The practice of poker

The end

2008-03-27T12:01:00.002+01:00

So that's it, I'm quitting. My final bankroll at Full Tilt was $770, after taking out $750 earlier (and depositing only $50 in January!). I did not check yet how much I won in total by playing poker, but it most be something like $3300. Too bad the dollar is so low at the moment! Still, I'd better cash out before it drops even further...

Probably I will only post in the future when I play live somewhere, if anything interesting happens.

Thank you for your attention. Any questions?

$22 seems to be the sweet spot

2008-03-20T12:31:00.002+01:00

I have now played twenty $33 games, but I was fortunate to win the last one and bring my ROI up to "only" minus 10%... It seems that there really are more people that know what they are doing at this level. Of course, this is based on a relatively small sample, but some of the chats were also quite insightful. Guess I will stick with the $22 games, if I get around to playing a few more before we move, that is...

About those $22 games, I suppose that an ROI of 55% cannot be maintained over the long run. Still, I have played 45 such games now, and I have also played 61 games at Pacific Poker earlier, where I maintained an ROI of 31%.

This means that I am now maintaining an ROI of about 40% in $20-22 games for over 100 games already. Of course that is still not statistically significant, though you can probably say with some certainty that I am a winning player at this level. (It has been a long time since I did some actual statistics...)

Well, that didn't last long...

2008-03-16T20:15:00.001+01:00

An hour and ten minutes, to be precise. But I played OK. Not great, but OK.

FTP $240 + $16

There are 1637 participants, top 162 gets paid. First place is $70391.

Tried to qualify for this tournament by playing a SNG, but finished 3rd. Still, that did pay $40 net.

Early on, flop a set with 44 and manage to eliminate an extremely short stack: this immediately earns me $40! So even if I get eliminated on the next hand, it has cost me "only" $176 to play.

I bet out 2/3 of the pot with my set because there were 2 diamonds on the flop. One opponent folded after some thought, and the turn was a diamond. I wonder if he was on a flush draw...

Anyway, stack now 3536, average is 3256 :-) I should enjoy having an above average stack while it lasts! There are 1508 players remaining after 22 minutes. Wow, it is really going slowly with eliminations!

Fold A5o as BB to an MP raise. Then lose a blinds confrontation: 3446.

185 players gone after half an hour. This is going to be a long night, if I survive that long!

Stack 3406 after paying the BB, average stack 3402!

Try to make a move in MP which backfires completely. 2866.

Got moved to a new table. Time to run sharkscope again.

Try a steal in cutoff with K6s, success. Then get AKo! Raise to 200 after a limper. He calls after long thought and also calls my c-bet, damnit. With second pair. Beats me! Down to 2416 now. That's how fast you can lose 1000 chips... he had A9.

AK as SB. Raise to 250 when my finger slips, BB folds. Oh well. (BB's stats are still 0/0/0/0 after 13 hands...)

A9 as BB. Get a free ride! Fine by me...

I am 986th out of 1251 remaining. Could be better. Now 971st out of 1238 :-)

It really is going to be quite some time to even reach the money spots...

BREAK 1: 2326 chips. Blinds will be 40/80, so my M is still 19. 1157 players remain, so nearly 500 players have been eliminated in the first hour: not even a third!

Let's hope another 500 leave in the second hour - at least!

JJ as BB, very nice. SB raises after long thought. With AT, it turns out. I reraise him, he pushes, I call, he flops TWO ACES. Not just one mind you, but two. As if to emphasize. Oh well.......

The $75 game

2008-03-16T13:47:00.003+01:00

Buyin was $69 plus $6 rake, so $75 in total. It was a SNG with 45 players, top 6 would get paid.

KQo as BB does not pay off; I call a minraise but have to fold to a potsized c-bet with only an oesd. Later I raise 88, BB calls but fortunately folds to my c-bet on a KKQ-flop (I was not too happy about betting here, but I had to try it). This put me back to my starting stack of 1500.

A round later I get a free round as BB, the first of what would turn out to be quite many free rides... The blinds are up to 40/80 now and my first steal (QTo in MP) works out: again 1500.

I survive an early scare when the SB calls my steal attempt with T2 (hey, I was the button!) but folds to my c-bet on an AJ9 flop. Here I used the fact that from his perspective, my most likely high card was an Ace. Losing this pot would have put me down to 765, but now I had 1645. It could have been a pretty short tournament for me!

A round later, I pick up A6 in 2nd position (out of 7). The blinds are already 60/120, my stack is 1500 and I decide to just push here - my M was only a little over 8. Fortunately all fold.

A funny hand as BB: we check a hand down until the river gives me a single, lowly pair and the SB minbets. I call and it turns out we both have K5 in our hands, so we share the pot!

Steal with JTs OTB by pushing my 1675 chips: 1855. The next time I am BB, I pick up my first premium hand: AQo. But it is folded around to me! The second free ride, but I was not too happy about this one.

Another round later, I have my first preflop all-in confrontation when I push T9 OTB and get called by a short stack with QTs. Losing this would have cost me half my stack. The board: J 8 J (giving me an open ended straight draw) Q (bingo... quite a cruel card here) 4. Now I have 2600, but this is still well below average at this point. It puts me in about the middle of the field.

Since everybody saw my cards, I decide to lay low for a couple of hands. But when I pick up A8 three hands later in 2nd position out of 6, I decide to do a standard threebet, which works: 2835. A round and a half later, I am UTG and pick up JTs again. There are again 6 players at the table, blinds are 100/200 and my stack is 2500, so my M is again a little over 8. I decide to push and all fold. The blinds actually go up to 120/240 on the very next hand, so my M was actually only 7.

My first race of the tournament occurs when I pick up JJ as SB and the button pushes with AQo. The board is 8 10 10 10 2 and my opponent has 147 chips left after this debacle. (Nevertheless, he would go on to finish in the money! In fact, he would remain seated to my immediate right and gave me quite a few free rides later.

On the very next hand, he beats K9 with A3 on a K3x flop and a 3 turn. Two hands after that he beats ATo with KTs (K on flop). The hand after that he pushes UTG and all fold! He now has 1600 again (blinds 120/240). THEN he gets AK as BB and doubles up when AQ pushes: 3400! The next time he is BB after this, he has AQ and beats JJ from the button: 7000. It was quite astonishing to watch this.)

Meanwhile I was just staying quiet, because I was not getting any cards, so I had slowly dropped to 4770 by this time. I then raised first in as SB with A5 and was not very happy to see the BB flat call. The flop came 3 4 7. I deemed this unlikely to have hit my opponent and pushed my remaining 4k into the 2k stack: he folded. (The blinds were 150/300 by this time.)

On the next hand, I called a raise myself with AQo, but missed the flop: 5k. I then got JJ in 2nd position (out of 6) and raised to 1000. The next player pushed and I had to call: my second race! Board 9 5 3 6 10 and now I had 10k... This was clearly above average and put me in the top 3 of about 12 players remaining.

I lose quite a bit of this stack a few hands later however, when my opponent refuses to fold to my steal as well as to my c-bet: 7700 chips left. Next time I am BB, I pick up 55. Only the button calls for 400, I make it 2000 to go and he folds. I pick up 55 on the next hand as well. This time I decide to just limp in, the flop is Q44 but the BB bets out before I get a chance. I wisely fold but the SB raises! Phew...

I raise with ATs against the same player who refused to fold before, this time he fortunately wisens up and folds immediately: 8500. With this, I reached the final table, which I reported on before (see earlier post).

One day profit: $900

2008-03-16T09:54:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I had my best day ever, poker-wise. My profit was larger than that of my third and fourth best month, combined! This is now the third month in which I have made a net profit of over $700. And it did not even start off that well...

Two losses in $33 games: -$72 (rake 2x$3)
Two wins in $22 games: +$150
Second place in $69+6 MTT (45 players): +$701.25
Two third places in $33 games that I played during this MTT: +$46.80
TOTAL: $926.05

I will write a detailed report of the $75 game at some point. I got quite lucky several times, but mostly I was simply very aggressive and managed to get a lot of laydowns when it mattered. The game lasted a little over two hours and 236 hands.

(For the record, I have had 5 losing months, with a total loss during those months of $238.53. My most recent losing month was December. My profit in 2008 is already larger than it was in the entire year 2007... In the last two months (i.e., since January 15th), I have doubled my total winnings! Did you notice that I love numbers?)

One card away from another MTT win

2008-03-15T22:39:00.003+01:00

I was THIS close to taking down a $69+6 game at Full Tilt with 45 players... But the river killed me and I lost on the next hand. Still, a nice payout. First place would have brought me about $350 more.

FTP $69, FINAL TABLE

Stack nearly 8K, blinds 250/500, M=10.5. Am in third position of 9 players remaining...

55 as BB. Not going to go crazy here... SB first in raises to 1555. I push, he folds. Yeah. 9k now.

Limp as SB, fold to push. Still 9k.

I am now in SECOND position!!!! Very nice... Should be able to fold into the money here, but want to see how high I can get. First prize is over 1k. Eight players left now.

KK in 3rd pos. raise to 1800 = 3BB, all fold. 10k!! This is really amazing... Average stack is 8k, number 1 has 19k. Smallest stack has 2k.

The player to my immediate right came back from 147 chips, I nearly eliminated him earlier. Quite amazing, he now has 7k!

AT as SB. Raise to 2400, BB calls!(!) Low flop, I push, he folds. 11641 chips now...

ATs in hijack! Exact same hand as before, hearts. I raise to 3BB, all fold. 12541 chips... Still 8 players left.

AKo in 2nd position... Raise to 3BB... all fold. 13441 chips. People seem to be very afraid of me. GOOD.

AQs as SB! First in, raise to put BB all-in, he folds. 14641 chips. He now is the shortest stack with 1620 chips.

I sure am getting some monster cards here... must make the most of this.

Showdown, short stack wins. Blinds now 400/800, so my M is 12. Still easily in 2nd position, 3rd position has only 7k!

Shorty just doubled up. Four people with stack between 4k and 5500 now.

66 as BB... ANOTHER free round! Amazing. Is Diddy afraid of me? He is a shark!

The top stack is not doing anything, just remaining constant at 20k.

Showdown, 7 players left now: THE BUBBLE.

Try a steal with J9o OTB, success. 15841 chips now. Am closing in on the chip leader!

Four people between 6400 and 5500 now (5500 is lowest stack).

Blinds up to 500/1000, finally we are getting somewhere. Another showdown, shorty wins by making runner-runner two pair against QQ... Loser is left with 1455 chips.

My M is 10. QJo as SB. Button raises, I fold.

ATo as button! Fold after UTG limps.

Shorty pushes, he was going to be blinded out in 3 hands. SB calls. BB as well, good. SB pushes on flop! But loses!! Shorty makes a flush on the river... and immediately pushes the next hand UTG. No callers.

Lose against shorty in triple showdown. Put BB all-in as SB, he folds. 14k.

Blinds now 1200/600, my M is 7 or so. Still in 2nd position, but only barely now!

AM in FIRST position in the very brief period between a showdown and my paying the big blind :-)

IN THE MONEY!!!

Raise OTB with A3o. Blinds fold. 15547 chips. Back in first place. Very nice. Raise again with A8o in 2nd pos, all fold. 17k!!!!

Wow, triple showdown: AK- AT- 99. AK wins, he had the shortest stack, no eliminations.

Five players left. Payout $186 assured.

Blinds now 800/1600, steal OTB and in hijack: 19k! M=7 or so. First position again!

For a little while. No, again.

Wow. I manage to river a straight as BB. 21k.

Raise OTB with A6o. BB calls with AJo, I flop 665....... Now I have 29k!!!!!

Four players left, I am clearly in first position. Payout $300 assured.

Blinds now 2k/1k, M=10...

Staying about constant at 29k. Oops, steal fails: 16k.

Showdown! Short stack loses, payout $500!!

ANOTHER SHOWDOWN!!! HEADS UP!!!!

Equal stacks after a while.

Lose a big pot: 20k vs 40k.

JJ as SB, limp-push. He has A8 and I win. Now stacks are reversed!

Lose all-in AT vs KJ, river is J...
Payout $776.25. Not bad for two hour's work.

More of the same

2008-03-15T15:29:00.003+01:00

I managed to win two simultaneous turbo games again :-) This brought my return on investment for the $22 games back up to 57%, very nice. Since such a game usually lasts about 35 minutes (less if I lose early!), this means that on average I earn about $12 in 35 minutes, or about $20 per hour. However, since I usually play two games in parallel, this comes to $40 per hour. That is not a bad hourly wage, especially since there are no taxes on it...

