So, the first WPBT event of the year was played yesterday on PokerStars. I missed it due to the late starting time, but there was a nice turnout nontheless. StB took down first, congrats! For a more detailed recap and the current WPBT POY Race check out Biggestrom‘s blog!
Reminder: Tonight, it’s DADI IV…be there or be square!
After footie training I fired up PokerStars to pick up where I left yesterday evening – at the micro SnGs. Two junk kickings later and I’m frustrated (8th place finish in NL HE, which was okay, my play sucked as did my cards – I pot it up with 99, my first decent hand of the night, one guy reraises me to All-In, I ponder and suspect that he got me beat, but the “maybe not, just suckout”-monkey on my shoulder tells me to call…so I do and he shows his black Aces…IGHN; bring in the PLO8 and everything is looking better, until we’re down to 6 handed, this is where the story of the super-charge-luckbox-deluxe begins. This one player keeps raising every pot, which is legitimate if there are three shortstacks and you’re holding a decent amount of chips, but you’re not entitled to win every friggin pot, especially not in PLO8 and even more so if you’re pushing all the time with crap like 67KQ. As soon as we’re down to 5 handed I think “okay, time to get something going”, so I’m waiting for a decent hand and then it’s time to counterpunch…he pushes again, one of the remaining shortstacks calls and is All-In and I hold AK23, so I push, he calls…sure enough there’s no low in sight and he wins with his crap hand (I can’t even remember the exact hand, but it was something like KJ57 and he hit his 7 to J straight…way to go fool)…so we’re both out and the others are in the money. I wish the other two good luck and watch as they bust within 4 hands to the super-uber-charge-magic-deluxe-luckbox…unbelievable! I’ve never seen such a rush before…)
That’s enough PS for the night and I head over to FullTilt and play over an hour at the .10/.25 NL tables…win some, lose some…big hands don’t pay off…weak hands don’t cost me much and I call it a night slightly up…so, all in all a truly uneventful evening at the tables…
I played some more, this time a little SnG of PLO8…first of all I witnessed a Royal Flush…
PokerStars Game #4231941580: Tournament #21037996, Omaha Hi/Lo Pot Limit – Level III (25/50) – 2006/03/09 – 19:39:28 (ET)
*** SHOW DOWN ***
candid123: shows [Ks Js 4d Qc] (HI: a Royal Flush)
gh234: mucks hand
candid123 collected 625 from pot
No low hand qualified
Ingoal said, “wow”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 625 | Rake 0
Board [5c Ts As 7h Qs]
Seat 1: D0MINATED (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: candid123 (big blind) showed [Ks Js 4d Qc] and won (625) with HI: a Royal Flush
Seat 4: plumberran folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: dawn1 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: kendozzz folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: Ingoal folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 9: gh234 mucked [Qd 2c 7d 5s]
Seat 10: the_snake11 (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Even better that I took down first…woohoo me… 😉
After I missed the 17ET tourney I started the night with a donkfest (9player SnG with a HUGE buyin of 1$ + 0.25$ fee). I gotta say that this format is the biggest crapshoot I’ve seen in my life. It was really fun to watch the donks draw and draw and draw and hit…unbelievable…I guess it’s safe to say that I’ve never had more fun for a dollar…on another note: I’m never playing that again.
Just as I busted out in 6th place I noticed that one of the 90 player 1$ SnGs was red, so I checked it out and sure enough Andy Bloch played in it. That’s what rocks at FullTiltPoker (affiliate link) – although the pros mostly play higher stakes ($3/$6 and above, mostly above $10 though) they do play in low buyin SnGs and MTTs, too! Name me another site were you can play with the pros for a dollar? Cool stuff!
After the donkfest it was time to mix up my game a little again…so I hopped into a 5$ PLO8 SnG. The main hands I play in PLO8 are the 3 card wheel hands, but you gotta mix it up a little, so I took down a nice pot with pocket Kings which made me a nice full house. Five hands in the board exploded in my face though and I couldn’t hold myself back…sure enough I only flopped the 2nd best boat and yes another player held the nut boat. Too bad…out 9th of 9. But I don’t feel bad about that one, if you think you’ve got the nuts, play’em like that…
After the PLO8 distraction another try at the token front was in order and to make a long story short: after 1h 31m of ups and downs I finished 2nd and won my first 26$ token. W00t!
