Classics Schedule

Poker ran surprisingly well today, believe it or not but I am even up for the month of September. If I can just build on those numbers a little bit I will end the month a happy camper.

Speaking of ending the month, we'll be leaving for the Austrian Classics in just two more days now. We arrive on the 27th, which is the €80 + rebuys Limit Hold'em event. I highly doubt I am going to play that tournament, because limit tournaments suck and I'd rather use my time playing some cash games.

The very next day (28th) is the €200 PL Freezeout, which I will most certainly be playing. I would prefer it to be NL, as most people underestimate the difference between PL and NL. There are some strategic adjustments that need to be made while playing PL, some (or most) of which I am not all too familiar with just quite yet, due to my lack of PL experience.

On the 29th is the €100 + rebuys NL tournament, and I will decide on playing that or not based on my general mood and/or success in the first couple days. A tournament like this can get pretty expensive pretty fast, but I would definitely like to play.

A €500 Freezeout begins to tickle me as far as how much money I am willing to fork up on a single buy-in, but similar to the rebuy tourney, I will decide this while I am there. It's not that I don't have the funds, it's just that I need to manage them wisely. Bankroll management is key to a poker player's success, and the last thing I want to do is to get out of my comfort zone.

The €500 PL + one rebuy tournament on the 1st of October is a tournament that will be played without me. I'll reserve this day for cash games and flop bets for drinks (bring it on!).

I would have played the supersatellite for the Main Event on October 2nd, but as it turns out, that tournament will no longer be necessary. Nothing is set in concrete yet, but it looks like I will be playing the €3000 NL Freezeout Main Event on behalf of Celebpoker.com. Pretty exciting stuff!

The 4th of October is the final table of the Main Event, and it also happens to be my 21st birthday. If there ever was a good sign, this was it. Let's hope that the stars align just right and I can make something happen!

We fly back to Berlin on the 5th of October, and then it's just a matter of a couple days before I fly to America to see my family for a little while. More on that later.

I am really happy that so many people from the Poker-Tester Forums will also be in Vienna during this time. If you are one of these people, be sure to get in touch so we can meet up! I'm certainly looking forward to a great time... I'll try and take some pictures of this trip and hopefully get them published on the blog, provided that everyone is OK with it. It's nice for people to be able to put faces to the screen names they read every day.

Ever had this happen?

Training

I played two really long sessions of live poker the past two days (for play money obv). On Wednesday I ended up playing until 7am and last night the game ended at 6am. I won a little on both occasions, but it was really not much. The money will be used to feed my "live bankroll" for the Austrian Classics, and I have a feeling I'm gonna need every penny. We leave in just 5 days!

I also found a little time for online poker yesterday, which went very fast and very successful. I signed up for a $200 HU SNG and an opponent joined me within seconds. The first hand was dealt and as I was contemplating what to do, he typed: "Mach!" That seemed pretty impatient to me, so I asked him: "?" He replied "Ich will spielen." Alles klar. These are the guys who you want as opponents.

To make things even sweeter, his favorite trick was to overbet the pot. That made my strategy simple...wait for a decent hand and gobble him up. I did exactly that, winning the first game and challenging him to a revenge. He accepted and so we opened another $200 HU SNG. I could tell he was pissed, because he open-shoved the very first hand. It didn't take me too long to finish him off again, and so we began the third match. I flopped a flush and he open-shoved his top pair within minutes of the match starting, so this one didn't last too long either.

He said he only had $100 left in his account so we would need to step down limits in order to continue playing. I had other things to do anyways, so I let him keep his final $100. Usually, I would feel kinda bad taking people's money like this. However, he told me was a 24 year old banker from Duisburg, so I knew he wouldn't be begging for change for his next deposit. Everyone antes up with the knowledge that they can lose what they put on the table. If you can't handle losing your buy-in (or multiple times your buy-in), then you are probably in the wrong game.

WCOOP HU

Made it somewhat deep in the WCOOP Event today at Pokerstars. It was a $215 buy-in and I won my first 4 matches before being eliminated in 82nd place for $819. I had a really good feeling about it but got shot down before I could make something big happen. I guess I'll have to wait a little longer for my bracelet :)

Headaches

This Poker-Tester.com relaunch is really giving me headaches. The pages are 98% ready to go, but there are just a couple problems that are going to take a little more time and programming improvisation. My hope is that the new page will be up on Wednesday or Thursday. *crosses fingers

That being said, tonight was a phenomenal private tournament at Pokerstars! 57 Ipod-hunters gathered to play the monthly Pokerstars tournament that Poker-Tester runs every month. Our old record was something like 34, so this was obviously a huge accomplishment! In the end, it was "Raderix" aka "Soldens"who took down the tournament and won himself a brand new Ipod. Congrats!