Nice to know that I have something to fall back on if things do not work out career-wise :-)

On the negative side, I tried two $33 games this morning and finished out of the money in both. One of them involved losing with QQ against 77 (all-in preflop), so I do not feel too bad about this.

I also managed to cash in a $50 MTT - I went out in 27th place, and 27 places got paid, so I earned exactly $7.70 for those three hours of work :-) Still, this marks the highest ever buyin of a tournament where I managed to cash. I still need to see if I could manage to play a $100 game, but they seem to be quite rare.

PS Another nice statistic: according to PokerOffice, I am now making a profit in every position apart from the big blind. Usually of course, the blinds are losing positions. By far the largest profit comes from the button (which is no surprise), but the second largest profit actually comes from under the gun! I was quite amazed to see that.

Oh no it isn't!

2008-03-08T15:13:00.002+01:00

At least, I managed to win a game now (out of the money in the parallel game though), so I am back to $226.

Yes, it kind of IS

2008-03-07T21:43:00.002+01:00

In my last post, I asked rhetorically whether this was the beginning of another downturn for me. After losing the next 4 games, it sure seems like it (see title of this post). Fortunately I finally managed to catch a 2nd place in the 9th game to stop this sequence and avoid the "super tilt" label. I am now down to $176. But like I said, I am not going to worry about losing this money. If it happens, it happens; I will just try to have some fun in the meantime. It is not like it is MY money that I am playing with :-) All of this money was given to me by my friendly opponents... I took out my initial deposit a long time ago!

4 in a row

2008-03-06T23:10:00.003+01:00

Now I have lost four $22 games in a row. Is this the beginning of another bad beat period? In my last two games, I ran into KK and QQ in the blinds... Good thing I cashed out $750 a couple of days ago! Now if I should happen to lose my remaining bankroll at Full Tilt ($238 now), that's OK. The important thing is to keep playing in the same way...

The games:

Push 9-3 OTB with 1700, blinds are 120/240 so my M was 5. There were 5 players left. Get called by KQ (a bit loose), I actually get a 3 on the flop but the river is a King. I think this was a reasonable move by me.
I fell for the old limp-reraise trick with AA. I had AJ, I was getting odds of 2:1, I could not get away from this hand after raising.
Run 88 (SB) into QQ (BB). He thought a long time before calling my raise preflop, and I decided to gamble on a JTx flop. Bad timing!
Again I got tricked by a limped KK (in the BB). I bet out on a 765 flop with T6, he went all-in! This screamed a draw (to me) but of course he had a made hand. Nice hand sir.

Too bad I finished out of the money in my last two $22 games...

2008-03-06T18:10:00.004+01:00

Nice to get this up on Sharkscope :-)

FTP $24, 2nd hour

Eliminated 2 players in the 1st hour. First AA beat JJ in the BB, then KQ beat KT on KTx flop after the turn was a Q...

Am now in 4th position overall! Dropped to 6th since the break.

My stack is 11k, blinds are 50/100, this is amazing... My M is 72! :-) I am also the chipleader at my table, but only barely. There are 149 players remaining out of 364, top 36 gets paid (this is a $7500 guarantee tournament).

Just dropped to 10th place. Not doing anything, but am getting overtaken. Still not much to worry though :-)

Quite a bit of action at my table. Not getting involved for the moment. No reason.

127 players left, 11th place. M=59 :-)

Dodged a tremendous bullet when I folded on a J77 flop with KJ after I bet half the pot and an opponent went all-in with QJ. He made a runner-runner flush...

9400. Raise ATs after 1 limper in CO. BB calls, limper pushes on flop that I miss: fold. 8900. In 18th place now out of 115 remaining, still not bad...

JJ in CO. Raise to 600 = 3BB. All fold. Back to 8900... 23rd out of 103.

QQ in 2nd pos. 1st pos. raises, I reraise to 1400. He calls with 66, goes all-in on an oesd and makes it on the turn. Down to 3678... M is now 12.

Now I am 76th out of 96 remaining :-(

Raise TT to 1000 in MP, all fold...

Raise 88 in 2nd pos to 1000, all fold...

Push AQo UTG, all fold... The last two of these hands were consecutive! Now up to 4178 again (after paying the blinds).

JKo in SB. Fold after early limp and raise.

The antes have kicked in. Round now costs 585, so M is 7. I am 67th out of 84 players remaining. Will there be other people so willing to give me their chips as in the first hour? (And of course I got lucky at the end of the first hour as well.)

Now really waiting for a good hand... Stack down to 3548 after the next blinds passed.

Getting very close to pushing ATC here, given good position... but not getting the chance! Many limps, early raises etc. To top it all off, the blinds just went up to 150/300 plus 25 antes, so a round now costs 675 and my M is only 5.5 or so. 64th out of 73 remaining.

I just got moved to a new table. Maybe it is an advantage that nobody knows me here, we will see... Only 8 tables left now, final 4 tables get paid!

88 in MP. Push. All fold. Back to 4k.

Down to 3300 after a few more hands... I got moved again! Blast, I had just looked everybody up on Sharkscope :-( Now I can start all over again! Used the break to look them all up.

57th out of 62 remaining.

START OF THIRD HOUR

Round now costs 1k, so my M is down to 3. This is not going to be quite enough to make it ITM... Looking to double up here, and stat!

77 as BB, here goes nothing... I actually win a race against AQo! Now ATs as SB. Push after 1 limper, he folds. Now in 33rd position out of 55...

AJo in MP, push. All fold. Back to over 9k now! 31st out of 54. M=9... for the moment.

BLinds went up, round costs 1200, M=6. Stack is 8500 (just paid SB).

50 players remain, only 14 more to go. I might still make it!

36th out of 49. Should be happy to sneak into the money here!

Fold QJo in 2nd pos. 46 players remain! 45. 43. Going now.

Got blinded out in 32nd position, not bad! Eliminated two players, so I earned $15.75.

Goals

2008-03-05T20:54:00.002+01:00

Yesterday Pacific became the third site where I have earned more than $900; my total profit is now $2782, so you can see that the profits are very equally distributed among these three sites (the other two are Full Tilt and Party).

I've stated before that I don't really have any further goals now. However, there is one thing that I like to reach, and that is to have played 20 turbo $22 SNG's at Full Tilt. The reason? Starting from 20 games, the graph at Sharkscope indicates your ROI :-) Currently my return on investment is 90%, earlier it was even above 100%!

After that, I guess I will play a few $33 turbo games to see what that's like. So far, I have not noticed much difference in level. This is different from Pacific, where the level of the opposition is clearly better at the $20 level. This is probably partially due to the fact that Full Tilt simply have much more players; even the $22 games usually fill up within one minute, where at Pacific I usually have to wait 5 or 10 minutes. Nevertheless, we are approaching real money territory here, so I expect most of the $33 players to know what they are doing. We will see...

Three weeks until moving day!

Don't play at Party

2008-03-05T18:29:00.002+01:00

They gave me another bonus, this time $55, and I lost it in three games, but that is not my reason for writing this (it was not my money anyway :-) ).

Coming back to Party after playing at Full Tilt for so long really brought home to me how different the speeds are. Not just that the levels are different, and increase faster at Party as I explained earlier, but I just noticed something which makes this effect even worse: it takes longer to play a single hand at Party!

Compare:

at Full Tilt, I played 700 hands in the most recent 7 hours (420 minutes) (however, this number is skewed because I made it to the heads-up phase six times: in the previous 448 minutes, I played 705 hands)
at Party, I played 350 hands in the last 4 hours (240 minutes), and 577 in the 370 minutes before that

This translates to 1.6, 1.57, 1.46, and 1.56 hands per minute, respectively. Again, the difference is not as large as I thought when I started writing (and thought of the title ;-) ) but it is , perhaps, noticeable. If you play for 40 minutes, using averages of 1.58 and 1.51 hands per minute, you play 63 hands at Full Tilt and 60 hands at Party. Oh well, maybe I overestimated the difference. I may have been biased by the unlucky cards I got at Party last night...

Ah now I know what I should do, look only at games where I got eliminated early (out of the money). Then I get

FT: 55/37, 66/35, 10/10, 54/39, 57/40
Party: 29/24, 2/2, 26/21, 45/36, 7/6, 68/47

From this I think you can see a clear advantage to playing at Full Tilt: the difference is easily one full round in 35-40 minutes. Given that SNGs do not consist of so many rounds, this is quite important.

My eighth successive cash

2008-03-02T17:11:00.002+01:00

This has never happened to me before! I started playing this 90-man game, fully expecting that this would mean the end of my winning sequence. By the way, it seems that $100 tournaments are hard to come by at Full Tilt, I guess not that many people are interested in playing at this level. Probably you can get them during U.S. evenings... Anyway, the highest tournament regularly on offer is $69 (45-man SNG). I thought about joining it but in the end decided to play this $24 game instead.

Again, there were many bad players around. Still, I needed an unnatural amount of luck to make it to the final table, where my run came to an abrupt end...

FTP $24+2, Knockout, 2nd hour

Stack 7430, avg = 9000 (30 out of 90 left). Blinds 250/500, ante 50: round costs 1200. M=7.5 since I just won a pot :-)

The pot went: I raised A6 in CO on a pure steal, BB calls, check-folds flop KKT. Am now 12th out of 30 remaining.

Blinds: down to 8k. AT OTB. Call short push (1230). SHould have isolated here. BB calls, we check it down, we split the pot! Shorty had AJ! Board contained AKKK...

Again 9k!

But down to 7.5k after next blinds, that are now 400/800, antes 700 (in a round). Round costs 1900, M=5 because I just won another pot :-)

I completed as SB, missed the flop, but nobody bet. I had T9, the turn was a 9, the flop had been Qxx. I had to believe I was good here, so I pushed my remaining 7k into the 3k pot. Both opps folded.

We just had a triple showdown, 9-7 beat 77 and QJ... Only 17 players remain! I am in 12th position. We are down to 2 tables.

Had to pay the blinds again, down to 8k again. Not getting a chance to steal OTB with A2.

Rounds now cost 2500... M=3! Desperate.
Push A4 on next hand, get called by AK... Flop a 4, we share the pot!! Other cards on table were TT77.....

Now I have 9k again. Although we shared the pot, I improved because of the very high antes.

Push JJ in 2nd pos. Called by K8!! And I win!!!! WHAT a moron... Now I have 20k suddenly, M=8.

AQs as BB! Lose a race to 5-5, down to 12k. Actually flopped an Ace, he rivered a 5...

Push J7 in CO, BB folds after LONG thought, phew! That immediately brings me back to 15k. But a round now costs 3k, so my M is 5.

Still 15 players left, it is going slowly. Next break in 36 minutes.

13 left. I have 11k now. Round costs 3800, M=3..

KJ OTB. Push after limper. OOPS!! after two limpers... but both fold!!!! very lucky here.

Push again on next hand with AKs. All fold. Suddenly up to 21.5k. Should really make the money here... 88 > KQ, 11 players left!

T9s as BB. Fold to push, obviously. Am in 7th position.

Push A7 as SB, BB folds. 22k. Fold 54s in next hand after limp and minraise.

Round now costs 4500... Blinds are 1k/2k!

Down to 17700 after blinds. I push again as SB, this time with K7 (is this a bad move? I had pushed against him in the previous round as well); BB calls with A6 (??? this IS a bad move, I would say) and I RIVER a 7 after being behind the whole time. Very, very lucky.

Now my stack is 38k and I am in 2nd position overall. Round now costs 5k, so my M=7. Only 10 players left. Definitely not going to take undue risks now.

Showdown! AK vs QQ, short stack LOSES, I am IN THE MONEY!!!

FINAL TABLE

Let's see how deep I can make it. Payout already $45 (net $21). Just $4 more and I am above $1000 at Full Tilt.

A8s as BB. Fold to UTG raise.

Round now costs 8k!! My M is just slightly above 3, but I am still in 3rd position.

Push KTo, AK calls... and wins. But another player lost in the previous hand, so I finish 8th, $54. Bankroll at FTP now $1004. Very nice... Unlucky about this last hand, but of course very very lucky on earlier occasions.

Tremble before me

2008-02-28T08:55:00.005+01:00

Could also be titled: This Is Not a Photoshop (of course, you can easily verify the above picture by going to www.sharkscope.com and looking for Rob1606 at Full Tilt)

or: I Have No Further Poker Goals Now

or: My Best Month Ever

Note also the "Form" column... This classification is due to the following sequence:

I never expected to achieve either "Shark" status or "Super Hot". To achieve both at the same time is something very special. My bankroll at Full Tilt is now only $24 shy of $1000, meaning that I have multiplied my initial deposit almost by 20 now...

