Eliminating three players in one hand

Nice if you can do it.

I held 88 and limped in, early in an SNG. I did not have to pay any more to see the flop which was J85 with two low clubs. Jackpot! Except, I was facing six opponents...

The first one (I think) raised to 150, five times the big blind. The pot until then was 210. One player called. Two. Three. THEN it was my turn... My stack was 1740 at this point, the pot was 810. Now, it was clear to me that I was facing at least one flush draw, and moreover I know that people with flush draws are typically hard to get rid of. But I did have a set, and was a clear favorite against a flush draw.

So I pushed.

The player to my left, who had not acted yet in this round, folded. The original raiser called. The next player folded. The next player called. The last player called as well. Now the four of us were all-in to see the rest of the hand. I felt sure I was going to lose to a made flush.

But first let us review what my worthy opponents had. The original raiser had 67 of clubs, so he actually had a straight flush draw and may well have been favorite to win the hand at this point (I did not have the chance to read all the percentages in time). The second caller had KK. Imagine that - first limping preflop, and then flat calling a bet of 150 (three-fourths of the pot) postflop after one other caller, on a somewhat dangerous board. Can you play KK more horribly than that? I think not! At the very least you want to make the people who are on a flush draw pay at this point...

The last caller had K4 of clubs. Given this opposition, where of course especially the straight flush draw was worrysome (even though with the 4 of clubs out he was actually drawing to the straight flush only at one end), as I wrote I had a very bad feeling about this.

Until the turn card appeared, that is.

It was the missing 8. Of course the straight flush guy still had a chance to beat me (I shudder to think that he might have won this hand), but the river did not give him his single out and I won a pot of 6480 with this hand (starting stack 1500). Very nice...

End of a sequence

See my previous post (below), I did not manage to make it 9... However, I did win game #10 and cleared €10 of my bonus at Celeb at the same time, earning €15 in that game alone :-) It was again a very tough game though, my opponent was very aggressive. It is very hard to stand up to aggression with air. I tried it a few times but invariably he would turn out to have hit the flop or to beat my top pair queens with an 8 kicker vs. my 7 kicker...
However, he was quite loose in calling all-ins. First he called with QJo when I had K3, and then he pushed after my raise with A7 when I had AJ. Both these hands occurred when I was behind, and after the last game I again started to lose ground until in exasperation I raised with Q8 and called his push (his third or fourth push in succession) - THIS time he had AT, but an 8 on the flop sealed his fate.

It should be a lesson to me how much aggression helps in winning these games, but I never seem to be able to pull it off. Maybe I should just try it and also start raising preflop in every other game... Also this last opponent was especially good at exploiting position.

Six EIGHT wins in a row

Time to stop playing :-) well... after two more games, later that same day...
I would not have thought it possible, but I just managed to win six eight heads up €5 games in a row at Celeb, bringing my bankroll there up from a measly €55 to now €83 €93. I should mention though that the second game of this sequence brought me a large slice of fortune when I was all-in with 44 preflop against 88 and flopped a 4. I should not have been in that position, my opponent was annoying me with frequent raises and I thought I had found a good spot to stand up to him. Well...

I should be very very close to clearing my €10 bonus at Celeb now, but I am really going to stop playing now and enjoy the feeling of winning 6 EIGHT games in a row.

Before this, I had tried a small MTT at Pacific with disastrous results...

***

$5 Pacific

QQ as BB. Reraise to 100 = 5BB. All call... Low flop, I push. Pot is 410, my stack was 690. One idiot calls with top pair plus gutshot, I win. 1790, avg 1046. Blinds 15/30. I am in third position! 26 players out of 34 remain after only 10 minutes.

AJs as first hand on new table. I limp. FLop = JTx, flush draw with top pair... Bet and a raise, I just call. Turn gives me TWO pair! Raiser from just now raises a bit more now. I push, he calls with a worse flush draw... 3220, just 5 chips less than the chip leader!! Only two tables left now, only 16 players left! Half the field is gone and I am nearly chip leader.

Limp ATo UTG. With chips like this... minraise. I call, other player too, but I miss the flop. Check-fold. 93 as BB. I get to see a flop but I miss it entirely, not interested in this hand. AA as SB!!!!

Amazing... Folded to me, I minraise. DAMN, BB folds. Oh well. Still 3120.

JJ in MP!!! Push in front of me, I push over the top. He has QQ.... DAMN, down to 1200 now. WHAT an idiot. Good thing his stack was not so high.

Blinds now 50/100, M=8. Avg = 1700. Still 16 players left.

I can't believe he open pushed QQ... A7 as BB. Folded to me, thank you very much. T4 as SB, early raise and call. Still 1200.

A6 OTB. I limp after one limper. SB minraises, BB pushes, very nice. They have JJ and AQ, AQ wins...

Waiting for a chance to push now. 14 players left. A9 in 2nd pos. not quite good enough. Folded to the blinds, who limp...

Blinds now 75/150, M=5. Blinds coming up. A6 as BB. One limper, I push, he calls with AK. Just LOVELY.

Tonight's game

I played 2.5 hours for a €5 profit... well, I guess this is more than I have made in certain heads up sessions that lasted this long :-(

€5 buyin.

Blinds 20, raises to 100 are NOT respected. There is some preflop raise in basically every hand. Flop bets are also not really respected.

65s as SB. I complete, get flush draw on flop. I check. There are 5 opponents... One raises big, another one reraises, I am out of here! No flush. The big raise was top pair top kicker, the reraise was top pair no kicker... 99th out of 150, 212 started.

I moved tables and get AKo as first hand in MP. UTG raises to 150 = 3BB. I call. Flop Axx, and my opponent starts betting and pays me in full. I raise only on the turn, he calls, checks river and calls my bet that brings me near 0. Oh I had made a third Ace on the way as well. 2535, avg 2427.

84 as BB, hit middle pair on flop, try a bet but BOTH opps call! 2360.
SB QT, big bet and call in front of me, I fold. Flop QJ4...

KTs in LP, speculative call after 1 limper (really wanted to steal here).
Flop gives me a good flush draw. But a huge stack pushes. 2310.

KTo in the next hand... This time I'll fold it.

2310 - 3117 - 50/100 - M=15 - Q=0.7

RHS is being an idiot, he has a huge stack and is donking it off.

Fold 22 UTG... had clicked fold before I saw the second card. Would have gotten to see the flop, but missed it, phew.

A8 as BB. Big raise plus all-in reraise... A3 vs 99. 99 wins.
AK as SB! Early minraise. plus two callers. This time I miss the flop. 2010 left.

A9s OTB. Three callers, I fold. Would have gotten flush draw but no odds to call. Would have made the flush though. Better this way!

Table is still playing quite loose, I will not get to steal anytime soon, it seems. 60th out of 93 remaining, break in 15 minutes.

I am SO glad that RHS is indeed to my right...

One idiot just left the table, he threw it all away on middle pair.

2010 - 3785 - 75/150 - M=9 - Q=0.6

QQ as BB! Yeah. I just push after three limpers. RHS calls, as I was hoping he would - he has J6 and amazingly, I win, though the flop gives him a gutshot straight draw. That makes a nice change! New situation:

my stack 4245 - avg 4240 - 75/150 - M=18 - Q=1

A LOT better... My push was in principle not good, but people are calling SO loose at this table, I wanted to have only one opponent. And there was quite a good chance that idiot RHS would call after limping. Now 34th out of 75.

Oh my god, RHS just won another huge pot when he went all-in on two overcards, got two callers, and spiked one overcard on the river. Harsh. Let's hope he is just keeping those chips warm for me...

And now he won another one when he flopped two pair and another player called his push with top pair Aces. No wonder he did not believe him. He now has 15k. Pretty disgusting stuff. I just hope he gives me some of them later.

BREAK. 36th out of 62. Stack unchanged, avg now 5129, blinds will be 100/200, so M will be 13. Quite nice! Of course my Q is down to 0.8 but that is fine.
Forty more players need to be eliminated, so my stack needs to about triple in size in the next hour, to 12k. Let's see what we can do.

The next blinds, both times a big raise in front of me. Stack 3945.
A7 in hijack, but two limpers, including RHS.

33... I call due to my new rule. Miss flop though, KQ9... Try to steal it after all three opps check - and it works! 4545, nice. That's another way that you can win with 33, at least here I was in last position after the flop.

AKo now... RHS minraises, I just call. One more. Two. Miss flop... Fold. 4145.

TT UTG, I raise to 800. One caller. Ace on flop, I HAVE to bet, but he calls. Down to 2345, damn damn damn damn.... That's how fast things can go.
Now in 49th position out of 54 remaining.

22 as SB. Maybe I'll push, let's see what happens. Raise to 4BB plus a call, I fold. And miss the flop.

QJo OTB, there we have it... Another 4BB raise, again I fold. Now KTo. Same player again raises to 4BB. Stealing is going to be very difficult for me at this table. I am going to have to push after a limper at some point, if not after a raise. Same guy raises AGAIN on next hand, other opp pushes. He folds, good. Oh the blinds just went up, there is ante now, lovely.

Player who kept raising just lost a big pot, he will go out soon. Good.

AKs in 2nd pos. I HAVE to push now. RHS will probably call. Oops, BB calls as well! But I make top pair top kicker... AND WIN!!!! One opp had flush draw (3 hearts on flop) but did not fill up, thankfully. I'm saved for the moment!

Fold A8o in BB after raise and call.

Stack 6485 - avg 6235 - round costs 500 - M=12 - Q=1, nice. Pos. 21 / 50.

AQs in hijack, early minraise. I will call. One other before me. SB. BB folds. TOp pair top kicker, yeah! Checked to me. I bet half the pot, original raiser pushes, I fold, he has only KQ!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!

Bloody hell... Unbelievable, I thought he was trapping with AA or something. Hm. What were your pot odds? Pot = 500+400+400+300 = 1600 on the flop, 2400 when I bet, but I don't know what the raiser had. Let's say he had me covered, in that case he added 6100 to the pot now, making it 8500, and I could call for 5300. Those pot odds are not so great, but given his range I probably have a forced call here. I did not consider the pot odds at all here.

