work late, so I didn’t have much spare time before footie training…only 3 HU SnGs…won all three…now that I’m back from training I fired up bodog again and hit the HU SnGs…won the first four (so the first 7 in a row in total today)…lost the next one…won the next two. That’s enough poker for me today as I’m pretty tired and I don’t like to give back money to the donkeys because I’m not really focussed….so…

Today: HU SnGs played: 10, HU SnGs won: 9

Total: HU SnGs played: 84, HU SnGs won: 58  🙂

After hitting the headsup tables once again tonight, I started wondering: Can this really last? Can I keep beating the competition in 60-66% of all matches? Well, the answer isn’t a clear “yes” or “no”…depending on my focus, the run of cards and many other factors, everything is possible, but sometimes even the biggest suckouts against me can’t stop me from winning. There, I said it. Oooooh, let’s hope that the poker gods don’t put the curse on me, lol…but back on topic…it’s really amazing how some of the concepts I recently read/seen/thought about are coming to life in some of the matches. Being really aggressive and unpredictable early on. Never showing anything unless it’s called down. Always raising, always playing, almost never folding. “Any two cards will do”, especially if my opponents are so intimidated (?!) that they let me see flops for free all the time…disaster my friends…like in the one match which lasted exactly one hand. Opponent on the button min raises to twenty (blinds start at 5/10), I reraise to fourty with J6o…he calls…flop comes 66Q…I lead out the pot…he ponders and calls…turn is blank…I bet the pot…he calls…river blank….I push….he calls…shows AA and is out. Hard for him to get away from the hand as he most def put me on a weak queen…but still not totally impossible to laydown the hand. On another note: most suckouts against me are just at that point in the match when I finally hold a “quality” or even premium starting hand…the most money (stack time) is when I play my “high stakes poker”-style game…57o…gold! 46o gold! 53o platinum! lol…unreal how many players really think their TPSK/TPTK is good…

Anyway..enough babbling…cold hard facts: Won 9 out of 15 bringing the total to 49 out of 74 and a nice profit. I just requested another payout…lovely to see your “freeroll” money grow and grow (I had withdrawn my original deposit along with some profit after completing the PSO bonus) 🙂

Edit: And just as I post this, the money is already sitting in my Neteller account again. Wow…withdrawal request till processing/money in Neteller: 18 minutes! 🙂

Played some HU SnGs again…this time I didn’t make it to twenty as I got to run in a few minutes. Nontheless I managed to play 17 🙂

Got off to a really really rough start winning only one out of the first five. Probably should have won at least 3, but you know that both variance and the poker gods can be cruel some time. Move my money in with AQ vs A9…river…9…moved my money in with QQ vs K10…flop K10x…apart from that the usual same ol’ same ol’ which sometimes makes you chuckle…even though it’s disastrous for the match you’re in…like these two lovely hands: I hold AJ…raise…reraise..call…Axx on the flop…bet…raise…reraise…push…he shows AK…or the other lovely hand…I hold AK…raise…reraise…Ace on the flop…bet…raise…push…he shows AA…nice shuffle! 😉

Anyway…got the aggression monkey out again and was able to win 10 out of the next 12…bringing my total for the day to 11 out of 17 (40 out of 61 Edit: 59 (20+20+17+2 != 61 ;)) total)…not bad..nah..that’s not the right wording…it’s great! Three days of HU SnGs and I double my roll at bodog 🙂 🙂 🙂

…another twenty HU SnGs, lol 🙂

Well, what can I tell you, I’m hooked! The purest of poker, heads up, mano-a-mano, whatever you would like to call it. I love the fact that it’s both a battle of cards, but also a battle of wits – and the fact that it’s a rather action heavy form of competition along with a shorter duration (than normal SnGs) makes it even more appealing.

So…I jumped in and won the first four in a row. Should have won the fifth one too, but the cards had another idea – AJ vs A10…he runner runners a four flush…ugh…Won two out of the next five, just had the second best hand every time there was a big pot…weird how often you see similar hands 47 vs 48…case two fours on the board, etc…Then I went on a bad streak of three lost in a row…too bad if you push in with AK vs AA headsup…even worse if you push in with KK vs 99 and lose to the lovely two outer. The third one wasn’t too cool either…I got my opponent slightly covered…I look down at 44 on the button…I raise…he reraises…now this tells me Ace…hopefully not Aces…I call and we see a flop of A45 rainbow…now I’m pretty sure I’m ahead and I overbet the pot…he raises…I push…he insta-calls with A6o…lol…nice…turn 3…river 7… 🙁

After that I considered logging off for the night, but I decided to continue playing and play I did. After some other random junk kickings (which I survived, sometimes down to less than 200 in chips) I went on a total rush winning the final seven in a row.

So the total for tonight is a little worse than yesterday, but still good…13/20…this brings my bodog HU SnG record to 29/44 Edit: 42 (20+20+2 != 44 ;))….not too bad 🙂

Alrighty…it’s late again…so I’m off…gl everyone…