Poker, College, and Other Secondary Matters

Weekend

2006-11-12T23:27:00.000-05:00

Saturday:
So after playing loads of poker on Friday and not really having anything else to do on Saturday, I just woke up at about 12:30pm and did it all over again. I played the regular SNGs which went alright most of the time and put a couple of MTTs in the mix later that afternoon. In the 8k Guaranteed at CelebPoker I made it to the final table. I think I had a very good chance at winning the tourney but when we were 11-handed there was one hand that just absolutely crippled me and made me lose my chiplead. Right after the break with 11 players left I get dealt QQ UTG. With a stack of roughly 62k in chips and the blinds at 3k/6k I make it 9k to go. The player in UTG+1 thinks a while and then pushes all in for another 36k. I make the call and find myself ahead of AK. Flop is good, turn is good, river...KING.. So there went a solid 2/3 of my stack. I would've had a massive chiplead but instead I was completely crippled. Still made it to the FT and finished 8th in the end. Really annoying because I know I would've had a huge chance at winning the whole think for over $2,500. Oh well..
After that I also played a rebuy tourney at PokerStars and made it ITM when once again I got beat in a hand that would've doubled me up and put me in good shape. Instead I got knocked out. What happened was that I had AKs in my BB and 4 or 5 limpers infront of me so I decided just to open push because there was a lot of money in the pot already. It gets folded around to a guy in MP who decides to call off more than half of his stack with A7s and find some weirdo straight. Notice it a lot that people just limp with those marginal hands and then decide to call an all-in for more than 5-8x of what they had invested..If you have a hand that is strong enough to call an all in, why don't you just raise it?
Yesterday still went alright and I made a couple of bucks. Later that night I watched All-Night Poker on ESPNC until I passed out at around 5am.

Sunday:
I played a couple SNGs throughout the day and started to run extremely cold. I also found myself busting out of the MTTs I played REAL quick so I didn't play all too much after that because Sundays just don't seem to go good for me. In the end I managed to cut down my losses a little but was still down a solid amount for the day.

A little of that was covered by some sports betting. Had some money on German "Bundesliga" soccer games which worked out pretty well and then I bet on the Chiefs beating the Dolphins and the 49ers beating the Lions. I figured the Chiefs had a good shot because they just played extremely well the last weeks, especially without Trent Green. They got close, but didn't quite make it. No big deal. The 49ers were a clear favourite for me because the Lions are just bad. :)

All in all it was a nice, very relaxing and fun weekend with a lot of poker and I hope that things keep on goin this way. Peace out!

Lots of poker and I LOVE it!!

2006-11-11T01:21:00.000-05:00

So today was Veterans Day and school was therefore not happening. That meant that we had a little "sumthin sumthin" goin on last night and that I was finally able to sleep 'till forever. After a long and nice shower I just got something to eat and started to play online. Played the regular SNGs at Celeb and FullTilt as well as a couple of MTTs. I got pretty deep in a qualifier for the FTOPS on FullTilt before my AK got beat by AQ and I was the first one to leave the final table (1st and 2nd got a seat to the FTOPS Main Event). Afer that I got in to the last four in a HU MTT at Celeb and also had the chiplead in that match before the internet decided to poop out once again and my opponent gladly stole my blinds until I ran out of chips. Then I played a rebuy MTT at PokerStars where I got ITM. I felt that I played real good and concentrated throughtout the whole day and night and therefore made some nice profit as well. It was a great feeling to play for such a long time and just get into the groove of things.

Coming back to the problem with the internet: I really cant understand who it is not possible for this college to have a stable server and/or internet provider to actually provide a constantly available internet that does not go down 15-20 times a day. My parents pay A LOT of money for me to go here and in a way poker is my "job" and I pay everything else with the money that I make with poker. In order for that to work smoothly I need an internet connection that WORKS WHENEVER I NEED IT!! Wow, I get mad again just thinking about it..Blinding off in that HU match really wasnt cool for school..I really need to find some sort of way to get rid of this problem because it really drives me nuts.

Tomorrow will hopefully be another long and successfull poker day because I don't have too much work to do for school or any other plans for that matter. On Sunday my buddies and I will hopefully make it down to Foxwoods again and watch some of the action at the World Poker Final $10,000 Buy-In Main Event. Maybe I can finally get a glimpse at "my boy" Daniel Negreanu playing in person ;)
I will also try to play some cashgame or SNGs myself if I don't get tangled up completely in watching the pro's (and Joe's) =)
So long, stay tuned.

P.S.: If anyone who reads this blog is willing and capable of making a new layout for this blog for me I would really appreciate it if you could just leave a comment with your E-Mail adress or something! Thank you fellas!

Tuesday = "Lose-Day" ?

2006-11-08T00:06:00.000-05:00

Tuesday: -$222.10

Geez, here we go again. Up and down, and up and down, and up and down...While yesterday went so smooth and juicy, today would probably considered the complete opposite. I played the regular SNG routine at Celeb and FullTilt and I managed not to get in the money ONCE in the $50 SNGs at Celebe today. Later tonight I won a little back on FullTilt but it didn't really get me out of the hole. Then again, I can say that I played my regular game and did nothing extremely stupid do donk off my chips or anything so its alright. Those aren't nice at all but they do happen and if your playing poker you just gotta live with it. My bankroll is easily big enough to take these swings so it's all good. Back at it tomorrow. Peace!

Love it!

2006-11-06T22:52:00.000-05:00

Monday: +$387.35

So after my little break from online-poker on the weekend I played the regular SNG routine at CelebPoker today and it really went really well. I only played a couple but came ITM in every single one of them. Next to the SNGs I had a cashgame table at FullTilt running and lost a couple of bucks there but oh well..I really hope that the month keeps on goin like that and I will definetely be a VERY happy camper by the end of November.

Something I'm really excited about!: Cort, Sutti and I booked our Las Vegas trip tonight! The two will be there from Jan. 12th - Jan. 31st while I will leave on the 19th and go back to Boston because classes start on the 22nd. It will definetely be a blast and I'm counting down the days!

Online Poker-free weekend

2006-11-06T00:11:00.000-05:00

On Saturday we just watched the football team play against the team that is ranked 7th in the nation and they got pretty much spanked..After that a couple of my boys and I played some basketball for a solid 3 hours and then we just hung out and drank a few beers. = -No online poker on Saturday-

Today my buddy Erik and I left for Foxwoods at around 3:15pm and sat down at a 1/2 NL table at 4:30pm. I didn't really get much going and was down a couple of bucks when we went to go to get some dinner at the buffet that they have in the casino. You pay around $20 and then you can eat and drink as much and whatever you want. In this case "whatever" really means WHATEVER because they have absolutey everything you can possibly think of. After shrimps, ribs, pasta, chocolate cake etc. etc. I was so full that I just wanted to sit down at a poker table again. I managed to get most of the money back that I had lost before and therefore decided to stop playing cashgame and register for a $100+20 SNG. While I registered, Erik lost another buy-in with aces to a complete and utter donkey and was therefore not the happiest camper. So I was a good friend, unregistered for the SNG again and we left at around 10pm. In the end I broke down about even and I'm not really mad about not winning anything because it was just a great time again. = -No online poker on Sunday-

On the coming weekend we will definetely be down there again because the World Poker Finals Main Even will take place starting Sunday. Meet me there!

Bad live session...

2006-11-04T00:36:00.000-05:00

Thursday + Friday: -$17

I wont really complain about the online results because its just not too big of deal. I lost about $60 yesterday playing $50 SNGs at CelebPoker and a few $30 SNGs at FullTilt and won about $50 in the couple that I played today. Nothing big, just cruising along I guess..

Last night my buddy Erik and I got kinda bored at around 11pm so we just decided to drive down to Foxwoods and play a few hours. With the World Poker Finals goin on down there at the moment we definetely expected some juicy side-action. The first thing we noticed was that they increased the max. buy-in at the 1/2 NL tables from $100 to $300. That change was definetely needed because $100 was just a joke. I still don't really know if I like $300 just because I think $200 is absolutely perfect for this limit, but hey, you gotta work with what you got! So then last night didn't work too good and I lost about $150 within about 3 hours. Not too big of a deal either but the tables were crowded with rather weak players and I just couldn't capatalize on their "weird" and pretty bad play..We will probably go back down on Sunday afternoon and then I will try to finally play the qualifier for the WPF Main Event and see how that goes.

One really nice thing: My boys and I won the dodgeball tournament again! We had one here at college in January I think and we won that one as well so I was really pumped to take it down again. Nothin big, but something I can brag about ;)

Way to start off the new month!!

2006-11-01T23:41:00.000-05:00

Wednesday: +$197

Pleeeeeeeease November, keep 'em coming!! I didn't really play all that much today but when I did I think it was good and solid poker. Stuck to the $50 SNGs at CelebPoker today and things ran really smooth. Then I played the 8k Guaranteed and got pretty deep before I got busted just a few places short of the money.
Other than that I am really happy that I have A LOT more time now to play some poker and can't explain how great it feels to really get back at it day after day!

