Do you have that inner feeling that something is going to happen sometimes? I do…it was just one of these days today…first off the donks bust my balls at Stars in PL 5-Card-Draw catching like crazy (yes, it’s an absolutely correct play to call 40% of your stack with a flush-draw, yes it’s also correct to draw three against my three jacks, as long as you catch your own set with it). Then they busted my real good in some 6-handed games on Full Tilt. It was about time I took a break, so I went to a friends house to play some Skat…nice little run and won my dinner 😉

Came back…sat down in a 90-person-SnG at Full Tilt…hadn’t played those before, seems like a good format – much like Stars’ 180s, but only half the size…everything went pretty good…made some tough laydowns Kings on a Ace high board…etc…then lost a flip AKs vs JJ…this crippled me…with just 600 and blinds of 100/200…I waited for the next playable hand and tripled up. Next time I look down at 9s..flop gives me trips and I’m back in the game…fold…fold…fold…I look down at Kings…table-captain calls in a hurry with AQ…flop all low…turn…low….river….Ace…thank you very much.

Oh well, can’t be too mad…just another day at the office…at least I had fun at the tables with some players chatting it up…I would have loved to go deep though…not going to happen if you lose such hands…finished 30th…better luck next time…

…yeah, that’s right, I found my ultimate tilter. While some games are really bad at getting me on tilt, like for example one of my favourite games back a while – Omaha 8b, I found the ultimate tilter tonight…and it’s Fixed Limit 2-7 Triple Draw. My oh my! I played a little SnG and looked forward to bust some donkey balls and the donks sure as hell cooperate beautifully, the bad part: the cards didn’t. Start out with the best (stick to two card draws, never going without a deuce, etc). The followed the old Matusow song “Poker, oh Poker, it’s all skill…start with the worst and go uphill”. After the first few hands I honestly asked myself (and the other players in the table chat) if I was stuck in the middle of the “hidden camera show”. Unbelievable. Brick-city, yeah, I like pairs, next draw, yeah I like pairs, next draw yeah I still like pairs. The worst hand was were I’m starting out with 10-7-5-3-2. So I got the 8, 6 and 4-ball all working for me…first draw, I get a 10…next draw…I get a 10…last draw…I get the case 10 and I’m about to puke on my keyboard as my opponent wins with a 9-6…unreal. After that I went on a stone-cold tilt…

…at least the last 0.000001% of sanity kept me away from the cash tables. Instead I stumbled into a 1$ NL HE tourney…what better way to blow some steam than in such a donk tourney. Honestly, I tried to put some bad-beats on donks on purpose…and even that didn’t work out…i.e. Q5o limpi-limpi preflop…LP min-raises…hmm…donk…is that AA…hmmm….like 99% sure…call…flop comes a beautiful QQ9…I bet the pot he insta-pushes…I insta-call and he shows AA…I laugh and I’m getting ready to blow of a trash-talk-bomb in the chat when the Ace hits the turn…damn!

So, that didn’t help either, so instead of walking away I sat in a 180…and boy oh boy, play can’t get any worse than this…as does the attitude of some of those fuckers playing at my table. Someone calling down with K5 s000ted on an Ace-high board after I four-bet it preflop and you say “nh”, “nice call” etc? Wth are you doing at my table moron? But anyway, I didn’t really honor poker-etiquette and just told’em off “a little”…that helped…no more donkin for the day…I’m out of here, before I go bezerk 😉

Awww…almost forgot to talk about something else, because of all that steamin…watched the first two weeks of Poker After Dark and boy oh boy, I love it! It’s good to see that live poker is rigged sometimes too – the beauty of the one-outer and suckout…really nice. My favourite hand so far: Mike vs Daniel K7 vs K9…7 on the flop…turn K…Daniel pushes…Mike calls in a heart-beat…Daniel is all but dead…the 7-8-10-K leaves Daniel with sixes, eights, nines, tens, jacks…sure enough the 6 rolls off and the Mouth is out…brutal…

Looking forward to High Stakes Poker Season 3, which kicks off tonight., too..

Hit another 180 SnG tonight and it went pretty well…played my patient game early on, playing a token satellite on FTP while doing so helped a bit. Got my money in with the best and took the chiplead. Held onto it until just before the first break, still sitting pretty in 2nd though.

