Vienna Recap

Thursday, February 23rd:
Sutti and I fly from Berlin to Vienna the morning, check into the hotel, and head to Concord Card Casino around noon. Right away I was very impressed with the card room. Everything was very clean, the place was very well kept, everyone was very friendly. We both sat down at a 3/6 Limit Hold'em table, and I quickly realized we were playing against regulars. A few old guys who would call call call call all the way down, two Swedes who played stereotypically tight, one young guy who could barely keep his eyes open but still managed to play every hand he was dealt, and then Sutti and myself. My strategy was to just play tight and solid poker, which worked pretty well. I played for 4 hours and won around €90.

At 5:30, Gerlihard and Bla met us at CCC. They are both very nice guys, and they were kind enough to give us a ride to Pokerworld, which is another card room in Vienna. Unfortunately, though, Pokerworld has got nothing on CCC. The place looks like an illegal Chinese Mafia hideout. It all seemed very "iffy", but we decided to play the €20+4+Rebuys tourney anyways. None of us made it into the money, though, and we all went back to CCC to play more cash games, which went so/so. We finally went back to the hotel at 4:30am.

Friday, February 24:
We had decided that CCC was the only place we were going to play at, and so we went back in the early afternoon. I sat down at a 3/6 limit table and lost two racks of €100 each with the following hands:
My AA lost to 4h3h, he chased and caught his flush
My AA lost to 7d3d, you know the story
My TT lost to QK when the board read AJT

Matze and his girlfriend Tina arrived later on that night, they are both very nice people. I decided to try my luck at 4/8 limit, bad idea. There are days when you should just not play poker. This was one of them. All this limit poker is starting to get to my head. I am a no limit player. Tomorrow is the €150+20+Rebuys POT LIMIT Hold'em tournament. I decide that I am gonna play it, pot limit is no limit's cousin, and that's good enough for me!

Saturday, February 25:
Big day. Matze and Tina took us to CCC, where I played a little 4/8 limit while waiting for the tournament to start. I won a little (€40) and was feeling generally good when the tournament started at 5pm. I did not recognize anyone at my starting table, and my strategy was to play tight and hopefully avoid a rebuy. That strategy worked. I built up my starting stack of 1000 to 4000 at the first break after 90 minutes. I won one coinflip, my AK vs 99, which helped get me a lot of those chips. I took the add-on for 2000 chips, ate the wonderful buffet, and then came back to play with a stack of over 6k.

At this point they announced the payouts. €12k for first place sounded good to me. For that to happen, though, I would need some cards and some luck. Neither of them showed up. I gradually was blinded away, then I tried to use my tight table image to bluff at a pot, which was unsuccessful. I eventually found myself around 3.5k chips when the following hand came up:
I had KcJc in MP folded around to me
I raised to 900
SB and BB both call
Flop comes K 9 7
SB bets 3k, BB folds, action to me
Why would he do that? I am the preflop aggressor! Something was not right about this play. Time to disect the hand. I immediately ruled 77, 99, and KK out. AA-TT he would have raised my preflop bet, those were ruled out too. That left AK, KQ, K9, or something of that nature. I thought for about 2 minutes and finally realized that I had to make the call. My chips were well below average and I had to take a stand. I called and he showed AK. Turn and river did not help me and I was out in place 38 (top 10 got paid).

I went over to the cash game section and saw that Gerlihard had also arrived. He somehow worked out a €1/2 NL table which I was very excited about playing! I bought in with the maximum €200. It started off rough for me, I was quickly down over €70. After about 2 hours of not playing any hands, I looked down and saw AA in UTG+1. I knew that if I raised here, someone would know what's up, since I had not been playing any hands at all the past couple hours! And so I just called. A crazy Italian named Marco (remember him please!) raised to €12 like he does every hand, SB called him and BB called him, action to me. I thought for a few moments and reraised to €35. Marco folds, SB calls, and BB folds. Heads up to the flop, which comes A 7 2. SB checks, I do my best at pretending that ace did not help me and checked behind him. Turn comes 9, check check. River comes T. SB bets out €50, I think for a few seconds before pushing all-in, I see on his face that he knows what's about to happen, but he calls anyways. He shows TT for a rivered set, I flip over my aces and rack in the €250+ pot. €10 tip for the dealer for dealing such a wonderful hand.