I also hope that I can make it down to Foxwoods this weekend and play live qualifiers for the World Poker Finals Main Event that will be held down there during the second weekend in November. Wish me luck!

And another month gone by...

2006-10-31T16:55:00.000-05:00

October: +$243.52

Yeah so it's kinda been forever since my last blog and I my apologies go out to the 2 or 3 people that checked for an update every once in a while. :)

A lot has happened since the last entry though so I will split it up a little. Let's start with poker. I really didn't play much at all (41.9 hours) because I didn't have the time especially because of soccer taking up most of my freetime. I still managed to grind out a couple of bucks and that definetely works. In Nov. I will definetely have more time to play because the soccer season has now officially ended and I have a lot more time in the afternoons to play.
For the Nov. I will therefore set myself two goals again, that I had also set myself several other months:

1.) Make at least $1000 profit.
2.) Win a MTT

Once again, these are just goals that I would really like to achieve but I wont quit playing poker if I dont quite get there. I will also start updating the blog regularly again (at least every second day) and keep you updated on how things go.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soccer season officially ended this Sunday. Our playoff game for the Region XXI Championship got moved from Saturday to Sunday due to EXTREME rain and wind on Saturday. Those of you who have ever played soccer on natural grass on the day after a monsoon might be able to imagine in what condition the field was. I slide tackled a kid in the first half and slid for a solid 10 yards before I came to a halt in a huge puddle. We played Massasoit CC, who had beaten us twice before and we played a great game the first half, going into the locker room with the game tied 1-1. After the break things went downhill. A deflected shot and a lucky freekick following a really dumb foul brought us down 3-1 pretty quick. We still fought back, scored the 3-2 and were about to score the 3-3 when the next unlucky and slightly dumb situation gave Massasoit the chance to make it 4-2 on a PK. After that we just threw everything up front and as a result we gave up another game and lost 5-2. It really sounds worse than it is because we really played a good game and, in my eyes, deserved the win just for all the effort and heart we put in to this game. The way the game went was just extremely unlucky..
The season therefore ended with an 11-7 record for us and looking at where the team stood during pre-season, we really came a long way.

Other than that everything is going according to plan over here at college and I will update the blog more often from now on, promise!

New laws and troubles...

2006-10-10T00:16:00.000-04:00

Monday, Oct. 2th - Monday, Oct. 9th: $-91

Firs of all..We qualified for the Playoff-Final!! Last Wednesday we beat the Community College of Rhode Island in an amazing game with 2-1 and therefore qualified for the Division Final against Massasoit on Oct. 28th. We still have a couple of regular games to play before the final and by beating Massasoit on this upcoming Wed. we could also get homefield advantage by having the best record in the division. It was a great feeling to win this game and achieve this first goal of the season. So soccer is going really good! ;)

One thing I'm not to thrilled about: The new US Law that most of you probably heard about already. Not to cool for me because I am here in the US right now and I will not be able to play on a couple of sites anymore because they will block US IP-adresses. In my opinion this law is absolutely ridiculous and I dont understand what the government is trying to achieve with it. People will still find ways to get money onto the pokersites and people will still play poker online, plain and simple. Good to see that Europe (including my homecountry Germany) are working this issue a lot smarter..

Now poker: I played a little during the week and a little more during the 3 day weekend we had because of today's Columbus Day. Things didn't go to good and especially yesterdy I dug myself quite a nice hole. Nothing was working. It was just one of those days where I couldn't win a single race, my favorite hands got beat and so on..But hey, I kept on playing my game and managed to minimize my losses today. I still hope that especially the longer sessions that I do try to play on the weekends will go a little better those coming weeks.

On Saturday is the "big day" when I turn 21 and can finally play poker legally in the big casinos over her. With the World Poker Finals coming up at Foxwoods at the end of Oct. I will play a few satellites for the 10k Buy-In main event and see how those go. I will definetely keep those few of you who might still read this update on how that'll go.

P.S.: My buddy Erik here said something absolutely hilarious online today and I just have to share it! You're my boy E!! :)

KeyShawnJohnson1: horses love hay
KeyShawnJohnson1: dogs love dogfoood
KeyShawnJohnson1: donkeys love ACE RAG off
KeyShawnJohnson1: like im gonna have a farm of donkeys and just throw em A2 -A7 for lunch n dinnner

Finally a longer session

2006-10-01T21:46:00.000-04:00

Sunday: $-2.48

Today we had our day off from soccer and since I didn't had too much work to do for college either I basically just played poker all day. I was in the hole pretty quick after bubbling a couple of $50 SNGs and a $100 SNG but managed to minimize my losses to an absolute minimum during the end of my session. I think I played really well but just got unlucky at those bubbles a couple of times. Those unfortunate situations combined with a couple of really interesting calls basically leave me with +-0 to start of October.
I also got pretty deep in the 8k Guaranteed at CelebPoker today but got busted only shy of the FT in 12th place. The guy who called me with 22 for half his stack hopefully didnt make it either ;)
I'll just keep on playing as much as I possibly can and see what the next days and weeks are gonna bring.

September recap

2006-10-01T21:37:00.000-04:00

Sept.: +$654.50

Ok, so September is over and I really didnt play a lot of poker due to the fact that I either had practice or a game every single game of the week. I am still satisfied with what I managed to grind during the couple of short sessions I managed to squeeze in every once in a while. Not included is the Mansion sportsbook win I had at the beginning of the NFL season and with that I really made some good profit this month.

I did not fulfill my goals that I had initially set for September but it was very hard to do that due to the lack of time. For October I wont set any goals because it will just be the exact same situation as in September.

Yesterday we also made our third trip down to Foxwoods again and I wasn't too sucessful. I played 1/2 NL again and lost a buy-in after a few hours when my Aces got cracked once again. The third hand I got dealt all night was KK and they ran into AA and from then on I knew that this night would not end in the plus ;)
I still had a good time and that definetely counts for me as well.

Minimum input, maximum output

2006-09-30T00:02:00.000-04:00

Monday - Friday: +272.10

Once again, not a lot of poker but what I did play went pretty well. Yesterday I played exactly two $50 SNGs on CelebPoker and managed to win both of them. That definetely works for me anytime of the day :)

I also went to Foxwoods again on Monday and I felt like played pretty well. After 3 hours of grinding we had to drive back because I had an 8am class on Tuesday including a nice little Accounting test..NO FUN! (still got a 95 on it so its all good). During these 3 hours I made about $200 and I was completely satisfied with that result. I could've sat there all night and day and the guy to my immediate right probably would've donated his entire $800 stack to me. Really liked him ;)

Tomorrow we have another game with the soccer team and after that I will take a nice long nap and either play a lot of online poker or hopefully make it down to Foxwoods again. Until then, take it easy.

Poker Heaven

2006-09-25T00:05:00.000-04:00

Wednesday - Sunday: +$33

Once again, not a lot of poker cause I just don't have the time at the moment. We played a game every three days and it is just too physically and mentally draining to do anything afterwards. Since I am starting and played the full 90 minutes in every game so far I just don't have the energy to play poker when we get back after games. Then again I also have other stuff for college to do such as writing papers etc. Oh yea and I'm going to classes every once in a while as well ;)
When I did play though, things were running pretty smooth and I always had a lot of fun playing the game that we all love so much.

On friday night came a highlight of my poker caree: Since my college is pretty close to the Foxwoods Resort+Casino. So we went there at about 12pm on pretty short notice and what I saw was absolutely AMAZING.
I have NEVER seen so many poker tables in one room and just everything about this place was totally overwhelming. I played at a 1/2 NL table and for some weird reason the max. buy-in there was $100. So I played my regular game and I was up 80 or 90 bucks real quick. Then came 2 hands which weren't too much fun. First my aces got cracked by deuces (all-in pre-flop for some weird reason but I kinda liked it) because the dealer found some magical deuce to put up on the river and after that I ran into a set with top two pair calling off all my chips. I wasn't really angry though because it was just SO much fun playing there. This trip will definetely be repeated a number of times and I just can't wait to go back there!

Alright, that's about it again..Game tomorrow and I hope that we can improve our 3-3 record a little and climb back up where we belong. So long...

Still alive

2006-09-19T23:47:00.000-04:00

Monday(last week) - Tuesday(this week): +$596

So I've been kinda slacking on the blog entries the last couple of days and even weeks but classes here at college and soccer just takes up a huge chunk of my day and when I do have some free time I just need to relax and hang out with friends to keep the social bonds going ;)

I do also play some poker every once in a while and when I've played the last week it has been running REAL smooth. When I played I probably played about 4 SNGs per day and I really played good, especially in the $50s. That way I made really decent profit this last week and dug myself out of the hole that I was in for September already. Now I'm even up a couple of hundred and I really can't complain. It's really sad that I cant play more and ride the wave but it's just not possible at the moment. I love soccer and I lover poker but at the moment soccer is just the no.1 priority and it will be for the next month at least. But after the season I'll be ready to kick ass and take names again ;)

Hope there are still a few of you out there who read this!? Take it easy and good luck.