TT in MP. I will push given the chance. On second thought, I raise to 800. BB thinks... and folds. Stack 5360. Winning blinds + antes is not a bad result here. M=10.

Oh my god, I cannot believe the way that guy played top pair. Unbelievable. I would have been up to 12k if I had called that. Now 28th out of 48. RHS has been quiet for a while now.

Blinds now up to 200/400 with 50 antes. So my M has just dropped to 5. Great. My Q is 0.75 or so.

95o as BB. Button raises, SB calls, I fold. K5o as SB. Fold.

Table seems to have become a bit tighter by now, thankfully. Pos. 31/41.
Will still need to double up at least once.

Trying to take it easy, but this is not so... easy, yes.

Blinds coming up again. LHS has gone all-in after limpers several times already without getting called. He has 11k now.

85s as BB. Hit middle pair, but SB bets out, I'm out of here.
A5s as SB. Complete after two limpers, but miss flop. All check.
Turn does not help me. All check again! I lose to A6, 6 on river...

AK OTB! Nice. I push after one limper. BB thinks, folds. Limper folds.
Great result, back to 4635. But avg is now 8833, so Q=0.55 or so.
Blinds will increase to 300/600+50 before they hit me again, my M will be 3 only. This is very bad. Will have to see what may be done.

TT again! Early minraise, I push, LHS calls this....... as does raiser....
they have AJ and AK, I WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just tripled up: stack 13k, M=9, Q=1.4. Very nice. Blinds have gone up now.
Now I am 11th position out of 35, still some way to go.

K9o as BB. SB minraises, I just fold. 74o as SB, fold.

Just saw T6 all-in against 87s all-in, both players had large stacks. Now that is plain weird. Again, my idiot neighbor RHS wins (he had the T6).
And another big pot, now he has 24k and is chip leader, 32 left, I am 12th.

Very nice... I am BB, hand again gets folded around to SB who again raises, I have to fold (he will call with anything).

AQs as SB! I just call, flush draw on flop, bet out. Both opps FOLD, good boys. Back to 12.7k, avg = 10k. 31 left. Let's try to be a bit careful towards the bubble now. Though I guess we still have quite a few hands to play. Table is definitely tighter now.

Have to fold next blinds after raises. 11k. Try a steal as hijack, SB calls. BUT he checks the flop and folds after my bet!! Very good boy. That is much better than folding preflop. BTW he does not understand pot odds. 14k!

Only three tables left now, 29 players. Q=1.25. Blinds are now up to 400/800.

AQo, I minraise. BB pushes, he has AK! Fortunately I folded! 12.2k, M=6.

54s as BB, but I guess I won't see a flop. Yep, another all-in by kornel, he has again AK! Likes to show his cards. Fold SB when button minraises.

26 players left, getting close... Q=0.9, M = 5.

A2 in LP, minraise, all fold. Nice. 12k, again, M=6. Minraises seem to be enough most of the time at this table. 11th out of 25.

TT in 2nd pos, I push. No takers. 14k, good. M=7 now!

Q9 as BB. I am allowed to see a flop but miss it. JTo as SB. DAMN! I try to steal, hit middle pair but again there is an Ace on the flop and BB raises me when I bet. Next hand I push A3 OTB. Blinds fold. 11.5k, no big harm done, M=6.

A6 in MP, push, all fold. Very nice. 13k again. Still 12th out of 25. Only 7 players at my table. Blinds are going up exactly when they hit me, now 500/1000 plus ante 100. Round will cost 2200, M=6 (just barely).

BREAK. Only 22 players left now! I am 13th. REALLY need to be VERY CAREFUL now. Make sure to make the money. Don't push unless you get QQ or better, OK JJ or better. Preferably in late position after no limpers...
Can try to steal with minraises of course.

RHS is very annoying, keeps stealing my BB, but there is nothing I can do about it because I know he will call with almost anything.

Steal with 53s OTB, nice. 13k. Was a minraise. Only 21 players left, we have changed to hand for hand mode! Here's hoping I will reach the next hand for hand as well... Fold 77 in EP. SB raises, looks like somebody has an ace. Good fold by me...

A9 in 2nd pos, I fold. Would have hit middle pair. Guy in last position bets on the flop and wins the pot.

Kornel is getting extremely nice hands, he has shown down a lot of great hands and just made a flush on the turn. I am cowardly folding to his raise when I am BB. I am NOT going to go out in 21st place. 63s as SB, yay. Fold.

QTs as button. Fold after two limpers (one of whom is all-in now!). Would have made top pair on the turn. But lost on the river Ace. I AM IN THE MONEY.

Push A5 in hijack. All fold, good. Again 13k. 13th out of 20 left. Avg stack is 16.7k, Q=0.8 or so.

KQs. Plan to limp (there was already one limper). But RHS pushes, I fold.
AK (!) vs JJ!. Would not have ended well for me... 18 left now.

BTW, I moved tables again, so am finally rid of the idiot on my right hand side. 17 left now, going fast! People have loosened up considerably. Another all-in confrontation, A5 vs 88, 88 wins, 16 left. Now I am 14th out of 16. Hm. Not so great.

J2o as BB, UTG minraises, I fold. A push too. 88 as SB...
Will push if I get the chance. Early raise, I just fold, I don't like 88 enough for this. All fold.

99 in next hand!! Now all fold and I push. Blinds fold. 14k. Blinds have gone up, now 750/1500 plus 150 antes, this is pretty sick. M = 4. Tough.

Decide to fold K6 in MP. All fold... Fold K5 in next hand as well. Don't want to push too often.

AGAIN 99, this I will push. UTG had limped. fold... fold... fold... UTG folds too! Great. Now I can fold QTo UTG with a calm heart. Stack 18k now, looking better, M=5 again. But here are the blinds.

45s as BB. Fold to raise. SB pushes, raiser folds! 24 as SB... fold.

15 players left, I am 10th. Try to keep it together for a while longer...

Minraise OTB. SB calls. Hit top pair!! BB called as well BTW. They check to me. I bet out, BB pushes with KJ, I call, he had hit two pair on the flop... Out in 15th place.

New Rules (QJo)

I am going to call raises with small pairs as long as it does not cost me more than 1/10 of my stack. The idea is to stack somebody when I hit my set, making this move worthwhile.

I will limp only if this costs me at most 1/20 of my stack.

I am not going to bet out with high pairs on low flops unless I see a clear danger and/or there are many opponents.

Finally, I am going to fold QJo. This is a hand that has cost me a LOT of chips over time.

My next tournament starts in 10 minutes.

My latest MTT

Again no dice. I did my best, but failed to hit my flops, and my opponents hit them bigtime. Out in 63rd place out of 208 in little over an hour.

€10 buyin at Celeb.
Notation: my stack - average - blinds - M - Q

75o as BB, four hearts on the table, I actually make my straight on the river. Nobody ever bets, LHS has Kh.

AQo OTB, I call a minraise after several others and miss the flop.

KK! RHS pushes, I push over the top. She only has 600 left. She has 97o! Gets a straight draw on the flop but thankfully does not connect. 2145. Next hand QJo. Limp. LHS raises to 300, I fold. LHS turns out to have QQ.

Next hand 33! Limp. SB raises to 250 = 5BB, I fold. FLop contains a 3... Would have won a big pot here. Too bad...

Stack 2045 - 2496 - 25/50 - M is high - Q 0.8.

AJs in 2nd pos. Limp. LHS raises to 200=4BB. Almost have to call here. FLop is AA6... Checked around on flop. On turn, one player bets 200, I call. He checks river, I bet only 200 into pot 1250 but he instafolds :-) Can't complain here! There were four people in the pot. Stack now 2895, avg 2836.

44 as BB. Will not call any raise above a minraise here, despite that 33 fiasco just now. Blinds now 50/100, M=20. Yes, raise to 400, I fold.

I am 38th out of 107 left, top 20 gets paid.

Complete with 63o and hit middle pair. Great. Fold on flop bet. Wow one guy pushes even before I can react! ALl three are all-in! Guy with two pair gets beaten when pair of tens makes a set on the river.

Fold J9o, flop J62, all check... Oh well. 44th out of 96. 93.

33 in MP, limp. Button pushes, blast. Have to fold again. Good thing too, player behind me calls with 77 and makes a set! And then a full house too.

QJo, limp once again. 2nd position. Hit a flop KKQ... Bet 300, hoping no one has a King. Pot was 700. One opp raises me, I HAVE TO FOLD, DAMMIT! 2195. Why do I keep calling with QJo... It really is a lousy hand.

2195 - 3851 (...) - 75/150 - M=10 - Q=0.6 or so

76o as BB. Completely miss the flop. Q6s as SB, fold to raise. Six minutes till the break. I am 56th out of 71 now... But my M is still 9.

AK! in late position. Limp and minraise, I just call. MISS FLOP....

Stack now down to 1670 again, just barely above my starting stack :-( Maybe I should have pushed... M=7.5. Break coming up. My last hand before the break is 43s, I fold it.

BREAK. Stack 1670 - avg 4727 (ugh) - M will be 5.5 - Q = 1/3. Quickly coming up to pushing ATC land. No, not that quickly, I miscalculated.

KT in third position is not quite good enough. TT UTG is though! I push. One caller. Two. Oh dear... out. They had 44 and A-K, both their hands beat me due to the wonderful board: a set and a straight. Wonderful.

Odds

A propos of nothing, here are some odds.

AQ vs 32: 65%
AQ vs 72: 67%
AQ vs J2: 68%

This means that when you put all your chips in the pot preflop against a single opponent who is all-in, you have AT LEAST a chance of 1 in 3 of this being your last hand in the tournament. Unless you happen to have him dominated, say when he has A2 or something, in which case your odds of going out of the tournament right now are "only" 25%. This would give me pause, no matter what my read on any player was, and most particularly early on in a tournament when my M is still very high.