$150 in 40 minutes

2008-02-27T18:29:00.004+01:00

Probably my best result per minute ever: I just won two simultaneous $22 turbo SNGs at Full Tilt.

The $700 that I won in a Steps game does not count of course; I first had to win 5 other Steps games to even be allowed to play that game. And all my tournament cashes cost a couple of hours before I was eliminated (or won :-) ).

This makes things like losing with a full house to a flopped straight flush (!) bearable... My bankroll at FTP is now $865, after depositing $50. $65 of this is due to bonuses that I cleared.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$22 + $2 Sit & Go (Turbo)
7 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		(1175)
UTG+1		(1700)
MP		(2305)
CO		(1155)
BTN		(3265)
Hero		(2350)
BB		(1550)

Blinds: 50/100

Pre-flop: (150, 7 players) Hero is SB

1 fold, UTG+1 calls 100, 2 folds, BTN calls 100, Hero calls 50 (standard completion as SB after two callers), BB checks

Flop: (400, 4 players)
Hero bets 300 (a good flop for me obviously, but I do need to protect my hand immediately against possible straight and flush draws, so I bet out strongly, 3/4 of the pot), 1 folds, UTG+1 calls 300 (after some thought, or so it seemed. In fact, my opponent was in shock), 1 folds

Turn: (1000, 2 players)
Hero goes all-in 1950 (after a completely harmless card on the turn, I definitely want to win this pot right now. My opponent thought for a long time, or so I thought. I became convinced that he had a diamond, but in fact he was not thinking at all but simply typing in the chatbox...), UTG+1 says "my best flop ever in 3 years", UTG+1 calls 1300 (and then I saw what he actually had)

River: (4259, 2 players) (so me making a full house is irrelevant here--that does not often happen...)

Final Pot: 3600
UTG+1 shows:
Hero shows:

UTG+1 wins 3600 with a straight flush, King high ( won +1900 )
BB lost -100
BTN lost -100
Hero lost -1700 with a full house, Kings full of nines

A $50 tournament

2008-02-24T13:27:00.003+01:00

I know I talked about playing a $100 tourney, but this one happened to be starting, with not too many players (225) so I decided to jump in. I can report that there is definitely a difference in skill level noticeable. For one thing, people simply get eliminated much slower. This is also due to the excellent blind structure at this buyin: 12 minutes per level! After one hour, only slightly more than half the contestants were gone, as opposed to two thirds at lower buyins.

I am not very happy with the way that I played. I was seated immediately to the left of a complete idiot who could not lay any hand down. Unfortunately, I did not manage to hit any of my draws against him, so I ended up giving him quite a few chips.

Remarkably, it seemed that I was not the only one who was playing above their level. I checked all my tablemates at Sharkscope and the highest average stake that I found was $25 or so. There were many people that on average play for less than $10. Apparently many of these people cannot resist taking excursions to higher buyins--like me I guess, but at least I made sure that I first earned $500 before risking $50...

FTP $50, 2nd hour.

1205 chips, started with 2000 :-(
Am in 100th position out of 105 remaining. Still, due to the excellent structure, the blinds are now 40/80 so my M is still 10. No need to give up just yet... I am not even the shortest stack at my table! One player has 670.

120 out of 225 players left in the 1st hour, this is slightly less than would happen in a $5 tournament (but it is still 53%, compared to 67% in lower buyins).

AA just got cracked by 86s (quad 6s!) so now I am even the 3rd lowest stack at the table.

The same player almost lost with KK against 96s on the very next hand, due to two sixes on the board, but spiked a K on the river to make a full house.

Just missed my chance to make a full house when I check-folded 82 on a 432 flop, all clubs. Turn 2, river 8... I would have beaten a flopped flush.

Try to steal with K9o in CO. Success! Back to 1205.

AK UTG. Raise to 240 = 3BB. One caller. Miss ragged flop, push anyway. She folds, phew.... 1485!

Sick sick sick. Lost to a complete idiot to my right, who has been annoying me for the past hour. He is SO stupid, cannot lay down anything. He made his flush on the river and bet the pot...

Down to 1035, blinds 50/100, M=7. 93rd out of 96 remaining.

Push KJo in 2nd pos. No callers! 1185. 80th out of 88 remaining.

Push 33 as BB after 4 limpers. Two callers!! QQ and 66... Out in 87th place.

PS: by playing this game, I released a $25 refer-a-friend bonus as well as $5 of my deposit bonus. I also played a $11-turbo SNG (I LOVE these FTP turbo games) simultaneously with this tournament, finishing 2nd, so I made a net profit of $17.70 there. So overall, losing this $55 game has cost me only $7.30 :-)

Disenchantment

2008-02-19T21:06:00.003+01:00

First a nice graph. Can you tell when things started looking up for me at Full Tilt?

Nevertheless, again after being away from poker for a week or so, I notice that the game bores me. I still have the plan to play some $100 tourney, but I think I will retire from online poker when I move (in a month or so).

I did play some live poker last week, for the first time ever. It was quite interesting. We played some $5 SNG's. I did not manage to win any money, but it was not so easy because we were playing winner takes all with 6 players. The first game I lost heads up when I called an all-in on the first heads-up hand with A2 against what turned out to be 66. My opponent had been bluffing throughout, but even bluffers get good hands sometimes! But it was a bad call.

In the second game I lost with 77 against AK held by the same bluffer as before. Well, what can you do.

But it was quite an experience to play live poker, it really is a whole new world. I realized later that I was looking at the cards on the table when I had nothing and was waiting to check/fold, and was looking at my opponents when I had a set. This would be something to work on before the next game :-) Of course you need to pretend to care about every hand as long as you still have cards! I did not look enough at my opponents anyway. So I also do not know whether they exhibited the same behavior.

Times twelve

2008-02-13T00:10:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note before I turn in: in the last month, I managed to turn a $50 deposit at Full Tilt into $600. The last $100 or so was earned mostly by playing $11 turbo SNGs. I never used to be very good at these, but the structure at FTP is much more suitable for playing turbo games. The games still last fairly long: it typically takes 35-40 minutes to win one.

I am planning to play in some really big tournament, like a buyin of $100 or so. Just to see what it's like...

A thought about odds

2008-02-08T11:50:00.000+01:00

PokerOffice displays your odds to improve in green if they are better than your pot odds, indicating that you should call in this case.

This is, of course, nonsense.

To be precise, it only holds in one specific case:

your opponent has a made hand
you have nothing (well, a draw)
if you do not improve, you lose the hand
if you do improve, you are guaranteed to win

I guess I was somewhat aware of this already, but I think it is important to write this down. I was given a very clear example of this situation in my latest game: I had 33 and I limped (possibly called a minraise). The flop was 542, and it got checked round to me. I bet out for two thirds of the pot or so, and I got checkraised all-in.

At this point I looked at my odds in PokerOffice. I was not happy about the situation, but the combined odds of making trips and making my straight (1.6:1) were slightly better than the pot odds I was being offered (1.8:1), so I called.

My opponent flipped over 9-8 offsuit for a total bluff. I had not even considered that I might be ahead... I should have though, it was (somewhat) reasonable that he might have AK or something, and figured he had showdown value.

In general of course, deciding whether or not to call should be based on much more than just comparing two numbers (pot odds and your odds to improve).

Your opponent may improve. More generally, you might improve but still lose. For example, in the case above, he might have had an Ace, so that a 3 on the turn or river would give me trips but still kill me.
You may have implied odds. When you are on a flush draw, you can call against the odds (up to a point!) in the hope that your opponent will put in more money after you make your flush.

The game really is not that simple!

Lies

2008-02-05T20:36:00.000+01:00

Last week, I referred you to the MTT series by Bond18. This is perhaps the comment that most struck me from his series. He wrote a part about lies that you have been told in the past. Here is Lie #1:

“You can find a better spot”: What? What the fuck? Listen, any spot that’s good, by which I mean ANY SPOT THAT IS +EV/+cEV is a spot you should take. Now, are there occasionally spots that are +cEV but you should fold because they're –EV? Yes. An obvious example is folding AA in a satellite where you have a seat guaranteed. Want a better example than something this simple? Okay here’s one:

I recently played a live 3k event in Melbourne with ~440 entrants. The structure was very deep, very slow and had high antes. 40% of the field was freeroll qualifiers and probably less than dozen players in the whole field were actually good tournament players. If I was BB the very first hand with a 20k bank at 50/100 with 22, and it folds to the SB who shoves his whole 20k then flips up AKs, I would fold. However, it really does take an example that extreme to make me consider passing up a +cEV spot. SO STOP DOING IT!

After I read this, I started accepting coinflips early in SNGs. E.g. call with AK if you raise and somebody pushes. This is a call that clearly has a positive expectation: you get good odds against almost any pair, and may also be up against a bluff or a hand like AQ/KQ.

I will report on how I like this after a while. I never did like laying down these coinflips, and I am glad to have gotten an excuse for taking them. Of course it will lead to some early eliminations, but poker is and remains a long term game, and the long term profit is what I should be optimizing.

Good luck at the tables

PS: Bond18 basically repeats his point in Lie #3:

“I didn’t want to risk it on a coin flip.” This has got to be one of the most common. Here’s the simple truth with most probable coin flip situations: at the point you’re considering folding knowing you’re likely in a coin flip, there’s already probably way too much money in the pot to ever fold. If you raise AQo 3X and a guy shoves 15-20X, and you figure his range is AJ+/66+ (You’re about 43.5% against his pretty tight, never stealing range, and still basically flipping) you ARE NOT folding. There’s nothing wrong with getting it in on a flip as long as it’s a +EV one, which most are, especially once antes kick in.

The difference between $230 and $0

2008-02-03T17:40:00.000+01:00

I just won ANOTHER MTT; this time it was a 90-man SNG at Full Tilt. The hand below occurred on the bubble (10 players left on two tables).

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$10 + $1 KO Sit & Go
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		(19775)
Hero		(16765)
BTN		(22930)
SB		(18791)
BB		(19448)

Blinds: 800/1600 Ante 200

Pre-flop: (3400, 5 players) Hero is CO

1 fold, Hero calls 1600 (definitely limping here), 1 fold, SB calls 800, BB checks

Flop: (6800, 3 players) (well, not much can go wrong on this flop!)
SB checks, BB goes all-in 17648 (top pair I guess), Hero calls 14965, SB folds

Turn: (39663, 2 players) (At this point I had seen my opponent's hand: 22. I could not believe my luck. I was thinking that I was out, unless...)

River: (39663, 2 players)

Final Pot: 35730
BB shows:
Hero shows:

BB wins 2683 ( lost -16565 ) with three of a kind, twos
Hero wins 35730 ( won +19165 ) with a straight, five high
SB lost -1600
-------------------------------------------------------------
FTP $10 90-man SNG, 2nd hour

Stack 10k = exactly average.
Blinds 250/500, antes 50, round costs 1200, M=8.

This is a knockout-tournament: each person that you eliminate earns you $2. However, I did not knock anyone out so far. 25 remain, top 9 gets paid. 12th position.

Q3 as BB, check top pair on flop, bet turn K, he folds, phew. 10.8k.

Round now costs 1400, M=7. 20 left.

Raise with A6o in MP. Short SB pushes, gives me odds of 3:1, I win the race (he had 33). My first knockout bonus! And more importantly, my stack is now 16k, M=11.

18 players left. 9 more to go... I am 7th.

Eliminate another player with 99 vs A6 (I make a full house!). Steal with A9 OTB. Stack now 20k! But round now costs 2250 (with 6 players at the table), so my M is 9.

I am starting to like these Full Tilt turbo tournaments... People seem to feel pressured to make bad decisions even sooner.

I am now in 7th position. Get a free round as BB! Nice, I had 5-3.

Round now costs 2700, M=7.5... 12 players left. 11, hand for hand play starts! 10.

Round now costs 3400... M=5. Stack 17k. Shortest stack has 11k. Darn, now 18k.

AA..Call. BB has 22, flops a 2, pushes, I call, I get a runner-runner straight.... 35k!

AJ as BB. Eliminate same opp with 66, flop AKA...

40k! 3rd position! 8 left now, so I get $21. Nice payouts start at top 4 ($80). Should outlive a few players here...

AQ in 2nd pos., raise to 3BB, all fold. 44k. Round costs 5k now! M=9.

Win HU vs BB, 44.6k. 7 left, payout $28.

QQ in 2nd pos, reraise after UTG raises. He calls, folds to my pot-sized push on flop T88. Stack 61k, oh yeah. But a round now costs nearly 6k, still OK: my M=10!

I am in 2nd position! Top stack is 100k.

Raise AJo in CO. BB calls, folds to my c-bet on low flop. 66k. BB was top stack by the way, he now has 91k.

