It’s been ages since we last played our regular home game. Tonight ten donks s00ted up and joined the festivities. I took down the main tournament. Wheeeeeeeeeeee. A W….so sweet. I took third in the side tourney, too (getting a refund on my buyin), so I finished the night 2/2 in the money with 1W and 1 third place finish. Overall a nice showing especially considering that I held exactly one pocket pair all night, KK getting no action headsup in the main tourney. The rest was grinding it out and it worked out pretty nicely.

Alrighty…I’m outta here…time to catch some sleep…gotta be up and running later on to a wedding ceremony…good luck at the tables and have a great weekend…

We all know that Phil Hellmuth can dodge bullets, well, I can’t do that, but at least I can dodge some cow turds…lol…

Tonight was kind of a brutal session, not money-wise, but result-wise. I started off by dusting off the old cash game skills hitting some NL tables. Dropped some dough, about 1/5th of a buyin, so all good.

Then I switched to the usual SnG donkarama and it got ugly quickly. At least I was able to pull out two Ws in HU NL HE and HU Razz to kind of save the session. What went wrong in the early SnGs and in the cash game? Well, cow turds coming my way over and over and I managed to dodge 3/5 of them.

Three times it was boat over boat by the river (managed to only lose the minimum once, busto the other two times…lovely to see a case card roll off on the river twice…83 vs A3…board 8xA33…beautiful…the other was even sicker…33 vs 45 (don’t ask) board 345×4…sickedy sick) and two times it was two pair vs two pair…both times I flop middle and bottom pair…my opponents flop top two…still a mistery how I managed to lose only the minimum in both instances….hooray me…

I’m outta here….

These days, I can’t catch a break, whether it’s live or online. Played a little live crapshoot (8 minute levels) yesterday. My best hand was 66…won a multi-limped pot preflop. Then it was fold fold fold again until I pick up jackAce…I push from LP with 12BB…BB calls with AQo…flop QTx…turn gives me the nut-flush draw to go along with the gutterball…river blank and I’m gigli. So fugly.

Today, I decide to play a little online again and the same shit as usual goes down…runner runner two pair counterfeit and I’m busto in the first match (money went in on the turn…my opponent drawing mighty slim with his monster 8J for top pair jack kicker, river pairs the board). In the next one my opponent loves his connectors (45) which outflop me beautifully…and busto. I’m so sick of this…as I can’t catch a break, I’m going to take one…

I took a little break from my usual headsup routine yesterday. I decided to hit up some of favourite tilting games, namely Razz and PLO8. I pretty much annihilated my opponents in Razz and got some favourable hands and flops in PLO8. One guy killed me in Razz though, it was unreal. I won 80% of the pots, but every time a really big pot came down he got lucky on me. Sometimes you tend to exaggerate in such situation, but no, he won every single big pot starting with a worst hand catching at least peferct-perfect (once even perfect-perfect-perfect) to beat my made hands. Really frustrating, but that’s part of the game and at least I could yell my good ol’ Razz/Stud mantra in the chat: Brick brick brick really makes me sick.

Today I mixed play up a little. I played four headsup matches, won two of em. Then I played a six-handed SnG and finished in second. The crucial hand came down still four handed: I was the big stack and there were three smaller stacks (one under 1k, one with 1.4k and one with 2.2k). I get T8 in the SB and complete as it’s folded to me. BB (2.2k) checks. Flop comes down 2-8-8 with two hearts. I check…he bets. Hmm…flush draw? Hmm…I call. Turn brings the Ks. I check again…error #1…I should lead out here…but he doesn’t take the free card, so it didn’t cost me for the moment. I raise him. He calls. Now I’m a little bit confused although I think he has a king for sure, probably the Kh. River…Ah….so fugly…if my initial feeling was right he’s got there. I lead out with a defensive bet…he raises all-in, which is only 400 more to me… into a 4k pot…well…I’ll have to pay you off sir…and indeed he has Kh9h…fugly but I don’t see how the money isn’t going in…although he might have folded on the flop if I push…but where’s the value in that…my foe in that hand busts the other two players within the next ten hands and we’re headsup…1.7k to 7.3k…not much I can do with blinds of 200/400 ante 50…so I push with the second hand and don’t catch…I’m busto…
After that I decided that I had enough of NL Hold’em for the night and had a look at the upcoming MTTs. It’s been a while since I played one (non blogger events) and there was a 360max PLO8 tourney about to start…let’s get ready to rumble. I catch some good hands early on and more than double up…then I go on a dry spell. Still above average I get quartered in a pretty fugly hand (river counterfeits my nut-low) and I’m below average for the first ime. About twenty hands later I commit to a hand that I shouldn’t have…AA48 double s00ted…a lot of limpers in the pot…I’m in the SB and raise the pot…one caller in LP…he got me covered and calls my flop pot-bet…the flop is pretty harmless looking…but what do you know…J94…turn brings a small rag…I go all-in…he insta-calls with the monster AJ4x….river J and I’m bustom 137th if 262. Oh well…I’m outta here…

Tonight we played our regular home game. A total of 12 players showed up including one newbie. To make a long story short, as usual, the newbie won. I don’t know what it is, but it seems that every time a newbie shows up to play (s)he either got the goods, get’s lucky or both and takes it down – fine by me.

