…what can I say, poker is a cruel bitch and pokerstars can lick my balls. The setup is perfect, I’m playing some damn good poker for over 2 hours in a 2-7 single draw NL MTT. I’m the massive chipleader with 50k+ chips and we’re down to nine players. Up and down for roughly an hour and I’m out in ninth place. What happened? Losing two monsterpots starting with a pat 86 each time and losing both (one to a pat 85, and one against an opponent drawing 1 to a 75 aka the nuts)…well done pokerstars. Obviously the money doesn’t matter to me at all in this tourney (first place 40.43$), I wanted to win so bad…but no…looking back at it I still can’t explain it. Two shorties should have been out a long time ago and I would have entered the final table with 1/3 of the chips. Instead I double up one shortstack and then go ahead and lose the two coolers described above. Fucking a++…

I’m outta here…and as I’ll take a little vacation to cologne with my footie team on friday, I won’t be back until monday anyway…and probably I won’t even play poker until next friday, when the next live home game will take place…maybe I can catch a break there…we’ll see…anyway…enough ranting…I’m tired…and outta here…

…complaining about coolers…but then again, I just can’t stand it when I play for almost 1.5 hours…flawless poker…then I run into a cooler on the bubble. The first hand I played at the final table too…I raise it up UTG…get called in one spot…sure enough he fires after I check it to him….I shove…insta-call…and cya…sigh…

Well, I didn’t play all that much today and really, there isn’t much to tell without heading straight down “cold deck street”…one thing’s for sure…Ace rag is the new nuts, no matter at which level you play and even if you hit an Ace…Ace rag will still prevail as it’s such a powerful hand, maybe even more powerful than two s00000ted cards 😉

Anyway…one upside of the junk kickings at Stars today was the fact that I finally cleared the anniversary reload bonus…so the junk kicking is on PokerStars tonight, both figuratively and literally. After that depressing session at Stars (2W 6L), I head over to FullTilt to see if they finally managed to put some of the hog-wild donks back into their stable. Not really is the correct answer. What does it take to beat a really bad player? 1. The bad player must hit at least his TPNK 2. You must catch some cards. If it’s the other way around (let’s say AKs preflop, or 99 preflop, or similar) noone will fold to a 3x or 4x pop, why should they? They’ve got two cards! Two cards! …and if that wasn’t enough, they’re usually s00000ted…and below T…so why not? If you’re happy to flop top two then on a two-gapper-like board, rest assure that mr. donkey has either hit the jackpot, with or without even noticing it, or at least has got something “real players” call outs (usually < 4)...so mr. donkey will call you no matter what you do. Solution to this problem: Wait for the nuts...and while you're waiting...rest assured that if you have the nuts, the donk will have zilk for shizzle-dizzle...and it doesn't matter if you're playing for 1$, 2$, 5$ or 10$, believe me, I've tried them all... 😉 Oh well...enough ranting...I'm done with FullTilt for now (less than five bucks left in there)...so I don't have to worry about their donks anymore (at least for now)...and I sure hope that I can get some better results at Stars over the next few days, as these bad swings really tend to make me wanna slap somebody, lol...good luck at the tables all...

Well, well…played only a small session prior to the WWdN, won 2 out of 3 headsup matches. Then it was time to play the WWdN…and I did good…most hands are a blurr, but I made the right moves at the right time…the crucial hands were against Iak who first doubled me up to over 5k in chips and then doubled me up again with my AK vs his KJ.

So at the second break I was sitting pretty in the chiplead and from there on I rolled all the way till the final hand A9 vs 55, presto prevailed and I busted out 4th…not bad…quick pic dump and then I’m off to bed….

Today I was having mixed emotions at the tables and after yet another brutal suckout (pocket kings lost to the powerful ducks when a third duck said “quack” on the river) I asked myself: Is it really good to keep it all in(side) or is it better to get it all out? One thing’s for sure, to keep it all in is impossible in the long run, at least for me. Now I’m lucky in some ways, as I started this blog and so I’ve always got an outlet for my thoughts on hands, the way they were played and many other things. Sometimes this isn’t enough though. Tonight was one of these occasions where it wasn’t enough, I just had to get it out in the chat and so I went ahead and berate oned of the donks “Hellmuth style”. Is it good to do something like this? Well, the answer is yes and no. Yes, you get it out of your system and it’s a relief. No, for many different reasons:

1. While you get it out of your system, it distracts you from playing the current hand optimally as you’re busy typing whatever in the chatbox.