P.S. HUUUGE game tomorrow so wish me luck!

Soccer, Hanging out > Poker

2006-09-10T17:09:00.000-04:00

Tuesday - Sunday: -$32

Yeah so the title more or less states what's going on. Right now I just don't really have the time to sit down and play poker. I could play at night after soccer practice but since it was the first week of school there are so many new people (especially girls ;) on campus and therefore I spend the nights with my buddies over here just hanging out and getting to know all the new people. Once the new people are getting "old" I will most definitely sit in my room every other night or so and play some poker. Soccer also takes up a lot of my time and also a lot of my energy but it's a lot of fun as well. The -$32 come from a couple of SNGs that I played on Tuesday and after that I didn't open any kind of pokersoftware. I really miss playing though in some sort of way and I will definitely find some time or take some time for that matter to get at least a couple of SNGs in every day.

We had our first soccer game yesterday again Southern Main CC and we drove in the first win with a 2-1. The team we played had a lot of strong and physical players but I think that we had a pretty good edge on them overall. We scored the first goal after 20mins. and played very disciplined from that point on. Late in the second half we had to watch a weird indirect freekick somehow find its way into our goal. We still kept on playing our game and had numerous chances that we couldn't capitalize on. I think it was ca. the 85th min. when I took a shot from about 30yards out which got deflected and fell infront of one of our strikers feet who then got tackled in the box by a defender. My boy Wayne from England, who is an absolutely disgusting player, put in the PK and we won the game.
So soccer is going pretty well and all the work in the last couple of weeks surely paid off.

That's about it..I will have and really want to try to get that inequality up there changed a little in pokers favor.

Off to a bad start

2006-09-05T13:33:00.000-04:00

Friday - Monday: -$265.60

Wow, so I definitely did not get off to a good start in September. On Saturday and Sunday I had two practice sessions during the day and only played a little cashgame here and there when I wasn't all too exhausted.
On Sunday and Monday the freshmen had orientation and our coach gave us these days off = POKER! I played about 10 SNGs on Sunday and I think I didn't get ITM in a single one of them..Again, I cant explain why but it definitely didn't make me too happy..
Monday was running a lot smoother and I managed to minimize my September losses by a little.

Also, classes started again today and right now I'm playing a couple SNGs again before heading to practice in the afternoon. The blog for today will follow later tonight because I'm also planning on playing a little when I get back from practice.

I will also work on a little review on Doyle's Room for poker-tester.com during the next couple of days so check the review on poker-tester.com in a few days.

August recap

2006-08-31T22:59:00.000-04:00

Wednesday + Thursday: -$16

Ok, so I managed to throw in a couple SNGs on Wednesday and Thursday and what it comes down to is that I basically still know how to play the game, which makes me more optimistic then looking at the soccer team twice a day at practice. I really don't have the time for poker at the moment because I focus on soccer and soccer only and the way it's going right now 5-6 people have to carry that team on their backs this year and I guess I will be one of them.

For those who read this and are interested in it. I play soccer here at Dean College and I got to play with last years team of which most of the people left. So did the old coach and there are 6 guys left now (including myself) that have played here already. The rest of the team consists of freshmen and they are just absolutely HORRIBLE. It might sound cocky and mean but it's just the truth. Day in and day out we look at these kids TRYING to play soccer and it gets very frustrating at times. Some of them just lack the simple basics of playing a straight ball to your feet over a couple yards, even if you tell them ten times before to play it exactly there. I really don't know where this is gonna end up but I just hope that all these guys SERIOUSLY step it up a notch and get their fu**** act together. The old coach here said, that this was the best group he has ever recruited..So far they really miserably failed to prove that.

That should be enough for the little soccer discourse but that is just the stuff that gets me going more at the moment than bad beats do.

August: +$647.45

Alright, so August did start off looking really bad but winning the 4k Guaranteed at CelebPoker a couple weeks ago certainly did the trick this month. It was also one of the goals that I set myself for August to win either the 3k, 4k, or 8k Guaranteed so I can mark that off as:
- Goal Achieved -

My other goal for August was to make at least 1k of profit which didn't quite work out, due to the fact that I was down a couple of hundred bucks before the big MTT win because the SNGs just weren't going well at all.
I will probably get a good amount of rakeback as well sometime this night and then August is looking better than I ever thought it would.

As for September I will just set the same goals because my bankroll is still not big enough to move up limits but I'm gettin' there. I also have a long and intense season with 18 games ahead of me in Sept. and Oct. and feel obliged to help this team out and win as many games as possible because losing is just not acceptable for me.

Quick update

2006-08-29T12:16:00.000-04:00

Monday+Tuesday: -$55

Alright...So I managed to throw in 2 SNGs on Monday between our two practice sessions and I bubbled both of them unfortunately. Other than that I really don't have the time or the nerve to play poker at the moment. When I'm not out on the field or eating im lying on my bed trying to give my legs a some relief since they are starting to get pretty beat up after now three days of double sessions. Yeah, I guess thats it so far and I'll keep you guys updated when anything interesting happens. Take it easy.

Pre-Season Day I

2006-08-26T22:34:00.000-04:00

Saturday: $0

Like I guessed there was absolutely no time for poker today. I met the new coach today and the rest of the new players that came to attend our college this year. It was nice to see all the "old" guys again and just hang out and catch up.
Then we also had our first practice session inlcuding the fitness test I already wrote about and I turned out to due quite well. Running a lot during summer definitely paid off.
The following days I will have two 2-hour sessions a day, followed by a lot of meetings etc. etc. and I think that this will not be the last day that I will have to cut short on poker.
I will still be reading the forums and the blogs that I usually read and I wont be completely gone but playing myself just doesn't find too much space in my schedule right now but that will also change again, believe me!

No time for poker :((

2006-08-25T23:58:00.000-04:00

Thursday + Friday: +$4

Due to the fact that I moved back into my dorm room at college late Thursday afternoon, I didn't have too much time to play poker..unfortunately. I still tried to through in an SNGs whenever I could and I ended up play 3 today and 3 yesterday and as you can see I managed to grind out A LOT of dough ;)

Tomorrow soccer pre-season starts here at Dean College and I think that I will have to cut short on poker once again but once everythings running smooth I will try to find a couple of hours every night to play a little in order to make a little more profit before August ends.

Soccer is still the no. 1 priority right now because I want to play a successful and go to the National Championships in Novemeber. I will try to update this blog on a regular basis to keep friends and family updated about how things away from poker are going. Poker will still be a large part of this, believe me! :)

Staying on this couch forever...

2006-08-23T23:43:00.000-04:00

Tuesday + Wednesday: +1029.85

Tuesday:
I'll tell you about that ominous couch later on in this entry but let me go in order and start off with Tuesday. After the friends at whos house I'm staying at the moment before soccer pre-season at college starts had left on Tuesday afternoon to visit their family in Vermont, I decided to watch ESPN, order Domino's Pizza, and play A LOT of poker. So I started off with the regular SNG routine and I found myself losing them left and right once again..I also played the 3k Guaranteed at Celeb and after I doubled up with KK, I lost everything with that exact same hand and shipped another $22 to my opponents. Later when the SNGs didn't fill up anymore, I played two cashgame tables at Celeb and one at FullTilt. I was crusining along quit well, picking up small pots here and there and I also made a few very good and extremely aggressive plays which I was somewhat happy about. I was able to minimize my losses a little with that cashgame session but was still in the hole after calling it quits once again.

Wednesday:
After a good sleep I had breakfast at around 1pm and then went for a run down at the Belmont High School sport field (yup yup, pre-season is coming closer and closer, gotta get in shape...).
After that and the following, extremely needed cold shower I sat down on that couch again and started to play some poker. I started of with the daily SNG routine and I didn't get much going. I did have a few ITM finishes and I think I was even up a few bucks but it was really nothing big and nothing that could come close to help me get out of the hole I was in for August.

