…the place where 93o is good enough to call a 4BB UTG raise…
…the place where flopping the second nut flush is good enough to get beat by the nut flush when the fourth club hits the board…
…the place where…my luck is shittier than a shitpile….

Just rambling so nevermind…. 🙄
At least I “got lucky” enough to win 2nd place in the side-tourney…so not a total failure poker-wise…at least I had some fun chatting and drinkin…

…*lol*…

Haven’t played online in a while, too little time and too tired and mentally distracted to risk any serious dough. That didn’t keep me from playing some live poker last night though. In our little home game we play for peanuts and while playing poker is the central part of the evening, it’s not the only factor to consider. It’s basically about slinging chips and cards with new and old friends while chatting it up, drinking and eating the assorted random junk food. An evening in our home game is the total package so to speak.

Last night was no different. Eight donks sat down and started to play. I played my usual game, well, that’s not totally true, I mixed it up quite a little despite the fact that I was pretty card dead (my best hand was 44). I managed to win some pots by pure aggression, showing the occasional bluff (67o raise from UTG, etc), hoping to setup a big pot later on when it was my time to hold “a monster” (*wink* *wink* I’m starting to talk like Hellmuth *lol*…I guess watching all the poker shows isn’t that good for you after all). The time came once I finally picked up a real hand. Once again I was UTG and I look down at AKo…wheeeeeeee….10BB left…so what am I going to do? Open-push. UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 thinks, thinks, thinks and finally calls…fold, fold and another call by a player who didn’t even have 2BB left so no worries there.

The cards are flipped over and I show my AKo…UTG+2 groans as he shows the AQ s00ted…LP caller shows K4o…oh well…I like my chances here. Flop JQx…I don’t like my chances that much anymore…turn x….river Q…wheeeee…..I’m outta here….always nice to see 2 of your opponent’s 3 outs hit against you…*lol*…I congratulated him on his “nice call” preflop and left the table to get some steam out of my system (translation: I berated him for his donk call and moaned about my consistent bad luck in recent live events). Sure enough my opponent in that hand managed to push into a made hand drawing dead a few hands later…so sick.

As I waited for the game to finish, I cooled down again. So once the next game started I was fresh and ready to go and go I did. You gotta know that the second game (we only play tournaments and the second one after the main tourney) is only half the buyin for the same amount of chips and play. So I came out of the blocks raising almost every pot. Sure enough it didn’t take long for one of my esteemed calling station opponents to chase me down. It was the sixth or seventh hand of the tourney and I had raised 4 out 5 in the hands before this one. I look down at A4o on the button….two limpers…what am I going to do? Raise it up…one caller…and I know he’s got two face cards, fa-shizzle! Flop comes down Jx4…hmm…he leads out….I call…turn is another x…he fires again, this time BIG. I know that he’s got the jack and I’m frustrated. I put him on KJ and asked him if he would show me the hand if I layed it down. He was all too happy to show, so I was sure my read was correct. I layed it down, he shows the JTo…nice play…I’m the dealer and can’t resist to rabbit-hunt the last card…guess what…Ah….yuck.

Oh well…I guess hands like that come with the territory – it’s been a tradition that people just like to chase me down in our game. The old saying before the flop, on the flop or after the turn goes “oh well, I don’t have anything/much…but it’s against Ingo(al) after all…I call” and boom the headshot usually follows on the river. Pretty sick, but that’s what you get if you’ve got a reputation of being unlucky…(Side note: It’s obvious why I’ve got the reputation of being extremely unlucky in our home game…when a big pot goes down it’s usually me pushing or calling being a 60-98% favourite…so obv I’m going to take more beats than someone pushing in with a significant edge in 2 out of 10 big pots 😉 )….

But back to the game. I was down half my stack with that last hand, so I just waited for the next chance to push it in. That chance came once there were a few folds before me and I look down at TT…tempting…best hand all night…I got 8.xBB left…so what am I going to do with four people after me…push. Fold, fold, fold, call…KK….cya….*lol*…that one didn’t hurt at all…I was a 4:1 dog and I didn’t catch, surprise surprise…still sucks, but oh well…better luck next time.

Madly busy with my diploma thesis, so not much time for poker…well, basically no time at all for anything else. Still managed to squeeze in some live action last wednesday. This time it was my regular homegame hosted by a mate of mine. Not much luck in the main tourney as two calling stations at my table kept calling…and hitting in the end. The worst and final hand was my AT vs QT…I raise preflop to 4x…call…flop comes down KTx….I fire…call….now I’m worried but not really going to stop here…turn J…hmm…all-in…call…oh well…I guess I’m f*ed…cards get shown…oh I’m no f*cked after all…river 9…okay…I’m f*cked…*lol*….

