…or your words will come back to haunt you. Do you remember how I talked about running good at the end of yesterday’s post? Well, that was a short-lived good run for sure. I started of by playing the usual turbo HU matches and I ran awful. QQ vs A10 again…this time no four-flush but a fugly A on the river, Barry would be proud. I win the next one (against the #10 ranked player in the sharkscope less than 20$ leaderboard) and then lose 4 in a row. The usual ugly hands (overpair vs overpair, two pair vs set, etc) and some fugly four-flush and/or runner runner hands totally kicked me in the junk.

After that I switched to six handed SnGs and won the first one. Nice. In the second one I bubbled as the shortest stack. All good there, had to push…didn’t connect…

After that 1 for 2, I switched to headsup again. I played against a semi-pro in PLO8 and while he didn’t totally own me, I just couldn’t fend him off. I hit the third nut flush, he got the nut flush. I got the set, he got the straight. All the while he’s holding the better low, too. Oh well…so I switched to PLO and I won the match easily. One more NL HE HU W and I’m out of here…a little bit stuck, but at least not steamin 😉

…so here’s a random pic dump of some of the nicer hands of tonight’s session…lol…cold deck after cold deck, sick beat after sick beat, especially on the bubble…all the good stuff…even had quads one time…opponent down to 6xx chips…still came back to runner runner me like it was nothing…making good decisions is an unthankful thing sometimes…

Never seen so many case cards either…lovely to see two Kings show up when you’re holding Kx…well, not really if your opponent is slow playing his AK from start to finish…sick sick bs…oh well…surprisingly enough I still managed to squeeze out some wins at HU (3) and one at a six-handed SnG…so despite the six junk-kickings I still finish the night up…wheeeeeee….

Well, well…Mr. UPS man brought my new laptop today and boy, it’s not only pretty, it’s light and it’s a real monster – performance wise. Wow. Delivered in less than 24h, installed/configured in less than an hour and I was off and rolling…now I can finally play wherever I want in the house…alright…it’s nice to play on a 22″ screen, but I’ll take some single or two table action on this one any day when I can lay my lazy behind down on the couch 😉

So…I played a little and won my first two headsup matches easily. Lost the third one. Then I switch to some PLO8 and I just couldn’t get a break. I was almost down and out…grind my way back…almost down and out…grind my way back…but every time I was back to even, or close to it, a ridiculous hand came down…just like the last one…KK23 double suited for me….AA34 double suited for my opponent…and yes, he has the same suits as me…go figure…nut flush vs second nut flush and I’m busto…wack!

After that I played some more HU and I dropped two matches…after that I really didn’t feel like playing anymore. It’s just that I’m stuck. Recently, I’ve had a few “good runs” and a lot of “bad runs”, but basically some of the bad runs were self-induced by either a) not quitting after getting (slightly) tilted or b) getting impatient against moronic players – what’s the point in playing flips against a donk who can’t win straight up? Well, the point is that if you get impatient and tell yourself that you’re “due” to win a coinflip, it isn’t the best decision you can make…

So…I guess I’ll either rest a little for the next few days or switch to some MTTs again as this SnG stuff is really wearing me down. I would really love to step up another level, but it wouldn’t be a wise decision as the roll is just not big enough for it…or would you start playing with a roll smaller than 20-25 buyins? I don’t think it’s a REAL bad idea, but then again, once you get into a little stretch where you drop three, four or five in a row, it’ll certainly have an effect on my play (“scared money isn’t smart money”), so I think I’ll have to stick to the currently level for a little longer…although it’s hard…playing against Donky McFish and Fishy McFish-Fish day in day out…

Had a blast last weekend in Austria. Drinking, drinking and drinking with the guys. Some snow on the mountain tops, not much in the lower areas, so we mostly resorted to the local pubs most of the days and nights.

I thought I could get away from Poker completely on the trip and I almost did. I didn’t play a single hand, although some of my teammates had brought a chipset and some nice PokerStars cards…it seems that the “poker virus” is spreading fast over here in germany. People who had no interest whatsoever a while back are suddenly playing (both live and online) – tells you a little about the advertising efforts of the major players in the market (PokerStars and Party), it pays off. But back to poker, the only thing I did in relation to poker was talk a little strategy and watch a rerun of the EPT while we were waiting for the others to get ready for dinner and booze.

