*lol* I still can’t stop laughing about this one fish. Yes, he was my downfall in a six handed PL 5-Card-Draw SnG, but hey, I’m still laughing. The setup was perfect, it’s early on in the SnG and I’m on the button. I look down at two pair, Queens and Deuces…not a monster hand, but good enough for a raise, especially as all players limped in front of me. So I pop it up to 100. SB folds…BB calls…BB+1 calls…BB+2 calls…BB+3 calls. Hmm…exciting. Let’s see how the draw goes. BB draws 3…BB+1 draws 3….BB+2 draws 3…BB+3 draws 3…I draw one…a brick. Nothing new there, but what the hell is going on here. All those guys called a +4x raise preflop OOP and now they’re drawing 3?! What the hell? Ever heard of starting hand requirements? So I’m guessing there are two guys with Aces and god knows what the others have. BB leads out. BB+1…folds…BB+2…folds….BB+3…folds…errm yeah…I raise…BB ponders long and hard, or at least it seems that way, and he raises….hmm…must have caught good my friend…I call…he shows? Fives full of fours. A friggin boat.

Quick rewind: he calls +80 preflop with a pair of fives OOP. He draws three. He draws what? Not only one of the remaining fives in the deck, but also a pair. Three perfect cards! Are you kidding me?

So after that hand I’m off to a real bad start and I lean back, curse my luck, go off a little in the chat and focus on the game again. A few hands later…I hold two pair again…my donkponent get’s involved again…draws three again…I draw one again…a brick…what does he show? Trip sixes…he called again preflop with his huge pair of sixes and drew out on me. Nice. Down but not out. A few hands later…I look down at a pair of Aces on the button…I pop it up AGAIN…my donkponent get’s involved again…I draw three, bricks, he draws three…what does he show? Aces and Kings with a queen kicker…hmm…not bad…yuck.

After those three ridiculous freezers (although the last one isn’t a real freezer, but let’s just say that hand #1 was an ultra-freezer and #2 was a freezer, so the average should be freezer), I’m down to roughly 320 in chips and the next time I start with two pair again…another opponent get’s involved…he draws three…I draw my usual brick and he shows his set…gg me.

Now, why am I laughing so hard about that fish in particular (and this SnG)? Well, tbh, I should be crying, but it doesn’t matter and it won’t change anything, so I might as well laugh it off. I mean come on, someone drawing three perfect cards, then 1 perfect card, then two perfect cards…can’t do much about that, now can you? Not really…so nothing to be mad about, especially considering the two following things:

1. I told the fish that the only way he could win anything would be if he was lucky and as soon as his luck ran out he would be busto in no time. Now remember, he got ultra-lucky against me and held over 4k in chips when I busted in 6th. Sure enough my prediction rang true as he busted in 3rd. *lol* good job there.

2. I look him up on Sharkscope and this is probably the BIGGEST fish I’ve ever seen. Honestly, tell me, how can you drop nearly 5000$ playing 5$ SnGs?! Poor sucker…

But enough about that SnG, I only played one headsup match after that disappointment and who did I play? A player from Stuttgart…well…that’s 20km from here…middle of the night, half-way across the world (pokerstars) and who do you meet at the table…a fellow german…lol…cool stuff. I won the match easily as he managed to bluff off his chips like crazy…and sharkscope says… …hence the title of this post…

In other news, I finally ordered my new laptop today. I was looking around for months now and it seemed that I just couldn’t find “the” perfect model. My requirements were:

1. max 14.1″ screen…15.4″ screens are fine, but having a 15.4″ screen means that the things is at least 16.x” wide (15.4″ + frame)…usually models sporting a 15.4″ screen are heavy (around 3+ kg)…and due to the big screen the battery runtime is usually low(er) too…

2. decent vga…integrated intel and stuff is cool, but not really…especially as I tend to hold on to laptops for quite some time (I bought my current laptop, an IBM Thinkpad, 6 years ago), so it should be at least up to par now so that’ll still be “okay” in a few years…

