Been busy

Since getting back to Berlin my sleep schedule is totally out of whack, meaning I am sleeping when others awake and awake when others are sleeping. In a way it's very relaxing and peaceful but it sucks because it makes correspondence so difficult.

I played a couple live games this week, including a marathon session of Chinese Poker last night (great game for those who haven't played it yet). I've also been terribly busy with some translation work that needs to get done within the next week. All of this has left to little to no time for online poker, but hopefully I will get back into my routine over the next few weeks.

Speaking of the next few weeks, the German Poker Championships are coming up on the 16th-18th of November. 200 players will be battling it out for the top prize and of course the chance to call themselves "Deutscher Meister." The cool thing about the tournament is that it is being held in Berlin, so I won't even need to travel to play in it. They start accepting direct buy-ins on the 1st of November and so far, from what I've heard, the event will be sold out within a couple days. I'm going to go to the Spielbank Berlin personally on the 1st of November to guarantee my entrance, you should too!

By the way, check out one of the most recent +EV comics (I do not work for them nor do I receive any compensation for posting these, I just think some of them are absolutely hilarious):

My predictions on the future of online poker

First off, sorry for the lack of updates recently. I just got back to Berlin this morning after a good two weeks in the States. I didn't make it out to any other casinos, mainly due to the fact that I spent my time with friends and family, which is something I will never regret.

Anyway, I have been sitting back and soaking up the information as I watched things unfold lately, so on to my predictions. Recently, there have been some BIG changes going on in the online poker world, after George Bush signed the Safe Ports Act on October 13th. I am assuming you know what was in the Safe Ports Act regarding US banks. Sites such as PartyPoker, Pacific Poker, the Bossmedia network, the OnGame network, and many more announced that they were abandoning the US market in order to comply with the new legislation. Most all of the sites will continue to operate, just not allow any Americans to place bets on their platform. Though this obviously is a huge blow to the poker market, I think it also may be a blessing in disguise for some players.

For example, let's take the OnGame network (name currently being changed to bwin Games). A short while back, bwin purchased the whole network and eventually transferred all of their players onto the network as well. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the quality of the bwin players, let me tell you that they are very loose and very stupid with their money. I know this because I spent many months feeding off of them on the Bossmedia network. Many of them are casino players or sports bettors who have literally no idea what poker is all about.

Now that OnGame is discontinuing it's services to US players, the bwin players are being furtherly isolated, making it easier for people like you and me to "search and destroy." One month ago an average table would have maybe 4 Americans, 3 bwin players, and a couple others. Now that number should look more like 5-7 bwin players and then the others. So while there may not be as many games being played, the general quality of the games should drop, due to the higher concentration of fish at each particular table.

For PartyPoker, things are a little more tricky, but their decision may just turn GOLDEN in a few years time. The main reason why they exited the US market was because they are a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange (the same applies for Pacific Poker and Cryptologic). As a publicly traded company, they must oblige to any international laws and not break any of them intentionally. Pokerstars, for example, is still a private company, which allowed them to go against the law and stay in the market (for the time being). The big question is, what will happen 2-3 years from now? PartyPoker is already and will be continuing to push for legalization and regulation from the US government, as you can see on their PartyPartners website:

Many people think that legalization is just a matter of time, perhaps only a couple years away, and then who do you think the US will open it's doors to? PartyPoker who immediately stopped accepting US wagers, or PokerStars and Full Tilt who went against the law and gobbled up massive profits? I think that PartyPoker will potentially lobby it up in Washinton, having the gold mine at the end of the rainbow in sight the whole time.

As for the immediate future, look for:
a) acquisition of smaller sites by larger sites
b) privatisation of sites via "purchase" (i.e. Ultimate Bet / Blast Off Ltd.)
c) skins on non US platforms to change to US-friendly networks (Full Contact Poker is planning this ASAP)
d) a new generation of e-wallets to gain momentum (Click2Pay and myCitadel come to mind) as e-wallets like Firepay close it's doors to gambling sites. NETeller is still hanging in there, but many people are skeptical as to what will happen after the 270-day grace period.

A lot of this is just speculation, so interpret this information however you please. All I know is that there is plenty of money to be made whether Americans are playing or not!

A casino I can't recommend

I headed out to Harrah's North Kansas City last night to play some cash games. I had been busy the whole day doing some work, so I was pretty tired when I went there. They had 15 poker tables, of which four were being played. There was one game of $3/6 Limit, and three tables of $2/5 NL. I signed up for the NL game and had to wait about 45 minutes before I got a seat.