So, I’m totally relaxed and ready to hit the tables again. Well, tbh, I already did that and it was horrible. The only upside is that my mood isn’t influenced by this (yet). I played something in the neighborhood of 15 HU SnGs and I’ve seen it all again, from the beautiful one-outer, to the usual resuck or two-outer…I even kept track of it while playing. So what’s different? I’m relaxed after the weekend break and so all I did after those beats was type a quick, “wow one outer” or “nh” in the chat and that was that. No tilting, no swearing – well, that’s a lie…I back-trashtalked as one of the suckers goes on and tells me off after sucking out on me. This was a disturbing trend tonight – move in with the best, get sucked out on and then the donk goes ahead and tells me how he “owned me”…lol…this happened in four different matches. Really classy donks…you’ll make it far in this “business”…

Some stats:

1. Times I lost to one-outer with one card to come: I

2. Times I lost to a two-outer with one card to come: II

3. Times I lost to a two-outer with two cards to come: I

4. Times I lost to a 3-8 outer: II

5. Times I lost to a 8+ outer: not counted

6. Times I lost to a runner runner straight/flush: II

7. Times I lost with dominating hands: II

8. Times I lost to the hammer with Kings: I

Being crippled after that hand: ouch

Coming back to even and then taking the chiplead: nice

Losing to a 2 outer some hands later: Priceless 😉

So…I started the heads-up series against Veneno today. We decided to stick to my original “challenge” schedule of the following matches:

1. NL HE (L)
2. Pot Limit Omaha 8b (L)
3. Razz (W)
4. 7 Stud
5. PL HE
6. Pot Limit Omaha
7. HORSE

So…we started with the NL Hold’em and I sucked, sort off. Couldn’t get past the poison as she was hammering away on me, figuratively and literally, for the whole game. She took an early lead and I just couldn’t put her on a real hand, just on the “I know what you got? – Oh really? – Yes, you got what we call the best hand”-type of hand. So I was down, but not out, quite quickly before fighting back to take the interim chiplead. After that another downward spiral hit and I was soon very low on chips. The final hand was true poison style…I look down at AQ…ooh wee…but I have only around 2xx chips left, so no doubt she’ll call (almost with any 2)…she shows A3…the rest is history…

So..down 0-1…and off to the second match. Pot Limit Omaha High/Low split. Hmm tasty, directly from the torture chamber of hell…lol…after all we know that there can be some wild shit flying around your ears in this game, which makes it both fun and excruciatingly painful sometimes…the match is a blur as I can’t remember many hands…early on I took the chiplead with a scoop…took down another few smaller pots before giving back most of it and then some…the last hand was 10-8-6-2…board comes 10-8-6…I overplay my three-pair and we get the money in…V shows 7-9-9-K for the straight…I don’t improve and busto….0-2, yikes.

After that we head over to the Razz-table and I think ran away with the match. The cards fell my way and I was even able to bluff a little here and there. In the last hand I held a chiplead of 2600 to 400 and sucked out on 6th and 7th street…ooooh the sweet taste of triple atomic antidote…lol…should have used that in the first two matches too 😉

So…I’m down 1-2 after 3 matches and it’s crunch time! Really looking forward to the next matches! You better be ready V, I sure will be 🙂

Well, it was a bank holiday in germany today, so I had a little time for some poker. First of all I watched some of the WSOP 2006 coverage. Good stuff there, especially Dimitri telling CJ about how he would tighten up and all after spewing chips.

Then it was time for some poker of my own. Quick summary:

1. Nine: I’ll be damned, but once again, “cold-deck” after “cold-deck”…down a nice junk and still not in reach to clear the bonus. Sigh…

2. FullTilt: Busted some fish at the CAP SH tables…then thought it was a good idea to play some Razz and PLO8 SnGs…no g00t….still up for the night though…

3. Bodog: If you’re running not all that good and want to finish the night on a high note…fire up bodog…play some HU…won the first two…lost the third…

Time to catch some sleep now as I’ve got a grueling headache and I need to get up for work in 6 hours…so…night and night…and have fun at the Mook!

Today I realized that I’m caught in low limit nirvana, the wasteland, nowhere, whatever you would like to call it. At the limits I’m currently playing (not higher than .25/.50) there are some good players (and I would consider myself one of those), but mostly mediocre to bad players.

Good stuff if and only if you can take full advantage of it and recently I can’t – don’t get me wrong: if you substract variance I’m a winning player and you shouldn’t count short term results anyway, so it’s all good – but still: playing at those levels keeps me in a endless loop of winning and losing (mostly on bad beats or at least getting drawn out with incorrect odds) and there’s not much I can do.

How should I put it?! Playing at those levels takes away some of your best options. You can wait and wait for monster hands and then bet the living jebus out of them, just to see them win in some cases or get a horrible beat. Nothing much in between. Example: one of the precious “tools” of poker is the bluff, right? The catch: at the levels I’m playing there’s a deadly mix of players involved in almost every hand I play – the majority will call you no matter what, even with fourth pair on a straight-, flush- or any scary-board in general…the good ol’ “I don’t believe you”, “I’ll be the sheriff this round, I can’t let anyone bluff me!”, “I wanna see that” attitude…so the bluff is mostly out of the picture (unless I’m heads up with a player which has proven his/her ability to laydown a hand – after all that’s one of the reasons why you keep book, right?). So what to do, what to do?