Then all of a sudden 4 people left the table and I was playing alone with three Italians. The only problem was, they were all friends, and were all speaking Italian to each other. I should have just stopped there, but I wanted to prove to myself that I can handle it. They attacked and attacked my blinds. I had around €220 left when the following key hand happened:
I had Ah8s and raised to €12 (this was the standard raise)
Everyone calls.
Flop comes Ad 7s 9s
I bet €30, the BB calls me
Turn comes Ts
He goes all in for over €150
OK, I have top pair and a straight flush draw! What could he have to beat me? I had to think about this one for a while. To make it more interesting, I flipped over my hand to show him how difficult my decision was. I did this mainly because I wanted to pick up a tell on him based on his reaction to seeing my cards. I showed the Ace first and said "You already know I have this one." He nodded his head. I showed the 8s and said "But this is the one that makes my decision so difficult." I looked at him and saw the look on his face. He was surprised and did not look like he wanted me calling. I called it and he flipped over As4h. He had the ace and just a flush draw. According to CardPlayer, I was a 45.45% favorite to win, 36.36% to tie, and I had an 18.18% chance to lose. The river came Ks, he completed his flush, and the humungous pot was shoved over to him.

At this point I was very pissed, but did not want to show them that that hand got to me. The game broke up shortly afterwards, and I did not play poker for the next few hours.

At around 3:30, one of the crazy Italians (Marco) came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play heads up. I asked how much, he said €500. I immediately said yes, I saw how bad he was playing before. I really thought I was favorite to win this match. We agreed on a tournament structure heads up game, he wanted to make it a cash game, but I said tournament style or nothing. The CCC Floor Manager agreed to give us a table and a dealer, in exchange for a time fee. Sutti made a side bet for €50 with one of the other Italians on the winner of the match.

The game started at 4am and it went back and forth. He took a slight lead when I semi-bluffed with middle pair, but I had to fold when he went all-in. Then I went on a little rush, gathered up some chips and we were back to even. After about 45 minutes, I only had about 1000 chips compared to his 2000. The blinds were 50/100 and he raised to 300 in his SB. I looked down at As9h. Something told me that this is the time and I went all-in. He called instantly with 88 and although I turned a flush draw, it did not hit and I lost the €500 to an Italian named Marco. Matze, Tina, and Sutti were there supporting me but I just wasn't able to get my game on.

It was originally planned that Sutti and I were going to extend our stay for another day, but after I lost so much money there was no way I was going to stay in Vienna for another day. It was really nice meeting Gerli, Bla, Matze, and Tina, overall I'd say it was still worth the trip!

Bags are packed

What a horrible warm up for Vienna. Over the past two days I have played very little poker, and still have managed to lose $973.40 in the process! This is not exactly what I had in mind as far as getting myself warmed up for Vienna!

I need to clear that out of my mind, though, if I want this trip to be successful. My flight leaves in just 6 hours. I need to be out of the house in 5 hours. I will be waking up in about 4 and half hours. This is going to be a very short night. Then it's off to Vienna, bring on the competition!

Good night, and wish me luck!

Collecting rake

Day 20:
Things are getting tight in my race to contribute $2500 of rake in February. I am still short around $600 and I will be in Vienna this Thursday-Sunday. That means I only have a few days to collect enough rake to earn the loyalty bonus at CelebPoker. Therefore I put in an extra shift at the tables today and earned myself an extra +$317 while doing it!

It was a day of ups and downs, I had to take a few bad beats along the way. I bubbled out a couple more times than I would have wished to, but I guess that's life. One cool thing today was that a $200+15 SNG finally filled up at Celeb. The whole time I have been playing there, I have never seen one fill up. I managed to make 3rd place and win $400. I was going for the victory when I went all-in against the chipleader for a 10k+ pot with AQ. He had 77 and it unfortunately held up. Winning that coinflip would have made me the chipleader and given me a good chance of winning the $1k first prize. Oh well. There's always tomorrow...