We started out with two six handed tables and early on I got some hands (AK, AQ, AJ) and took down some small pots. Then it was time for one of the first bigger pots. I raise it up preflop (4BB) with Ac10d. One player out of position calls. Flop comes down all rags two clubs. Check…I check…turn brings the 10c…so I got top pair, nut flush draw…he checks…I bet…he reluctantly calls. River brings the Js. He checks and I got the feeling that the jack hit him. I check behind and he takes it down with KJo. Hmmm…well…no comment…here’s your lolipop 😉

I chip up again winning some small pots and then the hand comes down. I look down at 66 and pop it preflop…I get one caller…incidently the same player that chased me down in the A10 vs KJ hand…flop comes down QJ6 two spades…gin! He bets…I call…turn brings the Ks…hmm…he checks…I take a stab at the pot and he reluctantly calls, commenting “if you’ve got it, you’ve got it”…river is blank (5c)…he checks…now I’m thinking, hmm….when the flush hit, he made that comment, which leads me to believe that he got something good here, too…so I decide to check it down. I say “trips”, he says “I knew it, you probably have the better hand”…and I’m “uh oh” he shows JJ for the higher set…damn. I lost half my stack…although I guess I lost the bare minimum there, so I can’t fault myself here. I pondered a push on the turn…then again…he would have probably called me down and I would have been busto…so…what can you do.

The blinds are starting to get big, so I have no choice but to push a few hands later. I wanted to do it blind, but I didn’t and I see JJ…push….SB calls…showing presto…flop and turn are blank and the river is….5….presto = gold and I’m busto….so much for the “main event”.

We wait for some other players to bust out to start our sidegame. This sidegame will stand out for a while as one of the craziest hands ever was played in the very first hand. Some players, including myself, limp, LP pops it…everyone folds around to the BB who calls. Flop comes down 7J7. EP leads out…LP pushes…EP insta-calls….what do they hold? LP JJ for top boat…EP 77 for dem quads bitches! Wow! Turn and river are blank and we got our first casualty. As it’s the first hand we allow the unlucky player to rebuy and he’s going to be “Mr. Rebuy” from now on…brutal way to get your nickname 😉

After stealing some pots I’m still getting low on chips so I decide to push with one of the next hands…once I look down at 44 there’s no turning back and I get called by AKo. Flop is ace high…turn brings the king…river is blank and I’m busto…

All in all I can’t fault myself for any of the plays I made…I put the money in with the best, apart from the set over set hand, and hmm…I wasn’t running good…what can you do…nothing much…so…I had fun tonight, but the cards weren’t with me…better luck next time, which will hopefully be soonish…there’s just nothing better than live cardflinging with friends 🙂

As I was too tired to write up a summary of Kat‘s Friday Rebuy Madness (TM) this morning (after I busted out after over two hours of play, past 5am), here it goes, spiced up with some live poker.

I had a terrible session prior to the rebuy madness. I couldn’t win a hand to save my very soul and after the first match I discovered a big, maybe even giant leak in my (HU/SnG) game. What is the leak? Impatience combined with being annoyed of all the luckboxes I’m facing on a daily basis. Now, this maybe doesn’t count as a genuine leak, but really it is. I play a match, play the best I can, put the money in with the (significantly) best of it and I lose. I go off the deep end in the next x minutes playing suboptimal strategy (making bad calls, getting impatient, calling in bad spots, etc). So I really need to work on that. When I’m in the zone (and stuff like this doesn’t happen) I’m waaaaaay ahead and crush the game. But as soon as a session starts off with a real bad beat or a succesion of such hands, I lose it and donk out of the next ones. Not a good thing.