Second hour is a blur as there was not much action, 73o, 52o, 62o, K2o, Q3o, … you catch my drift…

15th out of 32, not all that bad…but I can’t catch a hand if my life depended on it and I wait and wait and wait…finally I look down at 77…EP min-raises…hmm…do I wait for a better spot or do I take the flip – at least that’s what I think it is. Lucky sevens, come on! One time! *lol*…not really…he flips AQo…so good so far…flop QQ3…thank you very much…two outer doesn’t come and I’m crippled (2k)…a few hands later I take my chances with 92 s00ted…at least I got a shot here if the flop comes uncoordinated…two callers though…pair of Aces crushers me…and I’m out in 26th…

Oh well…that could have gone another way, but hey, I’m not really disappointed…didn’t make any real mistakes…played a solid game and move my money in with the best of it (excluding the last hand shortstacked)…do I mull over the 77-call? Yes a little, but then again, if my read is correct (which it was) I’m moving my money in a slight favourite and I can bring myself in a position to be in the top 5 chip-wise. Didn’t work out…what can you do.

“Stats:”

1. Coinflips played: 1 real one 77 vs AQ…lost that one (another hand was no real-coinflip as the money didn’t go in preflop AK vs 88…flop was Axx, won that one though, so you could take that one and call it 1-1 on coinflips)

2. Suckouts: 0 / 0 (suckouts witnessed at the tables – too many to count, playing like a rock early on really pays off, that way you can watch em and not feel em ;))

So…no final table, no money…but at least I enjoyed myself and won the token at FTP 🙂

It’s my dad’s birthday today, so no poker during the day…but a little night session isn’t too bad even…so I fire up PokerStars and jump into a 180SnG…jab jab, grabble, grabble…break one….avg stack…suckout count: 0/0…basically only junk hands…next hour is interesting…Kings…against the big stack…he shows AK…the cowboys hold up…I’m comfortable way over the avg…next hand AKo…smaller stack (5k to my 13k) pushes from the cutoff…

…observation #1: the BB is sitting out…

…observation #2: I’m on the button…he could push with many hands…I’m the only player in his way…

So I call and he flips A5o….big slick holds up…and I’m sitting pretty in the chiplead with 19k…after that I go on a garbage hand-card-deadness streak, but I stay calm and fold, fold, fold, fold…some more folding before I hold Kings again…I make a sneaky “half-steal-looking” preflop raise (5.5x BB)…BB loves to call with sixes…my cowboys hold again and I’m back in second chip position….card deadness here I come again…nothing much to report for the next x minutes as we’re approaching the bubble. Then a heart-crushing suckout hits…but not me…another big stack pushes from the cutoff…BB is more than happy to insta-call with Aces…cutoff shows AKo…doominated…flop KJJ…turn…10…river K…ouch! Shortly after that the bubble bursts and we’re ITM.

I’m still card dead and when I finally look down at a semi-playable hand, 44 in MP, I’m already facing a raise and a re-raise…I throw them into the virtual muck…see the player behind me re-reraise…and I’m happy…until they get the money in the middle…AK, A10 and K9 are their hands and the flop comes down Q94…oooooh….turn and river are blank…and the worst hand takes the pot to triple up…that was the key hand…if I move in there…and win the hand…I’m sitting in the top 3 in chips with 13 players left…oh well…what can you do? Call all-in to a raise, re-raise and re-reraise preflop with fours? Not really…

The final table bubble burst after some big-stacks clinch in a preflop pushfest…and I’m happy to sit down at the first final table in a while…last in chips though…

After three orbits of blind stealing and folding I look down at the first “good” hand in a while and decide to push it in…KdQd…is not match to some random hand though and I bust out in 9th place…ooh well, final table..from the bottom…

I’m happy though, I played my A-game like I always did in the last few weeks, but with one difference: my hands, especially the really clear ones (70-75%+) held up…that’s all that is to it…

“Stats”:

1. Flips played: 1, won 1

2. Suckouts from me: 0

3. Suckouts against me: 0

4. Mood: happy 🙂

…or how should I say it? I log onto Stars to play a little, find a 5-Card-Draw PL MTT that is just about to start and jump right in. I play my solid game and build the stack. I play a lot of small pots, some bigger ones when I’m comfortable and feel that I have the best of it. Then it happens.

!!!WARNING: EXPLICIT RANTING AHEAD!!!