Pissed

Day 19:
I was just playing a $100 SNG and we were at the bubble. I was 3rd in chips and the guy in 4th place had a very small stack. Then he starts opening his mouth about me and my 'buddies' playing together (I did not know either of the other players) and when I would fold he would say 'God forbid you play your hand.' So then this lucky bastard hits a runner-runner straight and is all of a sudden back in the game. Then he is quiet. His world was good again. I started to get on his case how when he was down he became a prick and now that he's up he is totally peaceful and quiet. Of course it was him who busted me out in 4th place and then says 'Yessss' in the chat box. Are you fucking kidding me? I just about lost control of myself and I knew my poker night was over.

If I had continued to play I know that I would have not been able to give it my all, and so I had to stop. How can one person get me so riled up? I guess it was a combination of being a prick/me bubbling/him rubbing it in that got me off track. Grrrr good poker players need to be able to control of themselves at all times, I guess this is something I need to be working on.

Results: +$239

What are the odds?

Day 18:
I am not a math-expert, therefore I am not sure of the odds of this, but I made 4-of-a-kind three times today. The first one was playing a $100 Heads up match and it was the hand that busted my opponent. My second one came during a $50 SNG as only three people were left. The third and final one also came in a $50 SNG and was the hand that won me the game! See for yourself:



























While those were pretty cool, I made a big mistake today that I just don't understand. While playing in the $109 MTT at Celeb, there were 13 of us left and I had a decent sized stack. Blinds were 100/200 and I raised UTG to 600 with KQo. There were only 6 players at the table and I thought this might be a good time to get blinds. Wrong. The BB called me and the flop came AA7. The thing about the BB is, he was pissed at me because I doubled up through him earlier. He then later tried bluffing at me, I bet back into him and he folded right away. I just got the feeling that he wanted his chips back from me. Anyway, he checked, I bet, he called. Turn come T. He bet 1k this time. I didn't understand this bet. I thought he was just representing an ace and so I raised to 2k. Horrible play. He raised all in. I was forced to call because there were 3 diamonds on the board and I held the Kd. I did not make my flush and he won with AJ. I only had 650 chips left and went all in next hand with AK, lost to JJ.

I am an idiot for making that play. Harrington says that the cards you don't want to see on the board when bluffing are Aces and Tens. This time there were two aces and I still acted like a donkey. I was able to clear my head of that play, though, and make another good late-night run.

Combining all my results of MTTs, SNGs, and HU SNGs, my results for Day 18 are: +$386

Thank God for the Late Nighters

Day 17:
Alright it's official: The bad players came out late at night. I started off the day on a horrible run, taking some pretty hard bad beats, those included:
JJ vs 22 (made a straight on the river)
KK vs QK (all in preflop, flop came 9TJ)
QQ vs 66 (all in preflop, 6 on the flop, I bubbled out)
JJ vs 44 (all in preflop, 4 on the flop, I bubbled out)

I figured things could only get better, and sure enough, things started to turn around as the night progressed and I started to cash in the SNGs. I simultaneously played the $100+9 MTT at 10pm, a tourney which I have been playing a lot lately with NO success. And I mean no success. Not even a cash. I am down over 1k just paying entries into this tourney. Tonight my luck finally changed. With only 43 players entered I made 4th place for $540. I'd like to thank Benno, Gerli, Matze, and Swordsman for the support. I am going to continue to play this tournament in the future, I have a good feeling that I will be winning one pretty soon.

Results: +$475

Another late night tear

Day 16:
I could basically copy/paste my previous blog and it would be the same story for today, with one major difference: my winnings! My hands held up today and once again I went on an incredible run to finish the night! It might just be my luck, or it might really be true that the play softens up around 11pm-1am German time. I generally win more, the later at night I play. My stats program confirms this as well.

Tomorrow I am hoping to play some live poker (and win this time!), but if it doesn't work out I will definitely use the time to get caught up on my February goals.

On a side note, I played a $50 SNG with Scott Robinson (formerly of the boy-band 5ive). He bubbled in the tournament and did not chat with anyone. He is the third "Celeb" I have played with at CelebPoker after Paul Ince and Brian McFadden. I'm hoping to have Traci Bingham at my table one day :)

Results for Day 16: +$667

Late Night Rally

Day 15:
Since I got off work early today I had plenty of time to play poker. I knew I needed to make up for some of the rake contribution from the days before. I ended up playing 20 SNGs, 1 MTT, and 1 HU match. After all that play, all I have to show for it is +$257. I started off well, then I went seven SNGs without a cash. I was able to pull a late night rally, though, winning 3 of my last 4 $50+5 SNGs! It's always nice to end the night on a good note.