3. at least 1GB of ram…better 2GB…dual channel…yadda-yadda…

4. don’t care much about hdd size but 80GB would be fine and a DVD burner would be nice too…

5. shipped with Vista

6. not the most expensive one out there

7. service…at least two-year warranty with at pickup service or better…

8. screen resolution of at least 1024×768…but preferred would be some widescreen format (e.g. 1280×800)…

Given those requirements, it was a real hard task to find a compromise between some of them – 14.1″ models are usually far more expensive than 15.4″ models as 15.4″ is the biggest seller these days, so I guess the panel prices are way cheaper. Some models are still only available with Windows XP. Other models have 14″ screens, but only a 1024×768 resolution. Some models are looking good in pictures, but when you touch them in real life, they feel cheap and not really fit for everyday operation. etc etc

To make a long story short, I finally decided to go with the new Samsung R20-Aura line. There are only two models available in that line, so not much to chose from, but they are exactly what I was looking for. The difference between the models (Deva / Declan)? They’re exactly the same…except for the CPU…so chipset, ram, video card, hdd, dvd burner, software, everything is the same…

Deva – Core 2 Duo T7200 (2x2GHz, 4MB Cache)

Declan – Core Duo T2350 (2×1.86GHz, 2MB Cache)

Now, I always want to go with the newest stuff and all and a Core 2 Duo system would be nice, but I decided to go with the Core Duo model. Why? Let me explain…

Yeah, Core Duo isn’t the current line of Intel mobile processors, but it’s a kickass CPU and probably more CPU power than I’ll ever use (as this notebook will be used as a mobile computer, not as a desktop replacement) and you just can’t beat the price difference. I ordered it with 2GB of ram, 120GB HDD, DVD burner, Vista Home Premium, the whole shebang…and what’s the price difference between the two models (which are exactly the same minus the CPU)? 400 Euro (that’s roughly 545$)…you can keep your 2 between the Core and Duo for that fellows 😉

…the best thing is that I ordered it this afternoon and they called me up five minutes after I had placed my order to confirm everything. The said it would be shipped tonight and earlier on I received a mail with the UPS tracking code…wheee…it really left their shop tonight and now, in the middle of the night, I just rolled into the UPS depot for my area…so…I expect to be playing on and with it tomorrow…the excitement 🙂

Specs:

T2350 – 1.86GHz Core Duo

2GB Ram

Ati x1250 video card (max 256MB, which will leave me with 1.79GB of ram)

120GB HDD

DVD-Burner

Vista HomePremium

14.1″ Widescreen WXGA screen (1280×800)

Piano-style finish (shiny black)

So…it’s past midnight over here, so it’s Tuesday, April 17th 2007…it’s my birthday…

That being said, don’t expect to see me at the WWdN or any other poker table for that matter…I’ll be off having a drink or two…

My birthday present to myself, pure hammer goodness…

Wheeee….so Al is the first one of the broggers trying to send x bloggers to the WSOP 2007…I’m not signed up yet, as I’m waiting for the pw…if you’ve got a pokerblog and want to “donate” too…check out the details below and/or visit Al for more…

Watching poker on german television today (Poker Superstars III) one hand headsup was Cindy Violette holding the hammer…nothing unusual there…although I almost fell out of my chair as the german commentator said (roughly translated) “Well, she’s almost commited here, but her hand, 72o, also known as the hammer, well…she probably better fold it”…rofl…the hammer is spreading, world wide 🙂

Priceless #2 + #3: Mad Genius Mike Caro vs Doyle Brunson headsup videos…

see here and here…I loved the way Dolly was a total card-rack in the first one and I like the way the mad genius was soooo exited about his 6h4h in the second one promptly sucking out on Dolly’s Ak…lol…genius!

