…on a day with sunshine and success at the tables. Due to the nice weather and preparations for tomorrow’s party (open air, party into May 1st) not much poker today…just some ring games on FullTilt (won around 5 Buyins) and two turbo SnGs at PokerStars (one early exit and one second place)…on another note: first time ever I got dealt pocket Aces in consecutive hands…all four Aces in two hands (first AdAs, then AcAh)…and they held up both times, too. 🙂

I don’t hate either one…well…that’s a lie…I hate the game at times and I friggin hate some players! No, there’s no rant ahead as I did well today. No major wins or losses, but some hands that made me chuckle. I went back to the roots and played some ring games today…left the fancy plays and “hmm…I have outs” sort of hands at home and did well. After the fun of playing good poker and winning I tried some SnGs again – only two…one ITM, one bubble…so not too shabby.

What made me chuckle? Scenario: I lose almost all my chips (50 left) when my A10s runs into AJo, held by the player on my immediate left. We’re down to three handed…so I had to give it a shot…well…I go ahead and win 7 hands in a row…and I’m back at over 1.500 chips, but still short stacked. I’m on the button and I look down at Ah10h…hmm….okay…here I go…player on my immediate left calls again…wtf?….he shows? Yup, you’ve guessed it…AJo…can you believe that? …and then, as if that wasn’t enough, he flops trip Jacks…turn and river 1010…lol…boat over boat…what a nice way to go 😉

Screenshot of that hand, presented by the phrase “The deck has no memory, or has it?”:

Alrighty…I’m outta here…time to start reading “Killer Poker Online” (see current reading on the left), which was delivered today 🙂

…nothing to show for it… 🙁

Played numerous SnGs and MTTs at both FullTilt and PokerStars…and after hours of good play I’m down…sometimes I hate the whole MTT and SnG thing…ah well…better luck tomorrow, hopefully 😉

Well, I missed the DADI 5 yesterday. I really wanted to play, but there were a couple of reasons why I decided against playing. What were they? The starting time (3am) combined with the double stack format (which is a good thing, but not if the tourney starts at 3am, because it’ll mean a loooong tourney and if you want to win you can be sure that it’s going to last longer than 4 hours at best…)…add my (still) micro bankroll to that picture and you’ll have an idea why I didn’t play…although the fact that I don’t even know if I’ve got the time to make a trip at WSOP time shouldn’t be left out of the picture either…but enough of the “excuses”…I didn’t signup.

Not much poker going on today as I’m still a little exhausted from the live game on saturday. Yes, exhausted! It’s a good thing that we’re not playing all that often as the live game just is a little bit more intense than the online game – after all you can’t jump out of your seat if you’re holding the nuts, you don’t want to give up tells, but spot some in return, so cautiousness along with tension and calculation is needed at all times. So I just played some Blackjack (what?!) on Absolute and promptly donked off my last few bucks I had on AbsolutePoker – damn, I’m really going to stay away from Pokerrooms offering sidegames like video poker or blackjack from this day on: I busted my bankroll playing video poker on Titan, now I donk off my remaining funds with BlackJack on Absolute. Nooo goot! 😉

After that I headed over to FullTilt to play some donkey SnGs…couldn’t really focus in the first one and quickly busted myself…so I tried a 45person SnG and that didn’t start to well either, I lost all but 50 chips within the first orbit (12 outs weren’t enough again). Next hand I look down at KK and quadruple up. Then I went on a fold or push spree and worked my way back into the game, partly due to an orbit of an extreme card rush (I held QQ three times, JJ, AK, AQ within one orbit). I stole blinds and grinded my way up to over 4k chips before losing two coin flips in a row to find myself under 1k again. Then it was time to either double up again or bust and bust I did…99 vs AQ…10JQK8…what I nice board…if and only if my opponent hadn’t held that damn Ace 😉

So I bust out in 13th place…play some decent poker for over an hour though…so that’ll have to do for today….