Sidenote: I know that with 5 tries (1 token, 3 busts, 1x 5th place = -2.6) the 26$ token cost me 30.4$, so not really a good deal – but I hope to win more of these buggers in the long run with fewer tries, so everything should work out
In related news: I’ve changed my avatar from the donkey to the lemur (I think that’s what it is, right?)…I just couldn’t stop laughing at the following pose, so I just had to get this avi..
Two totally different sessions today – day session: w00t, night session: argh!
I guess I shouldn’t have played the night session, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I started the day with some SnG action. One NL HE which was totally -ev and two PLO8 ones which were totally cha-ching! Finished 8/10 in the NL HE one, 1st (woot) and 2nd in the PLO8 ones. The 2nd place finish was sort of unlucky two. We’re about even in chips and I hold A-Q-J-10, not a particular groovy Omaha H/L hand as there’s no chance to get the low pot, but after all you need to qualify first for it, so let’s see a flop which comes down K-8-10 rainbow…hmm…nothing much so far but a pair of tens, but it seems that there’s going to be no low…so let’s start the action, I fire out the pot-sized bet and he reraises All-In…hmm…whatever…call…(I’ve got him covered by the huge amount of 48T$)…he shows K-8-A-x…fair enough…he’s in the lead, but I’ve got outs (four nines, three tens, two aces…etc)…sure enough turn and river are blank. Too bad, but I can’t complain….one 1st, one 2nd out of 3 SnGs. I leave to go to footie training and once I return I want to continue the run. No joy though as I bust out early in 3 PLO8s…
Evaluation: It helps if you stick to playing solid hands (any combination of a 3 wheel card hand (best including A-2, but sometimes A-3-4 etc will do), but there’s still some situation where you can’t limit your play to that (apart from the fact that you’re in no man’s land when three faces show up). So I’ve seen the joy of losing set over set etc more than once….but hey…it happens.
Note to self: There’s been a quite drastic difference between the day session’s players and the night session’s players (day: loose, night: tight)…a coincidence? Maybe, but I’m sure as hell trying to get back some dough tomorrow morning 😉
…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:
Pimpage:
Be there or be square!
No matter what I played today, I sucked at all of the games…or the cards I got sucked…whatever…I played a Stud H/L MTT (busted out early), a Omaha H/L SnG (bubbled), two NL Hold’em MTT (busted out in the first hour in both)…argh!
I guess there’s no point in playing anymore today…better luck tomorrow I guess…or not…we’ll see…
I played 13 NL HE SnGs yesterday, yes 13! The results weren’t all that good, although I managed to place ITM in 2 out of the first 3 and even managed to win one later on. The total score was: 4 ITM (1x 1st, 3x 3rd), 9 times busted (3x bubble, rest bubble +x). So I was already down a bit, so I decided to mix up thing by playing a 5+0.5 PL O8 Sng in which I bubbled, too. Argh.
Then there was the WWdN #13 – I thought that I better made the money to get me back to even, but it wasn’t to be. I had a chat with Garth and Waffles during the whole tourney and we all rooted for each other and wanted to make the final table together. Early on it looked like at least Garth and maybe even Waffles could make it (with both of them in the top 10 in chips), but it just didn’t work out that way.
The tourney saw a record crowd of 125 players, so it was the first time that the final two tables payed, although places 18-10 were “only” 15$ each (that’s not all that much considering the 10+1 buy-in) but 15$ = +4 is better than getting nothing 😉 Early on I was literally card dead with “huge” hands like 2-5o, 3-6o, 3-7o etc. So I folding, folding, folding – which in turn gave me a really tight table image, which should necessarily lead to some opportunities to steal some blinds. That didn’t happen though as there were usually multiple raises in front of me, when I was about to make a move. Then I looked down at my first real hand: K-K, I raise the standard 3xBB and it’s folded to me, woot, I get the blinds…some hands later I look down at A-A, I raise (3xBB again) and all fold, again! Argh! Then I’m back in folding mode with some small pots in between.