Priceless #4: Poker Bears…lol…

…via bandit

*lol* man, I’m so steaming right now, I can’t even begin to tell you. Now the following recap of some sick hands could be interpreted as telling bad beat stories, far from the truth, as most sick hands were not so much bad beats, but either bad luck or the “usual beats” (aka I can have 20 outs twice, it doesn’t matter, at least not when it’s for all the marbles)…

I played only one match this afternoon, won it easily against a fairly good player. After footie training tonight, I decided to play some more and after playing this session, I can’t help but feel sick and smile at the same time. Unreal that I can’t win against pure donkeys, no matter what. I looked all three opponents up and they’re all pure losing SnG players. TPNK = gold and may the river be kind to them always…that said, I was on stone cold tilt in the last one after sick beat after sick beat, so that one was the icing on the poker shitcake tonight…just wait until you see the last hand below…it’s a usual coinflip, I don’t even need to tell you that I lost it, but how did I lose it? DQB! Nice job donk…

First match of the evening session, I chopped away and chopped away at his stack and when I had his first 500…he decided to get cute…I got AsKc on the button…and I overraise…usually only a donk will fall for this, but lucky enough for me, I had one in front of me. He pushes…now usually I would hesitate a little here, but not against that player. He shows A10o…nice…now the usual sickness begins…

Preflop: 71%/24%

Flop comes down Ac 10c 6c…44%/55%

Turn…rag…27%/73%

River….rag…0/100

Well, well…he put his money in a huge underdog…he outflops me, but I got 3 Kings and 9 clubs so 12 outs twice as my redraw…no such joy…what else is new…so, he has got me 2:1 in chips all of a sudden…and some major pots later he lucks out again…called all the way down with second pair king kicker…king on the river and I’m busto…nice job…

The second match of the evening session went down on a similar note…I don’t recall most hands as I got so fed up of getting outdrawn on time and time again that I decided to go with the next “good” hand I found…I find 72o…the hammer baby…on the button…I got around 900 left…I pop it preflop and he calls…flop comes down Ah 2h 7h…now I’m aware that he probably got an ace after he called my preflop race…I just hope that he doesn’t have a heart and push…he install calls with AcJh…no surprise to see the Ace on the turn and heart on the river, just to rub it in…god damn it…how can the hammer betray me here?

After that one I should have logged off and/or abstained from looking up my next opponent on sharkscope. Yes, another donkey, yes another round of sick calling calling pushing bs…so when I find the next hand I decide to repop his preflop raise…he pushes…yet again…and I’m hoping for a flip and maybe one time I can win one against a donk for all the marbles…not really….flops the boat…rivers dem quads biatches…go f yourself damn it…I’m outta here for the night…

…at least that’s what I keep telling myself and it worked out pretty good tonight – not that I won anything, close but no cigar, but at least I took the usual beats with a smile. So, basically…I’m still trying to get back to normal, but things aren’t coming together, at least not yet.

Just like I promised myself (and you, my readers), I didn’t play a single hand of poker over the entire weekend and tbh, I didn’t miss it all that much either. I guess that’s easy to say when you’re running as bad as I was/am. But really, it made me think that maybe I should incorporate the “poker-free day(s)”-concept into my playing schedule, after all the consistent grind can wear you out, especially if you take the worst of it on such a cold run. If you’re running bad enough, everything will go wrong…but I’ll come back to that topic later.

Before I get to a closer look of tonight’s session, I’d like to take a moment to talk about some other poker related things.

1. I started to read Navarro’s book on tells (or “non-verbal behaviour”) and so far, I really like it. Some of the things he’s talking about in the first pages of the book make you wonder: How many of these things have I thought about so far? Did I spot something like this before? As I said, I’m just through the first twenty odd pages and after the introduction and everything he’s talking about the most reliable source of tells…the feet…lol…never thought of that before…but if you think about it and watch closely…he may be on to something here…although looking under the table as the flop/turn/river comes down isn’t a real possibility…although he comes up with some hints about how to spot it anyway…I’m really looking forward to the rest of the book and one thing’s for sure: this stuff can and probably will improve my live-game…although it takes work! But I’m up for the challenge…