2. It can influence your opponent in a way that will come back to hurt you – at least sometimes. The read that you have on him/her might be useless from that point forward as he/she will switch up their game in order to punish you (and sometimes that works just fine if they suckout on you again, sending you into overdrive-tilt).

3. It’s bad etiquette.

4. In the long run you WANT your opponent to play that way, because pushing in with 1-20% chance is exactly what you want them to do. Why even make them think they could or should do it differently? (Assuming that some of the donks really aren’t that bad that they can’t learn from such situations)

5. Related to 1.: It can influence your game not only in the next hand, or the next, but for an extended period of time as your motive to play a hand can switch from “making the correct play/decision” to “I’ll show you donkey”…

6. etc

So, do I feel better now – absolutely. Did my outburst help my game, the decision making or the results in any way? Not really. Bottom line is, no matter how perfectly you played your hand or how bad your opponent played his, in the end the cards will decide the outcome. All you can do is make (near) perfect decisions and live with the results and I’ll pledge to stick to just that (and keep the ranting part exclusively to my blog ;)) in the future.

As for tonight, I think I played good, made sound decisions and won the matches I was supposed to win (4 out of 7). Out of the three losses, at least two were cruel, but hey, that’s poker, at least sometimes. I don’t want to go into greater detail about specific hands tonight, but I gotta at least break down one of the matches. This one could have been entitled “Just blind off, there’s no chance in hell you’ll win this match.”…I attack attack attack, hit some flops, don’t hit others, but I’m consistently grinding away at my opponent’s stack. I hold a significant chiplead and my opponent raises me preflop. I look down at QQ. Now remember, this is headsup and he’s in a desperate situation. I reraise him and he’s not commited yet. He pushes all-in. Can you laydown the queens here? I couldn’t…sure enough he shows AA and the rockets blast my queens. We’re almost back to square one as I’m ahead only a few hundred chips again. The grinding continues and soon enough I find myself in a commanding chiplead again. This time, I look down at KK. I raise from the button and he pushes all-in. Laydown Kings? Hmm, I can’t see him having Aces again here and if he does, then I’ll have to quote tuff_fish “God bless america, son of a god damn bitch!” 😉

I call and he shows the powerful 2-2, quack quack. Now I’m happy as I’m waaay ahead and he doesn’t hold the Kings nemesis, Ace rag. Flop is blank, turn is blank…river says quack, here I am. So I lose to a set of deuces on the river, lovely two outer. Wow, we’re almost even in chips, again. The grinding continues and soon enough I hold a bigger chiplead again. I hold KsQs…i standard three-pop it preflop and he flat-calls…flop comes down Kc-Qh-xc…I bet three-quarter the pot. He reraises me. I push. He insta-calls. Turn is Ac…River is xc…Showdown Jc7c…oh well…have a nice day. I’m down to slightly under 500 chips and the next time I look down at a semi-decent hand I push with A7 s00ted, he insta-calls with Q2 s00ted and sure enough a lonely duck is all it takes to beat me. Matches like these make me wonder if it would be a good idea to have some barf bags at my desk – hmm…maybe that’s a new business idea in itself, don’t you think that some players would spend a buck or two on the following one, after all what’s a buck or two compared to cleaning up your desk and keyboard 😉

But enough dwelling for tonight, I finished the session up, what more can you ask for…I’m out of here…

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 😉

…at least some of the time – mostly when it counted. Started the session by going totally retro, 5 Card Draw Pot Limit SnG. Wonderful, reminds me of years back, before the NL Hold’em boom…it was our game of choice back then and I still like it, apart from the fact that I ran into some “cold decks” (QQQ vs KKK etc). Still was able to grind back from a 1-6 chip deficit to take it down. Score: Ingoal 1-0 others

After that it was time to come back a little…more new school if you wish…so I played some poor chap in a Limit Razz HU SnG and I kid you not, he was catching like crazy. I on the other hand was in the middle of brick-city, but at least I chat-crapped him good for the next 20 minutes. My favourite set of hands: he caught a 3 and I caught a King of fourth street for five consecutive hands…unreal…oh well…as I had told him it would all come down to one big hand and it did, my 7-5 held up and I was in cruise mode. Doubled him up again, but then busted him for good once he visited me in brick city catching 2A2 to his A275…lol…poker can be cruel sometimes, good to see that it’s not just cruel to me 😉

Score: Ingoal 2-0 others

After that I went straight to the new school for some 4-player HU action, winner takes all. The first table was a true battle and I finally prevailed after a good 60 hands. The second table wasn’t all that hard. He pushes in the first hand. I fold. In the sixth hand I flop top and bottom pair on a two-club board, I overbet, he instapushes…he shows J-high flush draw….turn 10h…river xs…and cya…nice to see that nice outs isn’t always enough against me…thank you.

