I didn’t have any urge to play poker yesterday, as I spent my day on the couch watching the footie world cup and then NBA Finals at night. Goooo Dirk.

Basically much of the same today, minus the NBA Finals, after all they don’t resume play until tomorrow night. So I fired up FullTilt for some relaxing SnG action, although the relaxing part almost turned into the tilty part pretty quickly. Kings cracked by sixes, hmm…thanks, which basically let me tilt of the next SnG. Then in the third one I thought it was all over again, after I pushed my AKs into AA. Always lovely to see two category A hands in a 3 handed game. I thought my way back though. I’m in the BB and Mr. Pushmonkey on the button, he min-raises which more often than not spells Aces or rag Ace, depending on the situation. The SB folds and I read it to be a rag ace and called. Let’s say I was giving it a shot, as calling the min-raise put around 25% of my stack into the middle. Flop comes 4-4-A. Perfect, I check…he bets double the pot. I push…he calls…he shows A5…turn and river are blank…and all the chips come my way. What did I hold? Snowman’s sailboat…yup, that’s 84o…lol…from that point on I just kept bullying the weak tight player until he busted and when I was headsup with Mr. Aggression-Monkey it was over pretty soon, couldn’t catch anything and he ran away with it. I still feel good about my play, although I’m officially folding Kings preflop next time…or maybe not… 😉

After I had written the last post early this morning, I felt the pressure and anger go away. So I decided to play two more SnGs. Sure enough I didn’t change anything about my approach – play a small range of hands, always considering position and when in a hand and hitting, bet the living jebus out of them. Sure enough it worked this time and I finished ITM twice in a row (2nd, 3rd). The turning point was the following hand which put me into the chiplead and lead to a 2nd place finish.

I’m in the SB, UTG folds, button calls, I call, BB checks. Pot is 1200. Flop comes down 8-7-3 rainbow. I push my remaining chips in the middle. BB ponders and calls. Button goes over the top to push the BB all-in, he calls. Showdown: button K8o, BB J7s, Me 73s – s00ted canadian hammer baby! Turn is a 6. River is a 7, giving me the lovely s00ted-almost-the-hammer-boat and w00t 5.3k in chips. Ooooh the sweet taste of winning a pot with the hammer, even if it’s s00ted and only almost the real hammer 😉

On another note: they both didn’t know what hit’em, but hey, I was in the SB, had two live cards, so why not give it a discounted look 😉

So the Fifa World Cup started today with the opening match Germany vs Costa Rica. We won 4-2, w00t. Not a really good game and the two goals scored by Costa Rica really showed that the defensive part is the weakest link of our current team – although one of Costa Rica’s goal was an offside goal. Given that it was the opening match, with expectation high and feel for the game low, it was a good effort and the first 3 points. Nice one. Even better that I picked both Germany and Ecuador to win their opening matches (Ecuador 2-0 Poland), so I’m off to a good start in all of the pots I’m playing.

After a nice bbq along with some beer and some more footie (Ecuador vs Poland) it was time to play some poker. I was in such a good mood, but that quickly changed as soon as I received my first junk kickings. Now I’m not a whinebox per se [although this very blog has been, is and will be my way of dealing with things, so bad beat stories, whether you like to hear/read them or not, are an integral part of this blog – although I’m trying to get keep the “whine whine”-post to a minimum and get to the point of analyzing the play along with the situation and questions, opinions and advice are very welcome], but sometimes you can’t help but shout/write it all out after you’ve received yet another kicking. Sometimes it’s just bad luck, most of the times it’s bad play shown by your opponents (sure enough rewarded by the deck) and sometimes it’s just bad play. I think that most of my beats today were a mix of all of the above.

1. Let’s start with bubble one (this hand didn’t happen on the bubble, but it put me from chipleader to bottom and ultimately led to my bubbling), aka kick my junk:

I’m sitting on the button with Phil Hellmuth’s favourite hand (two black nines), there are two limpers in front of me and I decide to get at least the blinds and/or one of the limpers to fold, winning the hand right there. I put a bet of 400 into the pot (blinds are 30/60). Sure enough the SB calls and all others fold. So I’m now heads-up. Nice. Even nicer when the flop comes down 3c9h8h. Now the SB is putting in a bet of 180. I read that as a feeler bet and ask myself: What hands can I put him/her on at this point? As I don’t have any prior notes on the player in question, I can’t be sure, so I apply my rule of thumb: Either a high pocket pair (JJ, QQ, KK, AA), a strong Ace maybe suited, or just twenty (maybe suited). So (s)he could be drawing to a straight or a flush, or (s)he could think that (s)he’s ahead with the overpair. I decide to go with my gut (overpair – after all (s)he called a 400 bet prior to the flop with only 30 commited) and push right there. (S)he goes into the tank for a while and reluctantly calls – showing JhJs.