2. Although I’m currently running bad, I’m still going to do whatever it takes to keep online poker alive, hmm, that sounds a little weird, maybe I should rephrase that to “I’m going to support the people who will do whatever they can/it takes to keep online poker alive”. So I joined the PPA a while ago (see here) and on saturday my “welcome package” arrived. It contained a letter, the membership card, a pin and a nice T-Shirt…maybe I’ll get around to take a pic of the stuff tomorrow…to make a long story short: Because I’m over here in Europe this whole US legislation doesn’t affect me personally (apart from the fact that good games could be hard to come by in the next weeks/months), but I’m not too blind to see that one thing could lead to the next and before you know it, the games dry up for good and other countries could adopt a similar stance on online poker and I don’t want that to happen. Think about it, even if that doesn’t happen, it’s still going to be a loss. Online players turn into “full time live players”, full time live players have no hand histories, no tools to track their play (to the same extent as in online poker) and before you know it, other stuff, like poker blogs, disappear too…and although that might increase workplace productivity, it would be a real shame. So, if you are (remotely) serious about your (online) game, join the PPA!
3. Full Tilt’s downtime on sunday: Bad but good. Why? Just go back and read the second paragraph. As I promised myself not to play any poker this weekend, I would have missed the bloggerpods tourney on Full Tilt, fortunately (for me) they had some server issues, so the tourney had to be postponed. I guess it’ll be played next weekend and I’m looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll get close like last time, maybe I’ll get the junk kick earlier, maybe no junk kick at all and I listen to my favourite jams on an ipod soon…who knows…one way or another, this is a cool tourney, thanks again to PokerOnAMac for hooking us up!

As for tonight’s session…I started with some “new stuff”. A cheap-ass triple shootout to the sunday million. Two bucks, short handed, chance to take down one of two seats. The first table was a real up and down and when all was said and done, I took it down. Almost an hour played, shorthanded, didn’t make any bad decisions (had to push one time with a marginal hand, because I got short, but that worked out okay…and not really a bad decision…or is it if you’re “forced to play”?). The next table was totally different though. Four out of the other five players where really “pushy”. The played almost every hand and the deck wasn’t too kind to me. I started out with the best…didn’t connect…had to let it go, time and time again. Made my exit with a 60/40 kind of hand, so not really a bad beat…it just wasn’t meant to be, but at least I got an hour of play…out in 22nd of 216.

After that I decided to try a three-table SnG and play was worse than I could imagine in my worst nightmare, really, it was THAT bad. I kicked one player out before getting my junk kicked yet again by a lovely two outer. Oh well, what else is new.

After that I went to the HU section and thought I’d give it a whirl. It was a good match, although it was kind of boring, not much between my opponent and me…first in usually takes the pot as we were battling 6-high vs 7-high on a regular basis. He was cool though, we chatted a little and I predicted that soon enough it’ll come down to one hand and to quote Scotty Nguyen “…it’s going to be all over” and I said it’s probably going to be something of the regular HU-nature, two pair vs set or something. Guess what? I was right…lol…although this isn’t too hard to predict either as it’s basically around a 33% shot (either that, T/M/BPxK vs x or monster vs monster are the usual scenarios).

I hold A4o on the button and I fire it up to 3x preflop…he calls…pot is 180 (blinds 15/30). Flop comes down A46 rainbow. Groovy! He leads out with a pot-sized bet (180). I reraise to 480, he insta-calls. Hmm…pot is 1140 (of the 3k in play) and the turn is blank (8)…he checks…I bet 400…he calls…pot is now 1940…so there’s basically no way the money isn’t going all-in…river is Kh…he pushes…now I’m worried about a small range of hands here…either AA (which would be a real cooler with the case Ace on board), AK (which would suck less, but still suck)…or he could have made a really bad call on the flop and turn and hit a set here (KK)…or I totally misjudged the situation and he had a hand similar to mine and his kicker plays as well (A6, A8)…or coolered by a flopped/turned set (44, 66, 88)…man, if you’re running bad…too many (bad) scenarios creep into your mind…maybe he has a hand that would make sense here, which is second best (AQ, AJ, A10, A9, …)…I make the crying call…and he shows?….KK for the set…now, if he any other hand mentioned above…I go straight to my closet, get out a hat and write “payoff wizard” on it…but KK…come on…two outs…again…sigh…now I don’t want to sound like a broken record here and repeat it over and over…but I just can’t help myself…why oh why? Why….oh why?

