Sticking to things that you’re accustomed to isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it can be a real PITA. My day in poker is told fairly quickly today. Started off with a token satellite. Bad idea, once again my strong Ace ran into Aces within the first orbit – I should start to keep track of such things, what are the odds of your opponent holding pocket Aces when you’re holding one? Whatever the odds are, it seems that it’s happening more often than you think, especially when I’m holding a big ace.

After that quick bustout I decided to cool things down with the 17ET 1$ tourney, always nice to try some new things for a buck. A standard play broke my back though. I find pocket Aces in EP within the first orbit and pop it up to 3xBB, 2 callers, this could be fun! Flop comes down 9-7-3 rainbow. Checked to me, I bet the pot, one fold, one reraise to 2x pot…I think about it and if he flopped a set, so be it…I push…he calls…sure enough my gut feeling was right and he doesn’t hold a set…he’s holding TPSK (yup, that’s top pair shit kicker) – 96s in this case. To make a long story short: 6 on the turn and IGHN. Way to go, cracked Aces with 96…argh!

After that I was a little frustrated – to say the least. I wanted to spend some time (and little money) playing a decent amount of poker. As this plan didn’t work out I decided to play some ring games. Everything fine at the .05/.10 NL HE front and I quintuple up in no time. Which makes me think: Maybe it’s time to move up in limits again. This time with a better bankroll behind me (after all I more than tripled up my deposit since starting to play at Full Tilt less than a month ago). So I head to the .10/.25 NL HE games and play around a dozen orbits. I leave down a little, but not much. To change things up a little bit more I play some limit Hold’em (.25/.50) too, with not much success as the draw donkeys just keep outdrawing me.

So, why the post title “change of plan”? Because I decided that I’ll quit playing SnGs and MTTs for a while. I mean it’s all good and I did fairly well in MTTs and some SnGs, but overall I just can’t get through. So the new plan is to spend the extra poker time grinding it out at the cash tables – at the new limit of .10/.25 – until my bankroll is a little bit bigger. Then I’ll try to hit some of the bigger buyin MTTs and/or SnGs (10$+) and maybe I’ll even try to win my way into the WSOP then – the whole 100 WSOP seat tourney (July 16th) is just too tempting, especially if you could achieve satelliting into the thing.

…or the case of the accidental hammer clash (more about that later).

After running bad the last few days it was time to get back into shape or back in the saddle of the donkey, so that’s what I did. Played some SnGs (NL HE 3$+0.40$) and was ITM in 3 of 4. The total is: 1x1st, 2x2nd, 1x8th (donkey chasing and connecting) – on a side note: I was down roughly 1:3 in all of the heads up finishes. Was able to turn it around once, although I did well in the other heads ups too…I came back to around even and even took the lead for a while, but just couldn’t finish my opponent…

Apart from the SnG action I played some MTTs, too. Nothing spectacular to report from the PL Hold’em tourney, busted out pretty early. Then I played a Fixed Limit one and the funniest thing ever happened. This poker episode is entitled “The accidental hammer clash”: I’m UTG+3 and look down at the hammer (7c-2d), folded to me and I decide to limp in, flop comes down 7d-Jd-7h…BB leads out, I raise, he reraises, I cap…turn is the 10c…back and forth again…river is the Js…full house baby…back and forth again…showdown (see pic below):

The funniest thing: I correctly shout “hammer time, nh!” in the table chat and I can feel that most of the table is thinking “WTF?!”. The BB asks me: “Why did you call with 72o?” I answer “It’s the hammer, you gotta trust it! … (poker blogger insider)”…he smiles…nothing funny after that and I bust out rather quickly again as I just can’t catch anything.

Then I decided to complete the evening with a NL HE MTT (3$+0.30$). I play some good poker and after roughly two hours of play (already ITM) I bust out in 288th place with Ac-Qc vs As-9c when Mr. BigStack calls my All-In and catches his nine…. not a perfect way to end the evening, but at least I had a good rush today!

Sidenotes:

1. I never had so many AA and KKs in a single day…which is nice, as most of them held up too.
2. The whole single table SnG thing with lots of heads up action today was good training…or at least it should be…I better get in shape for DADIII (see below)

Pimpage:

Be there or be square!