Then 5pm (USA ET) rolled around and I decided to play the 4k Guaranteed at Celeb, which also belongs to my daily routine I guess.
I started off extremely good and found myself being the chipleader after only about 20 min. of play. I wont even try to lie though, I got extremely lucky, basically flopping monster after monster. Here are some examples:

22, flop -> 332

AQ, flop -> KTJ (with 2 diamonds though and I had to river my nut flush with the Ace of diamonds on the river against a player who had the flush on the turn already..but hey, thats poker isn't it !? ;)

TT, flop -> T33

After those hands I was up to about 13k with blinds only at 50/100. Then I got dealt KK in LP and I started to feel bad because it seemed like I was getting too lucky. But Celeb changed the story a little: Infront of me a player min. raised to 200 and I made it 700 with my kings and he elected to flat call. The flop came TTx and he bet out pot. I raised him all-in only to find myself being way behind against his ATo. It's an easy play for him after the flop but I really don't know what to raise pre-flop in order for him to let go of that rag. Then again I want these calls in the long run..Oh well...So I lost about 5k and was down to about 8k and started to get a little frustrated because I was just folding, and folding, and folding, and fo....My stack really got smaller and smaller and then I got dealt QQ. I raise it up to 4x BB and I get three callers and a BEAUTIFUL ace on the flop. I was thinking about throwing the laptop out the window but I guess that would've been just to expensive to blow off some steam..plus, that hand wasn't over yet. All three players check to me and I just cant let those chips in the middle go bad there and bet out about half pot, which was also half of my stack. As you can imagine I was extremely happy to see two of the three players calling my bet..The turn got dealt and it was the most beautiful thing that hit my eyes in a long time (except for that girl on Friday at the club, she was really cute as well): Q. It got checked to me once again and this time it was a blast for me to throw the rest of my chips in the middle. Both players elected to call once again and showed 99 and A2o on the river, trippling me up. The guy who thought his nines were still good was the same guy that overrates ATo and seeing him crippled and my chips back where they belong was absolutely satisfying (no clue what the guy with A2o thought though, if he was thinking at all...)

After that I took down another player with QQ when his TT didn't find help and I was sitting pretty again with about 27k in chips.

I was just cruising along, trying to raise here and there and abusing people at the bubble a little. When we were down to 11 players, just waiting for the FT I get dealt KK in LP. I was all happy go lucky already, thinking that this will be the hand doubling me up and giving me a very good shot at the FT. A player in EP raises, I had him slightly covered and re-raised him all in. He calls, I say to Cort "No rigged shit now.." and man was I happy when he showed those fu***** aces!!! This time I was SERIOUSLY considering to throw something out the window but then again it's not my house and I don't feel like paying any kind of repair costs..I was totally crippled and had less than five BBs left. The very next hand I get dealt KQs and the player who just took all my chips raised it up once again and I just shoved the rest of my chips into his raise, hoping that he would just end it real quick now, having KK or QQ this time. He had ATo and the Q on the flop gave me back some hope.

So I did manage to get at the FT but all of you who know the payout structures know that the places that really matter are 1.-3.
A few hands into the FT I get dealt AA and man was I happy to see those boys. This time I figured I tried to be a little tricky and just limp them, which I usually don't do because that stuff can backfire faster than you can say "lickidy split" (thanks for that one Cort ;)
I still managed to double up and was always between 6-10 BBs after that.

When I got AQo dealt and had about 6 BBs left I decided to just ship 'em in the middle after a couple of players had limped. One of them was trying to be tricky as well and had limped his JJ, calling my all in. I turned my Q and even rivered a flush and he was gone and my stack was once again more beautiful to look at.

After a while I found myself 3-handed and now I just really wanted to take that thing down for $1100 which would severely boost my bankroll. I now had the chiplead and tried to play extremely aggressive, raising almost every hand. After a while the other two caught on and I found myself losing a couple of small pots that quickly added up leaving me as the short stack. I managed to double though (forgot what the exact hand was) and was back in it. Then I got AQo on the button and raised it up once again. The BB decided to call and that Q-high flop was exactly what I wanted to see. I bet out at the flop (like I had done 24832041 times before with absolute garbage, having to fold a lot of hands on the turn) and got called by the BB. I fired out another bet on the turn and this time my friend from Spain decided to raise me. I re-raised all-in, he called and showed Q3s, having a slight kicker problem going into the river. He got no help and since I had him slightly covered he could now throw on his PJ's and call it quits for the night.

HU in a, for my bankroll, big MTT.. Wow, I just had to use the 2:1 chip advantage I had and take that baby down. I played very aggressive again, trying to show my opponent who's boss from the first minute. He played it like I wanted him to, folding to a lot of my absolute garbage hands.

I think it was only 8 or 9 hands after HU had started when I got dealt KK in my SB and once again I decided it was time to get a little "cute" here and just limp them. The flop came 9T5 and he felt pretty safe. I bet out and found him raising me..I though to myself "Here ya go buddy, that's what you get for trying to be a smartass just limping...". Then again, I wont let go kings here and re-raised all hin. He called showing 78o for the open-ended straight draw. There it was: $1100 only two cards away. The turn was a 9 and I was leaving this lovely couch for the first time that night cause I just couldn't sit still..The river was a blank and I just exploded into a loud "BOOOOOOOOOOOOM". It just felt great because it was my first MTT win and I really needed that bankroll boost.

Right now, I am still sitting here all happy go lucky and I think that this is the feeling that we all play poker for. I hope that I can ride this high for a while and keep on playing good poker, improving my game from day to day and as long as every downswing (hopefully) ends with an up like that, I am willing to take them any time of the day.
To come back to the title: If I have more success like that on this couch, I really might have to buy it off of the Berens' family and take it wherever I go because then I just wanna stay on that thing forever.

On that note I also want to thank Cort for helping me out once again by giving advice with some tricky hands and just assuring decisions that I would've also made myself but hearing from an experienced player that you're doing the right thing is just priceless.

I hope that the next days will just go on like this and that I will have a sucessful rest of August, a not to exhausting pre-season, and a good start into the soccer season.

Back in the States...

2006-08-20T16:02:00.000-04:00

Saturday+Sunday: -$48

I played only a little poker and Saturday and spent the rest of the day with friends and family because I left for Boston early this morning as I've mentioned already in an earlier entry. What I played didn't turn out all too nice so I was down a couple of bucks..oh well.

Now I'm sitting here back in the states and soccer pre-season starts this coming weekend. Therefore I should have A LOT of time to play poker and hopefully make a buck or two as well. As of right now I just need to sleep..

Slowly climbing..

2006-08-18T23:39:00.000-04:00

FRIDAY: +$110

...out of the hole that I dug myself into in the first 2 weeks of August. I only played about five SNGs today and I went on a nice little run that won me some nice dough today.

Other than that I went to a club today and met a lot of people which was pretty nice since I'm leaving for Boston on Sunday. Therefore I don't know if I will have a lot of time to play poker tomorrow because I still have to pack all my stuff and meet family and friends before my flight leaves early sunday morning.

Blog entries have been a little short these days because I really have a lot to do before going back to college but as soon as I get there I still have a couple of days left before soccer pre-season begins and I will certainly use them wisely and play a lot of poker (and eat Taco Bells!) ;) and update you a little more thoroughly.

Semi-back from break

2006-08-17T20:55:00.000-04:00

THURSDAY: +$15

After I didn't play poker on Tuesday and Wednesday, today felt like the day that I might be able to go back and play with enthusiam and fun. My results from the previous days really didn't motivate me to play at all and I therefore did lots of other things with Cort and Sutti before they left for Vienna this morning (gl and "no riggin' " down there boys!!)

I played 6 SNGs and the 3k Guaranteed after I came back from soccer practice tonight and I felt like I played alright but just couldn't get "the job done" and take at least one of them down. I still came ITM a couple of times and I would much rather see 15 bucks of profit a couple of days in a row, although its certainly not what I'm striving for, but it is definetely better than being down a couple of hundred.

No words..

2006-08-14T21:31:00.000-04:00

MONDAY: -$171

What can I say..It doesn't help to win on Sunday when I lose more than I won the day after..
I really don't know whats going on and it's just really pissing me off big time to be completely honest.
I think I played like 10 SNGs today and bubbled 7 of them. It's just completely ridiculous and I have no clue what to change.

Later tonight I tried to minimize some of my losses by playing some cashgame at FT and when I was about to end my session a few bucks up I got dealt aces and guess what happened? YES, I managed to lose a whole buy-in against some extremely good player who called my re-raise of a previous raise with 97o and managed to call my flop bet as well with middle pair only to get two pair on the turn...

Reverse the curse

2006-08-13T20:54:00.000-04:00

SUNDAY: +$119

Since I've always been running extremely cold on sundays, I really did reverse the curse today. During the early evening I was up over $200 but got unlucky in a few SNGs later tonight.
It really feels good to see my results for today though and I just hope that my, in my opinion, solid game will get me back out of the hole for August with a couple of more days like these..

Mondays on the other hand have always been really juicy according to my statistics and tomorrow will hopefully not be an exception to the rule.

Losing money left and right..

2006-08-11T21:27:00.000-04:00

FRIDAY: -$144.75

I have no clue what's going on or what has been going on these last weeks for that matter. Playing my regular game = losing money left and right. SNGs, MTTs, cash games - you name it...

Maybe I just got lucky for the first couple of months I started playing and now my skill is not high enough to beat the levels I'm playing in? I really don't know what to do or change and I find myself deeper in the hole for the month every night I look at my numbers..

We'll see how the next days go and if this bullshit continues I might just take an extended break for the last week im still in Germany and just read a lot and do other stuff with my friends .