After the long poker evening yesterday I didn’t feel like playing a lot of poker today, so only two SnGs…both of them donkey, one 1$ one 5$ though. Busted out of the 1$ pretty quickly, so all the hopes were with the second one. After a long drag we’re down to four handed and the donkey on my left keeps getting lucky against me…I’m the short stack, then I double up from the donk…next hand I’m the SB, he’s the BB…I look down at 33…I decide to push as 1.) he can’t have good cards all the time 2.) it’s probably a race at best for him…then FullTilt is nice enough to propel J7s to victory when the river double pairs the board…damn you donkey…there, I said it…damn you, donkey! You might be 15 bucks richer now that you sucked out on the two other players, too (e.g. K7 vs KQ – 7 on the river), but you’re still a donkey. Preach! 😉
Hand of the day, presented by lucky donkshit dastard (TM) and the catch-phrases “But they were s0000ted!” and “At least I had outs…”[which is true in this case, he had many post-flop]:

So, we found our way to Stuttgart again to play our regular home game. Ten players showed up, so we decided to play our regular No Limit Hold ’em tournament – 5 players at each table, top 3 to the final table. I managed to get to the final table, yet again, 4th in chips overall…after some battles back and forth we finally were down to 2 players, a mate of mine (Armin) and myself…we did our best to battle back and forth too and with the increasing blinds we were forced to force the action rather sooner than later. In the end my 2d-4d took down the final pot as I flopped a pair of deuces to beat Armin’s Q6o.

Newsworthy hands of the evening that I witnessed (and/or play in myself):

• Last hand before the final table: Q6o vs Q9o…three nines on the board along with two tens…quads over full house…
• QQ (me) vs A6o (Bianca) vs KJo (Dino) – flopped trips…dodge the flush bullet on the river to take down a nice pot…
• 99 (me) vs 1010 (Armin) – tens stood tall
• 4c5c vs J6o – turned trips for me
• 2d4d vs Q6o – final hand

Overall yet another nice evening with some good poker! Winning the whole thing didn’t hurt either 😉

As some of you might know, there’s the FIFA World Cup in Germany – yes that’s football (or soccer to the americans). 50 days to go, so it’s time to get excited, especially due to the fact that my tickets arrived today…I’m going to the World Cup…right in front of my door (Stuttgart)…

Nothing more than three SnGs today. Two at FullTilt – did I mention that the deck hates me over there atm? – one at Stars. Two 6th places on FullTilt, but one win at Stars. Finally a win again…nice 🙂

Damn, today was like THE day for suckout artists. It seemed that every tourney table I sat at there was one player spinning gold, hitting every flop BIG time and/or sucking out at the end of the hand (turn or river). Too bad for me that this player wasn’t me until the last donkey SnG at the end of the session….so I’m still slightly down for the day, but at least some more cleared bonus money and the 1st place in the last SnG slowed down my fall a little…

Played a crazy mix of games today including crazy pineapple on UB (damn that game can be fun) , Stud and different cash and SnGs/MTTs of NL HE. Got the first nut kicking by getting outdrawn time and time in the Stud MTT on Stars, not to worry though, it was a donkey 1$ tourney, so you can’t expect much. No cashes in all the other SnGs on both FullTilt and Stars with the best finish being 4th (bubble boy) on Stars.

Then I decided that it was time to finally play a WWdN again….so I logged back on just in time and registered. My starting table included PokerChamp (aka TouristHater 😉 ), Chris (drewspop), Dan (denials – live blogging the event once again) and others…

I didn’t think that this starting table would be the last one for me, but unfortunately it was. Dumped some chips in the first orbit with KJ sooted, standard raise preflop, one caller…I hit the king…on the rainbow flop and fire out another 100….call…turn is a queen…I fire out another 100…call…River is another Queen… now I check and get popped 200…sure enough I call…can’t put my opponent on AQ there…thanks dealer for a runner runner set for my opponent. Down to just above 1000 within the first orbit, damn. Next hand I decide to play is Jh10h…I flop an OESD + Flush draw + gutshot straight flush draw (as far as I remember the flop came down 9h-Kh-8c)…opponent fires 80 on every round and I call it down not hitting anything, no straight, no flush and damn sure no straight flush…and I’m down to around 900 chips. Next orbit I’m sitting in the BB with 88…drewspop pops it up to 80 (blinds still 10/20)…I ponder and call…flop is all rags 7-5-2 or something…I fire out 100 to see where I’m at…he reraises to 300…so now I’m faced with the tough choice (call – doesn’t make too much sense as I would be commited anyway, fold – not really, push – ding ding)…I push and he shows AA….noooooooooooooo! So I’m out in 95th of 98. Why do I have to run into those damn bullets…I guess I should call Phil Hellmuth, maybe he can teach me how to dodge bullets 😉