As it was my dad’s birthday today I didn’t play much (just two orbits just yet) and I just couldn’t play any longer after dropping the hammer to crush aces (unfortunately I was too slow to take a screenshot as it was a turbo table, so hand history will have to do)

PokerStars Game #3627828185: Hold’em Limit ($0.02/$0.04) – 2006/01/13 – 21:32:46 (ET)
Table ‘Janus III’ Seat #10 is the button
Seat 3: Ingoal ($0.44 in chips)
Seat 5: sarasfw ($1.16 in chips)
Seat 7: Am_I_Spam ($0.20 in chips)
Seat 8: pawliwalnuts ($0.27 in chips)
Seat 9: jean1977 ($0.36 in chips)
Seat 10: i love eggs ($0.31 in chips)
Ingoal: posts small blind $0.01
sarasfw: posts big blind $0.02
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [7c 2h]
Am_I_Spam: folds
pawliwalnuts: folds
jean1977: folds
i love eggs: folds
Ingoal: calls $0.01
sarasfw: raises $0.02 to $0.04
Ingoal: calls $0.02
*** FLOP *** [Js 7h Jd]
Ingoal: bets $0.02
sarasfw: raises $0.02 to $0.04
Ingoal: raises $0.02 to $0.06
sarasfw: raises $0.02 to $0.08
Betting is capped
Ingoal: calls $0.02
*** TURN *** [Js 7h Jd] [Qc]
Ingoal: bets $0.04
sarasfw: raises $0.04 to $0.08
Ingoal: calls $0.04
*** RIVER *** [Js 7h Jd Qc] [7s]
Ingoal: bets $0.04
sarasfw: raises $0.04 to $0.08
Ingoal: raises $0.04 to $0.12
sarasfw: raises $0.04 to $0.16
Betting is capped
Ingoal: calls $0.04
*** SHOW DOWN ***
sarasfw: shows [Ac Ad] (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
Ingoal: shows [7c 2h] (a full house, Sevens full of Jacks)
Ingoal collected $0.72 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $0.72 | Rake $0
Board [Js 7h Jd Qc 7s]
Seat 3: Ingoal (small blind) showed [7c 2h] and won ($0.72) with a full house, Sevens full of Jacks
Seat 5: sarasfw (big blind) showed [Ac Ad] and lost with two pair, Aces and Jacks
Seat 7: Am_I_Spam folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: pawliwalnuts folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 9: jean1977 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 10: i love eggs (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

Hammertime:ÂÂ

Oooh what a day. Played an even wider mix of games today in order to, hopefully, get my bankroll (which was micro to begin with) at AbsolutePoker back from life-support. I played in various HE games ranging from fixed limit 0.10$/0.20$ to 0.10$ NL along with the usual session of Omaha H/L. I couldn’t get much going and so I decided that it would be a good idea to play some S&Gs.

Good idea. I won the Omaha H/L one, bubbled in a HE NL and finished outside the money in the other one. Nontheless some solid playing time without risking too much. I guess going with multiple S&Gs Omaha 8b is the way to go if I want to rescue the remaining few dollars there.

So that’s what I’m going to do! Either I run up my bankroll at AP over the cashout threshold or I go bust…whatever…it doesn’t get me anywhere anyways…the ring games are just too tough (either you play against the calling stations hustling for a (re-re-)draw all the time – after all you can’t push a calling station out of a pot especially in limit or low-limit PL and even if the cards fall your way some of the time, it’s not enough to seriously build up your stack – or you face a NL crowd with a fat roll…you just can’t survive with a minimal bankroll…at least I can’t atm)…

But enough reporting/ranting…I’m going to watch the final table of the “Battleship at Atlantis” Heads Up tourney now…should be interesting!

Side Note: the main event of the PCA is a done deal, check out Brad’s (Otis’) coverage here if you haven’t already. Spoiler: 22 year old student and PokerStars regular Steve Paul-Ambrose has won the thing…1.363.100$ + the WPT championship seat (25k$) not a bad pay-day for a student(!), ka-ching!