I don't know why, but I don't even have the desire to return to cash games at all. I guess it's because these SNGs are running so well. It's strange, though, because I have always been a fan of cash games. Maybe when I play some live cash games in Vienna I will get back into the flow of them, but for now I plan on making my money through SNGs. This is getting repetitive. I'll go ahead and stop it right there. Time to get some sleep!

Grinding it out

Day 14:
I started off today with a trademark $100 HU match which I won in just 3 hands. From then on I started playing some $50 SNGs. Gerlihard joined me for a good portion of the night and he quickly discovered how profitable these SNGs are. Uh oh! My secret is out, and now I must share my profits with others. Lucky for me there are plenty of fish in the sea and I don't need to worry about it too much.

Because I have not been playing as much in the past days I have fallen behind in my monthly goal for contributed rake. This would be a shame if I didn't meet my goal, because I want to prove it to myself that I can do it and I want to get that $100 loyalty bonus. I'll need to step it up a gear in the next two weeks!

Results for today: +$148.50

Back on Track

Day 13:
I got my head cleared of the horrible weekend I just went through and started the day off playing the $100+9 SNGs. I quickly lost three of them and found myself down $327. Uh oh. This seemed like a direct continuation of the weekend. In one hand I raised all-in with AA, the CL called and showed Q6s. Q on the flop and her sister on the turn, bubble boy Cortster.

Turning point: Shorthanded $100+9 PL SNG. 1st place, $350. Then I played two $100+4.50 Heads Up matches, won them both. I have really improved my heads up play again, and it is amazing what an impact it has had on my game and my results.

Tonight was also the Poker-Tester.com 5. Deutsche Pokerrunde. I had a decent run and doubled my stack by the first break. Early into the second hour I got KQs and raised 3xBB. One caller (stevestrong) behind me. He had been playing relatively tight until now and so I knew I had to hit my hand if I wanted to beat him. Flop comes Q high. I check, because my brain was sure he would bet out. Sure enough he did and I was all-in. Unfortunately for me though he had aces and they held up. Shortstacked I got A9 and went all-in next hand. Two callers, one with KQs and one with 22. The board brought me no good and I was out in 11th place.

I played some more SNGs later in the night and I had great success. I came in second in a $55 SNG and took down a $109 SNG! It was a great feeling especially because I went into heads up with a chip-disadvantage. I was able to catch a few cards and soon enough I had the chiplead. I continued to play my strategy and eventually I had my opponent all-in drawing to just a couple outs. None of them came and I held my fist up in victory. These are the moments I play poker for. These moments of victory, when you are on top of the world, when no one can stop you, man it feels great!

Results for Day 13: +$757

-€500

The title speaks for itself. I did not play any online poker today, just 6 hours of live poker at the Spielbank Berlin. I went there with €500 and came home with empty pockets. My cards were ridiculous, my opponents were horrible. If I could have gotten ANYTHING going for me I would be a rich man. I just want to wake up tomorrow and forget this weekend ever happened. Good night.

Total meltdown

Day 11:
A couple more of these days and I'll be searching for a new hobby. I could not get anything working in the SNGs, so I played some 2/4NL cash games. My QQ lost to ATs (runner runner flush) and gone was Buy-in #1. Then my QQ was beaten by JJ (Jack on the turn) for Buy-in #2. Throw on a $55 MTT loss on top of that and I end the day at -$971.50.

It's hard to find good news from today but I'll try. A) My NETeller Debit Card arrived in the mail today. That means that I can withdraw cash from any ATM that accepts Maestro, which pretty much every ATM does. This is a very good thing.

Good news for tomorrow will hopefully me beating the €5/€10 Pot Limit Hold'em Cash Game at the Spielbank Berlin. Minimum buy-in is €150. I'll be buying in for €500 and my goal is to come home with €1000. In order for me to achieve this I will need to clear my head of today's bad results, get good sleep, and then play concentrated, disciplined, solid poker when I get there. Expect a full report tomorrow!