24-hour Session

2006-08-09T21:59:00.000-04:00

24-hours, Tuesday 5pm-Wednesday 5pm: -$189.65

It is Thursday 3am now and I think I'm sort of alive again. After the 24 hours yesterday afternoon I just fell into my bed and slept like a little baby. I would still do it again because it was a lot of fun, even if not all that sucessful.

Cort, Sutti and I had planned this session a couple of weeks back and on Tuesday the day came. We went out early Tuesday afternoon to get a lot of enegergy drinks, snacks, and regular food to last through those 24 hours. We started exactly at 5pm that they and I played the following tables:

.10/.25 NL @ FullTilt
.25/.50 NL @ FullTilt
.25/.50 NL @ CelebPoker

With my bankroll I can also play .50/1 and probably even 1/2 but for this session I decided to tune it down a little just to be safe. I managed to build nice stacks at the FullTilt tables pretty early while my Celeb table was running EXTREMELY cold. Early in the morning things changed and I lost a lot of my stack at the FT tables on a couple of big pots where I was just behind or where people decided that pot odds of 1.5/1 were enough to chase a gutshot. On the other hand my Celeb table started to run pretty well and I was up over $150 there in no time. Then at around 5am or 6am in the morning, things started to get really ridiculous. This is not supposed to be a bad beat story but the following scenarios happened at least 4-6 times within 2 hours: Lower-medium pocket pairs, I flop my set, I bet 2/3 of the pot and sometimes even more and get a caller only to fire again on the turn and again on the river only to find all their chips in my face or my bets being called with some weirdo straight. Even if they have huge implied odds when they hit gutshots for example I dont think that it is mathematically correct to call my $10 bet into an $11 pot when you have 4 outs that give you the straight and therefore the winning hand. It was really frustrating at times and Cort and I were just sitting there just shaking our heads. On the other hand you want exactly those players to pay you off on mathematically incorrect calls, forcing them to pay with the wrong odds but as soon as they hit, be sure to lose a lot of dough..

When the final hours arrived I was already down about $200 and I managed to still grind out a few here and there before my concentration left me.

It still was a really fun and interesting experience and I can certainly recommend it to anyone who has the time. After 20 hours it becomes sort of hard to stay focussed but all that can only help and improve you game because you really have to try extremely hard to stay concentrated over a very long period of time.

Today I will just go back to my usual SNG routine and hope that I can make up all the losses and crawl back out of the hole that I dug myself so far in August.

More of these days please!

2006-08-07T21:36:00.000-04:00

MONDAY: +$197

Now this is looking way prettier than the sh** from the last days. I only played a few SNGs today but I took one down and managed to get ITM in a couple as well. Like I said before, mondays have always looked pretty juicy and it seems to stay this way.

I also got to the FT of the 4k Guaranteed at Celeb which started at 11pm but I donked off half of my stack in a situation where I held AA, tryin to be all smart just min. raising just to see them get busted by a flush. I ended up in 6th place which is still ok I guess but today it really felt like I had a shot at taking the whole thing down.

Sutti, Cort and I might be doing the 24-hour session tomorrow but it is not 100% sure yet but I (we) will certainly give you some live-updates in our blogs if we decide to do it.

Poker gods, more "mondays" please!

Whatever...

2006-08-06T21:10:00.000-04:00

SUNDAY: -$94

Online poker can lick a nut. Not more to say. Good night.

Live hot, online not

2006-08-05T21:59:00.000-04:00

SATURDAY: -$38

Online: I started playing a couple of SNGs this late afternoon and I found myself in the hole pretty quick. Once again I didn't play bad but just didn't see a lot of hands and when it came to push and fold mode later in the game my luck seemed to be on vacation. It happens I guess and Celeb was at least so kind to let me win my last SNG a couple of minutes ago which minimized my losses at least.

Live: Certainly the more interesting part of the day. Since the Spielbank Berlin is hosting the Deutsche Pokermeisterschaften this year, they also offered $105 single table satellites this weekend and Cort was there this evening to play. I told him that I might come by to watch a little and since the online play was pissing me off big time, I just decided to drive over. The reason why I wasn't there trying to qualify in the first place is that I will be flying back to college in two weeks and therefore wont be here when the Meisterschaften take place in Nov.
So I drove over to the Spielbank and play at the first table was about to end and I just wanted to play REALLY bad. So we asked the floorman if it was possible to sell my ticket to the Meisterschaften in case I would qualify. He said it wouldn't be a problem as long as I sold it to someone right after the tournament. Of course I wouldv'e given it to Cort and I therefore decided to play.

Cort, Rainer and I sat at the same table once again (after Petrovice) with 8 other players and first place would win the $800 entry into the final while second place would get the remaining $200. With a starting stack of 1500 chips and the blinds going up every 15 minutes (10/20, 20/40, 40/80, 100/200, 200/400, 400/800...) there was not much room for playing a lot of hands since the dealers there are sort of slow and we basically played about 4-6 hands in every limit.
I limped in with T7s from the SB and hit a set on the turn but couldn't capitalize on that hand and when I was all-in with AKs it was folded and I took down the blinds. Therefore I found myself relatively short-stacked with about 1,8k in chips and in the BB for 400. Rainer raised it up in front of me and I just decided to take my chance with 66. Rainer, who had busted two guys 'till that point (one of them calling of his chips on a TT5 flop with Q2o against Rainers ATo..pretty amazing play) made the obligatory call with KJ but my sixes held up and I found myself in a very comfortable position now.
Here comes the part of the night that Cort has already explicitly written about in his blog: We are now 4-handed (Cort, Rainer, Mr. Tommy-Shirt, and I) and Mr. Tommy-Shirt shoves on my BB and Cort and Rainer fold. I have JTo and think for a while when Mr. "I drink too much and then go nuts" started to tell Cort about how he just saw that he was giving me signs, and that hes not stupid, and yadda yadda yadda. He just didn't want to stop and started to get really aggressive until the floorman told him to calm down. Still, he was yelling at us, provoking like crazy and legitimately cussing at us. I got REALLY pissed and I'm certainly not a fan of violence but if it wouldn't have been for the environment of the casino and all the people around us, I would've just told him to meet me outside after I've won his money.
To clear this up: Cort was giving me NO signs whatsoever. I think we are both strong enough players without having to cheat or help each other when we are at the same table. I was never good in math but I am certainly capable of calculating pot odds on my own and since Cort had folded his cards already there was no way he could've helped me.
I think they guy was just mad because he got busted so early but maybe he just shouldn't shove all his chips in the middle with K2o the next time..
Back to poker: I make the call, because I got amazing pot odds, which I calculated aaaaaaaalll by myself and I lost and was now down to about 4,5k.
A few hands later, Mr. Tommy-Shirt busted both Cort and Rainer with pocket aces and all of a sudden I found myself HU with 4,4k in chips against Mr. Tommy-Shirt with 10,6k. Since the blinds were already at 800/1600 at that time and it was my time to throw in the BB, there was not a lot of room left for me to fold some of the junk I got dealt. So I get J3o in my BB, Tommy-Shirt fills up, the flop comes 63Q, giving me bottom pair and I just shoved the rest of my chips in the middle, hoping that he didn't get a piece of the flop at all. He calls and turns over 65s for middle pair and wins the hand and the seat to the final.
I was still happy with the $200 I won and just playing live again was a blast.

Ups and downs, smiles and frowns

2006-08-04T21:25:00.000-04:00

FRIDAY: +108.40

Poker really is and has been a weird rollercoaster ride those last weeks. Up a few one day, down a couple the next. I just don't know why I cant play more constant but in the end it probably is just the usual variance in the game.
I played about 10 SNGs today and played only two at a time and it worked pretty well. For some reason my statistics also say, that I make more profit when playing >3 tables. Maybe I am just a little more concentrated when I play fewer tables at a time but I've also had very good and profitable days when I played four and more tables at once.

At 1AM I played the 3k Guaranteed at Celeb and built a nice stack only to lose a couple of coinflips against smaller stacks afterwards, just to find myself pretty short when the blinds went up. I still managed to get ITM and then took my chance to double up but my K9s didn't get any help against ATo.

Hopefully tomorrow will go just as good as today and I will certainly be a happy camper again.

Nice way to start off August

2006-08-03T21:03:00.000-04:00

THURSDAY: -$139.55

Looking at these numbers I'm obviously being ironic with today's title. I decided to play $30 SNGs only today because looking at my numbers I have been playing them a lot better with a lot more profit than the $20s for some undisclosed reason.
The whole day was completely weird again and just like in July I just cant win or at least come ITM constantly. I took one down, then lost four right after. That's basically the way it went all day and summing it all up you get those amazing numbers for today.
I have absolutely NO clue why there is so much variance in my game since the beginning of July or in the $20 and $30 SNGs for that matter. In the $10 SNGs I managed to get ITM much more frequently and made a lot more profit than know. Looking at it from this results oriented perspective is probably not the right thing to do but I just don't know why this change has occured. I have certainly not changed my game (if I did, I think I have only improved it) and the players in the levels I'm playing know are not much better than those in the lower ones.
I guess I'll just have to wait and see how the next days and weeks go and find out if there is anything I can do to get better results.