Now let's see if the power of mathematics can help finish a debate, or a junior high fight if you want to call it that. Hm, writing it like this does make it seem unlikely.

A few difficult hands

Two hands from my last MTT have been bugging me. I have been wondering whether I should have played them differently. Your thoughts?

1. Stack 5530 in BB (before posting the blind). Blinds 150/300. I have QQ, EP pushes for about 3500. MP flat calls this push and it is folded around to me. What do you do? Personally, the flat call scared the hell out of me, MP had a similar stack to mine but did not attempt to isolate. I expected AA or KK there. So I folded, and it turns out he only had 88... For what it's worth, my only alternative was to push (as I see it) and I had to assume that MP would call that (though he might have folded his 88, but I was not expecting that hand!). So my choice was to bet 5230 to win 3500+5230=8730, getting odds of 5:3. Is that worth it? Oh, we were still a long way from the money spots here.
2. My last hand. 33 players left, top 30 gets paid. I found AK UTG, my M was about to drop to about 7. I pushed, SB called with JJ. Should I have been more careful? I was in the worst possible position, I could have limped or minraised.

Reviewing the tournament, there was also an early QQ, the blinds were still 15/30. I flat called a 3BB raise. I probably should have reraised here, I need to think about this and see what Harrington has to say about it. As it happens, there were three more callers and an Ace on the flop. Given the flop, I probably would have lost this hand anyway, but I would not have had to play it against so many opponents (I just folded).

Also, I did not have to fold 88 to a minraise, as I did right after hand 1 above (the flop came 733).

Again, overall I think I played reasonably well, but on these two hands above I obviously lost a LOT of chips. I would be interested to hear any thoughts about these hands.


Current status: at Celeb I am €4 away from clearing a €10 bonus. That means still 16 €5 heads-up games, for example. The heads up games continue to be tough, amazingly tough I might say. In my last game I ran an overpair into a full house and then lost with AK to 88.

Total online bankroll: $100

Writing it in dollars makes it seem higher these days... But I have lost $300 since my maximum winnings of $2070 that I reached on November 8th. This is, simply put, horrible. What has happened to my ability to play poker? I just do not understand what is happening here. I won €120 at a Celeb tournament and now all this money is basically gone. At Pacific, I went down from $270 or something to now $9. I would not have believed such a thing to be possible if I had not painfully experienced it myself.

I guess it is good in a way that I cashed out some of my winnings, it is forcing me to play at a lower level now. But man, this hurts. I cannot believe I am back down to playing $5 SNGs and desperately hoping to finish in the money, where two months ago I was playing two $20 SNGs in parallel and thinking nothing of it. I even made $100 on one night doing that. Those were the days...

My first royal flush

Today I made my first royal flush. What is embarrassing about this is that I didn't realize it until a full hour later... I thought I had "only" made a straight flush. Can't believe I didn't notice it :-)


2 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

BTN		($1870.00)
Hero		($2130.00)

Pre-flop: ($150, 2 players) Hero is BB

BTN calls $50, Hero checks

Flop: ($200, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($200, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $100, Hero calls $100

River: ($400, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Final Pot: $400
Hero shows:

Hero wins $400 ( won +$200 )
BTN lost -$200.00


Later I played a large tournament (260 players) and went out in 33rd place (top 30 got paid) when my AK UTG ran into JJ SB. Nothing you can do about that. Well, I suppose that I did not HAVE to push. My M was still 9.5 for the moment, but as I said I was UTG and the blinds would increase in one minute, making my M a bit less than 7 after the blinds pass me. Still it smarts, I had been playing pretty well I think, even though I perhaps went a little bit overboard with AK early on. Judge for yourselves...

Hand 1: AJo, limp-check-fold flop.

Changed tables after 2nd hand!

SB T9, limp. Middle pair. All check. Bet 60 on turn into pot 100. Two callers, no third heart on river. Bet 80, both fold. 1360, avg. 1263. 245/260 left.

JTo BB, complete moron minraises, only I call. FLop middle pair, bet out on turn and river. He calls of course and loses of course. 1510, avg. 1392.

KTo in hijack, speculative limp. SB raises big, I fold.

QQ, call 3BB raise. THREE more callers. A on flop, I fold.

Next hand AK! Raise to 120. EP. Two callers. Four. Miss flop. Bet 300 = half pot. Two callers, but both are shortstacked. All-in on low turn. The moron calls, has nothing. 2665, yeah!! avg. 1616.

Opp who folded on turn later claimed to have had QQ. Interesting.

Change table. Fold 82 BB to minraise. Call A2 as SB, miss flop, fold.

I just realized that I made a royal flush in an earlier tournament tonight. I thought it was "just" a straight flush...

44 as BB, fold to 450 all-in. Don't want to play 50% hands now. Still avg+300 (2445).

22 UTG, limp. Low flop. SB bets out, I fold. Again 22 on very next hand!! Early raise to 300, have to fold again. 2195 now, avg=2437. Blinds 50/100. 125 left, top 30 gets paid.

QKo in MP. Fold when guy to my right raises to 400. All fold. Was this too tight? Not according to Harrington!

Will need about 9000 in chips to make it into the money. Fold 93 as BB to early raise.

Fold T5 suited as SB. Would have made bottom pair tens. 113 left after the break, avg = 2761, my stack 2020.

Raise to 3BB when I notice that BB is extremely tight (3%!). He folds: 2170 (no SB in this hand). Table is becoming pretty tight.
Blinds 75/150.

QJo in MP, fold after early limp. Miss flop.

Fold 65s UTG, is folded around! Next hand KJo as BB. Cannot resist calling minraise, but have to fold on low flop.

STack 1795 now, M = 8. Next round I need to try a steal, MP now. Right after writing this I get 88! Raise to 600. BB calls, flop T66. I have already decided to push when HE pushes! I call, he has 98s, there were two diamonds on the flop, but no third appears and he also does not make his gutshot. 3665, that's better! Avg = 3428, really needed that...

AGAIN 65s UTG, but fold again. All fold again...

98s as BB, early minraise, I fold.

Blinds 100/200, 83 players left. Almost got to steal as button, but RHS beats me to it. He raises again on the next hand, does not get called.

M = 11, do not need to rush with steals. AQs in MP! Damn, early all-in, do not want 50% hand for most of my stack. He had 33, I Would have made a straight on the river. 74 left, avg = 4216.

A2 as SB... fold to early raise. 3140, M =10.5.

QTo OTB. Steal if I get the chance... No, early minraise. Same player does it again on next hand! This time BB calls and checkraises flop. Minraiser calls... all-in on turn, he has QQ. Too bad for the BB who picked a bad time to bluff. Minraiser does it again on the next hand, but finally folds during that hand.

KK!! RHS raises to 3BB; I push. He has JJ. No miracles: I have 6580. Oooh yeah. He pushes on next hand and it is tempting to call with ATo, but I fold, as do all. He pushes again. Gets called this time--twice! But he beats KK and JJ with his AK after an Ace on the flop.

I have 6580 now. Blinds 150/300, M=14. 65 players left. Avg=4800.

KQo as SB. Limp after 1 limper. FLop KQx, two clubs. I check, opp bets 900, I put him all-in, I have him beaten till two aces appear on turn and river. Now we BOTH have two pair! Grrr....

Try a steal on the next hand, but BB pushes. Stack 5530 now, M=12. Still doing fine really. Avg=5288.

Really annoyed about that shared pot though.
Have to take it easy for a while now and calm down. 54 left. Should make the money...

QQ as BB. Here we go. This time I have to call the push. But not after one calls it before me... DAMN, I would have won, he had only 88!!

Damn damn damn... What an idiot.

Now *I* get 88 as SB, very funny. Fold after limp and minraise. Flop 733, just lovely. Well, minraise might have had a higher pair, he pushes on the flop.

STILL 54 players left, this is not going anywhere!

Need to stay calm... My M is still 11, OK the blinds are going up, M=8 now. Still quite OK... Stack 5080, avg=5777.

Fold A6s in EP, all fold. No SB in this hand.

Not getting stats from PO now, annoying.

I really am quite excited. Now 67s UTG, fold again. Gutshot.

98o as BB. Fold on gutshot flop, make gutshot but also board becomes 4-flush, would have lost!

M=7.5 now. Need to start pushing I guess. Still 48 players left, a long way still to go.

Good that there is a break in 5 minutes, can calm down a bit hopefully...

Push Q3o in hijack. All fold. Minraise QTo in next hand. All fold! This is much better, stack 5680 now, M=9.5.

Fortunately there are four tight players to my immediate left.

Blast, KQs, RHS pushes! I fold. Shorty calls. Pusher had A6, I would have won. Oh well.
At least RHS is gone now, he was annoying.

BREAK

42 left, avg=7428.
My M will be 7.5 after the break.

AJo as BB in first hand.
Ooooooooooooh yeah!
One opponent limps, flop Jxx, I check, he pushes, I call, he has A9. A on river is funny.

Stack 8770 now!! Try a steal as SB with J9 (minraise) but BB calls and I miss the flop.
STack 8020, M = 10.5. Think about stealing in next hand but RHS (new) pushes!

39 left, getting tight now, top 30 gets paid. 4 tables left. avg = 8000 exactly.

Trying to take it easy, no steal attempt in MP with A5 or K9.

Stacks are all about equal at my table, between 11K and 6K. Gonna be a long match still. Table is VERY tight, all at 17% or less (much less sometimes).

Hopefully I will be able to steal some chips.

99 as BB, interesting. Call a 3BB raise. Check-fold A-high flop and K turn. 6270 now...

37 left, avg 8432.
Q8 OTB. Early raise, fold.

J8s in next hand. Push. All fold, phew. 7020, M=9.5 again. Fold Q8o in MP, button pushes AQ and is called by AJ! 34 players left now... 33... AVG = 9454.

Push AK UTG. SB has JJ, that's it. Out in 33rd position....

KK

However, I am also not playing as well as I could. At one point in my last attempt at Party, I actually got KK as SB. The blinds were 100/200. There were two limpers and I raised to 600.