Now I feel really good about the situation. I was behind preflop, but with the nice flop I’m now an almost 85% favourite to win the hand. The turn is the 10c – although this is not a card I wanted to see, it’s still not too bad, the odds are still on my side with slightly over 77% to win the pot. Now I get the sick feeling in my stomach that is only present when the dealer is about to peel the one card of the deck that can hurt me (in this case it could be two cards Q/7 which might all be live, so basically 8 outs). Sure enough the dealer is kind enough to peel the Qc off the deck for yet another fascinating runner runner straight.

Good for me that I’m pretty used to such crap by now, so I abstain from throwing up on my keyboard and moan a little. Then I think of the old math thing: if you’re a favourite to win it around 77%, you’re going to lose it around 23% of the time. But god, do does 23% (or anything between 1-30%) seem to hit a lot against me or what? Now I know that it’s obvious that you’re going to get outdrawn more if you move in (way) ahead and the human mind remembers (bad) beats more than when hands hold up (or when you outdraw yourself for that matter), but I don’t think that’s the case here – and to prove my “I’m losing against all odds more often than I’m supposed to”-theory, I’m starting a bad beat and (bad) win log from this day forward! Let’s see if I can prove my theory – and even if it’s for a (shorter) period of time [after all such things are supposed to smooth out over an extended period of time].

My analysis of the hand:

After I flopped top set, there’s not much I could have done different. After all I need to make sure that I make drawing as expensive as possible as I’m sure that I’m ahead right there, so I can’t see an obvious error on my behalf in the hand…can you?

For your viewing pleasure, the hand in it’s beauty, yuck:

2.+3. Are you kidding me? – or otherwise put: there’s exactly one hand (or very few) that can beat me, sure enough one opponent will hold ’em!
2. Let’s start with the hand as it evolved: I hold 9h 6d in the BB, blinds are at 80/160. It’s folded around to the SB who calls and I check. The flop comes down 8d Th Qd. The SB puts in a min-bet. Now I don’t know where the hell I’m standing, but I call. Turn is the 3c. He checks, I check. Now I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t hold top pair, but for all I know I’m behind. River brings the Jh. I made my straight and with now flush possible I feel that I hold the winning hand – after all the only hands that can beat me are K9, AK. SB puts in another min-bet, which I read as at least a semi-steal, so I min-raise him. He pushes. Now I’m wondering – can he really hold K9/AK? Unraised pot. Bet the flop. Checked the turn. Bet the river. I’m not sure, but I don’t put him on this right there, so I call. Sure enough he not only shows AK, but AKs.

Analysis: Well, this is the old problem of giving it a shot. If I lay down this hand after he bet the flop, I don’t have to worry. I’m out of 160 (BB) and that’s that. So this is the first and final error in this hand (IMO) – after the check on the turn all I can put him on (that would beat me) is a flush draw or one pair/two pair, after the river card I can’t put him on K9/AK(s)…or can I? Maybe I should have believed him right there, but I didn’t. My bad.

3. Nines again, this time 9s 9h UTG, four handed. I’m slightly behind the chipleader and way ahead of two smaller stacks (3 ITM). Bubble time. I pop it up to the pot size (blinds 80/160). The two small stacks fold, the BB (chipleader) calls. Flop comes down Td 8h 7h. The BB puts in a min bet. Turn is the Js. Now I made my straight and wait for the BB to act. The BB puts in another min-bet (160), I reraise to 2k. BB goes into the tank and calls. River Ks. Now the BB pushes his remaining chips in. What to do? For all I know, the only hand that can beat me is AQ. Now this would be in the range of hands to call my preflop bet, but not really in the range of calling the turn bet, or am I missing something? Was he really drawing to a gutshot with Ace high (or a kicker playing rag Ace for that matter)? Impossible is nothing, but I’m not laying this down. I call. He shows AsQc and I bubble.

Quick rewind: Preflop – BB 44% Me 55%, Flop – BB 20% Me 79%, Turn – BB 14% Me 86%, River – BB 100% Me 0%

Sigh, ahead all the way, outsuckered again. So I would sum those three hands up as good played hands – Me 2, Donkeys 1, hands won – Me 0, Donkeys 3.
Opinions, comforting words, advice and even “stfu you made an error here, here and here” comments very welcome. I’m out…

I haven’t seen that many AA, KK and QQ that I saw today in the last few weeks combined. Still I wasn’t able to win a SnG today. Played six, finished ITM only twice (2nd, 3rd). Especially painful was my chiplead 3:1 heads-up: I got AA, KK, QQ and AKs – got my Aces cracked and no customer on the other hands. So I ultimately lost…argh!