Limp KT UTG, flop AKx, BB folds to my minbet. 67k after paying the blinds. Another player was eliminated meanwhile, so I get $43. Steal with A4: 73k.

Top stack loses another hand, now he only has 75k!

Limp KJo, no luck this time. 66k after paying BB.

KK as SB... Button pushes 44! 90k! Call a short push with AJ: win again!! 111k! Only four players left!

33 as SB. Fold to raise - he had KK! And gets beaten by 33!

I am chip leader with almost twice the stack of nr.2. Am already assured of $80.
First place is $230.

Raise J9o UTG. Button pushes, I fold. Now he has a similar stack to mine.

Time to take it a bit slower maybe... Although, round now costs 8k, M=10.

Lose a "small" pot, stack now 71k.

Call with QQ. Button pushes again, I call. And win. Payout $100, third place assured.

Shortest stack has 33k, other two stacks are 115k - 110k (me).

93k.

78k.

67k.

Round costs 10k.

64k. Finally, get a free round.

Steal as SB and as button: 80k!

Bottom stack has 40k. Not anymore, he's out. Heads up with 3:1 chip deficit.

Win showdown: I lead! Opponent pushed 77 on Jxx flop, I had a J...

165k.

199k.

221k.

I win.

Biggest hand of the night

2008-02-02T17:16:00.001+01:00

I actually won more chips on several other hands, but this was definitely the most important hand of the night. Thanks to this hand, I had a relatively straightforward path to the payouts...

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$10 + $1 Tournament
8 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		(2850)
UTG+1		(5015)
MP1		(6080)
MP2		(5455)
CO		(12235)
BTN		(3980)
Hero		(6960)
BB		(5505)

Blinds: 250/500 Ante 50

Pre-flop: (1150, 8 players) Hero is SB

UTG goes all-in 2800, 3 folds, CO goes all-in 12185, BTN calls 3930, Hero says "here goes nothing....", Hero calls 6660, 1 fold, CO says "omg blah"

Flop: (27131, 4 players)

Turn: (27136, 4 players)
CO says "one outer"

River: (27141, 4 players)
CO says "blah"

Final Pot: 21450
BTN shows:
Hero shows:
UTG shows:
CO shows:

Hero wins 21450 ( won +14540 )
CO wins 5275 ( lost -6910 )
BTN lost -3930
UTG lost -2800

That MTT that I won

2008-02-02T16:09:00.000+01:00

I did not have that much time, so I registered for a turbo tournament. Actually, I registered for two turbo tournaments simultaneously :-) One at Pacific, a heads up tournament, and one at Full Tilt. At Full Tilt, turbo means 5 minutes per level, and given the very slow level increase, it is still not that fast. This is where I earned $165 (see last post).

At Pacific however, the blinds increased every 3 minutes. Still, I decided to join since I had cashed in several of these heads up tournaments before. Unfortunately, I don't have a record of my play, since PokerOffice does not work with the new interface that Pacific asked me to try out.

As I wrote right away, I lucked out a couple of times, but I also had some opponents that tried really very poorly timed bluffs (I guess that also falls under the heading of "luck"). I went through five or six opponents during the game. The first match lasted quite a while, the penultimate one was very long, and the last match lasted all of two hands!

I think the match two matches before the end was also quite long. I remember checking whether I had already made the money. Several times, I was on the verge of going out.

The last match started when there were 6 players left. And it in fact lasted so long, that when it was over, there were only 3 players left! That meant that I had to wait for the other two players to finish their match before I could play again. At first I thought this put me at a disadvantage (though it was of course nice to automatically reach 2nd place without playing any hands in the meantime...), but then I realized that the increasing blinds were to my advantage here.

The longer that their match lasted, the less severe my disadvantage would be! I could see that whoever won was going to have about three times as many chips as I had. However, since the blinds were now getting close to something like 1/4 or more of my stack, this meant that the longer their match took, the fewer hands I would have to win afterwards to get back to an even footing.

And in fact, when we were finally heads up, my opponent pushed on the very first hand, and I held TT... He had a shitty hand, I forget what it was, and I won the race. This immediately put me into the lead! And what's more, on the next hand he pushed as well. This time I had K9, and given the huge blinds by now, I was getting good odds to call. I got a K on the turn or the river.

It was a very strange feeling to see those cards, see the money slide to my direction, and know that I won the game; that there were going to be no further hands to play. But very nice too...

A good night....

2008-01-31T20:59:00.000+01:00

Read'em and weep! (I only started taking notes in the 2nd hour; in the first hour I was playing the heads-up tournament in parallel (see my previous post below!)). [To keep a perspective, always important after a win, my overall net profit is still below the maximum value that I ever reached, back in November. But it is getting close...]

$10 FTP Turbo, 2nd hour

KK, three all-ins before me. I call, they have AQ, QQ, 66. There is no A, Q, or 6 on the table, and I scoop a huge pot: 21k. This put me into 2nd place in the tournament.

Some steals fail: 16k. Blinds are 300/600 with antes, so my M is now 10, 4th place.

23 players left, top 18 get paid.

KQo UTG, I raise to 3BB, all fold: 17k. 22 left.

77 as SB... call button raise, lose to AA!
Down to 12k, he was short.

KK beats A9: 21 left.

22 in CO. Raise to 4BB, all fold. AQ in next hand. Raise to 4BB again, all fold.
15k, round costs 1900, M=7.5. I am in 5th place with 21 left. Fold A9s UTG. Would have won.

BB A8, folded to me. 16k. Fold SB 4-2. 20 players left, 2 more to go.

Raise A5o in CO, all fold. 17.5k. Shorty wins showdown, too bad.

Together with BB I push out the shortstack, 19 left!! Hand for hand play now. 18.5k, still in 5th place. Avg. stack is 13k.

Raise A9o in 2nd pos.(from 6), all fold. 20.5k.

QQ as BB... FOLDED to me! Blast. Blinds now 600/1200 + 150 ante, round costs 3150, M=6. I am IN THE MONEY!!

TT in CO. Push over short push, he has 77. I win. 28k. I AM CHIP LEADER!!!!!!!!

Not for long, some guy wins a big pot. Still, nice while it lasted :-) And another one, down to 3rd position now! Still, am in excellent position to make the final table here.

KQo UTG. Raise to 3BB. BB calls with... T4? Well, he had a tiny stack. AJ as BB...
I fold when I miss the flop, my opponent has the same stack as I do, this is no time for heroics. Fold my SB as well.

Still 29.5k. Raise KTo OTB, blinds fold. Call A9s in CO, button calls! Didn't count on that. 31k. I am at a 5-player table now! Wow, that went really fast, only one more player needs to go before I have reached the final table.

Blinds are now 1000/2000 with antes 250 (did I mention that this is a turbo tournament?), round costs 4250, M=5.

YES- final table is here!!

Payout of $35 assured. Nice prizes start at top 6 ($90). First player leaves, already payout $50!

AQo UTG, raise to 6k. BB calls with A9, pushes on flop A, and spikes a 9 on the river. That's it for me... (At this point I expected to go out in a few more hands.)

I am now down to 5k and have by far the shortest stack. The only question is how long I can still survive. I will-

I was just going to write I had to settle for an eighth place, when there was a showdown between two big stacks! (Well, they are all big compared to me...) SO now I will get at least $62, still nice...

Fold A7o in 2nd pos. BB pushes.

Down to 3.8k, UTG, BB costs 2.4k. Fold. And I get 66 as BB... SB obliges, raises with K4, and I actually win the race. Now I have 7.5k again, and can survive another round.

OMG, another showdown!! 99 vs AT. AT wins, too bad 99 still has 70k chips...

Oh great, blinds went up, now 1.5k/3k. Not that it makes that much difference to me...

Really too bad 99 didn't win that, would have earned me $30! ANOTHER showdown now!! YES!!! Largest stack wins! Now I get $90!

Q3 as BB. Button raises, I have to call and actually make a straight on the river... Now I have 14k, but completing SB and losing brings me down to 10k. Push K9o. All fold: 17k!

55 UTG, I push. All fold. 20k after paying the BB (3K). Yet another showdown... Blasted, short stack wins again. 33 as SB.
I fold after a big raise and call. Again the short stack wins. Push K5o as button, all fold. 26k. I am actually in 4th position now out of 6! ANOTHER short stack wins a showdown.

QT as BB... Fold to MP raise. Fold SB as well. 18k. ANOTHER showdown. A8 vs 33. A8 wins, I am actually assured of $123 now...

And I am not the shortest stack! Now I am, the short stack just lost. I am now 4th, but my payout is now $165, this is quite incredible. Will I outlast another player???

Now have 11.6k, round gets folded to me, 16.5k. Push 78s. BB calls with 64... and wins (flops a 4). What a game.

I won an MTT

2008-01-31T20:09:00.000+01:00

I never thought I'd see the day... Too bad it was only a $1 buyin :-) Of course, I had a LOT of luck during the tournament. I will write a report at some point...

It's the structure, stupid!

2008-01-31T12:08:00.000+01:00

I realize why I am doing so badly at Pacific, I have been getting spoiled by the slow structure at Full Tilt... Now, playing at Pacific is like playing a turbo game for me! And I never was any good at those.

Lots of losses

2008-01-30T21:54:00.000+01:00

I seem to have forgotten how to play poker at Pacific - I have now lost six games in a row there, in total $45... Or perhaps I have forgotten how to play without the helpful hints of PokerOffice, since Pacific asked me to try their new interface and PO does not work with that.

Oh well, back to Full Tilt for me...

No news is good news, unless it's bad

2008-01-29T14:00:00.000+01:00

I find that I have not so much to write about recently. My SNGs are going nicely at the moment (yesterday: played 2 simultaneously, one second place, +$5). But even if they weren't, what can I say about them? It remains true that much if not all of the play in those games can be automated. Sometimes you win the races, sometimes you lose them.

At the moment I also lack the time to play MTTs; even if I had the time, various subtle hints thrown my way have indicated that these are not my most interesting posts. Not that I care, I write this blog for myself, to learn from it. But I seem to have reached some sort of plateau, I am not making any real progress towards playing better poker. I should probably read more about the game again. While I will never again make a jump similar to when I read Harrington on Hold'Em, there is surely more progress to be made.

With that in mind, I recommend the following postings (bottom of the page, by Bond18; read the whole series!).

I am BACK

2008-01-27T17:37:00.000+01:00

I just cashed in two simultaneous $10 games again. Still did not manage to win any of these games, but at least I am reaching the money spots now! It is a great feeling to be playing at this level again. I have now doubled my Full Tilt bankroll (from $50 to $108). It is actually still too low really to be playing $10 games, but I will continue to play it somewhat safe. My new lower limit is $75, so I can afford to lose three games in a row before I have to drop back down. But hopefully, I have left these $5 games behind me for good now...

Also, my form at Sharkscope is "Hot" again, very nice. However, I should keep a proper perspective, I have now played 8 of these $10 games at Full Tilt and my overall result is -$25 for these games, so I still have a loss to make up here (my overall profit at the $5 SNGs is now $73, and at the $5 HU games it is $22; almost $100 in total!).

My recent games

2008-01-26T14:59:00.000+01:00

I guess that any post of mine could be titled like this...

I managed to win five heads-ups in a row, four at Full Tilt and one at Pacific
I cashed in two simultaneous $5 games: a 1st and a 2nd place (where my opponent got quite lucky at the end: he raised, I reraised, he put me all-in. I gladly called with TT, and he had only K3(...) but of course he immediately flopped a K. Still, it was a nice result: a net profit of $25 in a little over an hour's play.
For the first time ever, I cashed in a $10 game at Full Tilt: a third place, hurray... I played two simultaneous games here as well, but I guess I got too impatient in the other one when I raised and then pushed A9 after a reraise by what turned out to be 99. So in these two games, I paid $22 to play and earned $18, but fortunately the second $5 installment of my bonus was released at the same time, so I did make a profit here...

I noticed during these last $10 games that I actually felt more relaxed at this level. I have the feeling that people fold more often when I push, which is always something to look for in opponents. So my next games will also be at this level, even though I do not really have the bankroll to sustain this: I have $85 at the moment. If I drop to $60, I will go back to the $5 games again...

Oh yeah, I also saw the most amazing hand happen today, fortunately I was not involved in it: KK was all-in preflop against AA. The flop was AQT, giving the AA player a set of course but also giving the KK player a gutshot draw.

The turn was a K.

The river was a K.

I have never seen anything like this before...