I guess the (short) weekend break wasn’t enough, as I can’t stand it…at least not any better than last week…I find myself in the same spot, complaining, moaning about the bad luck, feeling empty and annoyed and (maybe) annoying you with it…maybe I’m waaaay to deep into it all atm and I should take a longer break from it all? Maybe I should just learn to deal with it in another way? Maybe I shouldn’t play anymore at all? I really don’t know, one thing I know for sure though is the reason for all of this: I care about winning! I care about making good decisions! I care about “being better”! I care about beating my opponent(s)! I want to win every game I’m playing! I expect to win if I outplayed my opponent(s)! (I despise people “stealing” from me! I despise people making horrible plays and still winning with it! …) …I care about winning!
Maybe a bit too much – at least for a poker player?! Most certainly, as this whole “correct decision, correct play, wrong outcome, no reward”-stuff is still taking too big a toll on me. There’s no such thing as justice in poker – love it or hate it. All poker players do both…you love it when you’re running good and/or if you made a good/great play and it worked out, you hate it when you’re running bad and/or if you made a bad play or a good/great play that isn’t rewarded. The best way to deal with this fundamental “flaw” of poker, would be to be totally indifferent to results.

I’m trying to get there…but hell, it’s not easy, no, it’s HARD…and how could it be any other way?

He’s back…but just for a quickie. Stuck to my original plan not to play and full table SnGs today, only played two HU matches and no, luck didn’t change a bit, I will spare you going into too much detail as it’s obvious that I’m on a nasty unlucky downswing…so what’s the point of repeating the same sentiment over and over again (just two quick examples: K4 vs K5…flop KK5…we both slow play each other into oblivion and by the third min-re-raise I call to see the grim news…I still wonder how I could not go broke on that one; A2 vs 45 (happened twice in the same match) flop A24…major betting…turn 3….no, I didn’t go broke the first time, the second time did me in though)…

So…just a quick note that I won’t be playing this weekend, not a single SnG, not a single MTT, not a single hand, period. I think this is the kind of unlucky spell that you can’t play through, so why ruin my weekend? I’ll probably see you all at the WWdN on tuesday…until then…may all your monsters hold up and your opponents draw dead 😉

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…

Some news only remotely connected to poker…I thought it was time to get me some more screen real estate, not only for multi-tabling, but for more space for work in general. So I ordered myself a nice 22″ Widescreen TFT a few days ago…and today it was delivered…nice! 🙂

As I’m too lazy to get my cam and take a pic of my setup atm, a promotion pic + a screengrab will have to do for now…

That should be enough screen space to do some multi-tabling 😉

On another note: always good to “reward” yourself from time to time…after all, all grind and no play makes Ingoal go insane 😉

Well, well…what a lovely sunday for sports. We, as in the german team, won the IHF handball world championship today. W00t! What a dramatic game and we came out on top clinching our first title since 1978, on our own soil no less. Nice!

After that it was time to watch some football (soccer) and my home team VfB Stuttgart won, too. Nice!

After that I head over to PokerStars to punish some donks and punish I did, although they got the best of me sometimes. Unlike yesterday they hit like crazy in some matches. Flush draw vs flopped straight – boom headshot, top set vs flush draw – boom headshot, etc etc…in return I cracked some aces and had fun nontheless. Won 6 out of 10 matches, so I can’t feel bad…still some matches away from my next goal, which is moving up to the next HU level once my bankroll hit a certain mark on PokerStars. It’ll come soon enough I think, so no need to rush it.

…and now…it’s time to watch the SuperBowl…at least the first half or something, depends, if the game is good I’ll maybe even watch the whole thing…we’ll see…

Edit: Well, well, Sir Choke-a-lot is finally coming through….29-17 with less than two minutes, that should do it for the Colts…nice…