Night of Royal Flushes

Day 10:
I had to work today until 4pm, and I already knew that I had to leave the house again at 6pm to go play some live poker in the city. That only gave me 2 hours to play online, so I played some shorthanded 2/4NL which went surprisingly well. I then played two $100+4.50 Heads Up Tourneys and I won them both, which was awesome.

I lost a little (€43) playing live poker tonight. But it was play money, of course :) Playing for real money is illegal in Germany, and I would never play for real. My first hand dealing I dealt the guy in first position a Royal Flush of hearts! It was pretty crazy.

I came home pretty tired and decided to play some SNGs. I played two $50+5 SNGs and lost them both. However, there was one highlight hand:
Unfortunately it was a pretty small pot, but hey, it's a Royal Flush! This is my 5th all-time Royal Flush and I have flopped three of those directly! I look forward to plenty more of these during my poker career.

Results for today (live poker results not included): +$233.60

Double Whammy

Day 8:
I did not play nearly as much poker as I would have liked to, which caused me to fall back in my monthly goal for contributed rake. The SNGs I did play did not run very well, the only reason I made any profit was because of my $60 winnings for a 4th place finish in the $1 Rebuy Tourney at CelebPoker. Total winnings: +$80.30

Day 9:
I basically spent Day 9 getting my ass kicked at the $50+5 SNGs. I could complain about how ridiculous the bad beats were but that won't help anything. All I know is that I am still happy with my game and happy with the decisions I made. I couldn't control what cards fell on the board, but I put myself in a favorable position when the money went, and that's what counts. At one point I was down over $400 but I was able to regain my composure, go on a little run and turn the day into a +$138 winner. One tournament I am going to try and improve my results in is the CelebPoker $100+9 MTT at 1opm. I've been playing it the past few nights and I like it, although I have not cashed yet. Tonight I finished 13th (top 10 got paid), which was a little bitter, so I'm looking to make up for that in the very near future!

Derailed

Day 7:
Today was my first losing day of the month. I have no one to blame for it except myself. I pointed out earlier that shorthanded cash games are NOT my specialty. What does Cort do? Goes into a 3/6NL shorthanded cash game of course. After losing $371 in a little less than an hour I quickly retreated back to the SNGs to lick my wounds. At this point I was down over $500 for the day. Through a string of SNGs I was able to pound that number down to a total of -$134.50 for the day. This day was bound to come sooner or later, and it took me a whole week to have my first losing day, which is an OK feat. So after one week, here's an update on the status of my goals for February:

1. Goal: +$2800 total winnings
Current status: +$3864.10 (way more than I expected)
2. Goal: Finish off bonus at CelebPoker
Current status: Complete
3. Contribute $2500 rake at Celeb for bonus
Current status: More than $700 of contributed rake, on schedule to complete goal
4a)Play good poker in Vienna
Current status: N/A
4b)Come back from Vienna in the plus
Current status: N/A

*Note to self: Stick to the SNGs and full table cash games. *End note

Damn Seahawks

So the Seahawks lost the Super Bowl and I lost €50 because of it. That didn't stop me from winning at poker today, though. Rather than being totally lame and giving you the same boring breakdown of my SNG stats like I've been doing the last few days, I'll just go ahead and say flat out that I played 16 SNGs today and won +$562. Short and sweet. I'm tired. Good night.

A lot of poker

Day 5:
I woke up this morning with one thing on my agenda: play poker.

I wanted to do what was running well lately, namely the $50+5 SNGs at CelebPoker. Today I played 18 of them:
1st place - 2 times
2nd place - 2 times
3rd place - 3 times
Out of the money - 11 times

I'm very happy with my SNG results lately. I would prefer to be playing more $100+9 SNGs as well, but it is very difficult to get a full table at CelebPoker. I managed to play three of them today, and I missed the money in the first one. That just motivated me to try again, and this time I won it for $500, with TDMatze watching me as I played. I played another one pretty late at night and I managed to come back from 900 chips to win that one as well for another $500!

I did not go back to the shorthanded tables today, I stuck to the longhanded 2/4NL cash games to help me meet my goal for contributed rake in February. My goal was to contribute $2500 and according to my records I am in line to meet this goal so far.

