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…

I really didn’t feel like playing today, maybe due to the long run in the WWdN this morning, maybe because I’m just a little tired and busy with other stuff today. So, just a quick post about something I got in the mail this week:

I was sitting on some FullTiltPoints for ages now as I wasn’t able to “buy” anything nice with it – due to the fact that most items didn’t ship to europe. This has changed now though. I really don’t know if that’s because of the whole “Online Gambling” thing over in the US or if it just took them so long to start up european distribution, anyway, I’m happy that I can really order stuff now…so this is hopefully the first of many nice things I’ll get from the FullTilt store….next item on the wishlist: Custom hockey jersey…hmm…only 24k to go…*lol* 😉

Received an email from Mike (from PokerOnAMac.com) today that there’s going to be another bloggerpods event soonish. Three ipods up for grabs…I’m in…what are you waiting for?

Mac Poker

Well, I hope you enjoyed your hammer day so far. I didn’t, at least not really. Grinded a little at Stars and the fish were turning into sharks once they had their helmet and face mask on. As expected the deck hit them smack in the face time and time again. Two outer boat, my QJ vs KQ on a QJKxQ board, my 36 vs 45 on a 5-4-7-6-5 board etc etc…it was nasty, still managed to grind out 3 wins in five matches though, so at least not a losing session.

Then it was time for the hammer event at Full Tilt and boy did everyone come out for this one! 158 players in total, it was like the blogger all-star parade, too many to name them all, but from Dr.Pauly to Daddy…everyone was playing. Had a nice starting table with JoeSpeaker and BloodyP. Won some nice pots early on, then donked off half my stack with pocket nines on a 8 high board…99 was no match for 10-10. Then I got some chips back by winning a coin-flip…then I lost my stack by losing a coin-flip…presto vs AQ…no g00t! Still enjoyed playing though…so ‘s all good.

Hammer stats of the day:

1. Hammers played: Stars/FullTilt – 4/1, Hammers won: 0

2. S00ted hammers (aka the velvet hammer) played: Stars/FullTilt – 1/0, Velvet Hammers won: 1

3. Euro hammers (82o/82s) played: Stars/FullTilt: 0/1, Euro Hammers won: 1

So…all in all…2 for 6…not all that bad…I guess the hammer didn’t like the fact that I didn’t reraise preflop…my mistake 😉

Almost forgot to pimp this, as it’s 4am over here, it’s already hammer day…07.02.2007…or 2/7/2007 for the americans…so…what’s up on hammer day?

Yes, a special hammer day event…come and play…all infos in the pimp pic below…thanks to Al and Mookie for the added  100$, get 7.20$ out of your wallet and play…thank you!

Well, played some headsup at FullTilt to start off the evening, but I lost interest quite quickly. I did win 2 out of 3, but the opponents were such jerks that I didn’t have any fun. Well, that’s not entirely true, I had some fun making fun of them…yes it’s always a good idea to (over)push after the river…hmm…no I don’t believe you had the nuts every time…so…it’s a donkplay and a nice “heeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaw what a donkey play, you only get called if I have you” is in order. If you can’t take that, play a better game donk. After that I jumped over to Stars and found that a lot was going on, but nothing that sounded really interesting…apart from one MTT…the lovely PL 5 Card Draw MTT that was 1 minute away from starting. I jumped in and play my usual game, start out with a decent hand and hope not to get unlucky. The next well over 2 hours are a blur, but I’m getting ahead of myself…quick pic dump…

105 players remaining at the first break and yes, you guessed it, the chipleader was just moved to my table, lol. I’m wondering if it’s only me, but I can’t remember a MTT (with a shitload of tables left) where the chipleader wasn’t moved to my table. It’s been ages since that didn’t happen, but hey, what can you do. He tried to run over the table and he was out in less than 20 minutes after the break. Way to go dude donking off all those chips. No, a reraise for all their chips doesn’t mean they’re holding a good hand. Wait…it does. Surprise surprise. Continued to play my game and watch as donks busted themselves left and right.

Final four tables and I’m sitting not all that pretty in 19th, time to catch some hands. I do and this time I don’t care for the money – yes we’re already ITM, but the “real” money starts at the final table as usual – so I wait for a decent spot and go with my hand. I start out with two pair and I don’t boat up. My opponent draws one too and I’m more than happy to see that he didn’t make his gutshot straight. Nice. Double me up. The way to the final table is a blur, I did play some nice hands though, so this time I don’t come in as the shortstack.