Minimum poker, maximum fun

2006-08-02T22:16:00.000-04:00

WEDNESDAY: -$78.30

Not that poker is not fun but today I only played 4 SNGs and I lost all of them. I would've played more but there was not much going on at Celeb this afternoon and the tables were taking forever to fill up. Later this evening I went to the Volksfest as planned and I had a blast there once again. Cort was the horse-race champion today taking a few bucks off me but in return I schooled him in the little basketball game, dropping a couple of more buckets than he did. :)
Afterwards we went to play pool and Cort and I played together and took down most of our games as well.
When I got back home at 2.30am I played a little cashgame session at FullTilt, which actually went pretty well, minimizing my losses a little, and it could've been even better if I wouldn't have blown one buy-in on a completely idiotic call.
It was a really good and succesful day away from the poker tables and I hope that I can carry the good karma over to win some good money tomorrow.

Better than nothing..

2006-08-01T20:28:00.000-04:00

TUESDAY: +$27

Well I guess it's not the worst way to start off August but it's certainly not the greatest either. Especially because I went on a pretty sick run early tonight but had to dump a lot of that money to other people again by losing several SNGs afterwards.
I also played the 4k Guaranteed and managed to build a very nice stack during the first hour but afterwards I just sat around folding hand after hand after hand. I literally only played one hand that entire time and when the blinds went up after the second break and I only had about 5BB I pushed all in with 67s and had a lot of outs after the flop but still lost against TT.

Tomorrow is a new day to make some dough and I'm certainly hoping that it's gonna go better then today. I might not playing to much at night because we are planning on going to the Deutsch-Amerikanische Volksfest again. But maybe I can take some money from Cort and Sutti there with some sidebets on horse-racing and a couple of other things ;)

The three of us are also planning on doing a 24-hour session sometime next week were we will most likely play on the same cashgame tables for the entire time to see how much profit we can grind out. Everyone who is online at that time should certainly hit us up at the tables to keep us awake.

On a little side note, I would really appreciate if at least the fellow poker-tester.com users would not entice me into calling all-ins after my raises by using dirty tricks and saying stuff like "Ich hab keine Lust mehr, bye" and then pushing all-in. No worries weconic, I will not mention any names.

August is here

2006-07-31T21:04:00.000-04:00

MONDAY: -$5

Alright, so I just couldn't wait to play online again after our weekend of live play in Petrovice and so I started to play a couple of SNGs after 12am ;)
I also played the 3k Guaranteed at CelebPoker and actually had a very nice stack but managed to lose it all in 2 hands were I just didn't get all too lucky.

Although I took down one of the six SNGs I played, I ended up starting of August with -$5. I will therefore take a break from poker for the next 2 weeks and just not think about poker at all. These swings are just taking a toll on me..

Obviously I'm just kidding and I will really give August a start tomorrow and hope that I can get out of that big hole that I dug myself into already ;)

End of July

2006-07-31T20:54:00.000-04:00

After our return from Petrovice I did not play poker at all and July therefore ended the Thursday before I left. I had a lot of extreme swings in July but I was still able to grind out a somewhat nice profit. If I can somehow play a little more constant next month I will certainly be able to a lot more.

I think I will set myself two goals for August and I think that my play is good enough to achieve both goals and have a better month than in July. Here are the two goals:

1. Make at least $1000 of profit
2. Win either the 3k, 4k, or 8k Guaranteed at CelebPoker at least once

It's not going to kill me if I wont be able to achieve both of these goals or only one but with them I have a sort of guideline of where my August is supposed to go.

I also expect around $300 of rakeback from poker-tester.com which I can only hardly recommend to anyone.

JULY: +$567.06

Back from Petrovice

2006-07-30T17:46:00.000-04:00

DAY I:

Cort, Rainer, and I left Berlin at around 3PM on Friday and we faced a major problem already because Cort had trouble finding his passport. Everything still worked out fine at the border and we arrived at the casino at around 6:30PM that night. After registering for the $50 Rebuy tournament we went to eat something and relax for a while before trying to qualify for the final on Sunday.
The qualification was a single table elimination where the first 3 of each of the 5 nine player tables would advance. So I go up to pick up my seat card right after Cort and guess what? Riiight, sitting right next to him...
We just took it the way it came and started to play. Our table was pretty weak and we really thought we had a shot at qualifying right here, right now. My first rebuy came after I donked of my stack to Cort who was giving me an absolute warning sign by open shoving on me after the flop but I still called with 66 since there was no overcard to my pair and ran into his aces. Completely stupid because I know that Cort wouldn't trick me when we are sitting at the same table..Oh well, so I did my rebuy, rebuyed again and did the add-on and was in for $200 already.
After the break the blinds just started to increase extremely and it became really ridiculous because we each had 5 BB when the blinds were at 400/800 and about 2 BB when they got immediately raised to 800/1600. By that time we were 4-handed at the table and basically in push or fold mode. I decided to make QTs my magical hand, threw my chips in in my SB and got an instant call from the chipleader in BB. He showed AJ, I flop my flush = SHIP! Extremely relieving at that time because I already thought that I was gonna be the bubble boy after his super fast call.
I was still pretty short-stacked with about 3-5 BB and when the other small stack pushed on my BB (and Corts SB at that time) I held AJ and just thought to myself "Now or never" and called. He had KQ and as far as I recally the flop came A K T which flopped me top pair but opened a lot of doors for him as well. My pair of aces did hold up though and Cort and I were qualified for the final.

Later that night we played a 7-hour cashgame session, 1/2 NL, and I was cruising a long pretty well and managed to grind out $90, which wasn't a lot (especially cause I felt that I really had an edge on most of the players) but I'll take it again any time of the day.

DAY II:

After our long session the night (and morning) before we actually wanted to sleep long and then head up to the casino at around 4PM. For some reason Rainer decided to wake us up though and steal our well-deserved sleep :) After a good breakfast in some weird restaurant in that little village (with the hottest waitress EVVVVVEEEERRRR) we went to the casino and started to play another 1/2 NL cashgame session which started at around 6:30 if I remember correctly. Again, I was just cruising along, picking up a few small pots here and there and then came, what basically ruined my entire day:
I get dealt QQ in LP (think it was cut-off). Infront of me Rainer raised and two other guys at the table just called his raise. I re-raised and all of them called my re-raise as well. The only mistake I made here (and I will certainly admit my mistakes) was not to re-raise enough to get at least one or two guys out of the hand; I just gave them amazing pot-odds...
I got extremely "lucky" though and the flop came 583 with two clubs but no overcards to my pair. It gets checked to me and I bet out 2/3 ($30) of the pot. Action comes around to Rainer and he re-raises me to $100. The other guys fold and I have a decision to make. I just couldn't put him on KK or AA because I think he would've re-raised me again pre-flop and it just didn't feel like he had those overpairs. So I decided to push all-in for another $95 I think and after some thinking I get called with A8s. When he turned over his cards and said "nice hand" I was extremely happy to see that I made the right decision. Turn is a J and i'm about a 90% favorite at this moment and then the dealer decided to make the last card an 8 and I see over $400 in chips get shoved to the other side of the table I really couldn't believe that this was my life...At this moment my heart just dropped and I didn't know what to say. I mean, in the end that's just the way it goes but let me tell you that it is certainly not to nice to lose $400 just in a blink of an eye. I played with Rainer a few times now and he should've come to known me as a fairly tight and solid player so I really have NO clue what he thought I was holding when I re-shoved his humungous raise..If he was raising for information he certainly got his information when all of my chips went flying in to his face and if he really thought he was ahead at that time I just really don't know what to say. So I will say it once again and then just try to forget this ever happened: Rainer, I think your play was ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE and the "JA!" after the suck-out made it even worse...
After steaming back at the hotel like crazy, Cort convinced me to come back and play some more and get my money back somehow. I tried hard but never really got to a point where I could've come close to get back what used to be mine.
After a while I get dealt QQ again and I really thought about just folding them but of course that's complete rubbish so I obviously raised and got a couple of callers..One of them was Cort and I know that he has something when calling especially one of my raises because he knows that I'm not raising with garbage either. The flop came 473 with two hearts if I remember correctly and once again I led out with a bet of 2/3 of the pot. Cort was the next one to act behind me and immediately shoved all-in. It got folded around to me and I was absolutely stunned. But then again it was one of the easiest laydowns of the night because I know that Cort would not bluff or try to trick me and most probably had me beat here and since I actually know how to fold a hand (*hint hint*) I turned over the queens and Cort showed me his set of sevens. The laydown wasn't really that hard but I was still happy and on the other hand pissed that once again about $50 went down the drain for this hand as well.