After that I wanted to leave and catch some sleep, but as the main tourney was still running a few minutes later (and I needed to wait for some mates to finish because I was the driver), I decided to join the side tourney. Two hours later and I’m totally knackered but victorious…how sweet it is. I played like a maniac, basically raising every pot in MP to LP…fold fold fold of my opponents. I continue to play that way and naturally they play back when they got a monster…fold me….also natural: once I pickup a few hand KT flop QJ9, I hold KK vs QJ, etc…and I got their money…in the headsup match I was up more than 2:1 to start with, but pushing three times with a worse hand and hitting gave my opponent the lead (I won some smaller pots in between)…in the end I finally took it down with the best of it…fourthed try is the charm I guess….

Now to the BIG SHOUTOUT…it goes to Waffles! Props to him for helping me with getting my iPhone. I don’t have it in my hands yet, but the order is already place and it’s only a matter of time until it get’s here…wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee! The joy. Thanks again Waffles for your help with it, you’re the bomb and you’ll get something for your effort and help, trust me 🙂

…what’s better than a live poker game when you need to get outside to clear your head? Exactly, nothing! Got a call from a friend about a poker game tonight, so instead of loungin on the couch I made my way to the bar where the tourney was held. Had little luck early on, but once the main tourney started I made my run. I was one of the shortstacks right from the beginning – I started with 1.5k…others started with up to 7.5k (they got extra chips for winning pre main-tourney shootout tables). Nothing much going on at the first table…one nut-flush for me…double-up. Then I get moved to the next table and I sit down UTG. I look down at the first card…A…at the second card…A…I like! I raise it up 5BB and someone UTG+2 decides to push…I love it and insta-call…he shows the tourist (A7o), my rockets hold up and I’m good to go. A flush and some small pots later and I’m sitting pretty…then a tough one comes up. The blinds just gone up and it’s more or less a crapshoot now (0.8k/1.6k blinds), I’m in the BB and take a free look. The flop comes 9-5-4 rainbow…the SB checks…I check…turn comes the Jh…SB pushes…I hold 96o. I try to remember what the SB did on earlier hands with straight draws on board…I decide to go with my gut-feeling as I think he’s on a straight-draw again (he played them overly aggressive earlier)…I put him on 78 and call…he isn’t too pleased with my call and show 67o for the gutterball…river is blank and I cripple him. Tough call, but sticking with my initial feeling was the right move. Even tougher luck for him as he’s auto-all-in a few hands later in the BB…I look down at QQ UTG and that’s all she wrote for him…
After that some small pots won and lost and we’re finally down to the final table. I try to sit back and relax as I don’t get any hands and the other players are more than willing to gamble – no surprise with blinds approaching 1.5/3k…I can’t catch anything and once I’m in the BB the button decides to pop it….I’ve got 3k invested…only 5k behind so I can’t fold…69o against his A3o…alright…at least I’m live…an ace on the turn seals my exit in 6th…the meaningless 6 on the river comes to rub it in…*lol*…so…in the end no prize for me (top 3 get payed), but still a good one…I had fun, didn’t think about my diploma thesis for once and got some time at the felt…good stuff…off to catch some sleep now…
I’m UTG again and the BB is auto-allin with less than the blind…I look down at QQ and push…no callers except the BB…my queens hold up.

It’s been ages since we last played our regular home game. Tonight ten donks s00ted up and joined the festivities. I took down the main tournament. Wheeeeeeeeeeee. A W….so sweet. I took third in the side tourney, too (getting a refund on my buyin), so I finished the night 2/2 in the money with 1W and 1 third place finish. Overall a nice showing especially considering that I held exactly one pocket pair all night, KK getting no action headsup in the main tourney. The rest was grinding it out and it worked out pretty nicely.

Alrighty…I’m outta here…time to catch some sleep…gotta be up and running later on to a wedding ceremony…good luck at the tables and have a great weekend…

Just one more week and it’s going to be High Stakes Poker time again. Season 4 will kick off next monday, 9PM on GSN, and I gotta say, I’m really looking forward to it.

Browsing through the player lineup, I came across the following pic:

Phil “Best Hold’em player in the world” aka “Cash game donkey” Hellmuth Jr. is making a return and look at his promo shot for his player profile, totally hawesome!