Two possibilities:

1. Move up in limits. That’s no guarantee for a donkey free zone though and with my current bankroll constraints it’s basically out of the picture – no point in trying to survive on a short short roll, it would be the recipe for destruction.
2. Stay at the same level and deal with the daily hurting involved in grinding it out.

So, I’m basically stuck…damn! I guess I’ll schedule poker free days from now on to alleviate the pain…I guess a titanium cup won’t hurt either, so I’m ordering one tomorrow 😉

Today’s results: Some success at FullTilt: PLO8b HU – won, SnG – ITM, some success at PokerStars: cash games, slightly up…

Tonight I discovered some new forms of tilt. I don’t know if they’re totally new, but at least they were new to me – until now.

After watching hours of high stakes poker (the GSN show and laughing my ass off at some trash talk at the table) I thought it was time for some low limit SnGs…so I jump on PokerStars and find myself the next best NL Hold’em SnG. Right in/after the first hand I discovered the first new form of tilt:

“I should have played that last hand”-tilt: First hand I’m looking down at 44 in EP. I decide to limp, as do some players after me. LP raises to 160 (10/20 blinds). SB folds, BB pushes All-In. Now the logical move is to fold and so I do. Sure enough LP calls. Showdown: LP = AKs, BB=1010…Flop: A43, turn: x, river: 10. Well…trip 10s win and I’m sitting at my desk and tell myself: you did the right thing…nontheless I would have eliminated two players and tripled up in the very first hand. Still the correct move – no point in risking your whole stack in the first hand with a measly pair of 4s.
All good there, although my head is telling me that I should call down half my stack in the very next hand with second pair. Hmm…I would consider this the new form of tilt – the “I should have played that last hand (although I know that I did nothing wrong it sort of tilts me now although I don’t want it to)” tilt. Sure enough I catch rockets in the next hand and my opponent outdraws me with AK (nice to see a flop with two kings in his spot)…

After this 3 hand experience I should have know better than to play any longer, but still I did. This time for a little higher stakes, a single table PLO8b SnG. After scooping some pots early on I find A2Q10 double suited and “gamble” a little…sure enough I’ve got the nut low draw and hit two pair, just to be outdrawn by a flush on the river…no low, too and there goes a good part of my stack, yikes. Next hand…similar hand, same result…outdrawn on the river, no low. Yikes^2. That’s when I discovered the next new form of tilt:

“Let’s gamb00l as you’re going to outdraw me anyway”-tilt: Next hand I pop it up preflop with 4 low connectors…opponent bets the pot, one caller, folded to me…I push my remaining stack in there…both call…flop: OESD, turn: blank, river: bingo…bad news for me…my bingo card puts three hearts out there…and sure enough my straight is no good. Sigh…the bad thing wasn’t to get outdrawn in that particular hand (after all Omaha, especially H/L split is all about drawing), but that by getting outdrawn in the prior hands I convinced myself that it was bound to happen again anyway, so why care…bad bad!

Note to self: You’re not as tilt-proof as usal when jumping into a game “just for fun”. Your mental preparation before playing in a “normal” setup is invaluable! Stick to it!
This post is brought to you by the letter T for tilt. Time to catch some sleep now…night all…

…nothing to show for it… 🙁

Played numerous SnGs and MTTs at both FullTilt and PokerStars…and after hours of good play I’m down…sometimes I hate the whole MTT and SnG thing…ah well…better luck tomorrow, hopefully 😉

…making bad decisions because of it or along with it (- as in “trying too hard”) is a whole other matter. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m running bad or if it’s just that my game is off atm, but I caught myself doing some pretty stupid things tonight: I have to get up early tomorrow, so only a short session (1 Shorthanded SnG at FullTilt, 1 180SnG at Stars and some ring games)…and I caught myself “taking shots” more often than I needed to – we all know that you will have to win some coin-flips (and/or touch hands) in order to reach the top of a poker tourney, but only if the situation is in your favour (or if you’re desperate or if you truely feel that you’re ahead…): so I catch myself calling a hand down with nothing but TP and sure enough the paired board made trips for someone…now this isn’t bad luck, this is stupidity! In another hand I call off my stack with AQ high…running into a small pair in the process…
I think I should get my game straightened out again and focus on playing better…it’s hard these days with my last exams at uni coming up (next wednesday and friday) and the corresponding stress-level rising…so the question is if I should be playing atm at all…I guess not really, but a little game here or there won’t hurt so I’ll focus on playing some micro ring games and no tourneys/SnGs until the exams are over 😉