Nontheless a nice session overall, although I’m slightly down. I’m off now to watch Dirk kick Shaq’s ass 😉

Goooooooo Mavs 🙂

Poker can be excruciating pain, but on the other hand it can be so funny that you need all your concetration not to wet yourself. Tonight’s session was a mix of both. Always ugly to bubble two times in a row, but hey, that’s poker too – if someone’s winning, someone gotta lose. At least I had some good things coming my way to end the session:

1. Getting mighty shortstacked on the bubble – sucks
2. Getting the hammer and dropping it taking down a pot – priceless 😉
3. Still bubbling – sucks…

After that hammer experience with the inevitable bubble I played one of my favourite SnGs – 5$, 1 Table, Shorthanded, Top 2 ITM. What can I say? I totally owned the table and knocked out every single player. Yup, every single one of them. The first to eliminations were a little weird. I hold QQ…flop comes all rags with a long shot straight draw (only if someone played low cards and was extremely lucky)…good for me that one played his Ace rag which hit top-pair like gold, the other one was really on a gutshot – I don’t know what he’s thinking as this was at the 10/20 blind level 5 minutes into the SnG? Even better that noone connected on the blank turn and river and I tripled up. The next one was even better…I hold AJ and raise it up in LP. Two callers. Flop AA4…one of the callers pushes, the other folds. Now I know that I’m only behind if he really has AK or AQ…so I call…he shows A2..he doesn’t improve and bang, we’re down to three. One of the remaining three was ultra-tight, no position raises, always calling, always folding to a bet. He was out after some rounds and we’re ITM. I’m up around 2.5 to 1 in chips and although he wins a nice pot I push right back and it’s basically a done deal as I flop the nut flush. He bets into me and I get maximum value. I’m now up almost 4 to 1 and it’s all over a few hands later. This is really the first time I knocked out every single one of my opponents. The sweet taste of the bright side of variance I guess – groovy stuff.

Sidenote: Second time I played this format, the second win. I know that that’s not a representative sample yet, but I might found my new game of choice…we’ll see… 🙂

No joy in the token satellite. I can’t remember the last time I played one, but it was once again good fun, seeing donkeys sticking with the ever so popular motto “push early, push often (no matter what you’re holding)”…so we were down to the final table quite quickly. Sad part was that I was really card dead and sure enough, once I get a playable hand (AJs) someone is holding bullets – unfortunately I’m not Phil Hellmuth Jr., so I couldn’t dodge ’em 😉

Played 4 other SnGs afterwards, 1 win and 1 third place along with one bubble and one early exit, so not to shabby.

Side note: It would have been fun one way or another after the following hand evolved

1. You’re looking down at 66 in the BB
2. MP decides to min-raise
3. One caller in front of me, I call
4. For the rest of the hand see pic below…I guess I don’t need to explain that I let him hang himself 😉

The offline frustration today is totally unrelated to poker: my footie team had the chance to win the championship this year, but we were at the mercy of our opponents as we didn’t have a match today, but they did (we had already played our final match last thursday)…the scenario was clear: the lose, we’re the champions, the draw or win and they’re the champions…what happened? They played 3-3 and are the champions…which leaves a bitter taste in our mouths…

1. Our Opponent – Games played: 24, 17W, 5D, 2L, 74:21 goals – 56 Points
2. We – Games played: 24, 17W, 5D, 2L, 74:24 goals – 56 Points

🙁

So they go up to the next higher league and we have to play two matches, which we need to win to go up, too. First an eliminator against another league on the same level (Kreisliga B), then against the team from the higher league (Kreisliga A) which is next to last in that league. Matches scheduled for tuesday and saturday…wish us luck…

After that frustration I fired up PokerStars and entered the 3$ rebuy to the $1.000.000…no joy, so I close Stars and head over to FullTilt. First SnG, first win. Second SnG, 3rd place. Third SnG 6th place – end of the ITM series. So I step up a level and try my luck…and I win! The decisive hand was a min raise of my opponent heads up…I look down at A2 and I’ll take a flop with that…flop comes A22…hehe…he doubles me up with his AK and I’m in control. The end comes in the next hand…nice! I’m starting to get tired, so I head down a level again to play a final SnG…we’re down to 4 handed and I’m a slight chipleader (44xx to 43xx to 2.x k to 2.x k) one of the smaller stacks raises to 4xBB…the other “big stack” calls…I push to 2k…he ponders and ponders….calls…flop comes 7-3-9 rainbow…he checks…I push….he goes into the tank for a little eternity and calls…he shows Kc7c…it holds up and I’m crippled…I congratulate him on his nice play…after all they were s00ted…so why complain…before I go into the chat and blog rant mode I log off and remind myself of one thing: if you play at the donkey levels it’s inevitable…there will be donkeys making bad decisions and hitting, so move along… 😉