But enough of the session prior to the rebuy madness. The rebuy madness started off with a real bummer. I got the first monsters I held crushered, big time. What did I hold? The hammer and the jackhammer, both crushered by “overcards”. Sick, sick, sick 😉

So I rebought a few times donking around like there’s no tomorrow…and that’s the real beauty of this tourney. There’s just no better way to spend x dollars. You buyin for 2 (1+1; or better 3) dollars and donk around. If you make a mistake or donk move – who cares? 1$ will get you another 1k chips, 2$ will get you another 2k chips. Heeeehaaaw…enjoy. After the early “bad luck” – how dare you crusher my (jack)hammer?! – I picked up some nice hands and even cracked aces with a donkhand. Brilliant. After one hour of donkfoolery, I take the addon and the field looks like this:

Then I got moved to another table as some players pussed out (cough, Wawfuls etc, cough). Who do I find on my left…Mr. TripJax along with three other bigstacks…hmmm….nice…NOT.

A few hands in and it’s obvious that some players are picking on my blinds, so it’s time to make a move. Trip raises from UTG and I look down at KQo in the BB…no way I’m folding here…so I call…hit top pair and it goes to the river…after the hand, it’s revealed that he had the hammer and picked up an OESD which didn’t come through on the river though. So I pick up the pot and enjoy myself. The very next hand I get dealt the hammer myself in the SB.

After I miss the flop completely, I lead out nontheless with a nice sized cbet. Trip raises though and I have to fold the hammer. Back to square one.

The next hour is mostly a blur, win some lose some, but one hand stands out. If I knew that, I would have called the preflop raise. I sit with A9o on the button…one limper as it get’s to me…I limp as well…trip raises…limper calls…I ponder as the raise would be like 20-25% of my stack…so I decide to fold as I’ve got the feeling that I might be dominated here…flop comes down 992….whine…sigh…turn K…river 2…showdown Trip A8o…limper 66…so sick…if I call there…I triple up for sure, why? Because trip leads out for 2.5k on the flop…limper raises to 5k…no way in hell that I’m not either flat-calling or pushing there (7k) and at least the limper would have called the extra 2k for shizzle…oh well…just as the second break is about to kick in, we’re down to the final table…

8th out of 9…hmm…not a pleasent spot to be in…after we lose the first player, I push my stack in with A10o, which is no match to the other player’s JJ…

So, I’m out in 8th…

So…am I disappointed? Not really, I played some donk poker (early on), I played some good poker (middle stage up to the final table) and I played some decent poker at the final table. All in all…10$ spend for 2.x hours of good poker fun with the boys (and gals)! See you all next week…

Fast forward to today, we started the day off by watching the top match of the german footie league (our local VfB Stuttgart whooped Bayern Munich 2-0) and a nice BBQ. After enjoying the goods, we decided to play a little poker, surprise surprise. We started an eight-handed SnG with a payout structure of 50/30/20%. Got off to a slow start, but finally picked up a decent hand once the blinds got bigger. I look down at QQ in the BB…two limpers…so I decided to push…not the best move there, but with all the chasers at our game, I’ll rather win a small pot than seeing my Queens go up in flames on a bad board. One of the limpers has another idea for the hand though. I’m a little worried there as he’s really thinking about calling…could he have Aces? Could he have Kings? Sure, but then again, if he had that, his money would already be in the pot for sure…so I wait for him to make his move and he finally calls with KJo…errrm yeah…probably a good idea, wait, not really. The queens stand up and I double up to around 3k in chips (2k starting stack). Fast forward a few levels and “the hand” comes down. I’m in the SB…we’re five handed…UTG folds…UTG+1 calls…button calls…I look down at 88…I raise…BB flat-calls…shortstack UTG+1 shoves it in (practically “only” doubling my bet)…the button calls…I call…BB calls…no need to get cute here, let’s see what the flop brings…flop comes down 89T rainbow….hmm…bottom set…not bad…check…BB checks…UTG+1 is already all-in so no action…button bets out 1.5k….hmmm…why bet into a dry sidepot here? Hmmm…I’ve got around 3.xk left…so I ponder my options…could it be that he flopped a bigger set here? Absolutely, but if I’m scared of set over set here, why am I playing at all, especially given the fact that the button is one of our resident maniacs. So I ponder a little and put him on either an overpair or top pair (which would both be gold here)…I push over the top and the BB folds…showdown…button A10o for TPTK…shorty KQo…me…88 for a set of eights…the turn is a blank and I got the huge sidepot secured…the only card that can take the main pot from me is a J…that doesn’t hit and I drag the biggest pot I’ve ever seen in our homegame. I’m sitting there with roughly 65-70% of all chips in play and we’re down to four handed (bubble time)…the next orbits are a blur, but I don’t use my bigstack to really bully ppl, but I used it to make the obvious button moves. We lose a player and then another player and I’m headsup with the resident maniac. Not really the player I want to see there, but my 3:1 chiplead gives me some leeway here. I lose the chiplead in one of the typical hands. I hold JXo and I flop two pair. I bet out pot-sized. Call. Turn blank. I lead out half the (now substantial) pot. Call. River Q. Check check, as I know I’m toast….and I am toast…back to even. Sigh…I lose some pots…and after a sick hand, I flop Aces he flops second pair…rivers his kicker…and he’s roughly a 1,8:1 chipleader now…after folds on both sides for some orbits, the money finally goes into the middle and I got the best of it. I’m in command at that point and it’s a matter of a few more hands until the money goes in again…me AJ s00ted vs “The negreanu” (T7o)…flop brings a pair of queens and a king…turn is a 9…river is a T and i take it down with broadway. Wheeee…finally a W again after the long drought. Took second last time, first this time, things are looking up again, ever since I re-evaluated my live game…good stuff there…all in all…a perfect saturday…hope you had a good one, too…good luck at the tables…