Mistake 1: should raise more, you do not want to play a multiway pot but are giving everyone odds to call.

The BB folded but the two limpers called. Flop 964 (or something). The pot was 2000, I bet out 600.

Mistake 2: betting out with a hand that is likely to be far ahead of the other hands.

I knew that I should be checking here, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was just too scared of check-check-Ace on turn. It is ridiculous really, if anyone was waiting for an Ace they basically had a 3-outer. I just HAD to check here and possibly check the turn as well, and hope that somebody would try to win the pot at some point.

But nooo, I bet and of course everyone folded. What were they going to do? Stupid stupid... I guess I should not be playing poker when I am scared of seeing a turn card, but it is hard not to be scared when your opponents keep hitting their miracle cards.

More complaining about bad beats

First I call a short-stacked all-in with 44. OK, a bit loose, but he had AK and I was doing fine until the river K.

Then I push with two high cards and get called by 44. Of course my opponent immediately flops a 4.

Finally, now extremely shortstacked, I call an all-in of what turns out to be K8 with KQ. The river is an 8.

This is on top of earlier games today, where I flopped a set of sixes. An idiot with a flush draw would not go away and of course made his flush on the river.

Before that I had a game where I raised and then reraised all-in with QQ. My opponents had the powerhouse QJ and JJ. Again I was doing fine until the river J.

How can I be running this badly for so long? I have now lost the entire bonus that Party gave me to come back! Unbelievable. The only good thing that I have to report is that today and yesterday I won four heads up games in a row at Pacific Poker. One of them lasted 105 hands! I guess I will restrict my play to heads up games at Pacific for the moment.

Celeb is still not going well. I am just barely managing to not lose money there on average. It is a good thing that I won €120 in that MTT at the start. Since then, my bankroll has hovered around the same amount the entire time. In fact, I never was more than €5 over the amount that I had immediately after the MTT win. So much for the "easy" heads up games.

Nevertheless, they do seem to be going better at Pacific, though this is of course skewed by this 4-streak. My score there is now 13 to 6, so before yesterday it was only 9 to 6, barely enough to break even given the high rake.

My latest tournament

I made another set of live notes. Here they are. For what it's worth, I think I played well enough...

A7 as SB. Checked the flop Axx against 3 opponents, all check.
Bet 60 on turn x, two callers. River K. Bet 60 again, one caller,
I guess he had Ax with x<7. 1720.

Next round K7 as BB. Bet out on K-high two-suited flop. One opp left by
the river, board had paired by now, I checked to him and he checked
behind. 1965.

45 as SB in following hand. Flop gives me OESD+pair, I bet out. One caller
(same guy who keeps calling), stays with me till river but cannot beat
my pair of fives. 2130.

Limp ATo, flop OESD (QJ8) but opp bets nearly the pot, I fold.
Limp KJo, fold to big raise. 2070. Position 50 out of 147 (193 started),
top 20 gets paid, top 6 are nice prizes. (€50)

KK in EP, raise to 120 = 4BB. Loose opp, same as before, calls. Flop Kxx!
He checks, I check. He bets turn, I reraise, he calls.
Fortunately the board does not give a third diamond. He checks river A,
I bet 120 (small fraction of the pot by now), he calls. 2610, pos. 34/138.
Avg stack is 2113.

Level 3, 25/50. Limp KQo in MP. Miss flop. Short stack shoves, I fold.
Pos. 40/125, players are leaving very fast.

AK UTG, raise to 200. All fold... On the very next hand, everyone goes
wild and three people are all-in by the river. Four clubs on the table,
one guy has A, second K, third Q...

93 as SB, flop 355. I bet out but get a caller. I shut down and the board
pairs by the river, counterfeiting my 3. I fold to his river bet. 2275,
avg stack 2705! Pos. 52 out of 107.

54s, raise to 300, one caller. Two. Flop 935, short stack pushes, I push
over the top and pray. First caller folds, shorty had KT. 3360!
Dubious play I guess, but it worked... Pos 31/97, avg 3k.
(Note that the first caller was likely to have two high cards, and the
shorty -- well, he was short and I did have second pair.)

I flop a straight with a two-suited board and bet half the pot.
Other guy pushes, I obviously call -- he had flopped one better
straight...... Unbelievable. Talk about a setup hand...

Showdown percentage

I am having an incredibly hard time at Celeb Poker. After many, many heads ups, I am still not making any headway and have in fact lost some money again. The good thing is that I just got a "please come back to us" bonus from Party, $25. It looks like I am not going to clear it in time, but hopefully I can make some money with it.

As of today I am paying special attention to the "showdown%", that is, what percentage of showdowns I won. I remembered that I read on Fuel's blog some time ago that this was a key number and that it should be high (no kidding). And I know that it is a leak in my game that I bet too much on won hands and make people fold, it has been a problem for me for a very long time. Anyway for me it was 57% after playing on Celeb for a couple of weeks. Today I reset the counter and managed to get it up to 65% now.

It is hard to keep checking because you are giving your opponents the possibility of outdrawing you, of course. And on dangerous boards I certainly bet out more. But I am putting an effort into letting my opponents bet for me, only raising (and then only a little bit!) on the river, if I can afford it. Also, if I am not sure I am winning, I just call at the end or even fold.

Heads up games really make it clear how each chip that you lose or that you throw away with a bad call ends up in your opponents' hands. This was always the case of course, but if there are just two of you, this really jumps out at you. So as Fuel said: fold losers, show down winners.

Another thing that I wanted to mention is: how did I ever manage to not cash in a Party SNG :-) OK, I just played one tonight, but it was SO easy. Of course it was nice to get AA twice early on, but I did not make that much money off of those cards. I made a lot more when I flopped two pair with 54s :-) and my opponent could not fold top pair medium kicker: he actually went all-in on it when I wouldn't go away.

I didn't manage to win the game though, in the heads up phase at the end (which should be my strength now perhaps!) I ran QJ into KK. What can you do.

My bankroll at Party is now $30, meaning that I have "freed" $5. My goal is to at least double my bankroll in the next two weeks, before the bonus runs out and I most likely have to return the $25.

Good luck at the tables

A losing month

I lost $99.73 playing poker last month. I had not had a losing month since I bought the Harrington books! Fortunately I had made $450 in October, but still, this is not good.

On the plus side, I have already made a profit of no less than $5.77 this month (i.e. today)! ($40 now - that's better.... won a couple of heads-ups in a row) The heads-ups are not as easy as I first thought. You really need to remain focused, and luck still plays a factor. Just now I had AK all-in preflop against AQ. He made a straight. Fortunately I had been ahead, so I had some chips left. A few hands later I had TT and he called me with A-something. I was out until the river T! Eventually I did win that game.

At Pacific I played in a heads-up tournament. Things went quite well until some idiot could not part with his A3, I had KK, only to be rewarded by an Ace on the river. I could have folded to his river bet and stayed alive, but I couldn't bring myself to do this. It is really hard to fold a hand that had been ahead the whole time. I even played it pretty well, using a strong checkraise on the turn, but he was not impressed :-( However, I did make it into the money!

Heads ups

I discovered a new way to make money playing poker: heads-up games. I tried them a long time ago but was not very successful back then. Now, I have already scored 7 out of 11. This is not spectacular, but the main point is that I am making a profit - and I can use this very well at this time. My bankroll at Pacific had dropped to $30, I got it back to $57 before my last two losses. And three of my losses could easily have gone the other way:

1. after a long battle with one player, he apparently got tired of it and started going all-in on every hand. Eventually I got KQ and called. He had 5-2 and won.
2. Got JJ on second hand. My opponent went all-in! Having no information on him, I decided to call. He had AK and won.
3. After a very long battle (the blinds were already 75/150!) I pushed A5 and got called by KT, which made a straight on the river.

In all cases I was favorite, in the last case even 90% favorite by the river. Clearly, in the long run I will make a profit also in these situations. In the seven games that I won, most of the time I gradually built an advantage until the decisive hands. Of course often the opponent would fight back to equality, but I usually felt that I had the upper hand. I definitely feel very confident during these games.

There was only one opponent that I never got anywhere with, he put me under pressure right from the start. Of course I am only playing $5 games at the moment (see bankroll) so I can expect my opponents to be generally not very strong. I'll be curious to see how this continues.

The most important thing about this however, is that you rarely have to put all your chips on one hand (and possibly suffer a bad beat). Most hands do not go to showdown. Thus events like my recent MTTs do not occur, where you play well for an hour and a half and then lose all your chips to an idiot. Also, in a heads-up game you are playing all the time which is nice; you don't have to wait for good cards like in other games.

Scary

I cannot believe what is happening here. Look at my profit graph in PokerOffice:There seems to be absolutely nothing I can do to stop from losing. Just now, I ran TT into a complete moron who first limped with his Kings and then flat-called my reraise. I think we can all agree that this is a total idiot's move. On the low flop I pushed and he called, of course.

Then a few rounds later I got JJ and pushed. Exactly the same guy from before had also limped into this pot. This time he had QQ.

It really is disgusting.

Another horrible, horrible play

With AQ, I raise to 4BB and get one caller, who had limped before me. Flop QJx, two diamonds. He checks, I bet 1/3 of the pot. What am I, invulnerable? He calls, turn 9, he checks again. NOW I wake up and bet 300. He reraises me to 600.

At this point I just know that he as KT. I mean, how could he make it any clearer? But like a rank beginner, I cannot believe this until I see it with my own eyes. So I go all-in, he calls and shows me his KT. Happy now, Rob?

I don't know why I even bother. I think I was not in the right frame of mind to be playing poker.

Still much to learn...

I did a "poker IQ test" at Donkeytest. So 100 is an average score. My results: Overall, not a great result, but it was nice to see the big plus for the tournament play. This score was apparently better than that of 94% of the people who took this test! I'm also reasonably good at playing blinds (77%) and small and medium pairs (78%). Interestingly, my score with big pairs is much worse (beats only 32%). I suspect that this is once again the old problem of not being able to let go of a good hand.

