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…

It’s still a few days away, but as it’s $24+2 or a Tier one token, it’s time to pimp the shit out of it. Get your tokens, fight the power. 6 handed power poker, baby.

(Side note: as it’s on a thursday night – which is 3am friday morning around here, I might not be playing 🙁 )

Well, depending on your style of playing, especially in a pressure situation like in HU, the FullTilt HU SnGs might be just right – for me they’re not. Why? Because they’re friggin boooooring and long-ass. Let me go into detail:

1. They start with 1500 chips

2. They start at blinds of 10/20

3. They got 6 minute levels

So…in contrast to that the bodog HU SnGs have got a far better structure (at least for my style):

1. They start with 1000 chips

2. The blinds start at 5/10

3. The blinds levels are 10 hands

So…10 hands < 6 minutes for sure, so a regular tourney takes 5-x minutes (sometimes even quicker, sometimes a bit longer, but I guess 6-8 minutes is the average). In contrast to that the FTP HU SnGs take ages. I just played one and at about level three I was so bored as nothing was happening. I got Aces three times and won the regular xx chips twice as my opponent had nothing, then he cracked my third Aces with the good old "but they were s0000ted hand". Nothing wrong there, it can happen. But after that it was jab-jab-duck-dover-jab-jab for another 20 minutes before he finally won with presto against my AQ. So, I won't be playing any HU SnGs on FTP in the future, I'll stick to CAP ring games... 🙂

…so I was hitting the tables tonight. I started the session with some donk-a-licious CAP NL25 and I was all over the place. Then the shit turned sour and I should have left, but I didn’t. So, I gave back all my winnings and then some. How often can you run pocket tens into pocket aces? Twice. Nice. Not!

Then I thought it would be a good idea to get my hands on a token…not such a good idea either. I had totally forgotten how long ass and boring these regular things (6+.6) are..should have played a turbo I guess. Didn’t do all that bad until the blinds went up and it was bubble time…card dead describes it best so I was literally left with two options: a) push with one of the next hands which would preferably be something at least resembling a good starting hand or b) get blinded out in a hurry. So I push within the next few hands and I even held the best hand…until the river…so I bubbled. Not good.

Off to bodog and I’m hitting like crazy…first two SnGs bring a win and a third place finish. I guess I should have left with a smile, but didn’t and promptly crapped my way out of the next two. That’s enough for the night…at least I’m still up a little.

Some interesting “facts/stats” of the night:

Times I ran pocket tens into pocket aces: 2

Times I sucked out with the pocket tens: 0

Times I folded quads preflop: 1

Times I ran my boat into quads: 1

Edit: Just went back to bodog, just didn’t feel like sleeping yet, so I fired up some Heads-Up matches…2 played…2 won…thank you very much. I guess this could be a new source of income…after all a HU is basically 50/50…although I see myself having an edge on most of the donkeys there, so it’s basically better than even money and the thing is much less time consuming than the regular SnGs…hmm…we’ll see…

So…I’m finally back at the tables, still need to adjust my playing to the new work schedule, so I guess my playing time will be limited to the weekends for now. Tonight I first sat down at the tables at FullTilt to try out the new CAP games – the concept behind that is that you’re playing a capped NL format…the cap being 30xBB. So the most money you can win (from any single player) and lose is limited…sounds strange and might not be appealing to some of you, but I gotta say that it really suits me.

I don’t know what it is, but moving up in limits is always hard on me – not so much because of the “big leap” in skills of the opponents, but due to the fact that I tend to play like “scared money” for a while, which ultimately lead to some pretty ugly loses in earlier attempts and resulted in me moving down again. With the CAP in place it’s a whole different matter though. I sat down and I wasn’t playing scared a bit. I brought my A-game and left the table with slightly over a standard/suggested buyin – which is “only” 15 bucks at the .10/.25 CAP game not bad considering the fact that I’m on a mini-bankroll now as I had withdrawn most of my dough from FullTilt in order to pad my “bonus-hunt-bankroll”.

After that success I thought it was time to have a good time at fish city aka Bodog. Some three quick SnGs and I’m logging off with a big smile on my face. Why?

1. Because I won two and finished 2nd in the third one (sidenote: I should have won that too, but I’m not too worried about the extra 5% I could have won) 🙂

2. Because I withdrew 80 bucks before starting to play (I deposited 50$ when I started the bonus hunt on bodog) and I still have over 50$ sitting in bodog…add the 9000 points on pokersourceonline I got for completing the bonus and all I can say is w00t! 😉

3. Because bodog support/processing get’s an A+ for quickness…about a minute after I requested the withdrawal I got an automated mail telling me that it was being processed in the next 24h, just to find another mail telling me that the money was waiting for me in my neteller account just over 2h later. Nice one, thumbs up bodog!
4. Because I brought my A++ game and the cards went along just fine too. I had AA three times, won one small pot preflop and two big pots as the rockets held up. Had JJ hold up twice and made some pretty good plays including a tough laydown (QQ) when I correctly assumed I was beat (turned small set). Hand of the night (which didn’t pay out much and wasn’t all that crucial, but nice as I haven’t seen a straight flush in ages)…

Just as I was about to submit a lovely post about DADI9 and how the poker dealers/gods crapped on my head again, the server foobared and the post was gone 🙁

As I’m too lazy to retype everything again, here’s a wrap-up:

DADI9 tonight! Be there or be squared! …Unfortunately I’ll be squared as my new real-life commitment (internship) has me on a new schedule, which is more related to my actual timezone, so poker tourneys at 3 in the morning (which is 9pm ET) are out of the picture for the time being 🙁

Have fun, nontheless and don’t let the donkey…errrm…horse kick you 😉

Attention:

1. DADI9 moved to FullTilt, so don’t wonder that you can’t find it on PokerStars 😉

2. The password is pokertrust

I finished the original post with a rant about how the dealer/poker god crapped on my head again (set over set, set to straight, etc)…I hope to be reporting better news soonish, after all I can’t lose all those monsters in the long run 😉

Well, what can I say, I’m not doing good in the nine promotion so far. I’m not even half way through the points and all the suckouts and the bad run in the other side games (especially guts) is really taking it’s toll – half the bankroll gone and half my nerves with it. It’s just making me sick how unlucky I get in some of those pots, especially in guts again…I’m holding the nut straight in a monster pot, someone has three of a kind…I’m holding the nut straight again in a monster pot, someone has a straight flush…this is so sick – even winning one of these pots would have brought me right back to life, but no such joy. Then I get stacked in the ring games by a chaser with one card to come and I call it a day over at nine. Maybe tomorrow will bring me some better luck.

Off to WPX I go to play some SnGs. Same game, same shit, same results. Chasing M*****fuckers catching every time. So I call it quits there too and head over to Full Tilt.

At least some went my way there as I was able to stack some people who just couldn’t let go of their TPTK/TPSK. A HORSE SnG to finish the session and I hit brick city in Razz, then Stud H/L and finally in Omaha to seal the deal.

So I’m done for the day, at least I had some fun watching the latest tuff_fish (party poker) monster “shows”…man, tony just keeps crackin me up – even when I’m running bad 🙂

Token in hand, satellite to qualifier about to start, nothing else to do, let’s go 🙂

80 entered, Top 5 go ahead to tonight’s qualifier, 3 other places receive cash. I like those chances. Up and down, up and down…final two tables, AJ on the button, BB thinks his hand is good…

…and of course he’s right, at least they were s00ted…out in 15th place, yuck 🙁

No, I’m not dead…I just didn’t have that much time to really play a decent amount of poker over the last few days, so just a quick roundup will have to do, for now.

I continue to play most of my SnGs over at WPX and so far so good, I almost double my deposit, w00t. 100% rakeback helps, but it’s not just that. I like to play shorthanded SnGs, so WPX is a perfect fit as their shorthanded SnGs are really shorthanded – 5 players at the table, 2 ITM (70/30 cut). It took a while for me to adjust to the 10 hands/level structure (instead of the x minutes/level which is used by most other rooms), but now I enjoy it – in the beginning it’s easy, you get to be the BB twice per level, then after a few eliminations things are speeding up, which is a good thing. The highest (in game) levels I’ve personally seen thus far were 500/1k with a table full of rocks, usually the games are much faster though, especially if you’ve got dudes at the table who like to severely overbet the pot or outright push from EP with blinds of 10/15 – good idea donks…no…your pair of treys is not good there most of the times, duh ;)  One of the ups of playing that many SnGs in such a short amount of time is the biggest downside as well: you get to experience quite a decent number of junk-kickings – I have never ever lost such an amount of dominating hands in such a short period of time, but I didn’t let it get to me. Most of the times I was even able to come back despite being severely crippled by dominating hands (AQ vs A6, AK vs A3, etc etc, 80% favourite – runner runner straight, 73% favourite – runner runner flush, etc), so I can slowly but steadily see some major progress in my game: a few weeks ago I would have (tilt) pushed the next hand in order to end the SnG and/or donk off my chips in the very next SnG – now I can sit there, steam a little, but don’t cloud my judgement, which is really good to say 🙂
As the WSOP wasn’t on around here (and I was too cheap to cough up some bucks for the final table PPV) I relied on Pauly’s coverage along with updates from pokerwire. I couldn’t follow the last few hours as I was heading out to an interview for an internship (my last requirement prior to writing my diploma thesis), so I missed Jamie Gold taking down the win and 12 million. I’m hoping to get my hands on a recording of the final table once ESPN airs it, should be fun to watch. So, bye Joe Hachem, hello Jamie Gold – newest hot commodity of poker. I guess we’ll find out soon enough if the fact that yet another amateur won will bring us the next “boom” / “explosion” in poker…and I’m also wondering if bodog is going to market the shit out of this (which is almost certain) and if they can catch up in terms of traffic.
Over to Full Tilt: I received an email today that the stuff I’ve won in the WSOP Fantasy thing will be credited in points. Cool stuff, so there should be 2200 Points more sitting in my accont shortly – I had won 4th place in one of the early events which was good enough to win a FT baseball cap (which equals 2200 points). I guess I’ll be using those points for tournaments instead of the cap. As I finished in the top 20 of one of the freerolls during the fantasy promotion I had the chance to win a seat for the 2007 WSOP tonight…wasn’t meant to be. Started out good by busting some dudes, but then I pushed right into the nuts to lose half my stack (hammer flop 772 rainbow, I hold 1010 and push, one of the guys in LP calls, he shows 77…ouch). Then I lost some coinflips and I was gone – upside: I went with my gut feeling, made the correct reads, put the money in (way) ahead or at least even money (e.g. a player in EP overbets the pot by some hundred chips, I put him on a small pair…I push with AK…he shows 33…but I don’t improve) the cards just didn’t fall my way sometimes and while that would be awesome (cards falling your way all the time) it’s just not the reality, so I’m good.

Over to poker books: I finished reading the book of bluffs and while some stuff in there was obvious, some stuff just made me think a little more about certain situations and I think it helped my game – short term: check, long term: we’ll see about that, but I’m confident.

That’s all for now, time to catch some sleep before I have to get up for footie training in less than five hours from now, yikes! So I’m leaving you with two of my new/old favourite SnG/MTT mantras:

1. “You must be willing to die, in order to live.” (Amir Vahedi)

2. “The best you can do is get your money in the middle when you have the best hand and hope it holds up.” (unknown)