So…I’m three for three for the night, nice to see those three mails from PokerStars sitting in my inbox…the good ol’ times…even better to see that making correct decisions does pay off, not always or even often…but at least sometimes 😉

So…I’m outta here for tonight…hope you all have a good time at the tables…maybe I’ll try to sneak into the WWdN tomorrow, depends on my sleep schedule…but the chance to make back-to-back final tables is appealing…oh well, we’ll see…

Didn’t get the chance to write about my results yesterday, so here it goes:

1. Bodog: Same ol’ same ol’…busted some donkey balls…still only up a little on 6 of 10 Ws

2. Nine: Won’t give me a break, not even the tiniest. Down a nice junk…yet again.

3. FullTilt: No joy either. The session had everything…from the two outer on the river to the runner runner goodness of straights and flushes, nice to see that my opponents were running extremely good…someone’s gotta be lucky…

…why? Because ” Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” (Murphy’s Law). Today was such a day, let me give a quick example:

Everytime I hold a flush in guts, someone will have a straight. Everytime I have a straight, someone will have three of a kind or even a straight flush. Everytime I’m involved in a huge pot, I will have no hand. That pretty much sums up the day at the guts tables on nine. What stood out even more was that four players were either a) the ultimate luckboxes or b) I don’t want to get out my tinfoil hat so I’m not going to say it, but it still makes you curious as to why these players hold the winning hand EVERY SINGLE TIME a big pot is decided (guts is a progressive game, for all those who aren’t familiar with it, here’s a quick wrapup: all players ante up, this seeds the initial pot, then every player is dealt 3 cards, you check the ranking of your hand (High Card, One Pair, Flush, Straight, Trips, Straight flush), then you decide if you’re in or if you’re out (fold). If you’re in and noone else is in, you win. If you’re in and you showdown the best hand you win. If you’re in and you don’t show the winning hand you must ante up the pot in the next hand (example: 10 players at the table, everybody antes .10, so the initial pot is $1, three players are in, one wins the $1, in the next hand the two losing players ante up ($1-rake), the others ante up .10, so the pot is something like just under $3, three players are in again, two lose one wins, two players ante up ($3-rake) the rest antes up .10, etc). So there can be some huge pots, even in the smallest limit (which is .10) and every friggin time a big pot came up (the biggest being well over $20) the same friggin players hold the winning hand, unreal. I forgot to ask them where the got the horseshoe and the matching buttplug to keep it in 😉

After that shit run on the guts tables I fired up the usual NL game and got my ass handed to me. AQ vs A4 no good, AK vs K2 no good, etc etc. So I said to myself: do you really want to keep burning money around here? Walk away! …and so I did.

I thought it would be a good way to get some steam off by playing a low limit SnG on bodog. In the beginning a calling station cost me half of my stack as he refused to laydown third pair and my draws didn’t get there. Then the two orbits of mayhem occured. I look down at 44 on the button. Two limpers. I decide to limp in too, if I flop something good, if not, I’m not commited. Flop comes down 44x…wheeeeeeee…I let one player hang himself and push in after the river, he was commited and his Aces up were no good. The very next hand I find myself one off the button with KK. The player who just lost to my Quads is now short and in the BB, so I pop it up and he reraises. Nice, I call and he shows AA. Hmm, damn it! Flop comes down Kxx…wheeee…turn and river are blank and I sit on a nice stack. We’re on the bubble now and I fold till I’m in the BB again, looking down at QQ…hmm…someone popped it up from the cutoff, so I want to see where I’m at and reraise, he instapushes…now I’m wondering if he’s really got a bigger pair or if he’s just trying to push me off an Ace. I call all-in and he shows 66…wheeeeee….wait, there’s a 6 on the flop…and I’m out on the bubble. Karma’s a bitch!!!!!!!!!