I'll be out of town a lot over this next month, which I am really looking forward to. Nothing against Berlin, but switching it up is always a good thing. From the Sept. 27th - Oct. 5 I'll be in Vienna for the Austrian Classics. The weird thing is that I turn 21 on October 4th. I was planning on having a party here in Berlin, but I guess I'll have to celebrate it in Vienna (most likely at a poker table, what a degenerate). Then from October 9th - 22nd I'll be in Kansas and California, visiting family and just vegging out. Can't wait!

Adding weapons to my arsenal

After another extremely unsatisfying day of poker (highlighted by bubbling the Austrian Classics Weekly, grrrrrrr), I have come to the conclusion that I really need to put more effort into improving my game. Obviously, experience is the biggest teaching tool of all, but reading poker books and watching poker videos certainly are valuable in their own ways as well.

I am in the middle of the Book of Bluffs by Matt Lessinger right now (opponents beware!), so I plan on getting that finished ASAP. I then have the choice between The Makings of a Poker Player by Matt Matros, The Psychology of Poker by Alan Schoolmaker, No Limit Hold'em by Sklansky/Miller, or Kill Phil by Blair Rodman. All of these books are just sitting on my shelf doing nothing but attracting dust, certainly I did not buy them to do that.

I'm leaning towards the No Limit Hold'em Theory and Practice book by Sklansky/Miller, as I've heard plenty of good things about it. My hope is that some fresh advice and poker knowledge will be just the right thing I need before embarking on the Austrian Classics week. Perhaps I will stumble over something really eye-opening even. We'll see.

Kegeln

I went kegeln (a German form of bowling) with my soccer team tonight, therefore there was not much time for poker. I did make a couple bucks during a short cash game session at Celebpoker, though. Still, my results for September are not looking good :(

To make up for all these negative results during the past three months, I think I will win the Pokerstars Sunday Million this weekend.

Too weak

So I was playing some poker today and had built my stack up from €500 to slightly over €1k, as I was running smoothly. Then I got involved in a humungous pot with KK on a QJ4 flop. I ignored some pretty clear warning signs and ended up getting all-in on the turn, which was a 6. The pot was around €2200 and I lost it to Q4s. Though my opponent's play is questionable, it's really my own fault for building such a huge pot with just one pair. He took my stack, but from the way I played, I guess I didn't even deserve to have it. This is a big, expensive lesson, and this time it better stick!

One thing I really need to work on is to evaluate more signs and facts while I am in a hand. Playing online, I can come to a conclusion of what my line should be pretty quickly when it is my turn. I really need to start to take some more time and evaluate the hand more before I decide what the optimal play is. It's one thing to get a nasty river suckout, but it's another thing to get all your money in as a clear underdog. If I had taken some more time and seen that it just isn't worth it, I may have even been able to get off my hand. This all reminds me very heavily of this pot.

So this one is for me: Take your time, think about what exactly happened, think about what could possibly happen based on each action available, then decide on what the best play is. If the price is wrong, don't be too weak to fold a hand!

I want a swimming pool!

Since poker is continuing to run so horribly, I have decided to cash out all my bankroll and take it over to JoePublicCasino.com. After all, it's pretty easy to win there.

Poker-Testing

We had a meeting with our webmaster today who is re-designing the Poker-Tester pages. It's taken much longer than expected because he has been so busy with other projects these past several months. If everything goes to plan, we are looking at a Monday relaunch. I'm pretty excited about the new design, it should add a much more professional tone to the whole site. I don't want to go into too much detail, but I think the users will like the new look much more as well.

Poker for me has been going consistently bad for me these past couple days, but that's nothing new. Surprisingly, Poker.com has been treating me very well while I have been testing the waters there. My cards have been abnormally good, which brings up the question of whether or not poker sites to give new players good cards to get them hooked? Maybe the bad run will start right after I cash out some money. Tin foil hats, anyone?

Land of the Free

The legality of online gambling in the United States is being questioned in the Government right now. Because I am an American citizen, I follow the events that are unfolding with great interest. Here's a nice article by ESPN that deals with online sportsbooks in particular. Definitely an interesting read.

Schenefeld Deepstack Tourney Day 2

Sutti and I went to to the Trabrennbahn in the afternoon to watch a couple horse races. We each ended up losing a total of €10. When we arrived at the casino, the payouts for the tournament were announced: €12k for the winner sounded nice to me!