Also, I am apparently bad at considering flop texture (30%). This news is unfortunately not very useful for me, because it doesn't answer the obvious question about how to improve this...

I am very slow, at least when doing this test (17%) and bad at aggression. I do not know if this means I am too aggressive, or not aggressive enough. I got an additional picture with bars, it says "aggressive 20, passive 18". That is not very helpful.

I also appear to be mediocre (40%) at analyzing betting patterns, and, rather disturbingly, at Logic (36%)! I wonder why?

For some strange reason, I can only take this test once - per email address, that is. I definitely plan to take this test again in a few months or so, to see whether I improved. I must say that the result was a bit disappointing for me, given my very positive results over the last half year I expected a higher score.

It is a real shame that I don't get to see my score per question. That would be a lot more helpful than only this summary. I wonder why they did this. I suppose they might not want the answers to become generally known, because then many people could test perfectly and ruin the test for others. But this could be fixed by stabilizing the scores, and not letting them depend on future test-takers anymore.

I will try to derive the right answers from looking at what I answered and in which areas I performed poorly...

Blog readability

Get a Cash Advance

Interesting...

PS. I suppose my live comments on my recent tournament success had something to do with this. They may have lowered the reading level somewhat...

Steps.............

On the first hand, I get 99. I raise to 200, I get FOUR callers and then somebody pushes. I fold, two players call (AJ and AK, I believe), the pusher has 66... but flops a 6.

Just a few hands later, I get AA. I raise to 200, I get only ONE caller, who has.... K2. Flop 345, turn 6.

Disgusting.

That push

It was really bad. (Or was it?) I am just putting this down here for the future. To refresh your memory, in that €120-game, I did the following.

"Push on next hand instead with 92s. SB calls with KK... I flop 982, and
there are no further miracles. Stack 19k!!"

In that hand, my stack was 9k, average stack at my table was 9.2k. Though the blinds were 400/800 with antes 75, so that a round cost 1725 and my M was 5, my Q was nearly 1 (based only on my table). I had noticed, and written down, that all-ins were not often being called.

With 7 players at the table, my actual M was 3.65. So I could survive 36 more hands, that is not a lot. Nevertheless, we were down to 21 players with top 20 being paid. On the other hand, I was not really interested in a €10 payout after investing €5.50.

What would you do? When I started writing this post, I was convinced it was a bad, possibly very bad, move. But the odds of having a (high) pocket pair (or AK, AQ...) behind you with only 3 players left to act cannot be very high. Finally, this hand set me up for a great result, since with this higher stack of mine people were even more reluctant to call my all-ins.

A new goal

See the list of "biggest wins" to the left? I now have a goal in poker. I want to WIN an MTT. Cashing is nice, but winning is better.

Live as it happened

I made these notes while playing my first MTT at CelebPoker. Sometimes I got a little bit excited. Enjoy. The good news is that I won $120 €120 ($175), erasing more than half most of my recent losses. I am almost back to $2000 profit now.



Level 1 = 10/20. People are completely unimpressed with a raise to 80. In the first
seven minutes, I got AK twice but failed to connect. I also got KQs, same story.
Then QJo as BB, I folded to a raise before me, flop QQx. I would have made a full
house and shared a pot with another QJ who "elected to call".

Down to 900 after 15 minutes, 835 after half an hour (starting stack is 1500).
I am starting to fear getting high cards. I will have to push soon.
Level up in 6 minutes (to 50/100).
I pushed when I was dealt KQo yet again after a minraise to my right. Left called
with TT, as did OR. Board became a flush... Still, this puts me back up to 1340
because one player folded to a flop bet. Level 50/100 now. My M = 9.

Not getting any hands. People seem to be tightening up, finally. I push AJs.
I get called by 33.... odds *exactly* 50%... I win! FLop J, Turn A, river no 3.
Stack 2380 now. Next hand limp-fold QJs, do not connect. Level 75/150, M=10.

The idiot to my left just got knocked down severely, is now below me. Good,
because he was calling way too much. That didn't last long, but now I have JJ!
Push after short all-in. He calls of course. HE IS OUT!!!!! Stack 5095!!
He had AJ, short all-in had A2, so he had even less outs. No wait, he is not
out, he still has 770 chips - now 995.

KQo AGAIN. Minraise before me. I call. I CONNECT!!! He bets flop, I push.
He has QT!!! I WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stack now 9270, M = 30. I am fourth
player overall. HIghest stack is 12225, 81 players left. Top 20 gets paid.
I survive the first hour. I am still 4th, 77 left.

2nd stack sits down to my left, he has 11150. Observe him. AK as SB, folded to
me, I raise to 3BB, he folds. A good sign. Two players at this table are now
above me, one was here the whole time. Now 3 players. I am still 6th with 7 tables!
Seems unfair! Now there are again only 2 above me. Still... I should be first at
the table!

Anyway, taking it easy now, M=30, no hands, no pressure. One player at my table
now has 25k, he is chip leader of course. AGAIN AKo, BB. 3 limpers, raise to 800.
UTG calls with 77 and flops another 7. I lose only 800 more, fortunately.

Stack now 8445 (still nice), avg = 5357. 54 players left. Antes now, M = 17.
Still 8th biggest stack. In 5 minutes, blinds will double! M will be only 8,
boo hoo. Am 4th stack at this table with 5 tables left! Strange.

Damn, lost a big hand as BB when I hit top pair 8 on the flop and tried to win.
Opp stayed around with flush draw and hit on turn. Stack 6545 - below average!
41 players left... Will I survive the second hour? Need to start making moves now.
M = 6, blinds + antes = 1000.

QQ!! Raise to 4BB, TWO Callers, A on flop. That is the end of this tournament
for me. Now I have only 3845 left, M = 4. 38 players left. I am going to push
soon.

A8. I push if noone raises. But they do. Bigtime! Two huge stacks go allin...
THey have QQ and KK, QQ turns a Q.

A6. Push OTB. Blinds fold. Next hand TT! Now I can go out in style.
No, I cowardly fold after minraise, call, and all-in reraise. So does everyone
else.

Next level. My M drops below 2. 35 players left. Need to get a lot of luck.
A8 will have to do. YES, all fold. 5k now, M = 2.5. Not great. Average
stack is 9k, M = 4.5!! Everyone is in trouble. This time I fold A8.
Too bad, everyone folds to SB who pushes. 30 players left.

J9s! Fold when RHS calls. I moved, table full of shortstacks (comparable
to me). Nice balancing they have here. AQ!! Have to push now...
Go over the top of a shortstack. And I win! Phew. 26 left, stack 7500, M=5.

AQ again!! EP minraises, I push. HE FOLDS!!! 9k now, but blinds become 400/800
with 75 ante, so a round will cost 1800, so my M = 5. Avg stack is exactly
12000 now, with 25 players remaining from 200 originally.

11 minutes to the next break. Will I make it? All-ins are rarely called.
KQo as SB... I push, he folds. 9k again. Good, because I just had to pay the
blinds. M=5 still.

People are still limping... What a sight. 22 players left, smallest stack is
1318. I get a free round!! Yippee. Allows me to fold K6 as SB.

I was planning to push OTB with 96o, but there was a caller so I folded. Flop
T66. Push on next hand instead with 92s. SB calls with KK... I flop 962, and
there are no further miracles. Stack 19k!!

Suddenly I am in 5th place. 21 players left. I reached the second break.
After this, level will be 500/1000, round will cost 2500, my M = 7.
(I limped KQ. FLop AKx. I fold to a bet. Turn K.) Now in 6th place (during
the break).

BB, extreme short stack pushes, I have to call with 93 but lose.
Next hand I bluff as SB, back to 17k.

People still know how to fold! I push with 44 in third pos., all fold. 19k. 7th place.
16 players remain. My stack is exactly average. 15 players now. 14.

Next level: round costs now 3150, so my M = 5.5. Still in 8th place with 14 left.
Really want to make the top 10 now. Some guy just called an all-in with KTo and won.

Push with A9o in 2nd pos. All fold. 17k. Idiot calls all-in with K4, loses.

Hit top pair on free flop as BB. Opp calls a bet! Flush draw? He folds to turn
all-in, thankfully. Stack 22k! Still in 7th :-) 13 left.

Push with KJo, again no callers. Stack 25k! 6th position, 12 left.

I guess I should coast to the top 10 now. I AM THERE!! There was a four-way
all-in.

FINAL TABLE! Still in 6th. Nice payouts start at 6th, basically ($50).
Shooting for more of course.

Next level. Round costs 5000! My M is down to 4 now, but never despair...

QT OTB. Fold to UTG raise. Biggest stack is to my immediate left.
22... fold to early all-in. He has AQ, gets called by AK.
Good thing EP went all-in, it would have been my last hand.

People are still limping and minraising. No eliminations yet. Down to 9th now.
Very short stack pushes, is called twice, three times! 77 vs 98 vs KK (one
of the callers folded to a reraise).

AJo! Push in 3rd pos. 8 players left. All fold. 23k. Payout of $25 is assured!
There are two very short stacks now.

Flopped trips as SB, I called due to pot odds. 30k stack now!!! 7 players left,
payout $35. I'm in 5th. Really nice payouts start at 2nd place ($200 and $300)...

I push 55. Get called. by AQ. I WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stack now 60k. Round costs 6600, M=9. Hasn't been this high in quite a while.
Need to slow down now, stop pushing. Having written this, I push on the next
flop that gives me 2nd pair + oesd. Down to 35k again. DAMN. M = 6 still.

Need to cool down for a while! Still 7 players left, avg = 43k.
I will try to wait until the next elimination before I make another move.
Can't take that long...

Nobody seems to be willing - there it is. 6 players left! $50 assured.

Now 5 are left! Hurray, $65 assured. Player who was down to 4k or so now
has 100k. He is playing every hand now, I fold KT after his raise.
Another player pushes though, and he folds.