Results for Day 5: +$863.90

Now I'm off to watch the Super Bowl! Go Seahawks Go!

Not much poker today

Day 4:
Compared to the last three days I did not play much poker today at all. I played a total of 7 $50+5 SNGs. Here are the results:
1st place- 3 times
Out of the money- 4 times

It was either 1st place or nothing today. That would have left me with a nice profit today, but instead I managed to lose two buy-ins at Shorthanded 1/2NL, costing me a total of $400. I played some full 2/4 ring game to finish off the day, and my total for the day is +$175.40. I'm still on track for my goals, but I really feel that I left a lot of money at the tables today which should belong in my bankroll. I' m hoping to recover that money tomorrow.

My streak continues...

Day 3:
I continued to work on my monthly goals today and for the third day in a row it went very successful. I decided to work on my shorthanded game, so I played some 1/2NL shorthanded tables. I only played two short sessions but I was able to make some money doing so. Of all hold'em games, I think shorthanded ring games are the ones where I see the biggest room for improvement in my game. I will hopefully get to play a lot throughout this month to improve my skills.

I then hopped over to the $50+5 full table SNGs again. I am trying to play as many of these as possible, because I find them to be realtively easy to cash in. Many times these are the highest limit SNGs being played, which I think attracts sports bettors/casino players to play them. The quality of play is definitely generally not that great and tight/aggressive play is generally a perfect strategy for these. I played 15 of them today, and here are my results:
1st place - 1 time (+$250)
2nd place - 4 times (+$600)
3rd place - 2 times (+$200)
Out of the money - 8 times (-$440)
Total winnings +$610

I also played a few $100+9 SNGs and was even able to win one of them, so my tally at the end of the day is +$726.23.

Maybe I set my goals too low, because I have almost reached my goal for the whole months winnings in three days! Either that or I've got a humungous downswing approaching, which I really hope is not the case. I've also almost met my easiest goal, which was clearing my remaining bonus. I only have $10 left to clear, which will easily be achieved tomorrow. This entry is getting long, I'll stop it here. Have a nice weekend!

BIG day, but no EWSOP :(

Day 2:
There's good news and there's bad news. I'll start with the bad news:

The bad news is that I once again was unable to qualify for the EWSOP Main Event. This was my second try at the $250+20 Qualifier, and I ended the tournament 38th out of 163. The top 8 won the $5000 package, which included the buy-in to the Main Event. Hopefully I will get another crack at one of these qualifiers again, because I really really really want to play in one of these bigger European tournaments. On to the good news...

The good news is that I had a killer day at CelebPoker. I absolutely tore up the $50+5 SNGs today. I played 10 of them:

1st place - 4 times ($250 a piece)
2nd place - 2 times ($150 a piece)
3rd place - 2 times ($100 a piece)
Out of the money - 2 times (-$55 a piece)

Those results combined with a few ups and downs of 1/2NL, 2/4NL, and a couple $100+9 SNGs accumulated me a total profit of $1429.97 for the day. Subtract the $270 for PartyPoker Qualifier and my total winnings for the day are $1159.97.

I'm not sure if I met my rake standards, but I definitely came close. It's days like these that keep my confidence up, even if the day did end on a sour note with the missed Vienna qualification. Bring on Day 3!!!

A Wonderful Start

Day 1:
I could not have asked for a better start as far as my goals go. I played a lot of poker today, and I got rewarded for it. I mainly played $50+5 SNGs, played two $100+9 SNGs, and I played a little 2/4NL cash game. Overall I came out ahead $511.10 in the plus.

It feels great to get started "on the right foot." I also produced a lot of rake today, I'm still having doubts on whether or not I will able to achieve the rake goal. It takes a lot of poker at high limits to produce so much rake, but I will try my best.

I am currently watching the final table of the $1 + Rebuy $500 Tournament at CelebPoker. Our forum is very well-represented, with Gerli, bitsun, and Enchant all making the money. Oburo got extremely unlucky, he deserved to make the money as well. I'll watch it until the end and then I'm gonna go to bed, I'm dog-tired (also an excuse for any spelling/grammar mistakes, I never proofread my blog entries)!

Looking forward to Day 2...