Two simultaneous wins

2008-01-19T18:35:00.000+01:00

This has also been QUITE a long time ago: I played two SNGs at the same time and won them both! I really needed that, my bankroll at FTP had again dropped to $35. Now I have $70 again, that looks a lot better. I hope that I can maintain this level now... My profit graph at FTP is also looking like a rollercoaster at the moment :-( My ROI at the $5 games is quite OK though, it is 40% now, about the same as my ITM%.

This morning I had tried to play three SNGs at the same time, but this only resulted in a 7th, 6th and 4th place. I think I will stick to no more than two of these games at the same time...

Another MTT

2008-01-19T13:25:00.000+01:00

Another blowout... I have marked the most important hands in red.

$5 FTP

Call 105 raise with 66, miss flop.

Raise to 120 = 3BB with QQ. Medium stack pushes, limper calls this push. I push, he calls this too... with AT. The pusher had K9. I was thinking "A or K and I'm dead." The flop was... Q33. Stack 3500, average 2317.

Limp 88, miss flop. Already 3 pocket pairs in 21 hands!

And there is the fourth: 22. I accidentally fold, but miss the flop, which is Ace high. 112 players left out of 190, top 18 gets paid. My M is high.

QQ again!! Raise to 150 = 3BB. SB calls, checks flop. I CHECK, flop was J96, two diamonds. Now he bets the pot on a low turn! I flat call. The river is K. He checks, pot is 1000. I bet 200, he calls with JT. Very nice, very well played if I do say so myself. Stack 4115. I am in 22nd place out of 101 players remaining.

I have now had five pocket pairs, including twice QQ, in the first thirty hands... Even more surprisingly, both QQ's won me nice pots!

99!!! as SB. Raise to 4BB after one limper. Short-stacked BB pushes, limper folds, I get 2:1 odds and call. He has AJ, I win the race. Stack 5000!!! And there is my SEVENTH pocket pair, 44!!

The flop gets checked to me, I bet more than half the pot. One caller, he checks the turn, I check as well. Now he bets 3/4 of the pot on the low river. Why would he bet so much? I think about it for quite some time before calling. He had KQ... Stack is now 5858, this is quite incredible. I am now in 13th place out of 82 remaining. The average stack is 3607.

Of course, I've had tournaments like this before, where everything is going great at the start. The important thing here is to remain calm and focused, and not do any weird calls with subpar hands. Fortunately I was playing a SNG in parallel, and I think I got some of the weird calls out of my system now (don't ask).

The blinds are still only 40/80, this means my M is now 48. That may be some kind of record for me... But the average M is 30, so I should not make too much out of this. I am 14th out of 74 players.

Blinds now 50/100, M=38. Succesful steal keeps me level.

66 UTG, I limp. Flop 442, I bet 400 into 500 pot. One caller... Indeed, he has the 4 (A4 it was). Back down to earth! Stack now 4188. 4088. Continued steal: 4388, fortunately. 4288 after OTB limp.

I misread the pot in that hand, otherwise I would not have bet quite so much. After the call, I ~~guess I~~ definitely should have given up on the hand, but it worked before...

So now I'm back in average position, with a stack of 4288 (avg 4453).

I just got moved. Raise AJo UTG. Only BB calls, but refuses to bet anything despite my repeated checks- the flop was JJ3... 4538.

BREAK

I am 29th out of 61 remaining. Quite OK.

Blinds now 60/120, M=24. Take it easy!

Limp SB with the hammer. I turn an oesd but check before realizing it. Everyone keeps checking and I actually make my straight. Now I check again, I probably should have made a tiny move here. Someone must have had a pair... Yes, actually two people did. Oh well.

Successful steal: 4898, average 5181.

AJo in MP, raise to 360=3BB. All fold! Limp T9o in next hand, only blinds play. Flop flush draw, bet 320 into 480 pot. BB gets disconnected! Now I have to wait a minute and a --- he folds. Stack 5398, slowly chipping up... Average stack 5277.

I am 17th out of 52 remaining, that is not bad at all!

Limp A6 as SB and notice that BB is not interested in this game (insta-check), so I bet out on the flop J97. He folds as does the single limper. 5558, but average 5700! A few people got eliminated in quick succession.

I avoid disaster when I fold 88 after I raise, the big stack pushes and is called. They have AK and KT(...) and the turn AND river are kings. But since I raised, I am now down to 4758 again. Back to work... Blinds 80/160, so my M=20.

Raise JKs in 3rd position, get reraised, dammit. By KK. Good that I folded...

Down to 4278 now, but M still 17.5.

That was a silly move I guess, my position was too bad for JKs.

Now I am 31st out of 46 remaining.

About one player per minute gets eliminated. There is real value in being patient. Especially since there is also a very big stack at this table, to my immediate left, who is stealing with abandon.

JUST GREAT: I fold K7 after a minraise as BB, flop K77.... Wonderful.

3978, blinds 100/200, M=13.
Starting to get more exciting now.

Funny, I am in 32nd place, the player in 33rd had only 3000! Seems I am the last player with a somewhat reasonable stack (though even he still has an M of 10).

Try to steal with QTo. AND IT WORKS, phew. Now i get AJo! AGain raise to 600. Again all fold! Now I get AK!! Third successive raise to 600. NOW the BB calls, and the flop is K44, a dream flop. We both check, he tries something on the turn, I raise to be on the safe side, he folds.

Back to a stack of 5878 where I was 15 minutes ago! Of course, it was worth more back then, but I'll take it... Back in 17th position, 40 are left now. Average stack is 7125.

Failed ministeal as SB: 5278.

Am going to fold a couple of hands now, don't want too much action when I raise.

We still need to lose 20 players before we get paid.

Steal OTB works: 5328. 33 players remain, 15 more to go...

Round now costs 560, so my M is down to 10. I probably calculated it wrong earlier, I forgot about the antes.

31 remain, I am 21st.

A9 as BB. Call minraise (was getting 7:1 odds). Flop 872... One pushes with middle pair, is eliminated by set of 2s. 30 left.

AJ OTB. Raise to 900=3BB. SB pushes, I have to fold.

Now we are definitely into push-or-fold territory: my M is down to 6!

Going to be difficult to outlive the bubble, there are still 30 players left. Am going to have to double up soon.

28 left now, I am 22nd...

Q4 as BB. I flop two pair...
All check, turn is second J! I FOLD when the river also brings a third spade. Sickening. I should have bet bigger on the turn, probably push... The turn was the second spade.

On the next hand I push as SB with AJo, BB INSTACALLS with A2 and IMMEDIATELY flops a 2. Out in 28th.

Another two hours of my life gone...

Rollercoaster ride

2008-01-17T20:39:00.000+01:00

I just had the most amazing game ever, I think. I've had some nice comebacks in the past (see recent post), but this game tonight was more of a rollercoaster ride. My only worry is that I may have used up all of my luck for this month or so (said the mathematician). But judge for yourselves...

1. Up (a bit) due to the 10% rule.
No Limit Holdem Tournament
$5 + $0.50 Sit & Go
8 players
Converted at weaktight.comBlinds: 20/40

Pre-flop: (60, 8 players) Hero is SB with 1430

1 fold, UTG+1 raises to 160 (1335), 3 folds, BTN calls 160 (1445), Hero calls 140 (1270), 1 fold

Flop: (520, 3 players)
Hero bets 200 (1070), 2 folds (I felt that I had to bet here, given that there are two opponents and somebody might be on a flush draw. But of course this means that in many cases, all opponents are going to fold, and that means that I am not getting paid enough to compensate for the cases where I miss the flop. This is something that I had not considered before. Perhaps I do have to check in such situations. Given that there was a preflop raise, it does seem likely that the raiser will put in a c-bet, which I could checkraise. Otherwise I am relying on the opponent with the flush draw to bet here. It seems that not everyone with flush draws bets though.

All in all, I think that I do need to check here. It might give me some difficult decisions later in the hand, but I have to take a risk in order to get paid for my sets...)

Final Pot: 520

Hero wins 520 ( won +160 )
UTG+1 lost -160
BTN lost -160

2. Up a bit more as BB
Blinds: 25/50

Pre-flop: (75, 7 players) Hero is BB

2 folds, MP calls 50 (2030), CO calls 50 (1130), 1 fold, SB calls 25 (1255), Hero raises to 200 (1420), MP folds (2030), CO calls 150 (980), SB folds (1255)

Flop: (500, 2 players)
Hero checks (1470), CO checks (980)

Turn: (500, 2 players)
Hero bets 350 (1120), 1 fold

Final Pot: 500

Hero wins 500 ( won 300 )
MP lost -50
CO lost -200
SB lost -50

3. Up yet a bit more due to a continued steal on a missed flop with A5; a loss would have brought me down to 1255, now I had 2375.

4. Up by a huge amount...
Blinds: 40/80

Pre-flop: (120, 7 players) Hero is UTG+1

1 fold, Hero raises to 240 (1895), 1 fold, CO raises to 800 (2285), 3 folds, Hero calls 560 (1335) (pot odds 2:1)

Flop: (1720, 2 players)
Hero checks (1335), CO bets 1440 (845), Hero calls 1335 (0) (pot odds 2:1 -- how can I fold this? He may have JJ, QK, 55...)

Turn: (4498, 2 players)

River: (4501, 2 players)
CO says "bs" (845) (he proceeded to call me an idiot, but I was getting good odds for both of my calls. Of course, had I known that I was up against AA, I never would have played this hand, but as I wrote above he could have had several other hands.)

Final Pot: 4390
Hero shows:
CO shows:

Hero wins 4390 ( won +2255 )
CO lost -2240 (to make things worse, on the very next hand he lost his remaining 400 chips with AQ vs AA...)

5. DOWN by a very large amount when I could not resist calling with top pair:
Blinds: 40/80

Pre-flop: (120, 6 players) Hero is SB

2 folds, CO calls 80, 1 fold, Hero calls 40, BB checks

Flop: (240, 3 players)
Hero bets 160, BB calls 160, 1 fold

Turn: (560, 2 players)
Hero bets 320, BB goes all-in 1705, Hero calls 1385 (I could have saved myself a LOT of trouble by folding here; this opponent would turn out to be quite tough)

River: (3970, 2 players)

Final Pot: 3970
Hero shows:
BB shows:

BB wins 3970 ( won +2025 )
Hero lost -1945
CO lost -80

6. Up back again with QQ: minraise, one caller (BB from previous hand), BB pushes 55, I push over the top, remaining opp folds. 3575 with 5 players remaining.

7. DOWN by a near-fatal amount when I flop two pair as SB...
Blinds: 60/120

Pre-flop: (180, 4 players) Hero is SB

CO calls 120 (4165), BTN calls 120 (2250), Hero calls 60 (3035), BB checks (3570)

Flop: (489, 4 players)
Hero bets 360 (2675), BB calls 360 (3210), 1 fold, BTN raises to 720 (1530), Hero goes all-in 3035 (0), BB folds (3210), BTN calls 1530 (0)

Turn: (6151, 2 players)

River: (6151, 2 players)

Final Pot: 5340
Hero shows:
BTN shows:

BTN wins 5340 ( won +2970 )
Hero lost -3155 and is left with 785, blinds 60/120...
BB lost -480
CO lost -120

8. After several uncalled all-ins, I double up in the following way... Words fail me.
Blinds: 80/160

Pre-flop: (240, 4 players) Hero is CO

Hero goes all-in 1205 (0), 2 folds, BB calls 1045 (3895)

Flop: (2490, 2 players)

Turn: (2497, 2 players)

River: (2504, 2 players)

Final Pot: 2490
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins 2490 ( won +1285 )
BB lost -1205

9. Some 20 hands later, doubled up again like this:
Blinds: 100/200

Pre-flop: (300, 4 players) Hero is CO

Hero calls 200 (1730), 2 folds, BB checks (2155)

Flop: (508, 2 players)
BB bets 500 (1655), Hero goes all-in 1730 (0), BB calls 1230 (425)

Turn: (3991, 2 players)

River: (3998, 2 players)

Final Pot: 3960
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins 3960 ( won +2030 )
BB lost -1930

10+11. And not too long after this, I played the following two hands in succession.
Blinds: 120/240

Pre-flop: (360, 3 players) Hero is BB

1 fold, SB goes all-in 3205 (0), Hero says "have to call this" (4385), Hero calls 2965 (1420)

Flop: (6410, 2 players)

Turn: (6419, 2 players)

River: (6419, 2 players)

Final Pot: 6410
Hero shows:
SB shows:

Hero wins 6410 ( won +3205 )
SB lost -3205

Blinds: 120/240

Pre-flop: (360, 2 players) Hero is BTN

Hero raises to 720 (6990), Hero says "gl" (7110) (I did not mean this sarcastically, I just type this when the heads-up phase starts...), BB goes all-in 5670 (0), Hero calls 4950 (2160) (It is impossible for me to fold this after just winning a huge pot)

Flop: (11359, 2 players)

Turn: (11363, 2 players)

River: (11363, 2 players)

Final Pot: 11340
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins 11340 ( won +5670 )
BB lost -5670

A very satisfying tournament win, but obviously completely undeserved!