I played a wild mix of games today ranging from the usual penny PL Omaha H/L to 0.25$/0.50$ Limit Hold’em. Was able to stay ahead in Omaha over at UltimateBet, but busted myself out of 10$ over at Absolute Poker, although I held quads twice…just a bad swing today I guess as I wasn’t able to catch anything while holding good hands (Hold’em: K-K…nothing apart some aces on the board; A-K – blank board; Omaha: A-2-3-x, board is something like 2-3-K-10-Q, etc etc)…

So, I went out on a little mixed game spree today and totally donked off my chips. First of all I jumped between Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Hold’em, Limit Omaha H/L and Pot Limit Omaha H/L, then I played a “little bit” above my limit (considering my low bankroll with Titan) and lost my remaining chips in one 0.25$/0.50$ PL Omaha H/L hand. Well, so the Buy-In at Titan Poker is history, but I’m not too worried as the lack of games (especially 7 Stud H/L in regular play and Omaha H/L in S&G and Tournaments) didn’t do me any good and I had no intention what so ever to reload – there were only limited possibilities:

1. Double my Buy-In (25$) and cash out
2. Double my Buy-In, clear the bonus (100%) in the process and cash out
3. Bust…go broke, whatever you like to call it…

So 3. is what happened, I really dislike to lose money, but that’s the game….now I’m going to focus on the remaining poker rooms where I’m either up (PokerStars, UltimateBet) or slightly down (AbsolutePoker)…

Played some hands on regular money tables today and was able to catch a good run of cards at a 0.25$/0.50$ table (up around 5 dollars), but I guess I sticked around just a little bit too long though (dropping around 6 dollars). Nontheless it might be worth it as I played over 100 raked hands which brings me nearer to clearing my bonus and should give me an entrance to tomorrow’s 100 Million Dollar qualification satellite…I hope I’ll catch some cards tomorrow and make it to the real deal as there’s major cash up for grabs (in the main event tournament: 1 Million $ for a Royal Flush, 750.000$ for a straight flush, 500.000$ for Four Aces or Four Kings, 250.000$ for Four of a Kind Queens, Jacks or tens; even better: if you make it to the final table and hit a Royal Flush of Spades you’re the winner of 100 Million Dollars!!!!! – we all know the odds aren’t really good that anyone will do it, but if there’s a theoretical chance, you never know :-))

Played a big freeroll today, not big in price money (top 27 would go on to a 1000$ tourney), but big in participating players: 5206 entered. I was able to stand my ground and even build up a huge stack (around 18k) putting me in the top 10…but then, after around 1.5h, I was my own self again…donkeying away my hard earned chips in less than 30 minutes…to bust out in 730th place. Gotta re-evaluate this thing…it’s not a good idea to bet into 4 hearts on the board and telling yourself “ah come on, he ain’t got the 5th heart”…

Played a little S&G in order to get a little more action…a cheap 1$ + 0.20, 45 players, top 7 pay. Played well and was constantly in the top 10 chip-wise, until my nemesis came to visit me again…I’m UTG and min-raise with my lovely hiltons (Q-Q), three callers, late position goes all-in, I put him on an Ace (and rightly so), took some time to think about the situation: either fold and stay in good shape (2520chips) or call with the possibility to double up or be crippled (120 chips remaining)…ponder ponder, call! He shows A-Js…and sure enough he doesn’t catch either A or J but three spades…6h-10s–3s-2c-7s…I’m crippled…look down at A-10o in the next hand and raise All-In, two callers…board is blank (highest card 8) and sure enough the two callers show A-8…split pot and cya…argh!!!

I think this is the fourth time that I busted out holding Q-Q…they’re just no good luck charm for me…note to self: lay down Q-Q when reraised All-In preflop in next MTT…

Alrighty! The next poker session is set and I’m going to be a part of it. Despite a lot of pre-christmas action we’ve finally set a date for the next Poker event and I’m sure it’ll rock!

I guess the main action will be a Limit Hold’em session although I want to try to push other games (especially Stud and maybe even Omaha (no Hi/Lo though))…watch out for my next post after the session…

Here’s the invitation to the event(!), it’s getting more and more professional around here 🙂 :

Played to TEC Freerolls today (9:15am ET & 01:15pm ET). Didn’t really stand a chance and finished in 671th of 2308 (when my A-Q didn’t improve on the board while running into A-A) and 2168th of 2500 (when my A-J didn’t improve on the board while running into, yet another, A-A) 🙁

Played some low stakes Hold’em, but couldn’t get anywhere either during the course of play (25minutes, +/- 0.00$). I guess I’ll head over to Pstars for a S&G later tonight…