The blinds started off at 140/280/40 when we returned to play Day 2. Throughout the first 2 hours, I managed to build my stack from 6k up to 20k after catching a nice little run of cards and finding myself in some good situations. I was only all in once, and I was only all in after the river was dealt. All those cards that I was missing yesterday were made up to me in those 2 hours.

After dinner break I had around 18k and the blinds were raised to 500/1k/100. Before we knew it, there were only 20 players left in the tournament. With the top 10 coming ITM I knew that I still had plenty of work to do. I went card dead for the next hour, but luckily won a desperation all in when I picked off someone's A4 bluff my with A9.

I was still sitting at around 18k when the blinds were raised to 1k/2k/200. There were only 13 players left in the tournament. I looked down and saw KQo UTG+1. The UTG player folded and I shoved my 18k all in in an attempt to take down the blinds + antes. The player directly after me called and showed AJs. The flop came down JT8 and things were looking pretty good for me. I had 13 outs with two cards to come. Unfortunately, none of 13 outs came on the turn and none of my 13 outs came on the river. I was eliminated in 13th place (coincidence?). It kinda hurts to play for so long all for nada, but oh well, I'll have to get over it.

Unfortunately Shadow and MVincennes also were not able to make it ITM :( Hopefully things will go better in Vienna!

Schenefeld Deepstack Tourney Day 1

If you're ever travelling by car and need a map, I would not recommend using map24. They think it's fun to leave out important street names and mix up right turns with left turns. What should have been a 2 1/2 hour trip quickly turned into a 4 1/2 hour trip just getting to our hotel.

We made it to the casino around 19:00 and because check-in for the tournament did not begin for an half hour, Sutti played some roulette and slots, surprisingly winning pretty decent money at both. Shortly before the tournament began, Shadow arrived in the casino as well. It was really nice to finally get to know him, after all, he helps us out in the forums quite a bit. I also met a player who frequently plays the $109 and $215 SNGs with me at Celebpoker, who goes by the screen name MVincennes. Also a very nice guy, he has been tearing up those SNGs for the past few months (right when I began choking...coincidence?).

67 players showed up, and with a €700 buy-in, that created a €46,500 prize pool. I went over a saw my seating assignment: Table 6, Seat 4. OK, I thought. Until I saw who I was surrounded by. To my immediate right was an incredibly talented player who many know as Miamivice. To my immediate left was a player who has even made a name for himself across Europe, Andreas Krause. So here I was, sandwiched between two of the best players in the tournament. It was at least a little pleasant to see that we had a few "live ones" at the other end of the table. My goal was to simply hit 10k by the time Day 1 ended.

Each player began with 7,000 chips and blinds of 20/20. Each blind level lasted 45 minutes. My strategy was just to play tight, try to see some cheap flops when an oppportunity presented itself, and then go from there. Well, considering I was totally card dead, playing tight was pretty damn easy. During the first 3 hours of play, my best hand so far had been 22. My stack had stayed around 7k the whole time, as I kept myself afloat with two SB specials (75o and A9o). Finally I was dealt QQ in my BB. It was folded to the button, who min raised to 240. Miami folded and I reraised it to 800, which I realize now may have been a bit too strong. He folded pretty fast. That's the problem of a tight table image. However, in order to build myself a loose table image, I would have bled off a lot of chips, because my junk hands were not connecting any flops, and many hands were getting called down by marginal holdings.

Our table was broken up at the 100sb/200bb/20a level. I took my 6k+ over to Table 2, Seat 1. I didn't recognize a single face at the table, but I noticed that many of them seemed like local rounders. There were only 30 minutes left to play before Day 1 was to end. The first I played was 99, where a guy they called Bedros raised it to 500 in MP. I called in MP with my black nines, one player called behind me, and then the BB went all in for 3.8k. It was a very nice squeeze play by him, as we all folded. I think I should have perhaps raised my 99 preflop and try to take control of the hand. The next hand I played was the exact same hand, 99, again both black nines (Hellmuth's hand). The hand was folded to the button (Bedros), who raised it to 600. To me it looked like a clear steal, so I took my 5500 and shoved them all in. The BB folded, as did Pedros. It might have been a light overbet by me, but I was relatively sure my 99 was good. The played ended for the night and I have 6,180 chips left at the 140/280/40 blind level. I am first to post the BB on Day 2. I didn't exactly hit my goal for the day, and if I'm not careful, I may be in survival mode before I know it.