Oh well

2008-01-12T20:11:00.000+01:00

I made it five losses in a row, but now I've finally finished in the money again with a second place. Oh well, better than nothing... It was probably wrong to push 77 so early in the heads-up phase, but I did not feel that confident against this opponent, and he already had a 2:1 chiplead.

OK, so now I've lost four in a row

2008-01-12T13:01:00.001+01:00

This, unfortunately, is more common.

A first

2008-01-09T21:56:00.000+01:00

For the first time ever, I won three successive SNG's (I just won the third of the sequence). This has doubled my bankroll at FTP--it had dropped to $40 before this sequence (I deposited $50). Very nice...

I did once win four SNGs at Titan in a row. In fact those were SNGs of the type where if you win five in a row, you earn $5000 or something. Unfortunately, in the fifth I went out in third place. I never got anywhere close to this result again and in fact, as longtime readers of this blog may remember, I have an overall lifetime loss at Titan, amazing as this may sound to some of you.

What makes that sequence different from the current one however, is that I played other games in between. So I did not strictly speaking win four games in a row. If you only count sequential games, the best result I achieved before today was two of those Titan games plus a third game at Titan, which was a heads up game for $2. This happened all the way back in December 2006!

It is nice to achieve something like this, especially after a kind of dark period that I have gone through. Let's hope the fourth game goes just as well :-)

Another note about firsts: recently I got AA twice in a row in an SNG! This is also something that had never happened to me before. I guess if you play SNGs long enough, you encounter things like this. I was just getting annoyed because I finally got AA, I raised to 3xBB or something, and everyone folded... until I saw that the new cards were again AA. THAT time I got paid, though it was unfortunately not enough to finish in the money, eventually.

75 chips

2008-01-09T13:27:00.000+01:00

I have posted several comebacks in the past, but I think this has to beat them all: at one point, I had 75 chips left with six opponents still in the game. I ended the game with 13,500 chips (it was nine-handed, FTP).

The game could have been a relatively short one: this happened after 49 hands and 35 minutes.

But let's start at the beginning. I limped with 44, called a minraise and got a flop of AQT: fold. Completed as SB with K4, ended up calling a small river bet with a pair of fours, my opponent had made a set with 33 on the river. Limped with 33, checked the flop, on the turn I made a bet (board was K74-6) only to find that one opponent had acquired third pair with the 6, while another had an oesd now.

T9s as BB. Bet out when I made top pair on the turn, board 752-9. One caller. River was a 4, I check-folded. He bet 300 here, the pot was 225. A suspicious bet, but I was worried about him having limped AA or something. Why else would he call my turn bet?

Called with Q5o OTB to be in position, but had to fold to a flop bet. This left me with 910. Then I limped 66, flop was Q42 and I bet 180 into a 240 pot in third position. Thankfully, all three opponents folded: 1090. After the blinds passed, I raised with KQo in MP, all fold: again 1090. A few hands after that I got KQs UTG and bet 240 (4xBB) but both blinds called. The flop was 972 and the SB bet out, so I had to fold: 850.

With QJs as SB, I bet out when the turn gave me a flush draw and both opps had checked the 887 flop: they folded. As BB next time, I got to see a flop of KJ7 and both opps checked! So I bet small on the turn 2, one opp stayed around with his oesd (he should have bet the flop of course) and checked it down. Now I had 1230 again, blinds now 50/100.

Then, a round later, disaster struck. I got KQo OTB, it was folded to me. My M was 7. I decided there was no point in just raising, and pushed. I guess this is extreme. Anyway the SB called with 55 and his pair held up. Fortunately, he had 75 chips less than I did....

This is when the real fun started.

I folded the next two hands, then got 44 in 2nd position and called. The blinds were now 60/120, so there was not much else I could do. It was folded to the BB, who had... 44. So we shared the SB in this hand, and now I had 105. I folded the next hand (97o), but then I was all-in as BB! However, the SB, with 1730 chips, refused to call 45 into a 165 pot. Let's just say that it is clear that he does not understand much about poker. He said he had 7-2, but that is hardly an excuse, obviously.

Now I had 165 chips, down to 105 after paying the SB (I cowardly folded 65s to an early raise). Two hands later I got Q4 and it was folded to me, so I just limped (remember that I still did not have enough chips to pay the big blind). UTG limped and the SB raised, so I thought that was certainly the end.

The flop was KKQ.

My opponents had AJ and A5. Now I had 420 chips again, and it was all uphill from here... I pushed on the very next hand with KQo, no callers: 600. I folded 7-5 as BB to an early raise, and then got A7o as SB. OTB called for 75 chips (he had lost with 66 to KK on the previous hand) and I pushed, only to be called by the BB with... K7. Unfortunately, the first caller did beat me, so I only got the side pot, keeping me stable at 600. But two hands later I pushed T6o when it was folded to me, and two hands after that QTs. Nobody called. Now I had 1080 again!

One opponent was predicting around this time that I would win the game. I did not believe this for a moment, but shortly after this I beat AJ with AK (1810), then later got a free round (1610), pushed 99 without callers (1810), then 55 (1810), and then this particular opponent was nice enough to call my push with A6 while he only held 65s. Now I had 3720 chips with five players left.

This is when I started to get lucky ;-) I flopped a full house as BB, checked it until the river. My opponent finally tried something, bet and also called my minraise: 4940 - I was chipleader now. The same opponent was nice enough to call my river bet a round later with air (QJo, board AKK66 - he was probably hoping to share the pot), again the hand had been checked down although I had made a flush on the turn: 5660.

He really was a horrible player, he also gave me a lot of free rides during the tournament by folding his SB to me.

As SB I made a straight on the river. But worse was yet to come (for my opponent): in the next round as SB, I minraised and was forced due to pot odds to call his all-in. He had AJo, I had K4s, but I made a flush on the turn. This put me into the money. Then, a couple of rounds later, I limped with T9o and was forced, again, to call the all-in of the BB, who had... T9s! Nevertheless, even though he held the suited cards and I did not, I was the one to make my flush on the river.

Finally, the heads-up phase was determined by a hand where my opponent raised preflop, I flat called with AK and flopped a straight. I checked it and he pushed with 55(on a QJT flop...), and that's all she wrote...

PS: this marks another event that has not happened in a long time, probably not since early September: I won two SNGs in a row. Last time this happened, I was playing for $20 and $30, but let's not let that spoil the good feeling...

First place

2008-01-07T11:11:00.000+01:00

I literally cannot remember the last time that this happened, but yesterday I finally managed to not only make the money but actually win a SNG ($5.50 buyin, $22.50 payout (nine players)). It happened at Full Tilt Poker, where I started playing two days ago. In two earlier attempts, I had bubbled, but both times it was due to tremendous bad luck on the bubble. Once I lost with AJ against AT (he made his flush), I don't even remember the other game.

But let me begin by praising the structure of the games at FTP. I have never seen anything like it! The blinds increase so slowly, you get to play a LOT of poker before luck begins to play a factor. This is great. In SNGs, the blinds increase every 6 minutes, and the big blind starts at 30 and then increases to 40,50,60,80,100,120,160,200,240,300. As an example, this means that after 30 minutes, the level 60/120 starts. Compare this to Party Poker, where the blinds go 40,60,100,200,300 (but in 10 minute increments): there you are playing at the level 100/200 starting from the 31st minute. To be fair, you get a larger stack at Party (2000), so multiplying by 3/4 you actually have a level of 75/150, and after that 112/225 from minute 41, compared to 100/200 starting from minute 43 at FTP.

OK, so taking the different stack sizes into account, the difference is not all that large. Especially since the tables at FTP are nine-handed, so you have to pay the blinds slightly more often. Nevertheless, all those small differences do add up, and this slow increase is very pleasant. It feels a lot different if you have a jump from 50/100 to 100/200 (a doubling of the blinds!) or from 50/100 to 60/120 to 80/160, even if the blinds go up faster.

Also I feel that all the heads-up games I have been playing are paying off. Of course you frequently find yourself heads-up during a SNG, and I find myself checking on made flops more often. I do have to force myself to click on the button of death marked "check", knowing that the next card may kill me, but it pays off tremendously. Most opponents will start to bet on the turn given the chance.

I also played an MTT at FTP. Things went quite well until after 2.5 hours my AA (all-in preflop) got cracked by J9s (made his straight). What can you do... But I shouldn't complain about this, since earlier in the same game I was all-in with top pair against what turned out to be two pair, and we both made a straight.

The 10% strategy

2008-01-02T11:05:00.000+01:00

It works!

You may remember that I introduced some new rules recently, including one where I was going to call with small pairs as long as this did not cost me more than 1/10 of my stack. So far, the results are very encouraging. The most surprising aspect is that I already won two hands without hitting the flop. Yesterday, I called a raise with 77 as BB, the flop was K83 with three opponents, but nobody made another bet, not even a continuation bet! Somewhat to my surprise, I won the showdown. Turns out my opponents held AJ, AQ, and T9s (...).

Later in the same game, I first limped for 100 and then called an additional 200 with a stack of about 2600. This time I hit the flop and won a nice pot - not a stack though, but I had to bet strongly since the flop was T97, quite dangerous.

In an earlier game, I was in position against three opponents and bet on the flop with 33, which gave me the pot. (Again there was no c-bet, the flop was KQ9.)

I had not taken into account that you could win pots with small pairs without hitting the flop. This suggests that you could call raises even looser than I am doing now. But, for now I will stick to the rule as it is. After all, I have only played a few hands with small pairs so far. There was also one hand where I lost a large pot, I don't remember the details (probably tried to steal it on the flop). Still, very interesting.

PS: Of course there is another side to this story as well. Not only can you win without hitting the flop, you can also hit your set and still lose to a straight or flush. Another good reason to just stick to the 10% rule, and not play any looser than that!

A winning year

2008-01-01T13:04:00.000+01:00

A happy new year to all of my readers!

I could also have called this post "Two losing months", since I lost money again in December, but I prefer to keep a positive outlook. In 2007, I made a profit of $1744.13. This is quite a huge improvement compared to 2006, where I made a profit of $83.92 (but I played only in the last few months). So my profit has increased by 1978%, call it 2000% or a factor 20. Not bad overall. (Too bad that the US dollar is worth less now than it was a year ago...) Let us see what the new year may bring. I will be satisfied if my profit stabilizes, especially in view of the last two months... BTW my loss in December was only half that of November, so things are somewhat looking up again.

I just withdrew my money from Celeb Poker. I again received $25 from Party, who are apparently desperate to see me back at their tables. Well, I'm game, I look forward to seeing what I can do with their new gift (I squandered the previous one, unfortunately).

PS: so far I can apparently win $12.21 :-) I played two $6 SNG's, made one second place when I picked a bad time to reraise, and one third place when my moron opponent made runner-runner straight after calling my all-in with Q7. A good start.

Eliminating three players in one hand

2007-12-28T18:04:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-23T11:17:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-22T13:19:00.001+01:00

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

2007-12-20T21:30:00.000+01:00

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)

2007-12-20T18:46:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-19T22:45:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-19T14:03:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-19T10:47:00.000+01:00

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

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.
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

2007-12-16T16:05:00.001+01:00

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

2007-12-12T22:17:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-10T10:26:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-09T16:05:00.001+01:00

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

2007-12-09T10:19:00.001+01:00

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

2007-12-07T22:36:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-01T16:07:00.000+01:00

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

2007-11-26T11:08:00.000+01:00

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:

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.
Got JJ on second hand. My opponent went all-in! Having no information on him, I decided to call. He had AK and won.
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

2007-11-25T14:58:00.000+01:00

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

2007-11-25T11:25:00.000+01:00

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...

2007-11-23T14:26:00.001+01:00

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

2007-11-22T10:54:00.001+01:00

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.............

2007-11-22T08:29:00.000+01:00

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

2007-11-19T13:19:00.000+01:00

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

2007-11-17T23:17:00.000+01:00

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

2007-11-17T22:13:00.000+01:00

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

2007-11-17T12:17:00.001+01:00

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

flopped trips, opponent flopped the same trips with a better kicker
made a set on the turn, bet out, opponent stuck around with 64s to make his backdoor flush
SB raises to 4BB in an obvious steal attempt, I go all-in with A8, he has AT
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

2007-11-14T17:57:00.000+01:00

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?

