Totally unrelated to poker…I hope that noone’s comment got stuck in moderation recently and/or didn’t show up so far…

The problem is that poker-tastic.com is currently hammered with spam and although the watergate is keeping the flood out, it still stores them in moderation and it’s getting too much to look through every few hours (something along the lines of 1-3k/day). So, just a quick note to my readers/commenters, don’t be surprised if you find a third layer of antispam (I’m thinking some sort of captcha image or something) in the next few days…I know that it’s a PITA, but probably a necessary evil that keeps comments from being (accidently) deleted and me from going insane 😉

Edit: scratch the “in a few days”-part…up and running… bye bye link-spam-bots…or so I hope 😉

If you can read this, everything should be fine. As the old server was slowly but steadily getting hammered (mostly by other sites on it), it was time to upgrade. Just in time my server company came along with a new server line…so I jumped at the chance to upgrade…old machine Opteron 148, 1GB…new machine…Opteron 1212HE (dual core), 2GB…I hope that this will keep the load in check and reduce site loading times to a minimum…

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:

1. Players remaining: 73 of 125
2. Hi: 9265 (garth was second at that point with 8675, Waffles 8th with 4520)
3. Avg: 2568
4. me: 1343 (53 of 73)
5. Hands dealt: 100
6. Showdown: 2 of 2
7. Pots won without showdown 5

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

I just upgraded the Poker-tastic blog (WordPress 2.0) with a nifty little plugin. It’s called lightbox and can be found here.

Effect: If a pic is too big to fit into the blog design, just resize it or create a thumbnail and once the user clicks on the pic it will display the full sized version – nothing fancy there you think? Think again, it’ll not open the pic in a new tab or window, but will display it over the current tab/window (magic JS here) – once you’ve seen it just click on the (x) on the top right and you’re right back at the original spot, cool!

Don’t know what I’m talking about? – Then click on the following test-pic showing the Sidegame of the WWdN #12:

So I took some time today to compile two things:

1. An about the author page which should answer some of the questions you might have…
2. A first draft of a poker glossary

Just updated the blog-engine to WordPress 2.0. The update was really painless and done in less than 5 minutes (including a prior security backup)! Nice 🙂

Poker-Tastic just moved to a new (interim) server until the new machine is delivered…so if you experienced a down-time earlier on it was due to the DNS update and server move…we’re back up and running (on the interim server for now)…

After I started playing Poker (especially Hold’em) more regularly in recent days and weeks, I decided to chop all the poker content from my regular blog (Ingoal’s Insight…) and start a true Poker Blog…and here we are – Poker-Tastic.com is live!

There are still some tweaks and customizations going on in the backend, so don’t wonder if the site might look a little funny at times 😉