We’re 1h 45min in and I’m 10 out of 81 (56 ITM; 437 original entrances). Who get’s moved to my table? Yes, you guessed it, the chipleader (I have a 12k stack, he has a 26k stack after coming to the table with a 23k stack and bullying around, raising every hand – big stack poker). I look down at JJ224 in the SB…he pops it 1860 to 2460. Now this could be any kind of hand, I’ve got a powerful hand and still a redraw to a boat. Let’s see what he’s going to draw. I draw one, miss. Hmm…he draws 3. Okay, so he got a pair, most certainly Aces. Feeler underbet. He insta-pops it 7k. Now this would cripple me and I ask myself:

1. Why did I even get involved in this hand? – Correct answer: because I likely held the best hand preflop. His play could be any 5 cards as he’s in steal position.

2. Assessment after the draw: He’s drawn 3, three friggin cards after popping it +3 times the BB…Hmm…so what are his chances…he held a pair of Aces for sure…donk!…trips – 2 outs…drawing a pair in 3 cards – tough one…no real data on this case…

3. So…does this overbet mean that he caught his third Ace? A second pair? Nothing?

So…what did I do? I call as the only way I’m going to lose this hand is if he got incredibly lucky and I got unlucky in the process. – STOP! HAMMER TIME!* – So I call…and he shows AA77T….very well played donkfish mofo…god damn it…I was really undecided whether to puke up my keyboard or go on a tuff_fish-style-rant (TM)…I decided to go with the latter and cursed him out quite nicely in the chat…what a fucking tool. Raising in position with this crap…then I draw crap but I’m like 80/20 sure that I got the best hand** and he get’s TOTALLY lucky on my ass….very well done.

So…I look down at a 2k stack with slightly over 70 players to go and what the hell…the next decent hand I push and another donk shows a better hand (which had happened to me for the really huge number of 2 times before this evening – once against the superdonk chipleader in the hand I just described)…unreal…I still can’t believe it… out in 77th when I should be sitting tight with a 24/25k stack waiting for the bubble to burst…I mean, in the grand scheme of things, this means nothing. So, he got lucky…I crapped on the table (not literally) yet again…oh well…there’s always next time.***

Well….fuck it! Next time…next time…why oh why do the donkeys ALWAYS**** get lucky on me, not in a non-crucial-pot, but in the damn deciding hand. Can you answer me that question? …and it’s not like this has been the first time, or the second or the thirtieth…I can’t fucking get a break in the important hands…just can’t…

Now that this is out of my system, one final thought on MTTs: Yes, “you need to get lucky to win one of those” – me, I would settle for just “not getting unlucky” “one time”…

* I commited only 1/6 of my stack here…and I could let it go. Then again, I feel I have the best of it so I go with my old “trust your first instincts”-plan…it didn’t work out…again….

** I guess another player, not in the hand could have a totally different view on this:

1. You had the best hand. You made the correct assumption that his drawing 3 couldn’t lead him to a better hand in most cases, it could though in some cases. You made your decision, it was wrong.

2. Why didn’t you reraise pre-draw? Why didn’t you bet out more after the draw?

What’s your opinion here?

*** Consolation price: yes, the superdonk chipleader plays like this for a little longer, getting his ass handed to him, busting out in 25th for a hefty 8$ profit on a 5$ investment, very well done sir, hope you never get lucky again in your lifetime. Thank you. *lol*

**** ALWAYS = perception of recent events, surely the numbers are more like “near” the “normal” percentages of outcomes, but still you can’t help but wonder if you can’t win the obvious ones, then catch no break in close ones and get burned regularly in underdog situations…is this really normal? I don’t think so…