(Wow, I'm just seeing that this is getting extremely long but hey, I have a lot to say and whoevere reads it, reads it :)

So the game was moving along and my stack was bleeding chips but it was just one of those days where nothing really came together. I got dealt ATo in late position and just decided to limp. The flope came AKx and after it got checked around to me I felt like my pair of aces might be pretty good here. So I bet out 2/3 of the pot again and got called by only Rainer. The turn is a T giving me two pair. The action was on Rainer and he bet out around half the pot and since I didn't put him on AK because I think he would've raised that pre-flop (nor did I think that he had paid to hit his gutshot) and so I shoved all my chips in the middle once again. Then everything went really quick. I just heard "I call you" and Cort saying "Please tell me you dont have QJ". Then I saw Rainer did buy the gutshot for absolutely ridiculous odds and I was just sitting there, not knowing what to say. AND NOW comes the happy part and I think the most deserving bad beat I ever gave to someone: The dealer turns over the rivercard and it is a T giving me the full house. At first I didn't really realize what happened because I was just thinking about another buy-in going down the drain but after those chips got shoved over to MY side of the table this time, I felt extremely relieved.
To make a long story short. I still ended up down a couple of hundred for the day and now my only hope was the final tournament on sunday with a prize pool of $7200.

DAY III:

27 players qualified for the final in the two single table elimination qualifiers on Fri. and Sat. and the lucky loser freeroll on Sun. morning. After eating my Schnitzel for breakfast which was served to me once more by the very very VERY attractive waitress I felt pretty confident about my chances going into the final tournament. We started with 5k in chips and blinds starting at 50/100. Within the first hour I saw absolutely NOTHING playable and so I just sat there paying blinds and watching my stack shrink. When I finally got JJ, a call of my raise, and a beautiful KJ8 board I decided just to check it to a player who I thought was somewhat aggressive but at this point he was as a aggressive as a little lamb and just cecked behind. I wasn't to happy with the T turning and putting possible straights and flushes up on the board and therefore decided to throw in a few chips. The guy thought a while and then folded.
After that I only saw complete rags for a long time and when the blinds were about to go up to 400/800 I held A8s in my BB. The guy on the button who just lost a huge pot and now had the exact same amount of chips as me shove all-in and after thinking a while about what I've seen from this player during the other days I decided to call. He turns over AJ, flops a J, gg me.
Looking at it now, A8s certainly could've been a hand that I could've shoved in this situation, being almost under 5 BBs but definitely not good enough to call and all-in because those Ace-rags are just to likely to be dominated. I think I finished in 17th place overall in the end..
Oh well, it was one of only a very few stupid plays this weekend and I will only learn from it.

I ended up being down about $400 for the weekend which is not nice at all but the fact that I played very well during the course of these 3 days and just got extremely unlucky a couple of times makes it not as bad as I initially thought it would be. It was still a great time and I think I learned a lot and was able to improve my liveplay drastically.

Thanks again to Cort for helping me out a couple of times and just being the good "tutor" once again that he has been in the last couple of months as well.
Now, I'm just going to hope that poker online will start off nice in August and then will just go on from there.

Way to go...

2006-07-26T19:59:00.000-04:00

WEDNESDAY: -$241

Wow, what can I say. Not quite what I had in mind when I woke up this morning (this afternoon to be honest). I played about 20 SNGs and I think I finished ITM twice and bubbled the other 18 times. At least thats what it felt like. I certainly bubbled a lot and I don't really wanna cry about bad beats but when people call my all in with T8o on the bubble for half of their stack and somehow manage to suck out with some rivered weirdo straight against my 66, there's not a lot I can do..
Thats the way it went today and I guess these kind of days just happen although I would certainly hope for them not to occur too often.

I will not play tomorrow because I'm planning on reading a lot of poker stuff tomorrow to get fresh motivation for my trip to the tournament to Petrovice, CZ on Friday. The main tournament there will be a $50+Rebuys which will start with the qualification on Fri. and Sat. and continue with the final on Sun. There will also be cashgames and SNGs for me to play and I am planning of playing a couple of these as well. The main goal of this trip is just to have a good time and improve my live-poker play but to make a buck or two throughout this trip certainly wouldn't hurt

Rollercoaster

2006-07-25T22:30:00.000-04:00

TUESDAY: -$121.60

Well, after I won a nice amount yesterday I dont have too much positive stuff to say tonight.
Most of the SNGs I played didn't go all that well and as far as I remember I didn't play particularly bad but it just wasnt meant to be today. Later at night I played a little cashgame at FullTilt which actually went pretty well until I blew a lot of money because some guy decided to call my pot bet on the turn to chase his flush for ridiculous odds, but hey, it happens. Not much more to say about poker.

Other than that I had a nice day, eating steaks at Blockhouse and playing Badminton with a few friends of mine and that makes up for winning money in poker any time of the day.

I'll keep this one short and hope that I have more satisfying (poker) news tomorrow.

After the rain comes the sun

2006-07-24T20:49:00.000-04:00

MONDAY: +$237.88

Yesterday I said, that sundays were statistically not my best days. Mondays on the other hand were always pretty juicy as today certainly proved.

I played my regular SNGs at Celeb today and I really played solid and good poker in my opinion. The nicest win was definitely an SNG where I managed to come back from 640 Chips with blinds 200/400 HU and took it down. But I can also think of a situation where I played pretty bad: I was in BB in the early stages of an SNG and the small blind, an absolutely terrible player according to my notes, just limps in his SB. As far as I recall I had 34o and the flop came Q69. So he led out with a bet of about half pot which I figured was somewhat weak so I just decided to re-raise. He decided to just flat call my raise. The turn was a 6 I think and when he checked to me I just threw all my chips in cause I thought he might've limped with some weak A and didn't hit at all. He called and had Q8o and did hit to my surprise. Oh well, worth a try but extremely risky and unecessary. I find myself to do this every once in a while, trying to outplay people and so far I always seemed to run into people who thought there bottom pair was still good (which it was :) or guys who did really hit. In these situations I always have to remind myself of just playing plain and solid poker without trying to pull off incredible moves, especially against those weak players that I have marked as such. (He proved his weakness again by calling my all-in for 6 BB with J9 and afterwards making his exit by open pushing K2o in MP with absolutely no need.)

I hope that tomorrow goes just as well and that I can make another couple of bucks to boost my profit for July a little.

Bubble ³

2006-07-23T20:23:00.000-04:00

SUNDAY: -$120

What can I say..Looking at my CheckYourBets, sundays have never been that great for me and that did not change today.
After my soccer game this morning (which we unfortunately lost 2:4) I came back home and took a nice and well-deserved nap. When I woke up at around 7PM I started my SNG routine and I managed to bubble A LOT of them. No matter what stacksize, I just couldn't get ITM. Sometimes I just played bad, other times I got sucked out majorily, and the rest of the time I just lost the usual coinflips. Add all that and make it -$120 for the day.
I really feel like there's a lot of up and down in my game at the moment and I really just hope that I can still end July with some decent profit, and play more consistent when August arrives.

Cruising along

2006-07-22T19:54:00.000-04:00

FRIDAY:

-no poker-

SATURDAY: +$91

After a day without any poker and a long party night yesterday which was a lot of fun I just played my regular SNGs today. I took longer breaks every once in a while though and went for a little swim in a lake nearby because it was pretty hot again.
I feel like I played pretty well today and went on a nice streak early at night but had to give up some money again after losing a couple of SNGs at the bubble when I got a few absolutely ridiculous calls. Sometimes people just think they can win with any two cards and that's why they call off more than half of their stack with J3o or similar rags and win against 66 for
example... It happens I guess and I know that they wont be that lucky all the time. Luck is still a a big part of the game and you just cant control it.
Other than that there's not much going on. My soccer team has a game pretty early tomorrow, so I will call it an early night and hope that we can win the game and some money afterwards.

Too hot to play poker

2006-07-20T20:00:00.000-04:00

THURSDAY: +$80

It really was extremely hot today. I would say it was the hottest day this summer. Due to that I didn't play a lot of poker. Started of pretty well but after a while I got kind of unconcentrated and also a little unlucky and ended the day with a couple of lost SNGs. Still a day that I will always take instead of one with red numbers.
I'll just keep it short today and see how tomorrow comes along

Queens no good today

2006-07-19T20:45:00.000-04:00

WEDNESDAY: -$37.62

The day started off pretty bad and I was a couple of hundred bucks pretty quick. I got very unlucky at the bubble losing with QQ to 22, QQ to 44 and, AK to AQ. These are the hands I remember because my little soccer ball went flying across the room. If I win these hands, I'm almost 100% sure ITM and would've ended the day in the plus but it wasn't meant to be today.

Then there was a really interesting hand. This might sound a little cocky but everyone who plays at CelebPoker knows that there are a lot of people who dont really know how to play this game and turn it a little more into roulette. See for yourself..