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…

Unbelievable weekend. Left work earlier on friday afternoon as I was starting to feel a little pain in one of my teeth, no biggie I thought. Wrong. Fast forward a few hours and I’m in major pain. So I call the dentist to see if I can sneak in on short notice and yup, I can. So I drive to my dentist and he drills a little here a little there, I feel nothing due to the local anesthesia. I wish him a good weekend and he tells me that I should come back if the pain returns.

The pain doesn’t return until yesterday evening…what a brilliant timing…saturday night, time for yet another round of our home game and I’m in pain. Brilliant. Damn it. Ah well, I take some pain killers and make the trip to the home game. We’ve got a nice turnout of 11 players. I start at the 6 player table and the action is hot early on. In the third hand I suffer the first beat…I hold 10-2o, yup the Doyle Brunson, in the BB…two limpers, so I check. Flop comes 22J…nice…SB checks…I check hoping that the player behind me hit his jack or is at least taking a stab at it. He does as he bets out 2x pot. SB folds…I ponder and reraise the pot. He ponders and calls. Turn is a beautiful ten. Boat baby! I check again…he bets out again…now I’m thinking: two to the flush on board…if he really has the Jack I’m pretty safe…2 outs max…so…I just call…River…Jack (!)…great…I check…and I’m really disgusted, but I call his small bet on the end nontheless…he shows J4 for the higher boat…okay, so I’m a little steaming and thinking to myself: “great, just great. Third hand in and the first two-outer hits against me”…and before I can curse a little the SB chimes in…”Damn, I folded a Jack…my 3 kicker was so weak”…now I’m on insta-tilt as it was indeed a one-outer…damn!

Oh well…after that I took some hands off and then went back to the tight-aggressive game-plan. It worked out pretty well for the next x orbits as I was able to build my stack again. Then there were some consecutive sucky-sucky hands (four outer on the river, runner runner two pair to beat my TP, lost coinflip) and I was down to half my original stack. The blinds slowly but steadily eating me up…so I look down at A7s in the SB…the BB is basically auto-all-in as he’s got less than another BB left…one limper in front of me…I push…BB calls (no surprise) but then the EP limper calls. Hmm…I show my A7..BB shows his K7…EP limper shows QJ s000000ted….flop QQx…and IGHN in 7th place (6 make the final table, top 3 ITM)…damn!

In other news: our resident “luckbox” had a little bit of luck again…all-in with less than 3BB…oooh he got QQ…they hold up….fast forward to the final table…ooh…all-in again with less than 5BB…ooh he got AA…they hold up…etc etc…in the end his luck ran out as he lost back to back coinflips (77 vs AJ and 22 vs some random hand)…nontheless, yet another second place finish…it’s going to be a hard one to catch him in the POY race…

Now back to the tooth pain and car wreck…my teeth were still hurting like crazy, but I decided that I would play a sidegame if there was one. Two players took off to fetch some burgers from McD…and they took quite a while. Then another while..and they still weren’t back as the phone rang…”…What?…anyone hurt?” – uh oh…turns out the took a left turn (were it wasn’t allowed) and another car hit them smack in the middle with around 50-60 km/h…ouch…

My teeth are still hurting like crazy…was at the hospital today, but they couldn’t help me (apart from giving me more painkillers), so I’ll have to pull through it until I can visit my dentist again…

So…I leave you with my personal favourite hand of the night…dem quads biotches!! (Way to go, I eliminated a player and won the huge amount of 2xBB with it; sorry about the bad quality, but I forgot to switch to night vision on my good ol’ nokia mobile – the felt should actually be green, not blue 😉 )…

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!

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…