After 1h of play:
I was back in folding mode as I looked down at Q-Q, now I would usually play this hand in a heartbeat, but there was a raise and reraise in front of me, so I was really undecided. I had the feeling that I shouldn’t play the hand and I was right, I would have been up against 6-6 and A-K and sure enough the Ace hit…Just as I was nearing desperation mode I look down at A-A in the SB, some limpers and one raiser in front of me, so I push and get one caller…he shows A-K, yes sir and I double up. In the very next hand I look down at 9-9 on the button, I make it 4xBB to go…early position reraises me…what to do, what to do…I already commited half my stack, so should I fold…I guess, but I thought he might be on a hand like A-10, A-J or similiar…so I call…he showed AKo…the Ace on the flop sealed my fate and I was out in 44th place.
In related news: Waffles managed to run his stack into the ground even before me and busted out in 54th place, Garth was sucked out on a little later on and busted out in 31st – so no final table for any of us. Congrats to Wes for another top finish (2nd place) and all the others who made the money!
After I busted out we started a sidegame (or two to be precise). The first was a 6Max 0.05/0.10 NL HE table and I quickly joined. Who would want to miss a table with both Wil and CJ? Indeed it was great fun as Wil and CJ went at it right away, announcing their monsters and discussing who’s monster was more “monstrous”…lol…CJ quadrupled his 5$ buy-in within three orbits, I doubled my 4$ buyin as I slowroll trip queens…poor SERNE…Soon after that I switched over to the other sidegame, which to place in more “familiar grounds” at a .01/.02NL table. Soon enough I realized though that it has been a long enough day already as the clock was already approaching 5am…so I called it quits and logged off…
On another note: There were different people liveblogging the event this time, so if you want to have a look at their perspective have a look at the recaps of: Wil, RandomSam and CJ
Played only two SnG today. The first one was the usual PL Omaha H/L and I bubbled, out of my own stupidity. We’re down to four players (3 ITM), I’m the SB, shortest stack is BB and almost All-In (40T$ left). The two huge stacks call, I decide to push the BB All-In, bad idea as it put me all in and he wisely folded hoping for me to bust out – which I did. Argh! The correct move would have been to fold and watch him either be pushed all-in by the others post-flop, or see him be all-in in the next hand (after all I would have been the button and he the SB), but no…I decide to do the donkey and bubble… 🙁
After this stupidity move I was steaming inside, nontheless I decided to give it another shot, this time at NL HE though. This really payed off as I won the thing. I didn’t get all that many cards, but if I did I could do (almost) no wrong. The BB special was especially nice…all limpers at the table so I only saw the flop in the BB in the first 3 orbits, and I won all those hands 🙂
Then I went ahead and busted a player out and when we were down to 5 players I busted two players out at the same time, so welcome ITM. The rest is a blur, but I did good and won. Nice. Donkeys 1 – Ingoal 1 🙂
I continued my “SnG challenge” at PokerStars tonight. I came back from playing Skat all night (a card game, if you’re not familiar with it read more about at wikipedia) and winning an unusual amount of money (which I didn’t collect as I “donated” it to the drinks pool as I hadn’t payed anything for my drinks in a while) so I felt good – and indeed the cards started to fall my way early on, then I bubbled 🙁
I thought I couldn’t end a successful night on such a low note, so I played another one and came out on top. Sweet! 
So the current standings are (PL Omaha H/L / NL HE; both 3$+0.40$ SnG):
Summary: so far I’ve been losing some, but I guess I will push it a little and play some of them continously now and see how it goes…
On another note: I didn’t forget about the weekly poll, but it’s already early and WordPress inline editing + dpolls-iframe-solution seems to not mix up too well (that’s why some of you might have not been able to vote or see the results, apart from the fact that this thing is breaking my valid and accessible xhtml format…) – so I will try to find a solution tomorrow (probably and “external” (outside of WordPress) html file containing the poll)!