Hand #371823215 at table: STT $20 NL
Started: Thu Jul 20 00:40:56 2006

DonVito69 is at seat 1 with 1063.00
punkoala is at seat 2 with 2120.00
Kojak34 is at seat 4 with 2090.00
moutchel13 is at seat 7 with 1132.00
deluxe17 is at seat 8 with 5635.00
deansoccer is at seat 9 with 1245.00
HHeavey is at seat 10 with 1565.00

DonVito69 posts the large blind 100.00
HHeavey posts the small blind 50.00

HHeavey: --, --
DonVito69: --, --
punkoala: --, --
Kojak34: --, --
moutchel13: --, --
deluxe17: --, --
deansoccer: Jh, Jc

Pre-flop:

punkoala: Fold
Kojak34: Fold
moutchel13: Call 100.00
deluxe17: Fold
deansoccer: Raise 300.00
HHeavey: Fold
DonVito69: Fold
moutchel13: Call 300.00

Flop (Board: 9h, 9c, Ah):

moutchel13: Check
deansoccer: All in
moutchel13: All in

Showdown:

moutchel13 shows: Kd, 4d (a pair of Nines)
deansoccer shows: Jh, Jc (two pair, Jacks and Nines)

Turn (Board: 9h, 9c, Ah, Ks):

River (Board: 9h, 9c, Ah, Ks, 9s):

moutchel13 shows: Kd, 4d (full house)

Mainpot:
moutchel13 wins the pot of 2414 with full house

I shoved on him after the flop because I certainly did not expect him to check an ace like that and my notes about this player in his little box also made it pretty clear that he was certainly not the type of player to trap with an ace.
So I was right and to be honest I don't really know what he was doing there but maybe he just felt that K coming..

At 11pm the 4k guaranteed started at Celeb and I took another stab at that. After a while I became pretty short stacked and with 13 players left i get dealt QQ UTG and I decided just to limp them. The player UTG+1 decided to move in all his chips just like I was hoping for and he shows TT. Worked out perfect!!!...Not quite. Flop comes 789 giving him his open ended straight draw followed by the J on the turn which ruined all my hopes of taking down the tournament tonight. Like todays blog title already says: Queens were just no good today.

Sooooo relieving!

2006-07-18T21:09:00.000-04:00

TUESDAY: +$180

Noooow we're f***** talking! I cant tell you how good it is to win some good money after a few days of losing SNGs left and right. I didn't even play all that much today but when I played I played concentrated and good poker in my opinion. It wasn't really me getting lucky in a lot of situations but just not getting unlucky did the trick already. It's really good to know that I can still play the game and a couple of more days like that and July could actually turn out to be quite nice. So thanks Celeb for no rigging today, keep up the good work ;)

I also went to the movies today with a few of my friends and we watched The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift which I thought was a really good movie. Especially when you're into cars you will certainly enjoy this movie (some of the girls are also pretty fine to say the least :)

Since I have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning which I really cant wait for (*irony*) I'll call it a rather early night and try to catch up on playing poker tomorrow.

Here we go again...

2006-07-17T19:02:00.000-04:00

MONDAY: -$151.55

What can I say..Not quite what I had expected after yesterday was actually running pretty smooth. I played a little cashgame early in the morning at FullTilt and it went really good actually and I thought it was gonna be a good day, but little did I know..
I started playing SNGs at Celeb in the afternoon and I lost every single one I played. Then I tried again tonight after I went to the gym to clear my head and the insanity just continued. It was/is just completely ridiculous and I have NO clue whatsoever how, or for that matter, what to change. I'm playing my regular game that has worked perfect in the past and I just cant get close to those last three paid places. So I'm just sitting there watching my bankroll shrink without a clue about what is going wrong. I can really only hope that this is just the regular variance in this game and that it will be over soon cause it is really driving me nuts 'cause like I said before, I dont know what to do about it.

Tomorrow I might really just take the day off and do lots of other stuff (mow the lawn to make my mom happy) and just not think about poker at all. But then again I feel like I just want to try and see if anything has changed, if I can still beat the game or the other players at the table for that matter. Maybe I just want it too bad though and I should really just take a day or two off.. I guess I'll decide sometime tomorrow and then we'll just see if I put up a blog with green or red numbers at night or just no blog at all.

A step in the right direction

2006-07-16T20:19:00.000-04:00

SUNDAY: +$72

After yesterdays terrible results I just started off playing a couple of SNGs willing to stop playing for the day if everything went wrong again. After losing three out of a set of four that I usually play, I was absolutely pissed and steaming and just shoved every hand I saw at my last running table. All of a sudden i found myself HU and I didn't even try to change that winning strategy and managed to take it down. Of course I'm just kidding and this is probably the worst way to play poker but it helped to blow off a little steam.

Afterwards I just sat down in my backyard and read a little in Harrington on Hold 'Em Vol. I which is just a truely amazing book and always gives me new motivation to start playing again.
So I did play a couple of SNGs during the course of the evening/night and I played one table at a time just to really focus on my play and see that my game is still intact. I found myself playing really good and concentrated and managed to grind out a few bucks before I called it a night.
Playing one table at a time always helps me during a cold streak or a beginning downswing and it certainly did today. On the other hand it drops my hourly rate as well but I'd rather have some profit at the end of the day by playing one table instead of playing four at once just to find myself in the whole at the end of the night like yesterday. I will definitely go back to multi-tabling though when I regained enough confidence.
Tomorrow I will see if this is the start of something good and I just hope that I can put green numbers up here more constantly.

P.S.: Cort has booked our hotel room near Petrovice (28.7-30.7.) today and I think I'm speaking for both of us when I say that I am pretty excited and really cant wait to play live and hopefully also win a buck or two.

Sadurday...

2006-07-15T19:22:00.000-04:00

SATURDAY: -$429

It really was a sad day today. Played mostly SNGs and two MTTs later at night and I managed to get in the money in NONE of them. This has never happened to me before, it is completely ridiculous and I have NO clue what's going on. It was just one of those days where high pairs run into higher pairs, overcards lose to small pairs, and contrary to that my own small pairs lose to overcards. Even hands where I was a clear favourite couldn't hold up. To sum it up: I won absolutey nothing! No crucial hands, no big pots, no money, nada...
I'm really thinking about taking a few days off and just do lots of different things just to get my mind of poker and start with new enthusiasm and motivation. As of right now my motivation has dropped below zero.

Then again there are so many things that are far more important than poker and/or money and certain situations always show me how other people are having troubles that go far beyond a big downswing in a cardgame.

Regular Business

2006-07-14T21:04:00.000-04:00

FRIDAY: -$34.50

I played a few SNGs during the day and focussed on some MTTs later at night. I managed to get pretty deep in the 8k Guaranteed at Celeb but didn't land the big hit. I think I played pretty well but it just wasn't meant to be I guess.
Later on I played a little cashgame and didn't really get anything going either. Two Pair got rivered by better two pair, flush went up in flames against a full house but oh well..The whole day it just went up and down and I ended up down a few bucks for the day but that wont keep me from playing again tomorrow, trying to get my money back

Blog! Yay!

2006-07-13T22:35:00.000-04:00

Ok, so how do we start this..
I started playing Poker for real money in March and started to work my way up through the different SNG levels on CelebPoker. With A LOT of help from two friends, namely Cort and Sutti, I managed to build a nice bankroll which now allows me to play $20 and $30 SNGs at Celeb. I could keep on telling you how I worked my way up and how long I played each level and all that yadda yadda but I think this short summary should do the trick.

Now the reason for this blog: Actually I wanted to start it after the the weekend of live play in Petrovice at the end of July. That way I would've started with a new month and also with the month that I will be going back to the USA to start my second semester at Dean College in Franklin, MA. The idea of this blog was to keep my friends and family up to date mainly about poker but also about how the soccer season is going and othe random stuff about college life. I also think that it is a good way to reflect on you play for each day, look back at crucial hands and see where you made mistakes or on the other hand played extremely well. Let's see if it works ou that way
The reason I started the Blog today is an MTT that I just played and it just wont leave me alone so maybe writing about it will help.
Who is gonna read all this?? I dont know, but if you do, enjoy :)

THURSDAY: +$149.92

I didn't really play all that much today, due to the fact that I kinda slept 'till 5:30 PM and had soccer pratice right after. After practice I got off to a bad start but Celeb was so kind to let me take down two $30 SNGs which did the trick today.

After that I decided to play the 3k Guaranteed on Celeb. I was cruising along and when I saw the table folding to my aces I got a little desperate and made a risky all in move with KJ and won against some random call. After that things went pretty well unti I blew a major part of my stack by raising AT in MP actually just trying to steal but then facing the Chipleader in a hand. I thought I was ahead when the ace flopped but little did I know that the other guy had AJ and flopped two pair. I called him all the way like an amateur and was down from 21k in chips to about 4k. In the end I ended up in 15th place, which was ok considering the circumstances. The thing that makes me so angry is the fact that I played this hand so poorly..Or actually, let me put it this way, that I played it at all. Those ace-rags are just no good and I know so much better then to go crazy with them like I did. Oh well, I guess I'll just learn from it and it gave me a good excuse to start my blog ;)