I wait two orbits before I play my first hand and when I do I win it. Small pot, but fine with me. Then I go on a roll. I get dealt a made flush and a made straight back-to-back. No customers though. The next hand I get dealt two pair, queens up. I three-bet it as usual and the other player within the mid 40k repopps me. Now I’m faced with a tough decision. Does he have a real hand or is it that he doesn’t believe my “rush”? And even more important: do I want to commit to this hand? I ponder my options and decide to go for it. I repopp him to put him all-in and he calls. I draw one…brick…he draws two…uh-oh…that’s most certainly trips and yes, he shows trip eights. Now I’m crippled with 10k. I don’t feel bad though. I made my play and if I won the hand (by boating up), I would have been slightly under 100k and second in chips with a real chance to cruise into the top 3 spots paying in xxx figures. Oh well, can’t be too mad. Made my play, didn’t work out. Apropos out, I wasn’t out yet. Next hand…I start with slighlty over 10k and get dealt two pair again. I push and the huge chipleader insta-calls. I draw one, he draws one. I brick he bricks…he has trips though. Now I’m still not mad. What can you do? Back-to-back two pair, five handed, ran into trips back-to-back. It just wasn’t in the cards for me to claim the W or the 2 or 3 spot and who knows, if I sit around and wait for the next “big hand”, I might be blinded out in 5th quicker than you think with blinds at 2k/4k…so all in all…a nice showing…gg me… 🙂

Had a blast last weekend in Austria. Drinking, drinking and drinking with the guys. Some snow on the mountain tops, not much in the lower areas, so we mostly resorted to the local pubs most of the days and nights.

I thought I could get away from Poker completely on the trip and I almost did. I didn’t play a single hand, although some of my teammates had brought a chipset and some nice PokerStars cards…it seems that the “poker virus” is spreading fast over here in germany. People who had no interest whatsoever a while back are suddenly playing (both live and online) – tells you a little about the advertising efforts of the major players in the market (PokerStars and Party), it pays off. But back to poker, the only thing I did in relation to poker was talk a little strategy and watch a rerun of the EPT while we were waiting for the others to get ready for dinner and booze.

So, I’m totally relaxed and ready to hit the tables again. Well, tbh, I already did that and it was horrible. The only upside is that my mood isn’t influenced by this (yet). I played something in the neighborhood of 15 HU SnGs and I’ve seen it all again, from the beautiful one-outer, to the usual resuck or two-outer…I even kept track of it while playing. So what’s different? I’m relaxed after the weekend break and so all I did after those beats was type a quick, “wow one outer” or “nh” in the chat and that was that. No tilting, no swearing – well, that’s a lie…I back-trashtalked as one of the suckers goes on and tells me off after sucking out on me. This was a disturbing trend tonight – move in with the best, get sucked out on and then the donk goes ahead and tells me how he “owned me”…lol…this happened in four different matches. Really classy donks…you’ll make it far in this “business”…

Some stats:

1. Times I lost to one-outer with one card to come: I

2. Times I lost to a two-outer with one card to come: II

3. Times I lost to a two-outer with two cards to come: I

4. Times I lost to a 3-8 outer: II

5. Times I lost to a 8+ outer: not counted

6. Times I lost to a runner runner straight/flush: II

7. Times I lost with dominating hands: II

8. Times I lost to the hammer with Kings: I

Being crippled after that hand: ouch

Coming back to even and then taking the chiplead: nice

Losing to a 2 outer some hands later: Priceless 😉

Well, running bad, check. Still a token remaining? Check. Log onto FullTilt, see what’s going on…find a FTOPS satellite to event #1, 35 entrants, 1-3 ticket, 4-6 money, not bad. Register. Sit down and go card dead early on. Not bad either, at least I’m building a rock-tight image early on, this might come in handy in the middle stages. Some pots left and right and I’m hovering around the starting stack, nothing much in any direction. Sit tight, focus, wait for your spots. Prior to break one the first spot occurs, Ac10c in the BB…button makes the standard three-bet…hmm…steal? My rock-tight image should give me some resteal-fold-equity here, unless he’s really on a monster. We’ll see, I take my chances. He ponders and calls…with Kings…ouch…cold decked again? Maybe, let’s see…he doesn’t have a club, maybe there’s some life. Flop with one club, no ace to be found…turn club…river club…weeeeeee….I did what my opponents tend to do…suckout against a monster. Weeeee….so I’m 0-2 with my monsters in the last few days and 1-0 against a monster. Maybe luck comes in waves after all.