The max buy-in was $300, which is what I started with. Looking around the table, there were several stacks of $1k+, so I knew that some guys knew what they were doing. Right away I didn't like a few things: They played with superlong 10-man tables, where the dealer couldn't even reach the corners with their hands. The players were responsible for getting their chips to the middle of the pot if they sat in the corners. The felt was very sticky and felt generally unsmooth against the cards. Speaking of the cards, they were small-print, which forces you to look close and doublecheck your exact cards, as opposed to the big-print that most European casinos use.

I was getting the usual crappy cards and was forced to throw away my only hand I tried playing, after my 99 raise to $25 was reraised to $75 preflop. The game was not even that juicy. Out of all the live games I have played in, this was one on the tight/aggressive end. I began limping with some marginal holdings and knew I was headed for trouble. It didn't take me long to blow my stack on a weak flush draw against someone's flopped set. I wasn't getting the odds to make my play, but I ignored them and consequently paid the price. It took me $300 to discover that Harrah's North Kansas City isn't all that great. Perhaps I am just spoiled by the Concord Card Casino?

Vivaaaaa Las Vegas!

No time for poker...yet

I have been pretty busy since I got here and it's not looking like there will be much free time in the near future, so I am stuck with a pokerless life for the next few days. Instead of poker, I have been doing the exciting things like going to the dentist, getting a new drivers license, renewing my bank card, as well as several other similar errands. Tomorrow I'll be heading over to Lawrence, Kansas, to visit my sister at Kansas University Law School.

On the weekend I'm driving with a couple buddies down to Warsaw, Missouri, to visit a good friend of mine who is getting ready to join the Air Force. That should make for a pretty fun weekend, provided these guys haven't changed too much since high school :) Being 21 around here is definitely a good thing, believe me.

Speaking of being 21, I have scoped out three Kansas City casinos that I would like to test out before I go back to Germany on Oct. 22nd. The first one is the Harrah's Casino with 12 poker tables, then the Argosy Casino with 7 poker tables, and finally the Ameristar Casino with 15 poker tables. I'm not sure if I'll have the time to hit up all three, but I will certainly try.

For those of you who do have the time to play poker these next few days, play a couple hands for me, will ya?

On the road again...

I'll be in America from the 9th - 22nd of October and I'm curious to see how the general reaction is to the "Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act." I know there are just a handful of sites that I will be able to play at while I am there, and several of my main sites will not be an option for me (such as Celebpoker). I guess my only hope is live poker. Because I recently turned 21, I do plan on checking out a few of the live casinos in Kansas City while I am out there. I may be going out to California for a couple days as well, but I won't know for sure until I am there.

Generally I am just very happy that I get to go see my family again for a while, because I do get homesick after being in Europe for such long periods of time. Anyway, I should probably get packing. Peace!

The 2006 Austrian Classics Part 3 of 3

Monday: Because I did not need to play the supersatellite to the Main Event, I decided to once again on cash games. For some reason, though, I just couldn't motivate myself to play my A game. I started donking around hardcore at the €1/2 NL table and was soon down €500. Sayoboy was also at the table and was an eyewitness to my stupidity. We then got a €2/4 NL game going on, where I donked off another €300.

Maybe it was because I was beginning to catch a cold, but it was certainly pissing me off that I was unable to bring my concentration level up to par with the game. It certainly didn't help that the shitty hands I was playing were most definitely not connecting with the boards. At shortly after midnight (waaaayyyyyy earlier than any other night) I opted to go back to the hotel to get well-rested for the Main Event the next day.

Tuesday: The day had finally arrived for the Austrian Classics Main Event. Celebpoker.com was kind enough to sponsor me to play the tournament, and it was quite an experience. We began with 8k in chips, and right away I was getting some nice cards. During the first 2 hours, I had KK 3 times, QQ once, and TT once. Unfortunately, the kings and queens brought me usually just the blinds and the TT cost me a few chips when I had to give it up on an overcard-filled board. Perhaps you can say I was inefficient, as I went into the dinner break with only 5.5k in chips.

Sutti in the Main Event, he came in 53rd place after his "KK ran into QQ."

When I came back, the players began to drop off like flies. I doubled up when my AA went up against someone's KK. We were all-in on the flop, he spiked a King on the turn and I re-spiked my Ace on the river! Before I knew it, we were down to just 27 players, with the top 18 getting paid. I was pretty low on chips, but knew something good was going to happen because I was assigned to a new table where my favorite dealer Rhys was dealing.

Gerhard's poker face in the Main Event. His final hand was an AK vs 66 coinflip.

Something big indeed did happen when I shoved all in with A6o in MP after it was folded to me. My stack was in a big danger zone so I am thoroughly convinced it was the right decision. Unfortunately for me, the button woke up with KK! Unfortunately for him, Rhys dealt the most beautiful ace you can ever imagine on the flop! All of a sudden I was back to an average stack! A few hands later a shortstacked lady shoved all-in from LP and I called with AKs. She had QTs and my hand held up, bringing my chipstack up to 40k!

