I guess it was inevitable…no point in making excuses…if you’re on a mini-bankroll and you’re getting raked like there’s no tomorrow, you will have to show a good performance and also desperately try to avoid getting unlucky…both didn’t happen and so tonight it finally happened. After posting two winning sessions in $1/$2 and $2/$4 TD, I finally went busto when I lost my final 50BB at $1/$2 TD.

The story of that session is easily explained: have #2, lose to #1…have 86432 lose to 85432…have 87432 lose to 86432…and it went on an on…especially nice when your opponents are playing incorrect strategy over and over again and get lucky…and by lucky I mean: it’s not normal that you draw 2 perfect cards in the third draw…hence it might have been a good idea to fold after the first draw…or the second draw…the blessing and curse of limit games…if they didn’t get lucky on me on 4 different occasions I would have applauded their play…but hey, that’s not the way it went down…

So…what a shitty end of 2009….not the way I envisioned it, that’s for sure.
What else is left to say….like I already said in the last post…after 4 years of grinding it out, I was starting to get really sick and tired of the way things were going…how can you stay sane if you dominate games and still can’t overcome the rake and bad luck? How many donkkicks can you endure before you snap? Many many many ones…but is it worth it? Up to this point, I def thought so…but I’m not so sure anymore and while I’m bummed out atm, I feel a sense of calm too…

With that rant I present you the final screenshot of 2009…and maybe the last one for a while…we’ll see about that…until then, I wish you nerves like steel ropes, better luck than me and a nice 2010 both poker- and life-wise.

Peace out.

Ingoal.

Well, well, 2009. Happy new year to all my loyal readers, fellow poker bloggers, regular visitors and new visitors!

Today I was able to squeeze in the first session of the new year, a rather short one due to some technical difficulties on pokerstars. I don’t know what was the root cause for this, but I played some headsup matches. Then logged off. Came back later on and played some razz ring games and then wanted to jump back into the HU SnGs, but there were no new ones spawned and I couldn’t sit down at any tables either. I guess it’s time for PokerStars to invest some of the multi-billion-dollars they’re earning to get some additional servers as 250k+ concurrent players is the norm these days (at least around the time of the “big tourneys”). But back to play, rather uneventfull. I played my regular game, although I’m slowly trying to incorporate some of the concepts I read in Moshman’s Headsup No Limit Hold’em book (I’m about half way through it and enjoy it so far, I guess it’s save to say that all regular Headsup players can take away a few things from this book).

I lost track about how many SnGs I did play, a rare occurance as I usually take excessive notes of every session, but I’m lazy today and I’ll reconstruct the number played via the FPPs later on (too lazy now). The stats are good though, so it’s not a case of lazy stats due to losing 😉 I won all matches but one. The funniest two matches were the last two. The second to last was against a supernova player. Yeah, you read that right. A supernova player playing 11$ HU matches…I asked him if he was busto (like the other supernova I played a little while back), but he didn’t chat at all. Too bad. I busted him after I resucked in a big pot. He got lucky on the turn, me on the river. The last match was funny. The guy sits down at the table and starts the conversation with the good ole donk “all-in first hand?”…I reply “donk?”…he comes back with “just asking?”…I come back with “just sayin!” lol…end of conversation. True to his word he pushes in in the first four hands. I hold gin in the fourth one and he’s down to 60. lol. He doubles up. Doubles up. I chop him down again. He doubles up. Doubles up. I chop him down again. Then he finally makes another big mistake. How can you call a raise to 200 with a stack of 450 and fold to my push on the flop? lol. I bust him a few hands later with JT vs J8.

Enjoy the three pics…two featuring the supernova (unbusted and busted) and the conversation with mr. all-in first hand, so the pics are 100% whining-free, bad-beat-free and easily enjoyable. One of the things I’m looking forward doing this year: posting more happy screenshots than sad ones…let’s see if PokerStars cooperates 😉

Good luck at the tables…

Merry christmas to all my regular readers, visitors, friends and their families.

Got a little bigger session in today as I only worked till noon, so I had some free time on my hands before christmas dinner and what not. In total I played 13 matches and won 8 of them. Interestingly enough the biggest contributor to those stats was PLO8. I rocked those matches and won 5 out of 6. Won 0 out of 1 in HORSE and 3 out of 6 in NL HE.

The sickest match of all was my final PLO8 match. I can honestly say that I’ve never ever seen anyone run that good – not even the biggest lucksack opponents. Who ran good? Me! I ran like the living bejeezus, I literally walked on water in that match. I had a straight flush twice – coincidentally twice the same one, too…I held 8d9d xx both times and the board ran 7d 10d x Jd x and Td Jd x 7d x… – had boat over boat and finally dem quads to finish the match (I was unable to extract that much value in the straight flush hands and the boat over boat one as my opponent was not really willing to stack off with an under-full…a rare thing these days)…anyway…feels good to have played a little more again and to look ahead to 4 days of free time until I have to get back to work on monday.

Long story short: it’s almost certain to say that you will find some more poker content the next few days…gl at the tables everyone and once again: Merry christmas/happy holidays!!!