After the break the final table is approaching and I can’t help but watch my stack dwindle as I fold fold fold. Finally another shorty pushes in, I look down at A6o and decide to go with it. He shows A4o…we chop on AJ93J board…still short, but at least we got some blowups coming up, gotta love big-stack vs big-stack on a draw-heavy board, especially if both are drawing and willing to risk all…

Short, short…oh well…I’ll wait for a good spot and push…the good spot comes when I look down at my dreaded Kings…big-stack calls with Qc4c…flop only one club…I’m good, I’m good….turn is another club….I’m worried, I’m worried…river….blank…Thanks…back in business…We lose two players in the next orbit and we’re on the bubble. Two players are pretty short, another player and me and the others already expressed their feeling that they’ll sit it out and watch until the bust one of us. Nice. Implicit collusion, lol…a beautiful thing if you’re not short-stacked 😉

Long story short: The other small-stacks pushes every hand. By the time he does so for the third time in a row I look down at AK in the BB…now…do I fold here or push? I push…he got me covered by a little bit…and shows 99…is it just me or is it almost certain that he had two napkins the two prior pushes?!

Anyway…flop doesn’t help me all that much…runner runner straight or A or K it must be…turn gives me the straight draw, but the river is blank…so I exit in 7th…mr. bubble boy…oh well…can’t do much about it, once again no joy in a crucial hand and yes, I was the underdog, by some percent, so ‘s all good…just would have been nice to win this one and make a run at the ticket with some money secured…oh well…

That’s it for now…no tokens left, no real desire to play anymore tourneys in the immediate future (apart from maybe the occasional WWdN)…

Good thing: I won’t be tempted to play online at all as I’m heading to Austria, a weekend in the snow with the footie team. As I don’t ski or board, I’ll stick to enjoying the sun and partying my ass off, apres-ski, baby! See you all on the other side (sunday late evening, monday)…have a great weekend…

Do you have that inner feeling that something is going to happen sometimes? I do…it was just one of these days today…first off the donks bust my balls at Stars in PL 5-Card-Draw catching like crazy (yes, it’s an absolutely correct play to call 40% of your stack with a flush-draw, yes it’s also correct to draw three against my three jacks, as long as you catch your own set with it). Then they busted my real good in some 6-handed games on Full Tilt. It was about time I took a break, so I went to a friends house to play some Skat…nice little run and won my dinner 😉

Came back…sat down in a 90-person-SnG at Full Tilt…hadn’t played those before, seems like a good format – much like Stars’ 180s, but only half the size…everything went pretty good…made some tough laydowns Kings on a Ace high board…etc…then lost a flip AKs vs JJ…this crippled me…with just 600 and blinds of 100/200…I waited for the next playable hand and tripled up. Next time I look down at 9s..flop gives me trips and I’m back in the game…fold…fold…fold…I look down at Kings…table-captain calls in a hurry with AQ…flop all low…turn…low….river….Ace…thank you very much.

Oh well, can’t be too mad…just another day at the office…at least I had fun at the tables with some players chatting it up…I would have loved to go deep though…not going to happen if you lose such hands…finished 30th…better luck next time…

Hit another 180 SnG tonight and it went pretty well…played my patient game early on, playing a token satellite on FTP while doing so helped a bit. Got my money in with the best and took the chiplead. Held onto it until just before the first break, still sitting pretty in 2nd though.

Second hour is a blur as there was not much action, 73o, 52o, 62o, K2o, Q3o, … you catch my drift…

15th out of 32, not all that bad…but I can’t catch a hand if my life depended on it and I wait and wait and wait…finally I look down at 77…EP min-raises…hmm…do I wait for a better spot or do I take the flip – at least that’s what I think it is. Lucky sevens, come on! One time! *lol*…not really…he flips AQo…so good so far…flop QQ3…thank you very much…two outer doesn’t come and I’m crippled (2k)…a few hands later I take my chances with 92 s00ted…at least I got a shot here if the flop comes uncoordinated…two callers though…pair of Aces crushers me…and I’m out in 26th…

Oh well…that could have gone another way, but hey, I’m not really disappointed…didn’t make any real mistakes…played a solid game and move my money in with the best of it (excluding the last hand shortstacked)…do I mull over the 77-call? Yes a little, but then again, if my read is correct (which it was) I’m moving my money in a slight favourite and I can bring myself in a position to be in the top 5 chip-wise. Didn’t work out…what can you do.

“Stats:”

1. Coinflips played: 1 real one 77 vs AQ…lost that one (another hand was no real-coinflip as the money didn’t go in preflop AK vs 88…flop was Axx, won that one though, so you could take that one and call it 1-1 on coinflips)

2. Suckouts: 0 / 0 (suckouts witnessed at the tables – too many to count, playing like a rock early on really pays off, that way you can watch em and not feel em ;))

So…no final table, no money…but at least I enjoyed myself and won the token at FTP 🙂