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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Third place! Thanks to a rivered flush at a crucial stage...
Played a turbo game, I should not do that. Missed my only reasonable chance to push and that was it.
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

2007-11-08T20:30:00.000+01:00

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

2007-10-31T22:13:00.001+01:00

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

2007-10-29T21:41:00.001+01:00

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

2007-10-12T19:49:00.000+02:00

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

2007-10-10T22:38:00.000+02:00

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

2007-10-08T22:05:00.000+02:00

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

2007-10-08T20:46:00.001+02:00

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

2007-10-08T19:00:00.000+02:00

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

2007-10-08T07:39:00.000+02:00

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

2007-10-07T21:26:00.000+02:00

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!

Screenshot

2007-10-07T13:41:00.001+02:00

I felt a bit disenchanted with playing SNG's all the time, so I decided to try an MTT again. Pacific happened to have a $15 MTT starting when I looked, and although I had tried tournaments with that buyin five times before without success, I decided to give it another shot. Here is the result.A second place! More later... For now I can already say that I reached the goal that I described two posts ago :-)

Absolutely disgusting

2007-10-05T20:11:00.000+02:00

I just played with a complete and utter donk, and gave him all of my chips.

Early on, he called an all-in with a flush draw and made his flush. Some time later, he called an all-in with 3rd pair and promptly got rewarded when his pair became a set on the turn. I slowplayed Aces against him, only to have him make an inside straight on the river. On top of that he bluffed a lot, and I saw it happening, but nevertheless I could not bring myself to call a big bet of his with AT on the river and no piece of the board, which was moreover paired.

Eventually I reraised the umpteenth raise of his all-in with A5 in the BB, and he called with A7 and won. Thus I went out on the bubble. What was I even thinking, calling an all-in on the bubble...

This just shows you how annoying it can be if you have somebody at your table who does not have the faintest idea how to play the game and keeps getting rewarded for it. Oh, another time, he raised and called a reraise. The flop was QJx and the reraiser pushed with 77. Of course he called, he had KJo. It was just sick to watch all of this happening. Like I said in the title, absolutely disgusting. To think that you can get so far with luck. I don't want to know how much his lifetime losses are... And remember, this is not happening at the $2 level but at the $20 level! What was this guy with 77 thinking, when two overcards hit the flop?

But to look at the bright side...

2007-10-04T21:30:00.000+02:00

I just cashed for the fifth consecutive time in a $22 game: I finished 1st, 3rd, 1st, 3rd, and just now 2nd when my opponent flopped two pair and I tried to bluff him after an already lengthy heads-up phase. This is a record for me, certainly at this level. I could not have dreamed of such results a couple of months ago!

I guess I should just give up on the Steps, now that the money is coming in so quickly with these regular games. I have earned $200 in the last week... Will I be able to keep this up?

As an aside, in ten days I am going on vacation and will stop playing poker. My goal is to earn at least an additional $100 in that time, and hopefully another $200. That would make this my second most successful month ever, after May, when I finished 3rd in Step 6. Of course May is going to be hard to beat without playing Steps games!

When will I learn to ACKNOWLEDGE RERAISES!!

2007-10-04T20:22:00.001+02:00

This is a lesson I have tried to teach myself several times in the past, and yet I fell for it again just now. I raised after a couple of limpers and one of them reraised.

Now what do you suppose this means?

Do you think that perhaps it means a pair of eights or lower?

I guess not. This is why I should have folded - I held 99. I just thought he might have AK. After all, you see people reraising with that junk too. But really, to gamble my entire stack on this early in an SNG... (As an afterthought, so what if he may have AK? Do you really want to do a coinflip for your entire stack at this stage? I think not.)

What makes it even worse is that it was a Steps game. I had decided to buy into Step 3 directly and actually earned a Step 4 ticket. And this is how I threw it away. If I had placed 7th or better, I would at least earned SOME new ticket...

When September ends

2007-10-03T12:22:00.000+02:00

I realized that I did not yet write a post about my results in September. No doubt you are all eagerly awaiting these (all three of you).

Well, as avid readers of my blog know, September was not too kind to me. In fact it turns out that it was my worst month since March (which is my last losing month)! I just barely managed to make a profit, $24.75, and this was due to a late recovery at Party.

If I had stopped playing poker on September 9th (perish the thought), my profit for the month would have been $236...

But, looking at the bright side, in October I have already made more than in September: $116. Indeed, in my last three $20 games I finished 1st, 3rd and 1st! I do seem to get large slices of fortune though, from those games I remember beating KK with 99, K8 with Q9, and then there were the events I described in my last post. I also get another sort of luck, in that people push mediocre hands at me while I have good hands. In my last game, I raised with TT OTB and the BB apparently thought I was bluffing and went all-in with J8. Another time I raised with AA, also bet postflop on a flop of 885, and one opponent thought that his A5 should be good and pushed. Then much later, in the three-player phase, that same player started to push almost every other hand. I simply waited for good hands and eventually got AJo two times in quick succession, both times he pushed, I called and I won. Calling with AJo is a bit loose, but remember that I was already in the money, and I had to make a stand at some point!

So anyway, after all the bad luck from last month, it seems that my good luck has finally caught up with me. Let's hope that it continues for a while.

A comeback from 960 chips

2007-10-01T21:13:00.001+02:00

I managed to reach the heads-up phase of a $20 game at Party. To reach this point was eventually not that hard: the bubble lasted only five games, and right after that I got KQ and went all-in with it. A player with A7 called and lost when I spiked a Q on the turn. Three hands later, he was also eliminated.

The heads-up phase lasted 41 games in total! At the start, I lost a bit of chips and then got very lucky when I went all-in with KJ, got called by AK and won, bringing us back to equal stacks. Some hands later, it seems my opponent lost his patience when he called my all-in with Q8s. I held QJ and was doing fine until the turn was an 8.

This brought me down to 1560 chips, my opponent had 18440. On the next hand, I was BB. The blinds were now 300/600, so just posting the blind brought me down to only 960 chips. My opponent still had 18140 chips after posting the small blind. I held K5. He was first to act.

He folded.

Now, folding is an elementary mistake heads-up: you always have the odds to call. But certainly in a situation like this, I think you want to just get me all-in as soon as possible...

Anyway, now with 1860 chips, my next hand was 95o. I decided to wait for the next hand and hope that it is better. This is also a mistake according to SAGE: practically any hand is good enough to call here.

The next hand, he puts me all-in with KQ and I call and win with T5o. After that, we alternate for five hands: I move all-in as SB and he folds, then he is SB and folds, for five hands. On the sixth hand, he calls as SB and I move all-in again: he folds. Now I have already 6000 chips again, and he must be worried.

Shortly after that, he raises and then calls my all-in with KJo. I have 44 and he gets a J on the turn, leaving me with only two outs: the two missing fours.

The river is a 4.

Now up to 16000 chips, I finish him off four hands later with Q9 vs Q2. (His push was actually justified by SAGE.)

A very nice game... Obviously I needed a lot of luck, but it certainly helped that my opponent was quite lost at sea during the heads-up phase :-) In particular, he played it way too passive, folding much too often when I had a micro-stack. Let that be a lesson to all of you!

More ups and downs

2007-09-30T22:07:00.001+02:00

Since my win from yesterday, I have had some minor successes but also some setbacks, so that my current bankroll is only $75 or so. We'll see how it continues, at least I am happy about the way I am playing.

I realized what I was doing wrong at Party. The blinds increase much slower than at Pacific, and I was simply too impatient. At Pacific, when the blinds hit 50/100 or 75/150 (starting stack 1200 or 1500), you have to start making moves, because the blinds increase every ten hands (!!). But at Party, when the blinds are 50/100 (starting stack 2000) it takes ten full minutes before the blinds increase to 100/200. This means you have much more time to wait for good cards, and there is no need to make desperate moves, and also steals become less urgent.

Another property of the Party players is that they often cannot let go of a hand. Many times, a continuation bet with air is simply not going to work, and I did not take this sufficiently into account. Only when the blinds really mean something (at least 100/200) are the players more liable to lay hands down, though even there you see the most horrible calls.

In my last game, a frequent raiser raised to 600 on the button (level 100/200). I reraised all-in for 2100 (I think it was), and he actually called... with 44. Unfortunately, I did not hold a higher pair but only two high cards, and I lost this race. I suppose that I should not have been racing in this situation at all and just fold to his raise, but he had gotten on my nerves. I guess that was my real mistake in this situation!

A first

2007-09-29T13:04:00.000+02:00

For the first time ever, I have won a $22 SNG at Party! It is of course a bit crazy to play in such a game with a bankroll of $62, but I really did not have the feeling that the players there were better (from my previous attempt). Of course, had I lost, I would have switched back to $11 or even $6 games.

I got a boost at the start when a player with QQ reraised me and then called my all-in reraise: I held KK... Then another time, when I raised on the button and the BB thought that I must be bluffing. He moved in all his chips, but I had AK! Since I had about twice his stack, I did not have to think too long about calling (I suppose you have to call regardless of your stack size here).

Maybe one of these days I will pick up the courage to play in a Step 3 SNG directly, without trying to qualify. It is quite amazing, but I only ever played one Step 3 game, and the same holds for Step 4-6. I finished in the top three in every single one of them... Afterwards, I never again managed to qualify from Step 2.

But first I will try a few more $22 games I guess. It is nice to be back to winning at Party too. My winnings at Party are now again larger than they are at Pacific.

Back in business

2007-09-26T11:20:00.000+02:00

I won another $5 game, after two second place finishes! It is really a relief to be winning some small games again, you start to doubt yourself after a while.

There as a tough spot where I raised to 400 UTG with 99, a known idiot called but then a very tight player went all-in for 1500 over the top. With a pot of 2300 now and only 1100 to play, I suppose I should have really called here, but I was just too chicken. I folded, the known idiot called with K8 and the tight player held AK... To top it all off, there was a 9 on the flop.

I also needed some luck, when I went all-in on KTs after one limper, the BB with AJo called me and I needed to spike a T on the river to stay alive. Over the course of the game, that BB would eventually donate all of his chips to me. Especially towards the end, when we were left with only three players, it was clear that he really did not have a clue how to play. He had a preflop raise percentage of 30% near the end, and while this won him a lot of small pots of course, he also developed the habit of actually calling reraises with this trash...

Another point where my decision was dubious to say the least was where I went all-in with 22 on the bubble, after the BB from above made yet another raise to 3xBB. He actually called and showed me A2, so he had rather few outs. I did get a scary moment when the board paired, but fortunately it did not pair a second time (which would have counterfeited my pocket pair) and I won that pot.

My decision was not as bad as it may seem, though. It was extremely likely that I was up against two higher cards, making me a slight favorite, so I definitely got great odds. [And in fact, my odds turned out to be even better, because he had only one higher card.] Also, he might fold to my reraise (I naively thought). However, from a point of view of trying to make it into the money, I played way too loose and "should have" folded that hand. After all, winning that hand did not ensure that I would make the money, but losing it would most definitely be the end of the game for me. But it is not easy to play that tight!

I deposited $60 at Party a week ago, to try and clear a bonus. While this is not going to work out, I am quite happy to be just back on $60 again now. Yes, it had been going quite badly...

Bad beats are boring

2007-09-24T21:11:00.000+02:00

With that in mind, I am happy to report a positive result for a change. I managed to finish 2nd in a $5 game at Party. Thus my net winnings with those $5 games (since I started my newest database) are again positive now. I am not going to manage to clear the bonus though. I get the feeling that it has become slightly more difficult to clear bonuses at Party, am not sure.

My previous game at Party went less well, but the important thing is that I played well. I went all-in over the top of a short stack who had gone all-in several times before without getting called. Unfortunately, this time he actually had a hand: JJ, and I only had 99. What is worse, the big stack in the big blind actually called with AKs and managed to make a flush... With a third nine, no less :-(

Well, onwards and upwards...

Being Annoyed

2007-09-23T17:34:00.000+02:00

It is not a good frame of mind to be playing poker. But I tell you, it is hard to avoid it. I'm playing badly and I know it, and on top of that I just cannot catch any breaks.

Several times today I got hands like AA, KK, QQ, AK, dutifully raised preflop and got zero callers. JUST ONE TIME I decide to limp with QQ UTG, an idiot with T7 (but they were sooooooted!) limps behind me and the flop comes J77. Obviously.

Through some kind of miracle, I actually managed to win a $5 game at Party, so that today was not a complete loss. But there was a lot to be annoyed about today. I managed to go out in 5th place in a Step 1 game twice (top four places pay) and once I even went out in 9th place, when a complete idiot with 52 called my flop raise on a flop of xx2, and got rewarded by another 2 on the turn. Finally I also managed to finish 7th in two more $5 games.