…especially if you’re in the middle of the worst session in ages: priceless. I’m still too irritated to even grasp what just happened to me and I won’t even dive into telling bad beat story after bad beat story as I don’t want to pay all my readers extra dollars adding insult to injury. All in all I stop playing at least four SnGs too late…still should have won some of those, but it was not to be…these days no pair no draw and being dominated is virtual gold…so I’m off to clean out my mouth as I puked in it just now…and I can guarantee you that I won’t be back for a few days…it’s reached the point again where I just can’t take it anymore…it’s one thing that the donks get insanely lucky in consecutive matches against me, but then starting to talk trash? Not my cup of tea…especially not if I’m in the middle of bad beat city where even a 90+% advantage is enough to win a decisive hand….I’m outta here…best of luck to the rest of you…and you’ll see me when I’m back (don’t know when that’ll be…but don’t expect me back this week)…

Just a quick session today as there was a lot of football going on tonight, first a friendly game played at our field (won 2-1), then a friendly game of our national team against belgium (won 2-0). I decided to get a little HORSEy tonight…and I was able to bust one, lose one. Then I jump into a DS to the sunday million and I get kicked in the junk. First this sucker rivers a flush with his KQs against my AKs…then he busts me with QQ. How did that hand go down? He raises preflop. I call with Kx. Why do I call there, because I know that if I hit the flop he will pay me off, easy as that. Flop comes down KJx. Not the joint, but hey. I check. He bets pot….I repop him all-in (he got me covered by a few chips). Instacall. What does he have? QQ. Nicely played sir, thank you for stacking off. Turn Q. Nevermind….I’m outta here…gl at the tables everyone….

…still not great though. Today I played a variety of games. Along with my bread and butter NL Hold’em, I played some HORSE as well…and a double shootout to the sunday million. I’m happy to report that I made that final table and busted out in the money…still sucks though as I lost most of my stack to a total donk on a flip (we both were short and he thought it was a good idea to call a third of his stack preflop with 86 s000ted)…I’m also happy to report that I totally busted my opponent in a HORSE headsup match….I’m not happy to report that I didn’t win a single flip today…that’s quite a few days in a row where I can’t win one (and yes I’m counting ;))…had exactly three flips today AhKh vs 88, lost that one, 44 vs 86s, lost that one, 55 vs A7…yeah…lost that one too. Oh well, at least I can log-off on a high winning my last HU match and the horse one…gl at the tables everyone….

….pretty ugly. After almost a week of no poker I jumped back into the aquarium today and I did my best no to tap the glass. In the end I got steamrolled by the donksquad. Maniacal game – no dice, aggressive game – no dice, passive game – no dice. Somehow all the matches lasted long enough to either see the blinds get huge or me getting it in on a coinflip. I think I don’t even need to tell you that I didn’t win a single race tonight, not one. 44 vs AJ, JJ vs Q9 (yeah…not exactly a raise, I still lost), AK vs 66, etc etc….so sick. In total I played one DS to the sunday million, lost in third at my starting table on a flip, then I lost 7 NL Hold’em headsup matches, won one and won one Razz headsup match. Pretty fucking sick. Honestly…but oh well, what am I gonna do…yeah, you’re right…log off and forget about it…and that’s what I’m going to do…Holden’s Bigger Deal is waiting as a good-night read…so I’m outta here…gl at the tables everyone….

That’s the way my results were today…played five SnGs…won four of them…the final one took the longest…it was razz…it was against a player who actually knew how to play razz – which is a rather seldom thing. All in all…a very good feeling to book a solid winning session.

That said, I’m outta here to catch some sleep…tomorrow will be here in no time and I got to get ready for my short trip….wheeee….I leave tomorrow afternoon for a trip to northern germany with my football team, which should be a lot of fun…and drinking…so no play for the next few days…I’ll be back on sunday/monday…gl everyone…

That basically describes my Stud8-experience tonight. After busting out of a NL game early (again) I decided to switch gears. A Stud8-MTT seems to be the perfect fix and as one was starting right away, here I go. The first hour was nice, going in with the best coming out with the best…in between I was the chipleader and never lower than 5th in chips. Noice. Then the first break came…

After the break I had the worst 50 minutes of Stud8 IN MY LIFE. Sick, sicker, the sickest. Then back to sick again. Unbelievable. I mean it was ppl trying to give their chips away (chasing the second best hand one way…fighting to maybe win half the pot if they got lucky)…and lucky they got rivering me thrice on seventh with 5 outs or less…pretty sick. But oh well, that’s how it goes…as we all know donkeys always draw…especially in limit. So I’m out in 42nd and still pretty sick about it. Nothing you can do though, so I’m off for the night and steaming…hope you have better luck at the tables…

Today was really a session to forget…so I’m trying to do that and I’ll log off after this post. First of, I’d like to say that it wasn’t bad luck all the time today, but it was kind of weird. First I start with some Razz ($1/$2). I get kicked in the junk in 3 major pots. What’s even more interesting is that I was the bring-in in 1/4th of the hands at a full 8 handed table. Maybe that should have told me something to begin with. The bad part is that I tilted off some money in the end though (around 20$). This was totally unnecessary as the ppl had seen me lose big hand after big hand, I was raising like a madman…but don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t playing weak starting hands…yes I losened my starting hand requirements from three to a seven to three to an eight…but is that really enough to chase me down with a rough ten? I guess not…but oh well…I should have known better, but I didn’t…so I’ll have to live with that.

After that Razz disaster I fired up some 6max SnGs and it wasn’t pretty. Got coolered on the bubble with Kings again…monster QT was enough to bust me…QTxTQ board…rofl…so sick. Then I bubbled again when I pushed QJ into QK on a Qxx board…then an unspectacular fourthed and finally a sixth place finish…and I’m off…down and out for tonight….

I don’t know if I’ll play online tomorrow since the home game is set for 8pm…let’s see if my unlucky streak continues there too…I’ll try to go in relaxed and take my chances…