…aka the biggest bullshit I’ve seen in my life. German tv host Stefan Raab hosted the first german celebrity poker tourney tonight. Setup: There were 4 other celebrities invited (german pop singer Sasha, TV comedian Elton, actress Heike Makatsch and comedian Bully Herbig) which were joined by an online qualifier (a 19 year old student, who allegedly beat a field of nearly 50.000 players to win the seat). Starting chips: 10k, blinds starting with 50/100.

There were some weird plays early on and you could really feel that most of the players at the table didn’t know what the hell they were doing. They were calling down bs hands like crazy and there was not much movement at the table. Then the luck/bs factor came into play as they kept raising the blinds like crazy (up to 3k/6k within the last 30 minutes). The host Stefan Raab put a bad beat on the online qualifier as he cracked the pocket kings with 36o, shortly after that he busted out in 4th, not to shabby though – 10.000 Euro for a little poker on television.

In the end it was happy go lucky as tv comedian Elton hit the deck like crazy to take down the 50.000 Euro. I was really looking forward to the event and I was disappointed. Too few poker hands crammed into a two hour format with commercial after commercial and a crapshoot blinds structures, all I can say is one thumb up for Bully Herbig’s comedic performance at the table and two thumbs down for the overall tourney…

…maybe it’s time that a major player in the poker game (e.g. PokerStars, FullTiltPoker, …) got involved in such a tourney…

Slightly over an hour ago I logged into Full Tilt to check on the sunday tourneys just to find myself in the middle of the Event #3 Freeroll…the top 500 pickers in that tourney are entered automatically!!! Prize Pool: $1000

So best check your picks and/or the Registered in Tournaments part of Full Tilt, so that you don’t miss it, like many did in the one I was in…

On another note: I just had another look at the prizes page and nice…gooo me…I finished 4th in Event #3, so I win a FullTilt hat, yay me 🙂 !

Thanks again Bill for writing about it, I guess I would have missed it otherwise!

Edit: After over 3hours I made it into the top 20…in 14th place to be precise after two consecutive nine outers (flush draws) didn’t come through…so I’m heading for the WSOP 2007 freeroll in August, nice.

Man, I’m steamin now…not god friggin unbelievable like tuff_fish 😉 but still steaming. Once again I play good poker for 2 hours, then one damn donk hand and I’m out, in 11th place no less (9 ITM). Sox raises 3BB (blinds 200/400) from the button…I call with 99 and I have 1899 left behind…flop comes down J82….I check, he bets 2k. Now I’m thinking…hammer….8x, 2x…I don’t put him on a J…so I call…sure enough he shows K2o…(preflop: 72/27, flop: 79,8/20,2)….turn is a friggin King. Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

So no 400VPP for me (bubble price) and sure as hell no money. Cheers dealer, no toke from me….and I’m off…

Almost forgot with all the steam…nontheless thanks to Trip and Jordan for hosting yet another classic DADI! Cya next time….

As I was waiting for the PokerSavvy Freeroll on Poker.com (for 1000$) to start I played some SnGs on FullTilt, no joy. Then I play the freeroll and after catching some cards early on I basically go on a card diet for a long time, then I try to make a stand with A10 but that was no match for KQ…down but not out…that would be the case in the next hand 99 no good. Oh well…18th out of 36…boooo! Nontheless thanks to Matt from PokerSavvy (aff) for hooking us up with a 1k freeroll!
On another note: only the top 5 payed (400/250/150/120/80) which was a cooler anyway after two players already sitting on 6k stacks (1k starting stack) after under 40 minutes…3 of the known faces in the top six Mookie bubbled, FishyMcDonk went out in 4th and Wes came back to take the win and 400$, nice one….

Well, well…I didn’t drop from the face of the earth, I just wasn’t in the mood to write something about my play the last few days. Yesterday and today I dropped back into the good old WSODP, no that’s not the currently running WSOP, it’s the World Series of Donkey Poker (aka Low Limit NL Hold’em Online) 😉

A couple of SnGs here, a couple more SnGs there…mostly with mixed success – more ITMs than busts, but nothing newsworthy, apart from the fact that I’m really enjoying the time at the tables again. How come? The simple fact that I’m playing straight up poker most of the time, but I allow myself to use some reverse donkey logic every now and then. What is that? Well, basically entering pots with very marginal hands when I’ve got a feel for the players entering the pot (mostly coming in with a medium raise, probably with an Ax) and huge implied (tilt) odds. Nothing better than to “crack” someones Ace rag with a bs two pair – especially knowing that they can’t laydown a hand if there life depended on it and hence scoring huge. Even when not scoring huge, it adds more excitement if you can drop the hammer on someone and put them on uber-tilt…