KQs! Push, all fold. 29k. Fold 78s UTG on next hand. I am clearly in last
position here. Hawkeye (100k) is taking advantage.

Down to 21k after a few more games. Round costs 8k now, so M < 3.

Hawkeye now has 150k!

Blinds pass. Down to 14k. finally get a chance to push, T7. All fold.
And another chance with A8, again all fold! 29k again.

Only 4 now, KJs is gold for some! $80 assured.
One guy only has 12k left. Now he pushes and is called by KQ! He must lose this.
Yes!! Three players left!!! $120, nice.

40k using TT. Others have 50k and 200k.


...... At this point, with only 3 players left, I did not have the time anymore to make notes. One player (X) was sitting out and the other (Y) suggested we steal (share) his blinds, though Y's stack was much larger than mine. Unfortunately, I could not resist pushing QJo into the 77 of Y as BB. This was really, really, really stupid. All I had to do was just fold and raise a bit longer in the right spots, and I would have earned $75 more for free. I was just so on a rush from making it this deep into the tournament, that I couldn't think straight anymore. I was having so much fun pushing etc. Oh well, I can't be too upset about this (and I'm not), I made a very nice profit and by rights should have been eliminated a very long time ago. I should have gone out in 21st place in fact, just outside the money... I guess this sort of makes up for all the bad luck I have been having. It really was extreme. Let's hope that this bad phase is over now.

Now I know what it means to be on tilt

It is simply not to be believed how bad I am running at the moment. I just lost FOUR more tournaments.

1. flopped trips, opponent flopped the same trips with a better kicker
2. made a set on the turn, bet out, opponent stuck around with 64s to make his backdoor flush
3. SB raises to 4BB in an obvious steal attempt, I go all-in with A8, he has AT
4. I go all-in with 22 on a harmless looking flop, opponent calls with 99 (this is the tilting part)

I just cannot believe it. SIXTEEN tournament losses in a row, apart from a single third place in between.

In the last nine days, I have lost $200, bringing my net lifetime winnings back down to $1863. Still a nice amount, but my online bankroll is now down to $124, since I cashed out a lot of that. I still do not intend to make any new deposits ever, so I am forced to drop down to $5 games and hope to work my way back up. In fact the last game above was already a $5 game, fortunately.

I had heard a lot about variance, but experiencing it is something quite different from reading about it.

Oh dear

I seem to have lost ten tournaments in a row. Well, almost, the sequence was interrupted by a single third place in an SNG. It has been quite a while since I had such a streak. Fortunately there were a lot of $10 games in the mix. What happened?

1. 77 as SB, I raise to 3BB (definitely not enough) after all fold. BB calls with 53, flops a straight flush draw! I go all-in on the flop -- too late, as he calls and makes his straight on the river.
2. QQ in EP, I raise to 3BB (a bit low, given that this is the first blind round), player behind me calls with J9 and flops a straight as I flop a set. I think I am supposed to lose all my money here (flop was KQT). I expected to be up against a straight draw.
3. Another double special: I push with KQo in EP (reasonable given my stack and the blinds). The SB has 99 (and flops another 9), the BB has JJ. I fail to beat either hand.
4. The end of the game is missing here. But I played too tight too long. In particular, I got A8 in third position with 9 players left, the first two players folded. Given my M of 7, I probably need to push here. The SB with 96s may or may not have called that. As it went, there were two callers before him and he pushed for 4BB! So it is clear that he was crazy, and I might have lost a bit there (but not all, since he was so shortstacked). Then I got QJ in first position, 8 players left, and again refused to push. A short stack two seats to my left pushed instead and did not get called. Then I refused to push when I flopped an oesd as BB and the SB bet 2/3 of the pot. Dubious perhaps, but I would have given him irresistable pot odds of 8:3. Then I folded as SB preflop, refusing odds of 7:1, and prompty would have flopped a set and turned quads :-(( Finally I even refused to push with TJ after one limper, though the blinds were coming in only 3 hands. WAY too passive overall.
   
5. In a heads-up tournament, things went quite well until I called an all-in of AK with my QQ and lost the race. Nothing to do!
6. I pushed JJ UTG with stack 2800, blinds 75/150. That was way too extreme. AK called and won the race. It was too early to push, I could have just raised to 450 and folded the flop. I might have made a c-bet on the flop KQx, but definitely (hopefully) not more than that, keeping me alive and kicking.
7. A big $20 tournament in which I made several costly mistakes, including horribly overplaying AA. Eventually I pushed for 7BB and the BB called for half his stack with AT.
8. TPTK lost to flopped set + flopped straight draw (who made his straight). Again I was very aggressive (looks like I need to find some balance here! compare 4 above), pushing on the flop JTT with AJ. Quite a bad move on my part.
9. Third place! Thanks to a rivered flush at a crucial stage...
10. Played a turbo game, I should not do that. Missed my only reasonable chance to push and that was it.
11. Lost 500 on the first hand when I played QQ well, but my opponent called preflop with K8 and flopped two pair. Later flopped a flush and overbet the turn, causing my opponent to fold (I was worried that he was on a flush draw). Never really recovered.

PS: and now I lost two more. It is enough to start doubting yourself. In the first, my 88 ran into 77 and, what was worse, TT. Of course the biggest idiot at the table had the TT. In the second, I had a problem which is quite rare: I got too many good cards! At one stage I won four hands in a row, bringing me up to 3000 in chips. The problem with this situation is that you start to feel invincible. So when soon after this, I got AQ and hit TPTK on the flop, I proceeded to give half my stack to the BB who had AA. Shortly after that, I pushed a random hand into JJ in the blind, who proceeded to get a completely unnecessary third J on the flop and an even more unnecessary fourth J on the turn.

I guess I need to drop back down to $5 games or so. Well, tomorrow I will start playing at Celeb, which should be another easy site. But that's what they said about Titan. Oh well, we will see...

A $100 night

Well, this time I had a bit of fun :-) I earned a net amount of $100 in a little more than one hour of play. But the fun was also due to the chatting during the games, which did happen a bit this time.

Also it gave me great pleasure to take all the chips from a complete and total moron, especially given the fact that he had 10 times as much chips as I did at one point. I got some incredible cards! Sometimes you just have those games where very early on you know who you are going to be playing heads-up against (at least if you do not get eliminated first), and this was one of them. He just kept on bluffing and most of the time, did not get called.

We started the heads-up phase with me slightly ahead, because I eliminated the third player with AQ vs AQ... I made my flush. Then, my opponent just started going all-in on every. single. hand. A bit annoying when people do that, but on the plus side, in this case I can just play by the book and let the cards fall where they may. Unfortunately, on the very first hand with 2 players, he caught 22 and I had KJs. I was basically expecting that he was bluffing so I called and lost. This is how he got to have 10 times as many chips as I did.

On the very next game, he had another pair, this time 33! I went all-in with my T8 (forced due to extremely low stack) and was rewarded with a flop 882.
Then the following amazing hand happened. Compare in particular the flop to my opponent's hand.

$250/$500 No Limit Holdem
2 players
Converted at weaktight.com
Stacks:

Hero		($2744.00)
BB		($12256.00)

Pre-flop: ($750, 2 players) Hero is BTN

Hero goes all-in, BB calls $2244

Flop: ($5488, 2 players)

Turn: ($5488, 2 players)

River: ($5488, 2 players)

Final Pot: $5488
BB shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $5488 ( won +$5238 )
BB lost -$2744.00


After this it was mostly a question of folding, either before he went all-in or afterwards. There was just one hand that he folded preflop - I wonder what he had! Eventually I got A2, which was good enough to push with given my still small stack. He called with 74s... Now our stacks were close to equal, but he still had a small lead. After a few more hands that I folded preflop, there was yet another amazing hand. Of course he again had no business calling with his hand, but it was more than obvious that he did not have the faintest clue what to do and was, indeed, just pushing basically every hand, even after I showed aggression.

$300/$600 No Limit Holdem
2 players
Converted at weaktight.com
Stacks:

BTN		($8524.00)
Hero		($6476.00)

Pre-flop: ($900, 2 players) Hero is BB


Victim goes all-in, Hero calls
Flop: ($15000, 2 players)

Turn: ($15000, 2 players)

River: ($15000, 2 players)

Final Pot: $15000
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

BTN wins $2048 ( won +$1748 )
Hero wins $12952 ( won +$12352 )


Two hands after this he beat me with T7 against J7 (flop Txx, turn J...) but three hands after that I pushed with Q8s. That was really dubious. Why did I do that? The blinds were 400/800 by now, stacks were 9k vs 6k. This was just stupid. Anyway, I made top pair on the flop and a flush on the turn (though I did not notice that until just now...) and my opponent got nowhere with his 98o.

All in all, a good night. It did not start of all that well! In the first game I played, I was seated next to some guy who seemed to be pushing with any two cards, so when I got 88 I just went all-in over the top. Unfortunately, there was a guy who had limped with Aces... Normally, a very stupid move, but given that my neighbour was indeed pushing a LOT, he could have expected this to happen also in this game. I had not paid enough attention to the aces player earlier to tell you whether he was just an idiot or cleverly making use of his knowledge about his opponents - which I was trying to do.

BTW, I just had a look at that hand again, the idiot to my left in fact had A9 and the turn was a 9. So even without running into the aces, that would have been basically the end of this game for me. Oh well.

Strange

Warning: philosophical post.

Suddenly poker does not interest me so much anymore. It could be the effect of the vacation = two weeks without poker.

Yesterday I played an MTT out of habit, and finished in the money, but somehow the game does not attract me as much as it used to. In particular I do not feel like playing SNGs again. I know that I can make money doing it, at least, I see no reason why I should not be able to maintain the winning rate that I have had in the last few months, but it is all so automatic. You hardly need to think: at the start you just play very tight, at some point you start stealing in favorable situations, and eventually you either push or fold (but hardly ever call an all-in!)