I paid a few more blinds and antes and lost one steal attempt, so I was around 30k when the following hand came up. Blinds 1k/2k/200 and it was folded to Richard Toth in MP, who raised it to 6k even. I was on the button and looked down at AKo. I thought for a few moments and went all-in for just under 30k. He called instantaneously and showed KK. This time the kings held up against me and I left the tournament in 20th place, just 2 places shy of the money...

This all happened shortly after midnight, which happened to be my 21st birthday! I was pretty upset but internally satisfied with the way I played, so I was able to get it out of my mind pretty quickly. The Poker Channel did a short television interview with me, we'll see if any sound bytes are aired in November on Eurosport. Overall it was a great tournament with a not-so-great result. Shit happens.

(left to right) Sutti, Gerhard, Mishkin, and Sayoboy letting off some steam at the 888 online casino.

At around 3am a couple of us started a €500 SNG played with cash-game chips. 6 of us ponied up the buy-in to have a fun little tournament: Ben Kang, Sebastian (Miamivice), Stefan, Thorsten, some guy from Luxembourg, and myself. I was the first one out, when I went all-in with JJ against Sebastian's KK. Shit happens again.

An hour later a few of us decided to get a little side action on another game the casino offered: Concord Aces. The game is identical to blackjack, just instead of playing to 21, you play to 22. Basically it gives the house a humungous edge (rumored to be between 5 and 6 percent). The CCC allows you to "buy the bank" for a minimum of €3.000. This means that if you pay the €3.000, the casino takes that tray and you become the house, meaning that you essentially are playing against the players.

Concord Aces

You pay €45 per 6 decks that are used, and you need to pay out any potential winnings the players make but also get to keep any money that they lose, which made it a very interesting experience. Sebastian and I each donated €1.000 while Sutti and Gehard each paid in €500, which gave us our €3k to buy the bank.

We got off to a horrible start, at one point we had just over €1.000 left in our tray. Luckily for us (if you can call it lucky that statistics balanced out), we hit a very nice run (also helped by players still taking cards at 17!) and after 1.5 hours our tray had over €4.1k in it, meaning we were up over €1.100! We divided it up amongst us and swore to ourselves to do it again the next night if the action looked juicy.

Wednesday: I was not really in the mood for poker, but still opted to play at the €1/2 NL game that just started. The only reason I joined was because Sutti, Oli (bla), Rich, Stoffi, and Stoffi's friend (sorry I can't remember the name) were also playing. Once again, I couldn't control myself from being a total idiot and got involved in a few situations that never should have happened. Once I gave Stoffi a pretty sick beat when I went all-in preflop with ATo vs his QQ. I turned an ace and I wasn't very happy about it, nor as he.

After that we ate a little birthday cake (thanks again, Rich and others) and wasted a little time playing some online poker. As the early morning approached, Benjamin Kang won the €750 Freezeout for just over €12k, after making a 5-way deal when he had the chiplead. Congrats to him for an amazing Classics week, he really showed everyone what he's got as far as tournament poker goes. He bought a couple bottles of champagne and while we were celebrating, we decided to buy the Concord Aces bank again.

This time 7 guys got in on the action, and so we decided that everyone would pay €500 and we would begin the bank with €3.500. Similar to the night before, we got off to a shitty start but then rallied up during the next 2 hours to end the night with €5.300 in the tray, up €1.800! Some other people were telling us about the negative experiences they have had with buying the bank, but everything went more than well for us! Each "investor" got back around €290 in addition to his €500 stake.

Sebastian and Sutti then thought they could own in paper-rock-scissors, but as the results indicate, I am still sitting at the top of my Roshambo thrown today. We played a couple of €10, €20, and even €50 heads up Roshambo matches. The €50 match wasn't even close, I won it 3-0 :)

Me and Sebastian roshambo-ing. This picture is obviously posed in order to make him feel like he had a chance ;)

Thursday: Our flight was scheduled to leave at 21:00, so we spent most of the day once again hanging around CCC playing some low-limit cash games. I was still not able to get in the zone, and ended the day just around +-0. It could have gone much better on the last day, but at the same time I'm happy it didn't go any worse. We said our good-byes and then flew back to Berlin with some nice memories. It was nice to meet several new Poker-Tester members as well as see all of the old ones again. This was by the far the best Vienna trip yet, and believe me, it will certainly not be the last.

The 2006 Austrian Classics Part 2 of 3

Friday: The €100 + rebuys tournament began slow for me. We began with 1500 chips and right away I rebought to build myself a chip advantage over the other players. I played a couple pots early and chipped up to just under 4k, where I remained until the add-on, when I added another 3k to my stack.