So…this is post 500 on this little corner of the interweb and I thought long and hard about something (special) to write about for this “anniversary post”, then again why should this post be any different than the other posts and more importantly, what would be the special thing to write about? The WSOP? I don’t think so, there’s people out there that do that much better than I could…cough…Dr. Pauly and Dr. Pauly at Pokernews. Some strategy? Nah.

So…after some deliberation I decided that post 500 would be just like any other post, a post about my daily adventures in the (live and online) poker world.

Since my last post I switch to six handed SnGs almost exclusively. They’re a little less swingy than the HU matches and although I took some sick beats, some in rapid succession, I’m still doing okay. That being said, the results could be better. But honestly, how many wins or what win percentage is (good) enough? Coming back to one of the points I already made in numerous posts: Fact #1 – I want to win every match I play. Fact #2 – That’s impossible. So for the time being, I’ll settle for more wins (or cashes) than losses and that’s exactly what happened over the last few days. Win one, bubble, bust out early, second place, bubble, win, bust out early, bubble, etc…

But enough of online play. Tonight we had a nice little bbq and afterwards we talked poker for nearly two hours. Inspired by all the strategy talk (mixed with some bad beat and crazy hand stories), we decided to play a little SnG. Things looked grim early as I got ugly cards and even uglier flops when I had the chance to look at one. Soon enough my stack was dwindling and I had to make a move – good thing that my AQ held up against AJ and I could double up. After that I made some pressure plays in position and soon enough I had a nice chip cushion. As the blinds escalated, luck seemed to be still on my side, but that changed quickly. Four handed, cutoff folds, button raises 3BB (which are substantial at that point), SB folds, I look down at 88 in the BB and decide to call. Flop comes down 965 with two spades. I check…button pushes…decision time. A call would cost me roughly 40% of my stack and I start to figure out what he could have. Raise on the button could lead to a discount of his hand, but I’m not too sure. After some deliberation I put him on the following range: A9o, AK to AJ (maybe two spades), AA to TT and A5/A6 with the Ace of spades…against that range my pure outs would be two eights and three sevens (and I’m probably dead if another spade falls). So…I think a little more and I decide to let it go, we talk and we both show our hands…he had 66 and got lucky on my ass.

Fast forward a few orbits and “lovely” 62o, 74o, etc etc later and I’m the shortest stack three handed. I look down at presto on the button and push…SB thinks and thinks and finally calls…BB folds. SB 77…flop J57 two hearts, yuck, turn heart….river heart…bad news…neither of us has a heart…so I bubble in third. Oh well…firstly I was short, secondly even if we see a flop the money will go in…thirdly…better luck next time…I’m out…time to catch some sleep before we, hopefully, claim the football championship tomorrow…booze galore…cya on the other side (probably later monday or tuesday ;-))

Well, well…no poker content this time, just some random -ev gambling.

After a rather quick 120km drive to Baden-Baden, we, that’s a group of friends and yours truely, arrived right at the casino. Instead of going in right away, we first had a nice dinner in the inner city. After that it was time to gamb00l in the Casino Baden-Baden. Although they got some poker tables, I wasn’t really interested in playing, so it was all about the -ev gambling. Because most tables were really crowded placing your bets wasn’t all that much fun and playing BlackJack was next to impossible. So, in the end I settled on playing roulette for most of the night, only interrupted by some beer drinking at the bar, lol.

Really sick how much money is thrown on the table in general, but even sicker how much money some experts errm system players errrm degenerates place at any given time, sick sick sick. Oh well…I guess they know what they’re doing, or maybe not. In the end, some of my mates scored some nice bets (hitting single numbers like it was nothing), no such luck for me, but hey, I knew that playing total -ev roulette wasn’t a good idea anyway, so I already had the amount I played for in the losing column of my virtual sheet tracking my results…in the end I lost a measly 70 Euro…add to that a nice dinner and some money for gas and you’ve got a nice evening with friends for 100 Euro….not a bad investment at all… 🙂

That being said, I’m more than happy to jump back into poker where the minus in front of the ev isn’t set in stone 😉

Tonight we played our regular home game. A total of 12 players showed up including one newbie. To make a long story short, as usual, the newbie won. I don’t know what it is, but it seems that every time a newbie shows up to play (s)he either got the goods, get’s lucky or both and takes it down – fine by me.