PokerStars Game #7888139718: Tournament #39824804, $5.00+$0.50 5 Card Draw Pot Limit
– Level IX (300/600) – 2007/01/11 – 21:17:37 (ET)
Table ‘39824804 56’ 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: superdonk chipleader (26120 in chips)
Seat 2: Ingoal (12255 in chips)
Seat 3: xxx (3545 in chips)
Seat 4: xxx (12020 in chips)
Seat 5: xxx (6445 in chips)
Seat 6: xxx (1310 in chips)
superdonk chipleader: posts the ante 60
Ingoal: posts the ante 60
xxx: posts the ante 60
xxx: posts the ante 60
xxx: posts the ante 60
xxx: posts the ante 60
Ingoal: posts small blind 300
xxx: posts big blind 600
*** DEALING HANDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [2d Jh 2c 4d Jc]
xxx: folds
xxx: folds
xxx: folds
superdonk chipleader: raises 1860 to 2460
Ingoal: calls 2160
xxx: folds
Ingoal: discards 1 card [4d]
Dealt to Ingoal [2d Jh 2c Jc] [5c]
superdonk chipleader: discards 3 cards
Ingoal: bets 600
superdonk chipleader: raises 7080 to 7680
Ingoal: calls 7080
*** SHOW DOWN ***
superdonk chipleader: shows [7h Ad Th Ac 7s] (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
Ingoal: shows [2d Jh 2c 5c Jc] (two pair, Jacks and Deuces)
Ingoal said, “luckbox”
F0LD–IT collected 21240 from pot
Ingoal said, “unbelievable”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 21240 | Rake 0
Seat 1: superdonk chipleader (button) showed [7h Ad Th Ac 7s] and won (21240) with two pair, Aces and Sevens
Seat 2: Ingoal (small blind) showed [2d Jh 2c 5c Jc] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Deuces

Hehe…that’s the question I’m asking myself after playing the PokerStars Rebuy Madness (TM) (lol) tourney…man is this some crazy stuff or what? Nearly 3.5k players playing with their starting chips + 9066 rebuys + 2135 add-ons…and you’ve got a 20k guaranteed with a price-pool of 44.025$, unreal.

Played for well over an hour before busting out AA vs JJ…yes, I had AA – for the first time in over 600 hands I might add and sure enough they get cracked by a 4:1 dog…only thing that is weird is that I could see it coming…I three-bet it preflop and he goes into the tank…after a long pause he pushes…I insta-call and see his JJ…before the flop is dealt I can literally see the Jack falling…and it promptly does…the only consolation is that if there’s such a thing like karmic payback that was the proof…I had cracked this guys Kings earlier on with KQ s000ted…oh well…I had my fun and with the top 30 all well over 30k the possibility to really go deep were limited anyway…I’m out of here…

…and right away the first cash. Wheeeee! Way to start the new year, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I signed up for the WWdN cdog007 invitational after playing some serious hours of BJ over at Pacific (bonus grind). 69 players found their way to the tables and my starting table didn’t feature all that many people I recognized. That should change after a few minutes when the blogfather himself was moved to our table. I immediately welcomed him and won a pot against him when my KK held up. Combined with the chips of the first hand (where I had turn a flush with Kd10d) I was off to a good start. After that everything is a little blurry as I tried to focus fully on the game and not take any notes – then again, who needs notes when the video-feed is up and running… 😉

Here are two screenshots – final table and final result:

Back to the video: I had to cut some of the stuff as, although I forgot to turn it on for the first x minutes, it’s still over 2h of video…so I cut it down to some key hands (which you can see in the following video) – so without further ado…inspired by Tuff_Fish and Waffles-Rant-Cast (TM)…the inaugural Ingoal-Cast (without audio commentary), but with music…so please turn on audio (as it becomes critical at one point…you’ll see/hear ;)) and enjoy…Click here (opens in new tab/window – attention: requires Windows Media Player 9 or above, size of the video 66MB, so please be patient)

1. Played fairly well

2. Didn’t self-explode like others (*cough* Sox just before the final table)

3. Got unlucky sometimes to bring me back into a desperate chip position which lead to…

4. Got lucky when I needed to…

5. Thanks Wil for hosting!

6. It was fun…cya all soonish…

Oh god damn it! Oh god damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

Hehe…now that I’ve got that out of the way I can write a little write up about my latest adventure in 180SnG-land. Started out making some tough laydowns. Hovered around average for a while before making a great read…put him on AK (on an all under board) and was right…my 88 was good…so I’m double the average…cool…from there on I nurse my stack and play less pots, but if I’m in it…I’m letting it be know…

After the break I get moved to a quite bizarre table…the chipleader is there (suprise surprise, I was playing with the guy third in chips until this point)…then another player is moved to the table…yes…he’s 2nd in chips…so we got two dudes with over 18k at the table…then this hand happens…

I raise it preflop…he pushes back…what I’m I supposed to do here? Fold? Not really…too bad I ran into this again. Down but not out I get moved back to my old table right after the hand – this is out of the “are you kidding me”-category, isn’t it? Get moved to the monster stack table…run into this shit and get moved right back…