MTTs contain more strategy, but unfortunately they take a long time (at least when it is going well). Yesterday I reached the money with a short stack and I basically had to play in such a way as to make the next money step, i.e. fold fold fold. Very annoying, though I did reach that small extra step. Another annoying thing was that more and more people started to use all their thinking time before folding, purely in the hope that play at other tables would be faster and other people would be eliminated. Judging from the anemic pace at which people got eliminated near the end, everyone was thinking like this. It is strange, I did not observe this kind of behavior before at Pacific, at least not from more than one player. Usually everyone just keeps barging all-in against one another and the players drop like flies.

So anyway, I am a bit disenchanted with poker at the moment. Another thing is that it is nothing more than a way to make money. I don't need extra money, I have a good job. Why waste so much time clicking buttons? I started playing this game as a way to stay in touch with far away friends, but more and more it has become a solo operation. I should find another, more social hobby. (Chatting during poker games is often quite minimal, at least at the sites where I play. Maybe there are better sites. But still, I could probably have more fun if everyone was not always thinking about the money during play; that is, I should stop playing for money.)

I guess I can keep poker as a fall-back, should I (God forbid) lose my job or something. It looks like I could support myself and my family with it. The prospect of playing poker eight hours a day is not very appealing, however. Probably it would be better to find a real job!


So I am taking a break. Maybe I will be back, who knows. I'll be sure to play the odd poker game now and then, might even report on it. Still, it is good to quit while I am ahead.

How it went - part III

I'm back from vacation, with a nice tan. [Unfortunately, I did not quite reach the stage yet where I can pay for vacations using poker winnings ;-) ] On vacation, I finally read The Theory of Poker. Quite interesting, I learned a few things. But I guess I am never again going to learn as much from a single book as I did when I read Harrington on Hold'Em (OK, two books).

Anyway, I realized that I never finished the story that I started before I left two weeks ago. Here is the thrilling conclusion...

The situation was as follows. A player had just been eliminated, bringing us down to 3 players.
Blinds 1k/2k (rising to 1.5k/3k in a few minutes)
Rob1606 61k
Yiwork 88k (to my immediate left)
Deanb23 13k

So the setting was quite favorable for me, especially because I did not have a very high opinion of the chip leader, but also because I was basically assured a second place here. The small blind could only survive 13 more games.

On the second hand, I got 55 as SB, I raise to 4BB, BB folds. Two hands later, as BB I get 22 and the SB (Deanb23) pushes for 10k. With 60k myself, this seems like an obvious call, given that my opponent is desperate. Nevertheless, while I can assume he does not have a pair, I know that I am only slightly favorite against any two cards (55% or so). Would it perhaps be better to fold here and let him take the blinds this round? I guess I would not be asking this question if I had won this hand :-) but I am interested to hear your opinion.

On the next hand, Deanb23 called and called postflop, apparently only on a flush draw - he most certainly did not get the odds for that call postflop, but he took no further action on the turn and folded to a river bet, so this seems the most likely explanation. This put him right back down to 14k. Very bad move.

On the next hand, I called with 48s for some reason. Well, I was the button, and I guess I was planning to steal on the flop. However, Deanb pushed as BB and this time it seemed prudent to fold :-) I proceeded to get 77 as BB and play it quite badly. Yiwork raised to 3xBB and I just called... Then I tried quite a small bet on the flop (4k in a pot of 13k) and he called, after which I gave up on the hand (the turn brought the third club as well as the third overcard). Of course I need to play much more aggressively preflop. Down to only 37k!

On the next hand, Yiwork flopped trips, checked it behind me (obviously) and I proceeded to hit top pair on the turn. I was lucky in that I managed to keep my loss limited, and I still had 22k after this hand. Of course the flop looked quite dangerous: 988. Things got even worse on the next hand when Deanb doubled up again off of Yiwork! Now the stacks were 22k (me), 108k and 30k...

I then hit middle pair on the K-high flop as BB and raised Deanb's minbet to 3xBB, to which he folded: 28k (vs 26k). My next BB was quite good - KTs - but unfortunately got folded to me. As a result, I decided to fold the next SB myself (97o).

Shortly after this, disaster struck when my AK got beaten by KJ on the river! Fortunately, Deanb only had 15k at this point, and I still had 27k, so I actuall survived this hand, if only with 12k left. The blinds were 1.5k/3k by now, so I just pushed the next hand (Q9o) when Deanb folded, but the BB held JJ... A miracle Queen on the river held me alive. That was the queen that earned me $80 (I think it was), the difference between 2nd and 2rd place. Because on the very next hand, Yiwork hit top pair strong kicker on the flop, while Deanb23 hit top pair top kicker... but Yiwork got a runner-runner flush (actually the river gave Deanb two pair, but that was not quite good enough under the circumstances!).

Situation now:
Blinds 1.5k/3k
Rob1606 21k
Yiwork 141k

So, it didn't look particularly good from here, but given that I could not have expected to have any chips at all here, I was not complaining. On the first hand, I folded with 42s after Yiwork minraised. Then I got K6o so I pushed with my remaining 18k. Meanwhile, I had wished my opponent good luck since we started the heads-up phase, and now he wrote to me "you will need it" as he turned up 44. I guess he thought he was a huge favorite or so.

Flop 8 5 T
Turn 6
River 7

Now who needed the most amazing luck on the river?? This hand hurt, obviously, but even if I had won it my situation would still have been very precarious (128k vs 35k). Oh well. I think that overall I played quite well, of course I made some not so good decisions (like in the 3-player phase) but I think I made lots of good decisions as well, and was happy with my game - and even more with the $324 :-)

Unbelievable

I tried another limit tournament. First I got no hands for 45 minutes. Then I got QQ, raised, flop came an Ace. My opponent bet and I folded.

On the very next hand, I got JJ! I reraised, opponent rereraised, J on the flop. He puts me all-in, I call obviously, and has AKs. Runner-runner flush.

Time for a vacation.

Limit

I accidentally registered for a limit tournament. I saw an MTT was starting in 5 minutes at Party, buyin $33, and I thought: why not?

It seemed weird to me that there were so many small bets and raises at the start, until I finally got a hand I wanted to play and noticed that I did not have a slider......

Anyway, so after half the field was eliminated, I was chip leader :-) The play was horrendously bad, and I got some nice cards too (AA twice, AQ that hit, AK that hit). Moreover my opponents just kept calling on every street.

I had more trouble in the second half of the game though, once running QQ into an Ace (I should have folded when the Ace hit the flop!) and another time running top pair into a river Ace. Eventually I busted out with 66. I flopped a 6 but another short stack who joined me all-in got a runner-runner-straight!! Had I won that pot, I would have earned $50 more.

But I suppose that I cannot complain about finishing ITM in my very first limit MTT and earning a cool $100 :-) (well, $67 after subtracting the buyin, but it was still nice!)

My lifetime profit today reached the magical value of $2000. This includes a $40 bonus at Party that I did not expect to clear - I thought I would have to play 80 $20 games within two weeks or so, but somehow I seem to have cleared the bonus anyway.

I really needed that

Of course, I have been making some profit at Party in the meantime, but it is nice to recover my long string of Pacific losses in one fell swoop:
About time!

A double special

You may have heard of a thing called "the big blind special". This is what it is called when somebody raises to steal the blinds, and the big blind wakes up with a monster hand.

Well, just now I encountered a double special for the first (and hopefully last!) time. I got no cards and was staying quiet, because there were way too many people limping all the time. Eventually I got A8o on the button, and amazingly the hand was actually folded around to me. The blinds were already 50/100, and my M was a little under 6. So I pushed.

The small blind had AA.

The big blind had TT.

How it went - part II

In my last post, I described how I made the money, having 10k chips at that point (average 8k). This was (for me) the first half of the tournament only - there was still a lot of play to come!

A couple of hands later, I got 76s as SB, the button pushed for 1355. The blinds were still 250/500, so it was 2:1 for me to call. I could expect the BB to join me (he would only need to put in 855 into a 3000 pot), so I guess my odds were in fact better. Nevertheless, I folded. Why do I even mention this hand? The BB called, the turn was a 6, and the flop was another 6. However, the BB had K8 and the flop was JT9, so he would quite likely have bet on the flop, forcing me to fold.

Next time I was BB, I got A6, the hand was folded round to me. On the next hand, two limpers wanted to see a flop, but I didn't like my hand of Q6o so I folded. However, unbeknownst to us, the BB had actually gone to the bathroom, and the other two players were both very short-stacked (it was ridiculous that they limped) and did not dare to make a move. Eventually the hand was checked down all the way to the river, and the BB won with 24 by completing an unlikely straight on the river! I had made second pair on the flop A62, I probably would have made a move at some point...

A few hands later, we were 7-handed and I got A9s in 2nd position. I decided this was good enough to raise, the very short SB called with nothing, and this brought me up to 11700. I was then quiet for a round, and then got KQ UTG. I raised to 4xBB = 2400 and nobody took the bait. On the next hand, there was a minraise and a call in front of me, and I felt I had to call with KTo. However, I missed the flop (532), and after it was checked around once, the BB bet out on the turn 9. We both folded.

Another round later, again UTG, I got QJo. We were (still) playing six-handed and I minraised to 1600. The players in the blinds were the same as the previous two times that I raised (except for the one I eliminated the first time). I don't know if this was a factor, but the SB pushed for 4000. This gave me better than 2.5:1 odds so I called, but I did not like it much. He held KJ... but I flopped a Q! This put me up to 14600.

This turned out to be extremely lucky for me, because I got AA on the very next hand, in the BB. The button raised to 1600! I reraised to 4000. This is perhaps too much, actually, I definitely want a call here. Fortunately I did get the call and what's more, when I pushed on the flop 944 he was confident that his top pair was good, so he put in the rest of his stack (7000) with K9s... The cards were both clubs, and I got a scare when the turn put a second club on the board as well, but that was the end of the clubs: 25600. Had I lost the hand before this, I only would have had 11k now!