Apart from that I’m still enjoying the World Cup over here, although there were some crap games and decisions – can you believe that the Socceroos really lost on a penalty 7 seconds before the end of regulation…and a more than questionable penalty at that! You won’t even believe how I screamed at the telly and how I cursed every Italian that drove around after the game celebrating their victory. True, such a thing is just another form of variance and over time it’ll smooth itself out (after all Italy basically got screwed in the last WC vs South Korea, this time they screwed the Aussies), but ask any player of the Aussie team and I’m laying 100:1 odds on the “I don’t give a shit, we were screwed” answer…and another 4 years (or maybe even more) are a long time to get even (if it ever happens)….I would have loved to see the Aussies head into overtime and get the win 🙁 then seeing them again in the semis on our way to the finals 😉

Sidenote on tonight’s WWdN: I missed the start and just as I went looking for late registration I found that a player was already out. So I went ahead and watched a little and what can I say: I’ve never ever seen the luckbox get sucked out on so hard – I was too slow to take a screenshot, but let’s just say that CJ‘s AA was no match to the 99…can you say Dem Quads Beetches! Wow!!!

Wow, all I can say is wow…180 SnG, from top to bottom in a heart beat. Always nice to see good hands early on (i.e. AK, AA twice)…not so good if you first accumulate chips fast just to lose them even faster after being runner-runnered and/or rivered three times in a row (I’ll save you the details, but let’s say trip Aces, etc weren’t good when everything was said and done). Nice. Good calls Sirs …my fullest respect…

I’m off to vomit now…

Yes! DADI 7 is around the corner and yes, DADI is coming home…home to NL Hold’em! Cool stuff, find the infos in the pimpin pic below. Note: the password is not the usual!!!

So, I played the World Blogger Championship of Online Poker or the WBCOOP tonight. 2246 fellow blogger joined me to make up a field of 2247 hammer dropping festival of suckouts, resuckouts, nice hands and bad beats.

Early on I was pretty lonely at my table as 5 of the 9 players sat out. I guess that the WBCOOP on father’s day (at least in the US) was enough to keep several dozens/hundreds players away from the felt. I didn’t care though as I began to build up my stack with several nice flops and good starting hands. It was a total of 46 minutes until I had the pleasure to drop my first hammer – and let’s be honest here, what would a World Blogger Championship be without the occasional hammer dropping?

Nothing much to report in the next roughly 15 minutes, until the last hand before the first break, I hold 1010 and I pop it up to 3BB…one caller is willing to see a flop of KQ10 with me…I push…he calls (I got him more than covered)…he shows Kxo…nice…the turn K makes me hold my breath, but the river is blank and I rack up a nice pot to head into the break.

As we’re heading into the break I’m well over the average…107 hands played, largest: 26450, average: 3002, smallest 5…I’m 151st of the 1497 remaining players.

I didn’t take notes in the second hour, but there were some good hands early on which put me slightly over 8k, just be down again after some hands didn’t connect at all. So we head into the second break and I’m 284th of the 350 remaining, sitting on a measly just under 5k in chips…largest: 50570, average: 12840, small 500.

Two orbits after the break I’m out. I sit in MP with AA, nice. No limpers in front of me, I push, monster stack goes over the top…the blinds fold. He shows 33…you should know what happens next…

So I go home in 273rd. Sigh…

Side notes:

1. Played solid poker
2. Outlasted many players (including CJ (aka the luckbox) and Wil, who had to surrender after sucking out on, let’s say, “a few occasions” before busting)…
3. I’m going to watch the others battle it out now as some players that are no strangers at the usual blogger tourneys are still in there (Ryan/Absinthe, on_thg, GRob, Frankl, dnasty13, Columbo, RoccoBoxer, Dave (yestbay1), BillRini and maybe some that I missed, sorry)…
4. Dave finished 26th – congrats and have fun with your brand new m-pod 😉
5. I knew I had missed someone….StudioGlyphic scored! Final table baby, out in 6th…Vegas baby! Congrats!

Final Stats:

During current Hold’em session you were dealt 234 hands and saw flop:
– 8 out of 27 times while in big blind (29%)
– 6 out of 26 times while in small blind (23%)
– 14 out of 181 times in other positions (7%)
– a total of 28 out of 234 (11%)
Pots won at showdown – 6 of 8 (75%)
Pots won without showdown – 25

Thanks PokerStars for the nice tourney and prices. Thanks to Otis for the live-blogging!