Played some SnGs today, as I’m still in the “pad your roll”-mode. Same game (NL Hold’em), similar format (two table SnG at Stars, one table SnG at Full Tilt), totally different results:

PokerStars SnGs: 2 early exits, junk kicking included 🙁
FullTilt: 2x 1st, 2x 3rd, no major junk kicking included 🙂

If you’ve read yesterday’s post about being stuck in low limit nirvana, you know how I’m currently feeling when it comes to my game online. With the exception of some good games, mostly the DADI and WWdN tourneys when I find the time to play in them, the games are getting old. It’s the same thing over and over again – play good poker, wait for “monsters” or potential monsters, get paid of sometimes, get kicked in the junk big time the other times (I realize that this is just the way it is, the life of a grinder…and if you can’t deal with it, you shouldn’t be playing (so much), but it still makes you wonder sometimes…).

So I guess some change is in order…one way or another…or poker won’t be fun anymore…hmm sounds strange, after all I’m in it for the money…and not mainly for the fun…but still…the game itself used to be reward enough, nowadays it isn’t anymore…game + winning = money in the (virtual) pocket + satisfaction is what it comes down to. So, I’ll have to do something:

“Revised master-plan” (old saying or better put the loose translation of it, as I’m not sure if there’s a similar saying in the english speaking world: “If you’ve got no goals, you can’t reach any!” So a plan I shall have!):

1. Pad roll to accomodate going up to the .50/1 level asap — Best chances to achieve this goal is to combine some juicy SnGs with fishy ring games! Go find ’em, when you play!

2. Keep book! Scouting before playing at a new level isn’t a bad thing! These notes will help you in the long run!

3. Avoid sharks, find the fish…pound on them!

4. Hit and run if necessary!

5. If the run at the .50/1 level is successfull, remain calm and pad the roll…you can always move up in due time. If the run isn’t going well, don’t be ashamed to step down a level again!

That about sums it up…let’s see if I can make it happen…

Sidenote: There’s finally going to be the next home game…wednesday next week is the time, NL HE tourney is the game…and I’m already excited…finally a chance to sling real chips again…and we’ll play with a copag four coulour deck for the first time, too…exciting!

Today I realized that I’m caught in low limit nirvana, the wasteland, nowhere, whatever you would like to call it. At the limits I’m currently playing (not higher than .25/.50) there are some good players (and I would consider myself one of those), but mostly mediocre to bad players.

Good stuff if and only if you can take full advantage of it and recently I can’t – don’t get me wrong: if you substract variance I’m a winning player and you shouldn’t count short term results anyway, so it’s all good – but still: playing at those levels keeps me in a endless loop of winning and losing (mostly on bad beats or at least getting drawn out with incorrect odds) and there’s not much I can do.

How should I put it?! Playing at those levels takes away some of your best options. You can wait and wait for monster hands and then bet the living jebus out of them, just to see them win in some cases or get a horrible beat. Nothing much in between. Example: one of the precious “tools” of poker is the bluff, right? The catch: at the levels I’m playing there’s a deadly mix of players involved in almost every hand I play – the majority will call you no matter what, even with fourth pair on a straight-, flush- or any scary-board in general…the good ol’ “I don’t believe you”, “I’ll be the sheriff this round, I can’t let anyone bluff me!”, “I wanna see that” attitude…so the bluff is mostly out of the picture (unless I’m heads up with a player which has proven his/her ability to laydown a hand – after all that’s one of the reasons why you keep book, right?). So what to do, what to do?

Two possibilities:

1. Move up in limits. That’s no guarantee for a donkey free zone though and with my current bankroll constraints it’s basically out of the picture – no point in trying to survive on a short short roll, it would be the recipe for destruction.
2. Stay at the same level and deal with the daily hurting involved in grinding it out.

So, I’m basically stuck…damn! I guess I’ll schedule poker free days from now on to alleviate the pain…I guess a titanium cup won’t hurt either, so I’m ordering one tomorrow 😉

Today’s results: Some success at FullTilt: PLO8b HU – won, SnG – ITM, some success at PokerStars: cash games, slightly up…