Once upon a time I won $700 at Party. I do not know how I did that.

More hours of fun for $3

2007-09-22T12:48:00.001+02:00

And indeed, I did drop down back to Step 1... and then managed to go out in 3rd place in Step 1, earning me yet another Step 1 ticket. I am starting to hate these tickets.

A modest win

2007-09-21T21:55:00.000+02:00

I returned to Party after being lured by a bonus, and joined two Step 1 games. I actually managed to win a Step 2 ticket...

It seems like a good idea to play for VERY low buy-ins for a while (Step 1 = $3). I also tried two $11 games earlier, but I just cannot win a race to win my life at the moment. Oh well, at least as long as I manage to place in these Steps games now, I will not have to pay again (I may drop down to Step 1 of course again).

Continuing to run bad

2007-09-16T22:51:00.000+02:00

I don't believe it...

After many games on the bubble, I called an all-in with TT. He has KJ, no K on the flop makes me 75% favorite. Then a King hits the turn and I don't recover.

In the parallel game, I raise with 66 as SB after it is folded round to me. The BB has JJ. The level was 75/150, my stack was about 900. This is what they call a "big blind special"...

I just cannot get a break here! Score so far: five $10 games, two third places, net loss $17. It is simply unbelievable. I have never had such a bad sequence before, certainly not such a costly one.

FINALLY managed to cash again

2007-09-16T10:43:00.000+02:00

Third place in a $10 SNG, wow... I almost would have gone out on the bubble again, but I just had a few chips left and managed to outlive the other micro-stack at the table. I went all-in with KQs and got called by AK... I suppose that with such a small stack present, I should have not done anything....

It is small comfort that his call was even worse than my raise. He could not expect to be better than 5:3 ahead (two high cards vs two low cards) so he was not getting the right odds to call. Indeed, the blinds were already 250/500 at this point and the short stack had 840 and would have most likely gone out in at most two more hands. This is not the time at which you want to risk your entire stack, I would think... (Fortunately, although the short stack actually survived 5 more hands, I survived 8.)

Horrible play on both sides!

Eight

2007-09-15T21:26:00.000+02:00

I have now had EIGHT successive losses... It has been quite some time (fortunately) since I had such a bad sequence. I think I am not playing well. I was amazed to run Sharkscope on my latest $10 game and find out that I was the only player with a positive ROI at that table. Nevertheless, I managed to finish 8th, chasing a straight for most of my chips. Why did he have to give me such good odds...

Sharkscope has enabled me to see that the level really is different, there are way more fish at the $10 level. It seems I really need to drop to this level for a while, at least until I recover somewhat.

You know what, I'll play a challenge. Let's say 50 $10 games. I am going to multi-table them, planning to play two tables each time, to prevent things from getting too boring. Also, this way I am still playing for $20 per time, but hopefully with more success...

Oh dear

2007-09-15T17:18:00.000+02:00

I seem to have lost $200 in the last week or so. Of course, this would be more serious if I had not just won $200 in the two days before that. Still, not a very nice feeling. I finished fourth three times in the last ten games, and fifth two times. Let's hope this is just variance and that my results will improve soon... Else (as soon as my bankroll drops below $500) I will drop back to the $10 level.

Four pocket pairs in 14 hands, out in 216th place

2007-09-11T20:20:00.001+02:00

I just had an incredibly frustrating tournament. I got the most amazing cards...

Hand 1, AQo. I call a raise and have to fold on a low flop after there is a bet and a call.

Hand 4, I get 77. UTG raises to 100 and I fold, of course. There are two callers behind me, giving me the right odds to call after all (if only I had known) and there is a 7 on the flop. (Hm, I see now that Harrington actually advocates calling in this situation. Who knew. I thought sevens would be too low. Well, learned another painful lesson.)

Hand 6, I get 33 in second position. UTG raises to 100 and I fold. (No three appears.)

Hand 9, I get 99 as SB. There are two limpers, I raise to 100 and one limper remains. The flop is Ace high. I have to find out where I stand and bet 100, he raises me to 200 and I fold.

Hand 14, I get JJ and raise to 120. Three callers, among them the idiot with the Ace from just now. Flop is 542... all clubs. I bet, one opponent calls and he raises me 450. I have no choice but to go all-in here, he has JT of clubs. I had 600 left, the pot was 1400 and I just had to assume that he did not have two clubs. After all, what are the odds...

It was really an incredibly frustrating experience for me, especially after surviving two hours in yesterday's tournament and doing quite well (not well enough to cash though). Well, back to the SNG's I guess.

PS: lost 2 $20 games and a $30 game, for a total loss of $75.50 for the night. I guess it is time to go to bed :-) Don't get me wrong, I would have preferred to win tonight, but just a few months ago such a loss would have been catastrophic - actually impossible, because I did not play for such high buyins. The good thing is that I still have a bankroll of over $600, and that is after cashing out $1000 overall during my short poker career :-)

I Don't Like Thursdays

2007-09-10T22:45:00.000+02:00

In an MTT, after nearly two hours, I went all-in on the button after UTG minraised. I still had 10 x BB, I could have seen a cheap flop with my 88. My opponent thought for quite a while but eventually called with AJo (he had three times as many chips as I did). If I had just called, I could have gone all-in (or even just bet) on the flop and he would have had to lay it down. As it was, he hit a Jack on the river.

Today I registered with Sharkscope, enabling me to see a lot more information, and to do 150 searches per day. This means in particular that when I start an SNG, I can immediately look it up in Sharkscope and spend 10 searches to find out who the sharks are (if any).

Tonight I played in an SNG with 6 or 7 winning players, it was quite surprising (since generally 1/3 or less of all players are winning players). I went out in 9th places after a bit of bad luck. The next SNG went better, although I only made it to 3rd place there. My ROI in the new database is still nearly 100% :-)

Sharkscope is really a treasure trove of information. I could have registered a long time ago, but the first time I looked at it, $15 a month still seemed like a lot of money for this service. Now that I make $15 per day (well... almost), it does not seem like so much! Here are some fun graphs. The first one explains the title of this post.

A Mistake

2007-09-09T14:51:00.001+02:00

To counterbalance my previous post, here I will highlight a mistake I just made which was pretty bad.

I had T9s in early position and limped. Stack 1150, level 50/100 (soon to increase to 75/150). This could perhaps also be classified as a mistake, but this is still sort of ok. The player to my left calls, as does the BB. Flop is 367 rainbow. Now this is actually a reasonably nice flop for me, since there are no high cards (nothing above my cards). The BB checks and I bet 200 (pot is 375). The last player goes all-in for 938!

I automatically fold.

This was a big mistake. Not just the fold, but the fact that I wasn't even thinking about the possibility of calling. In my mind, I was bluffing, got caught, and had to give up the pot. But this is completely wrong. Even though I have only a gutshot, it is looking very much like tens, nines, and eights are all outs. I would put him on A7 at best. If he has two pair or a set (or 4-5...), why should he go all-in? In fact he might even have two high cards, though to me it looks like a bad spot to bluff. On the other hand, if it was a bluff, it worked!

So anyway. I should have considered that I had 3+3+4 = 10 outs twice. This does not make me a favorite, but now it is time to consider the pot odds. The pot was 1488 and I only had to put in 850 to call. Oops, to be precise the pot was 1400, because my opponent had me covered. So I was getting pot odds of 1400/850 = 1.65:1. That is enough - my odds according to PokerOffice were 1.6:1, and that is ignoring the backdoor flush draw that I have, which would add a few percent.

In fact, it would have been enough for me if I had just looked at the PokerOffice screen and noticed that my odds were colored green. That indicates it is OK to call.

The mistake was not as bad as I thought before I did the calculations. The bet was only marginally in my favor (meaning that over time, I will only make a small profit by calling this bet). Still, it is worrying that I did not even THINK about calling. I remember now that I have written about this problem before too, a long time ago. I thought I had fixed that...

Hot

2007-09-08T17:40:00.000+02:00

I swear, I started this blog to write about my mistakes and try to learn from them, but if things are going well, how can I not write about that?
It seems that I picked the perfect time to start another new database in PokerOffice too... My previous one had again grown to over 100MB, making the program slower and slower. Look at the "in the money" column...
That's right, I cashed in a $30 game for the very first time! This was only my second attempt, and I actually had a good shot at winning it, but I could not resist calling an all-in with a good flush draw when I suspected that he was also only on this flush draw. (After all, there were three hearts on the table.) This was true, but unfortunately he held the King and I "only" the Queen...

Also (and as long as I am bragging anyway) I actually played two of these games simultaneously, I started to play a $20 game while waiting for the $30 game to fill up. It can be a bit confusing at times, especially because Pacific does not allow window resizing. (At least not the old version of the software that I am using - the new version is still not supported by PokerOffice!)

My overall net profit is rapidly approaching $2000. In the last seven days, I earned $258. These numbers are just amazing. I never expected that it could be so easy to earn so much money with a hobby. Of course, it took me quite a long time to get to this stage! It is less than five months ago that I bought the Harrington books, which turned me into a winning player. Thanks Dan :-)

PS: another picture added.

My mortal fear of the turn card

2007-09-07T22:10:00.000+02:00

I have got to get over this fear.

A couple of days ago I looked at some old blog post of mine and read that I should not overbet my won hands, chasing away my opponents.

In fact, I read this in a post as well as some old notes of mine...

This problem is really persistent, it seems. I will give some examples based on a tournament I played in tonight. I got dealt KK twice in the first hour... At the end of this hour, I had 1000 in chips (you start with 1200), but this was due to a desperate and stupid short stack who reraised me with Q9s, making it impossible (that is, mathematically wrong) for me to fold.

Level 25/50. KK as BB, raise to 200 = 4BB. One caller. I actually played this hand sort of OK, I checked the low flop and he bet 100. I raised to 250, he folded. Still, there was no need to checkraise, I could have check-called.
Still level 25/50, 8 minutes later: KK UTG. Raise to 150 UTG, extremely loose SB calls. He bets out 250 on the flop, I go all-in?? Why??? Because I am scared of the turn card, that's why. It hurts to admit it, but it is true. ("But what if it is an Ace?")
Level 75/150. AA in 2nd position. At least now I don't need to fear an ace on the table. (I would actually prefer not to see any aces on the table, I guess: I'd never make any money...) Minraise (not bad), only BB (same loose player as above) calls as BB. Flop is Qd5d5c. He check-calls twice, first 150 and then 300. (At least I am not going all-in here.) Now I am down to 500. He checks again on the river and I stupidly bid 450. Why? Because I am greedy and want to get as much as possible of my stack in the middle. He folds, of course. I think it would have been difficult for him to fold to a final bet of 150, seeing as the pot was now 1700...

Of course it would be even worse to just limp into pots with these hands and lose them to people who get lucky, but I have really got to face more turn cards with hands like KK and QQ. I absolutely need to stop raising big and going all-in on good hands. I need to tell myself that winning 500 less in a pot is just as bad as losing 500 more.

Hopefully writing an entire post about this subject will help me to remember this lesson and earn more chips in the future!

I did not yet write how this tournament ended. On the very next hand after I got AA, I got JJ UTG. I raised to 3BB = 450 again, there was one caller and the short BB with 900 went all-in! I went all-in to isolate on him, but the idiot caller liked his AQ so much that he could not fold it against two all-ins. The short stack had AA, but I was beating the idiot until the river, which was the final missing Ace...

OK, so it was a setup against AA, but if I had earned more chips earlier, I might have survived even this confrontation (although, to be honest, the idiot is probably also calling with his precious AQs when I put in 500 chips more...) An alternative play here is to flat call the all-in of the short stack and see a flop three-handed. If it does not contain an ace and I go all-in then, the AQ guy might be less inclined to call. What do you think is best?

Anyway after this I made first place in a $20 SNG, so a profit for the night :-) [Note: the above problem (fear of the turn) does not really affect my SNG results, because there is far less post-flop play, especially at the decisive later stages when the blinds get high. I started to play some MTT's again for the variation and also to hopefully improve my play.]

Third place??

2007-09-05T22:04:00.000+02:00

Something very strange happened tonight: I finished third in a $20 game! There must have been something wrong with the servers :-) It was the first time that this happened in over 30 games. Compare this to my 12 second places...

I also tried a $30 SNG for the first time, but it did not go very well. Players got eliminated quite slowly. It also took a long time for this game to fill up. It could be that there were actually some better players there (I only checked out one of them who had indeed quite nice stats at Sharkscope).

Overall I made a loss tonight, but I am still in the black for the month. Indeed, my ROI over the more than 100 games with buyin $10 and $20 is still over 40%...