This hand also put me into the top 10, where the real prizes started. I was amazed to see how aggressive people kept playing, they were getting eliminated left and right. My M was 15 now, so I was in no hurry to join the fun with mediocre cards. However, the first time I was BB on the final table I got AT, and only the SB called for 1000. I raised to 3000, he called and I bet another 3000 on the flop 754. He only had 9k left at this point and decided to try his luck another time.

I did not play another hand until a round later, when I got KK on the button (I could not complain about the amount of nice hands I got in this game). However, my minraise scared them away. I guess this is an OK result at this stage, my M was still 10, there were 6 players left now. I don't really like to limp here.

Another round later, with 5 players left now, I got JJ as SB! I open-raised to 4BB = 6000 and the BB called. The flop was 977 and I pushed. This was a really bad decision on my part (he folded). Here I think I need to take a risk and check it, representing AK. Then I can checkraise him all-in. The risk is of course that he checks. What do you think is best, dear reader?

A mere three hands later, having 34k chips, I got JJ again! This time I was UTG and I again raised to 6k, which the player to my left again called. The flop was low cards again, and this time I "only" bet another 6k. Yet again, he folded. I suppose that this bet looks even scarier than the all-in from before. Anyway, now I had 42k!

I did not play another hand until we were 4-handed (this happened only 3 hands later!). I open-raised from the button with Kx and the blinds folded. On the next hand, I limped for 2k with 87s (stack 40k), and was rewarded by a flush draw + second pair on the flop. The others checked it to me, I bet 4k into a 6k pot, and they folded like good little boys. Shortly after that, I limped Q2 on the button (varying my play) and got rewarded in a big way: the flop was KQ2! It was again checked to me, and while it was tempting to slowplay, I did not like the two diamonds on the flop (there were two opponents) so I did a minbet. Both players folded :-( 45k.

I got no action from AQ UTG, but as BB I hit top pair and finally checked it instead of betting out. He bet, I raised, he folded: 55k! This made me the chip leader! On the very next hand, I got AK, open-raised and the BB, who was really very accommodating, once again called and folded to a c-bet on the flop, which I had missed completely: 62k! However, on the next hand, the player to my left demonstrated how to play JJ by raising it preflop and check-calling the flop. His opponent pushed with 55 and was eliminated, so that that player suddenly had 87k! On the plus side, there were now only 3 of us left, and I was already assured a payout of $160.

In fact, I was counting on at least $320 here already, because I had 60k and the third player had only 11k, with blinds at 2k/1k. However, things would not turn out to be so straightforward...

To be continued - another tournament is starting in three minutes :-)

Dubious hand #1

Taken from this tournament.

The setting: $15 tournament, 108 players, 23 remain. Top 20 get paid, but nrs. 11-20 get a prize which is in fact slightly lower than the buyin (including fee)! The real prizes start at nr.10.

My stack was 7500, blinds 250/500, so I am doing reasonably well: my M is 10. I think that my stack is slightly above average at this point. Oh I can just calculate it from the amount of players that remain :-) Say there are 22 left (to make it easy), we started off with 1500, then the average is now practically 7500. So my stack is basically average.

I limped for 500 with JTs in early position (a bit too speculative at this stage, perhaps?), three others paid to see the flop, which was J97, two spades. (I have no spades.) I bet half the pot and got two callers! On top of that, the turn was an Ace. I was much less happy to see this ace than the previous one (but at least it wasn't a spade). However, my opponents checked this round to me as well. I went all-in for my remaining 6000 chips, I had both my opponents covered and they folded, although one of them had to think about it. I guess that they were both on draws of some kind. Fortunately!! This move could have put me down to only 1500, with the blinds at 250/500.

Was it a bad move? Hard to say. People really like playing Aces, I got a lot of proof of that also during this game. The pot was 5000, my opponents still had 2500 and 4500 left at this point. By going all-in, the pot for my first opponent became 7500, so he obviously had to call (3:1 odds, which is the same odds that he got for calling on the previous round). But he folded. For my second opponent, the pot became 9500, so he got only 2:1 odds and decided that he did not like them. Fair enough. However, if the first player had made the right move (calling), the pot would have been 13000, and he also would have had 3:1 odds to call.

So quite apart from the question of whether or not anybody had an Ace, my betting in this way practically forced them to call (even though they in fact folded). My conclusion should be that I played it very dangerously. Not just by going all-in on the turn, but more importantly, the half-pot bet on the flop! At this stage, I should just be happy to make top pair and just bet the pot, certainly on this draw-heavy board (I underestimated the straight draw when I was playing it, but somebody with QT has an open-ended straight draw). This denies everyone the odds to call, and also makes it clear that it is going to cost them their entire stack to get to showdown here.

Of course, against thinking opponents this scenario does not even occur. Consider the situation of the opponent with 2500 chips. On the flop, he still has 3500 chips, the pot is 3000 when it gets to him and he has to call 1000 to see another card. Calling here is out of the question. When you do that, the pot becomes bigger than your stack, and you have to call any future bets due to pot odds. So if you want to play here, you must go all-in. This has the added advantage that the better (me) may have been bluffing and folds -- although, in fact, I already cannot fold: the pot would be 6500 when it got to me and I would have to call for another 3500, that is nearly 2:1 odds. Certainly good enough with top pair (plus, I might add, an inside straight draw). So the only choices of this opponent were to go all-in and head for a showdown, or fold. As I wrote above, he took the absolutely worst option: first give away 1000 chips and then fold after all...

How it went - part I

This post describes this tournament.

On the very first hand, I got Presto! But the guy to my left, who would turn out to be a complete donkey, raised strongly so I bravely folded.

Hand 9, I got JQ as BB, both clubs. I bet on the two-club flop and again on the J river, my opponent folded. Three hands later I got JJ, but no action.

I then went card dead for a while, but fortunately the blinds were still low. Eventually I got TT UTG and raised to 400 = 4BB. I got one caller, who had A9! A flop of 789 convinced him to bet and call my all-in. The river actually gave him two pair, but fortunately the turn had been a 6... This brought me back to an about average stack of 2730.

Then I got AA four hands later! And even better, there was an all-in in front of me, of a player holding JJ and a short stack. I reraised, which was really not necessary, and isolated on him. At this point, as the cards hit the table, my wife asked how it was going. I said "well, as long as there is no Jack on the river..." and then the Jack hit the river, naturally. Back down to 1430 :-(

On the very next hand, I got 66 in MP, there was one limper. Blinds were 75/150 at this point. I went all-in. My M was 6, I think this move is sort of OK but of course I was upset at losing with my aces. I got lucky when the limper called with AK and I won the race: 3000.

Immediately after that, I got JJ myself! No limpers this time, and I made a standard raise to 450. It seems that my opponent from just now was sort of upset, he pushed with T6d... There were two diamonds on the board by the turn, but fortunately a third one did not appear: 4500.

Only two hands after this, I got AK. (This just goes to show how well it can work out if you are patient and wait for good cards. Of course, sometimes you can wait forever...) I raised to 600 after one limper. The BB called and the limper, who actually had only 775 left at this point and should not have been limping in the first place, put the rest of his chips in. Both of us called. The flop was low cards and my live opponent, with only 900 chips left now, checked it. [Seems he also did not know how to play with a short stack, there is no sense in just calling for half your stack! He had first called for 450 (because he was BB), and then for an additional 325 (the short all-in).] This reeked of weakness and with AK in my hand, I had no reason to think I was behind. I put in an additional 450 into the 2850 pot and my opponent actually folded!! This is absolutely the worst way to play: first to call two big bets, and then to refuse to put in any more chips at extremely favorable odds. He was getting 6:1 odds, although of course, since he is already completely pot-committed (one would think...) he should have considered my bet as a 900 bet, in which case his odds are 3:1. Those are very tempting odds, one would think, certainly with a hand that was worth two big calls preflop... Anyway, so he folded, and the player who was already all-in showed KQ. This brought me up to 6450. In five hands, I went up from 1430 to 6450, very nice...

A few hands later, I limped with J9s OTB. The SB had only 640 left and pushed. The BB folded and I got better than 2:1 odds to call, so I had to call. Because of this, it would possibly have been better to fold preflop: I could have expected the desperate SB to make a move, forcing me to put in my chips for what I could not hope to be better than a coinflip. However, I actually won the coinflip: he had Q5 (and pushed after a limper?...) and I made a runner-runner flush, my only flush in this tournament, I think.

After this the table was just completely sick of me and they kicked me out :-) Or it could have been the server who transferred me to another table :-) Nothing much happened for a while. I open-raised with ATo on the cutoff and got no action. A round later, I open-raised with AJo one position earlier and a total fish with K6o in the BB went all-in! I got 2:1 odds and called, but he made a runner-runner straight... This brought me back down to earth and 4400 chips.

Half a round later, a funny thing happened. The SB pushed when I was BB, but his stack was so short (only 2BB) that he gave me 3:1 odds to call! Given his desperate situation, I had to assume that I had at least 35% winning chances, so I called... with 53o... and won :-) He actually had QTd, a pretty good hand under the circumstances (but not more than 65% favorite against two lower cards). Unfortunately, I lost these chips on the next hand when I called a raise with AJs and missed the flop against three opponents.

So now I again had about 4500 chips, and the blinds were 200/400 by now, so my M was getting smaller. But even before I had to pay the next blinds, I got AK UTG, raised to 1200, a player with 2000 pushed and I had an automatic call. He only had KJo (very strange push...) and I won: 7000.

Then I was BB, and we got a blinds battle. He called, I checked. The flop was Axx and he did a minbet, just like in the previous round. This time however, I reraised him to 1200 (still in the rush of the previous hand, I guess!) and he folded. Always nice to have a scare card on the flop.

Now comes another hand where my play is questionable, to put it mildly. I put it in a separate post. After this hand, I had 11000 chips. A few hands after this, I folded AQo to a raise and an all-in reraise in front of me. The original raiser folded and the reraiser claimed to have had AA. Two hands later, we were in the money, though due to the stupid payout structure at Pacific, this meant a payout of $16.20 -- the buyin had been $16.50... So there was still some work to be done if I actually wanted to make a profit out of this game.

To be continued!