Meanwhile, it was 1:30am and a seat at a 10/20 LHE cash game opened up. Have I mentioned that limit is not my game? Sutti was also playing the table, and from what I had observed, it was one of the worst tables I have ever seen. You think you've seen it all, you think you've seen the worst players, and then you are totally proven wrong when you see this table. These guys were literally terrible. UTG raises were called by UTG+1 with J4o (ask Sutti about that one), UTG limps are made with 84o, T6o, J5s, Q2o, and plenty of other hands. It was very common to see 8 players taking a flop (that would be all players at the table except Sutti and myself). It was totally sick. I bought in with €350 and started off slow. After about an hour, I was yet to win a single pot. I was dealt AJs and raised it up in MP, which got 5 callers. Flopped nothing and eventually lost to A5o UTG. The very next hand I was dealt JJ. I raised it again and got 6 callers. The flop came 922, I continued to bet, 3 callers. Turn came K, but I wasn't too worried about someone hitting it. Either way, I was not going to slow down. I bet again, 2 callers. River came 7. I bet, 1 call. He showed me KQo for a higher two pair.

Those two hands were the only premiums I was dealt at that table. It's pretty sick when you need to classify AJs as a premium. My stack was beginning to look pretty low, so I reloaded €500 to be fully equipped when the time was right. Unfortunately, that time never came. I quit the game shortly before 4am, down €325. I did not win one pot at that table, not a single pot, not even in my SB or BB. It's easy to lose money when you don't win a pot. It's so frustrating to have such a nice table and not be able to capitalize on it. If I bust out of the tournament on Day 2, I may give the cash game another go.

Preparing for Schenefeld

Wednesday: +$ 292.45
I've been busy with some other things these past couple days that did not allow me to play too much poker. The time that I did get, however, I made good use of. Tomorrow my soccer team has a game in the evening, but I do plan on using the rest of my time to prepare for the tournament in Schenefeld on Friday. I'll most likely dust off my Harrington books and see what that old fart has to say about NL Hold'em tournaments again...I'm pretty sure my game needs some help if I want to compete with Germany's best!

All in or Fold

While working on a review of poker.com for Poker-Tester, I decided to play a $5 shorthanded turbo tournament. I decided that I was only going to use just two moves during the tourney; all in or fold. Well, after less than an hour of play I managed to outlast my 87 fellow players and win the tournament! There were just two times where I saw a flop when people limped into my BB. I went all in on one of them and check/folded the other. I may just need to give this strategy a good name, patent it of course, and then write a book on it...

Pin the Tail on thecortster

Sunday: -$571.10
Pin the tail on the donkey is a game I used to play as a kid. I specifically remember playing it on my 6th birthday, and as far as I can remember, I was pretty good at it. For those of you who are not familiar with the game, click here to try out an online version.

Well, today the tables are turned. Rather than pinning the tail on, I now am the donkey. A couple posts ago I mentioned that I just wanted to stick to SNGs to guarantee some profit. That's all fine and dandy, but then what do I do this afternoon? I spot an ultra-juicy 50/100 (approximately $30/60) TRY Limit Hold'em table running at CelebPoker. Though this table was a poker player's dream as far as gameplay goes, limit is not exactly my game. However, being the donkey that I am, I sat down and blew off 1200 TRY ($800) within 25 minutes. Yes, there were some unfortunate situations, however, the fact remains that I never should have been sitting there in the first place!

I can't even consider it "taking a shot" either, because it is not even slightly close to the games I play / have the most success in. In plain words, it was just plain stupidity. Once I had cooled off a little later I took up my regular SNGs and gained back some ground, but obviously not enough to get me out of the hole. On top of all that, we were stood up by a business partner for a meeting we had planned for the evening. I kept myself out of all Sunday MTTs just for that meeting and it turns out it was all for nothing.

Learning process

Saturday: +$937
I am relearning how to win this game all over again it seems like. I played 13 SNGs today (all $55 and $109 buy-ins) and absolutely crushed the tables. Not sure how much time I will have for poker today, because I have some other work to do.

Optimism?

Friday: -$712.15
My opponents got off to a great start in September, they are already up over $700! Keep up the good work, guys!

The bulk of the losses came from cash games late at night, maybe I should leave those out of the program for a while and see if I can get myself back on track playing strictly SNGs. The problem is, they never fill up and then I fill my screen with other games

Goal for September:
1. Don't lose any money.

In all seriousness now, when is this shit ever going to stop?

Fast August Recap

Let's make this fast and painless. Oh, and no laughing! :)

Aug '06 Stats
Total winnings: $105.15
Hours played: 111.9
Hourly rate: $0.94

Maybe collecting cans isn't such a bad idea...