We started out with two six handed tables and early on I got some hands (AK, AQ, AJ) and took down some small pots. Then it was time for one of the first bigger pots. I raise it up preflop (4BB) with Ac10d. One player out of position calls. Flop comes down all rags two clubs. Check…I check…turn brings the 10c…so I got top pair, nut flush draw…he checks…I bet…he reluctantly calls. River brings the Js. He checks and I got the feeling that the jack hit him. I check behind and he takes it down with KJo. Hmmm…well…no comment…here’s your lolipop 😉

I chip up again winning some small pots and then the hand comes down. I look down at 66 and pop it preflop…I get one caller…incidently the same player that chased me down in the A10 vs KJ hand…flop comes down QJ6 two spades…gin! He bets…I call…turn brings the Ks…hmm…he checks…I take a stab at the pot and he reluctantly calls, commenting “if you’ve got it, you’ve got it”…river is blank (5c)…he checks…now I’m thinking, hmm….when the flush hit, he made that comment, which leads me to believe that he got something good here, too…so I decide to check it down. I say “trips”, he says “I knew it, you probably have the better hand”…and I’m “uh oh” he shows JJ for the higher set…damn. I lost half my stack…although I guess I lost the bare minimum there, so I can’t fault myself here. I pondered a push on the turn…then again…he would have probably called me down and I would have been busto…so…what can you do.

The blinds are starting to get big, so I have no choice but to push a few hands later. I wanted to do it blind, but I didn’t and I see JJ…push….SB calls…showing presto…flop and turn are blank and the river is….5….presto = gold and I’m busto….so much for the “main event”.

We wait for some other players to bust out to start our sidegame. This sidegame will stand out for a while as one of the craziest hands ever was played in the very first hand. Some players, including myself, limp, LP pops it…everyone folds around to the BB who calls. Flop comes down 7J7. EP leads out…LP pushes…EP insta-calls….what do they hold? LP JJ for top boat…EP 77 for dem quads bitches! Wow! Turn and river are blank and we got our first casualty. As it’s the first hand we allow the unlucky player to rebuy and he’s going to be “Mr. Rebuy” from now on…brutal way to get your nickname 😉

After stealing some pots I’m still getting low on chips so I decide to push with one of the next hands…once I look down at 44 there’s no turning back and I get called by AKo. Flop is ace high…turn brings the king…river is blank and I’m busto…

All in all I can’t fault myself for any of the plays I made…I put the money in with the best, apart from the set over set hand, and hmm…I wasn’t running good…what can you do…nothing much…so…I had fun tonight, but the cards weren’t with me…better luck next time, which will hopefully be soonish…there’s just nothing better than live cardflinging with friends 🙂

As I was too tired to write up a summary of Kat‘s Friday Rebuy Madness (TM) this morning (after I busted out after over two hours of play, past 5am), here it goes, spiced up with some live poker.

I had a terrible session prior to the rebuy madness. I couldn’t win a hand to save my very soul and after the first match I discovered a big, maybe even giant leak in my (HU/SnG) game. What is the leak? Impatience combined with being annoyed of all the luckboxes I’m facing on a daily basis. Now, this maybe doesn’t count as a genuine leak, but really it is. I play a match, play the best I can, put the money in with the (significantly) best of it and I lose. I go off the deep end in the next x minutes playing suboptimal strategy (making bad calls, getting impatient, calling in bad spots, etc). So I really need to work on that. When I’m in the zone (and stuff like this doesn’t happen) I’m waaaaaay ahead and crush the game. But as soon as a session starts off with a real bad beat or a succesion of such hands, I lose it and donk out of the next ones. Not a good thing.

But enough of the session prior to the rebuy madness. The rebuy madness started off with a real bummer. I got the first monsters I held crushered, big time. What did I hold? The hammer and the jackhammer, both crushered by “overcards”. Sick, sick, sick 😉

So I rebought a few times donking around like there’s no tomorrow…and that’s the real beauty of this tourney. There’s just no better way to spend x dollars. You buyin for 2 (1+1; or better 3) dollars and donk around. If you make a mistake or donk move – who cares? 1$ will get you another 1k chips, 2$ will get you another 2k chips. Heeeehaaaw…enjoy. After the early “bad luck” – how dare you crusher my (jack)hammer?! – I picked up some nice hands and even cracked aces with a donkhand. Brilliant. After one hour of donkfoolery, I take the addon and the field looks like this:

Then I got moved to another table as some players pussed out (cough, Wawfuls etc, cough). Who do I find on my left…Mr. TripJax along with three other bigstacks…hmmm….nice…NOT.

A few hands in and it’s obvious that some players are picking on my blinds, so it’s time to make a move. Trip raises from UTG and I look down at KQo in the BB…no way I’m folding here…so I call…hit top pair and it goes to the river…after the hand, it’s revealed that he had the hammer and picked up an OESD which didn’t come through on the river though. So I pick up the pot and enjoy myself. The very next hand I get dealt the hammer myself in the SB.