Oh well…the end comes a few hands later when I semi-steal with A9o from the cutoff…the button ponders and ponders and finally calls with AQ s00000ted….now I’m asking myself: you get 1.2:1 for your money and you’re anywhere from dominated (AK), in bad shape (pair) to dead (AA)…or slightly ahead (AJ down to Ax)…do you call 40% of your stack there? Well, he did…blank board…turn Q…river 9 thanks riverstars…the other 9 was supposed to be on the flop 😉

So I’m out in 47th and a little puzzled…play a game game for well over an hour…run into bigger pair…missed steal…and gone with the wind. This is frustration at it’s finest…why oh why can’t the fool have Jacks there? 😉

So…new year new luck…lol…or not. Anyway, redeposited at Stars tonight as I had planned to do so for a while, but I wanted to wait until they had another reload bonus…now the 25% bonus was up…

To celebrate my return to Stars I decided to play a good ol’ 180SnG…and with over 100k players online, sure enough most of the players were donkeys as expected. Fought back and forth for over an hour before busting out in 54th.

Key hands:

1. Early on AA in the cutoff…four bet it…one caller….flop is Q high two spades (I hold no spade), I fire a pot-size bet…he calls…turn is 8 of spades…pot size bet…call…now I’m wondering if he’s letting me hang myself with a made flush…oh well..let’s see what the river brings…9 spades…hmm…check…he fires a quarter-sized bet out there…I think about reraising, but then again…why should I? Call…he show 89o no spades…nice calling preflop, on the flop and on the turn donk…god damn it.

2. Down to just under 60 players after the first break…Ah10h in MP, EP with a huge stack min-raises…I decide to call, flop comes down KhKs10h…hmm…not bad…huge stack fires 1k at the pot…I ponder and call…(3.5k behind)…turn 2c…he fires 1k again…I reluctantly call (2.5k behind)…river 5d…he checks…now I’m wondering if he wants to let me bluff at the pot or what? Sure enough my outs no good…I check behind…he shows AJo….damn it.

3. Very next hand I look down at the suited Ace again (this time A5d)…I push…the same monster-stack insta-calls on the button…all others fold…he shows AA…have a nice day…

So, all in all not a good start…surprise surprise…as if I ever had a good start at PokerStars…lol…oh well…should have played 2. differently (either push on the flop…no way he can call there?!) or lay it down right there…then I’m not in a desperate state and don’t push into Aces..better luck/play next time…

The grind continues and I’m making good progress so far at Pacific. Up a little and 85 Comp Points done 165 left to go.

After the slow and somewhat uneventful grind at Pacific I thought I’d put the latest token to good use in Full Tilt’s 2k Razz guaranteed and boy oh boy, can play get any worse than this? I repeat: Can play get ANY worse than this? Un-be-lievable what an amount of donkeys play this game at Full Tilt. I had three donks at my starting table and they played like ultra-maniacs, capping almost every hand with “starting monsters” like AAK and similar.

Now I’m usually really mild-mannered when it comes to Razz donkeys, as I’m pretty confident that their chips will come my way eventually. But this time it was a little different. I play one hand in the first four orbits and take it down. I’m up well above average and fold, fold, fold and fold while the donks are taking down pots with monster-hands, well…a K10 or J8 low is a monster, right…NOT!, I’m sitting there repeating my old razz mantra “three eight or lower, three eight or lower, three eight or lower” as I fold hand after hand. Oh well…so I wait and play a patient game, pushing donks off hands by (correct) reraising on the earlier streets is pretty much out of the picture, so I’m at the mercy of the cards…and to make a long story short…they betray me time and time again…I start out with the best hand every single time and in most hands I’m ahead until 6th/7th street…where the donk(s) hit the perfect cards while I put on my helmet to shield me from all the bricks falling down on me.

The exit in 60th place comes right at the first break where I start out with the best again…hit a brick on fourth street…good one on 5th street before walking the lovely brick-brick-sidewalk again…oh well…what can you do?

So…I’m out of tokens for now…so next stop at Full Tilt is to get some more…then it’s time for Razz again…until then…may the river be kind(er) to you, don’t drink and drive on new year’s eve, drink a lot though if possible and have fun…cya in 2007 🙂