The WWdN, also known to mankind as gotta love it, gotta hate it. Same ol’ same ol’ at the WWdN front. I do fairly well until we’re down to the last two tables and then I can’t catch anything and/or can’t seem to hit anything. As soon as my stack is down to a low, I get a hand, but my stack doesn’t scare anyone off anymore, so my hand get’s cracked by bs hands (this time it was AQo vs 109o)…out in 17th of 72…either I need to catch a break or present a gift to the poker gods – although I’m fairly sure that they’re mad at me for sucking out on the hammer. Yes you read that right, I sucked out on the hammer! I confess – no wonder that I didn’t finish ITM, I sucked out on the hammer in a tourney which is featuring 72 players. A coincidence? You be the judge 😉
Hand of the night – the already mentioned hammer (re)suck:

PokerStars Game #5245759333: Tournament #26043435, $10+$1 Hold’em
No Limit – Level II (15/30) – 2006/06/13 – 20:59:54 (ET)
Table ‘26043435 1’ 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: Scaffidi (2935 in chips)
Seat 2: shadowtwin (1340 in chips)
Seat 3: Jaxia (1055 in chips)
Seat 4: hoyazo (2630 in chips)
Seat 5: mean g (645 in chips)
Seat 6: S.t.B (2325 in chips)
Seat 7: Ingoal (1555 in chips)
Seat 9: Grrr.Argghh. (1390 in chips)
Grrr.Argghh.: posts small blind 15
Scaffidi: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ingoal [Kc As]
shadowtwin: folds
Jaxia: folds
hoyazo: folds
mean g: folds
S.t.B: raises 90 to 120
Ingoal: raises 240 to 360
Grrr.Argghh.: folds
Scaffidi: folds
S.t.B: calls 240
*** FLOP *** [7s Ks 7c]
S.t.B: checks
Ingoal: bets 360
S.t.B: raises 630 to 990
Ingoal said, “hammer?”
Ingoal: raises 205 to 1195 and is all-in
S.t.B: calls 205
S.t.B said, “For you Hoy… Hammer”
*** TURN *** [7s Ks 7c] [Ts]
*** RIVER *** [7s Ks 7c Ts] [Kd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
S.t.B: shows [2s 7h] (a full house, Sevens full of Kings)
Ingoal: shows [Kc As] (a full house, Kings full of Sevens)
hoyazo said, “WOW”
mean g said, “wow”
Ingoal collected 3155 from pot
hoyazo said, “that aint right”
Ingoal said, “yes!!!!!!!!”
S.t.B said, “just wrong!”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3155 | Rake 0
Board [7s Ks 7c Ts Kd]
Seat 1: Scaffidi (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: shadowtwin folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: Jaxia folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: hoyazo folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: mean g folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: S.t.B showed [2s 7h] and lost with a full house, Sevens full of Kings
Seat 7: Ingoal (button) showed [Kc As] and won (3155) with a full house, Kings full of Sevens
Seat 9: Grrr.Argghh. (small blind) folded before Flop

Well, so I was way ahead preflop, way behind on the flop and then I sucked out. Basically a loose/bad call on the flop, after all I suspected that S.t.B was on a semi-bluff-steal (if a steal attempt with the hammer can even be considered a semi-bluff) as you can see in the hand history above, but tbh I can’t really suspect a hammer behind every bush…although this is the WWdN, so I guess you could…but more often than not, it’s not the hammer…anyway…I won that nice pot, but in the end the poker gods punished me for it ( 😉 )…

Alrighty…I’m out of here…already missed the first half of the NBA Finals game 3…gooo Dirk! Goooo Mavs! Get this one tonight and I’m getting my broom ready 🙂

Well…played for nearly 2h…was card dead most of the time, but when I was in with a hand, I mostly won. Didn’t receive any help on my last hand though AJo vs JJ and finished in 21st (of 69).

Side notes:

1. I’ve seen Wil drop the hammer 3 times with the first hour
2. I’ve seen xkm1245 play the hammer almost to perfection – he boated up on the turn 🙂
3. I’ve seen Luckbox sucking out a chop (vs Waffles)…
4. I’ve seen Luckbox winning a monster pot and he was ahead the whole time…
5. What more can you ask from a tourney? 😉

During current Hold’em session you were dealt 165 hands and saw flop:
– 10 out of 21 times while in big blind (47%)
– 4 out of 21 times while in small blind (19%)
– 4 out of 123 times in other positions (3%)
– a total of 18 out of 165 (10%)
Pots won at showdown – 5 of 7 (71%)
Pots won without showdown – 6

Looking at those stats, you could think that I was Mr. Tighty McTight…but what can you do if you hold stuff like 36o, 46o and K4o (7 times) all night? Especially hawesome if you’re looking down at monsters like 23o, 24o, 26o all the time when you’re in the blinds… 😉