After I miss the flop completely, I lead out nontheless with a nice sized cbet. Trip raises though and I have to fold the hammer. Back to square one.

The next hour is mostly a blur, win some lose some, but one hand stands out. If I knew that, I would have called the preflop raise. I sit with A9o on the button…one limper as it get’s to me…I limp as well…trip raises…limper calls…I ponder as the raise would be like 20-25% of my stack…so I decide to fold as I’ve got the feeling that I might be dominated here…flop comes down 992….whine…sigh…turn K…river 2…showdown Trip A8o…limper 66…so sick…if I call there…I triple up for sure, why? Because trip leads out for 2.5k on the flop…limper raises to 5k…no way in hell that I’m not either flat-calling or pushing there (7k) and at least the limper would have called the extra 2k for shizzle…oh well…just as the second break is about to kick in, we’re down to the final table…

8th out of 9…hmm…not a pleasent spot to be in…after we lose the first player, I push my stack in with A10o, which is no match to the other player’s JJ…

So, I’m out in 8th…

So…am I disappointed? Not really, I played some donk poker (early on), I played some good poker (middle stage up to the final table) and I played some decent poker at the final table. All in all…10$ spend for 2.x hours of good poker fun with the boys (and gals)! See you all next week…

Fast forward to today, we started the day off by watching the top match of the german footie league (our local VfB Stuttgart whooped Bayern Munich 2-0) and a nice BBQ. After enjoying the goods, we decided to play a little poker, surprise surprise. We started an eight-handed SnG with a payout structure of 50/30/20%. Got off to a slow start, but finally picked up a decent hand once the blinds got bigger. I look down at QQ in the BB…two limpers…so I decided to push…not the best move there, but with all the chasers at our game, I’ll rather win a small pot than seeing my Queens go up in flames on a bad board. One of the limpers has another idea for the hand though. I’m a little worried there as he’s really thinking about calling…could he have Aces? Could he have Kings? Sure, but then again, if he had that, his money would already be in the pot for sure…so I wait for him to make his move and he finally calls with KJo…errrm yeah…probably a good idea, wait, not really. The queens stand up and I double up to around 3k in chips (2k starting stack). Fast forward a few levels and “the hand” comes down. I’m in the SB…we’re five handed…UTG folds…UTG+1 calls…button calls…I look down at 88…I raise…BB flat-calls…shortstack UTG+1 shoves it in (practically “only” doubling my bet)…the button calls…I call…BB calls…no need to get cute here, let’s see what the flop brings…flop comes down 89T rainbow….hmm…bottom set…not bad…check…BB checks…UTG+1 is already all-in so no action…button bets out 1.5k….hmmm…why bet into a dry sidepot here? Hmmm…I’ve got around 3.xk left…so I ponder my options…could it be that he flopped a bigger set here? Absolutely, but if I’m scared of set over set here, why am I playing at all, especially given the fact that the button is one of our resident maniacs. So I ponder a little and put him on either an overpair or top pair (which would both be gold here)…I push over the top and the BB folds…showdown…button A10o for TPTK…shorty KQo…me…88 for a set of eights…the turn is a blank and I got the huge sidepot secured…the only card that can take the main pot from me is a J…that doesn’t hit and I drag the biggest pot I’ve ever seen in our homegame. I’m sitting there with roughly 65-70% of all chips in play and we’re down to four handed (bubble time)…the next orbits are a blur, but I don’t use my bigstack to really bully ppl, but I used it to make the obvious button moves. We lose a player and then another player and I’m headsup with the resident maniac. Not really the player I want to see there, but my 3:1 chiplead gives me some leeway here. I lose the chiplead in one of the typical hands. I hold JXo and I flop two pair. I bet out pot-sized. Call. Turn blank. I lead out half the (now substantial) pot. Call. River Q. Check check, as I know I’m toast….and I am toast…back to even. Sigh…I lose some pots…and after a sick hand, I flop Aces he flops second pair…rivers his kicker…and he’s roughly a 1,8:1 chipleader now…after folds on both sides for some orbits, the money finally goes into the middle and I got the best of it. I’m in command at that point and it’s a matter of a few more hands until the money goes in again…me AJ s00ted vs “The negreanu” (T7o)…flop brings a pair of queens and a king…turn is a 9…river is a T and i take it down with broadway. Wheeee…finally a W again after the long drought. Took second last time, first this time, things are looking up again, ever since I re-evaluated my live game…good stuff there…all in all…a perfect saturday…hope you had a good one, too…good luck at the tables…