From then on out I began stealing a lot more pots preflop as I gradually built up to over 15k. I was then able to eliminate someone with AK vs his AQ and found myself with a serious stack. Unfortunately, people began picking off my steal attempts, which made it much more difficult for me to build or even maintain my current stack. Like the tournament on Thursday, the top 18 players would be getting paid with almost €13.000 for the winner.

With blinds at the 800/1600 level, I made the play that really got the whole table talking: I had slightly over 30k in chips and raised it to 4200 from MP with K9s. Everyone folded to the BB, who called after slight hesitation. The flop came down 862 with none of my suit. He checked it and my inner gut told me to check behind. The turn came down a 4 and he led out for 7k. I can’t really explain it, but I just knew it was time for me to do my duty, and after a little consideration, I shoved all-in for 28k. He thought for a good two minutes before showing me an 8 (top pair) and mucking his hand. I showed him my hand and from then on I knew I was a targeted man.

We were soon down to the final three tables and I had an OK stack of 40k. I then lost a great portion of my stack by calling someone’s All-in with JJ. He had AA and it held up easily. My only chance being so shortstacked was to shove my chips in if any opportunity presented itself. Luckily for me, I never ran into a monster and so I was able to build up to an average stack again as we made it ITM and eventually the final table.

Me all in, one of many times.

I had 54k going into the final table, and again I was forced to shove in several times. I never got a call, though, and so I continued to build my stack. Miamivice was also at the final table and eventually busted out in 5^th place. Before I even realized it, we were down to 3 players: me at 190k, seat 6 at 180k, and seat 4 at 200k+. With blinds of 10k/20k/3k I shoved all in with 78o in the SB. The BB called and showed 66. The flop came down Q98 and I was a huge favourite. Unfortunately, he made a runner-runner flush and eliminated me in 3^rd place. It did hurt, but he got his money in with the best hand anyways. I got €4680 for my efforts. The results for the tournament can be found here.

Saturday: I accidentally overslept the €540 NL Freezeout tournament, which really pissed me off. Because I was at such a juicy cash game table the night before, I ended up playing until 11am. The tournament was to begin at 3pm, so that left me little to no time for sleep. I tried to make it anyway, but when the alarm went off, I knew it wasn't gonna happen. I ended up using the time wisely to get some serious rest.

While all the others were enjoying the great tournament (congrats goes out to Stefan Jedlicka for eventually splitting the tournament for €9.000) I spent my time in an uneventful €1/2 cash game. I ended up the night around +-0 when I finished around 6am, but Sutti got rivered pretty painfully by a local grinder named Gregorio. Sutti had AA and Gregorio had K8s. The flop was K high and they eventually got all-in on the turn for a €1300 pot. An 8 fell on the river, and believe me, Sutti was not too thrilled about it.

Sutti in front of the CCC right after the Gregorio hand.

Sunday: The €540 + rebuy PL tournament did not interest me much, so I waited around for a €2/4 NL game to finally fill up. Prior to this table, they were only offering either €1/2 NL or €5/10 NL. Obviously that is a pretty big gap, and although my bankroll could handle €5/10 NL, I chose to not sit at the Hungarian-filled table if I had a choice. The €2/4 game was fun, we even ended up playing a couple hands blind, which was pretty interesting to say the least.

Later on in the evening, a fellow Berliner Benjamin Kang joined us in the game after coming in 2nd place in the €540 PL tournament for just under €9k. He brought a bottle of champagne and bought the table a round of drinks to celebrate his success. He loosened up the table even more, and got us so far in that eventually we changed the game to Dealers Choice with two choices: PL Omaha or NL Hold'em. Everyone agreed and we began the Omaha madness.

I am not a good omaha player at all, I barely can tell what is a good starting hand and what isn't. Ben's tip to me was to see as many flops as possible and go from there. From the 8 guys at the table, I was the only one choosing NL Hold'em when I had the button :) I managed to stay out of trouble's way and although I misplayed a couple hands, I ended the night an €800 winner.

The 2006 Austrian Classics Part 1 of 3

I'm going to break down the blogs into three sections and try to throw in a couple pictures in each entry as well.

Wednesday: Our flight from Berlin to Vienna landed in the late afternoon, Sickandrich was kind enough to pick us up from the airport. It didn’t take us long to get to the CCC and within minutes I was already sitting at a 1-2 EUR cash game. I donked off a whole buy-in pretty quickly when I was unable to lay down KT on a AKT board. I lost the pot to QJ obviously. Luckily it didn’t take me too long to get unstuck and eventually get ahead of the game a couple Euros.

SickandRich picking us up at the airport. I snapped the picture very fast, which is very noticeable.

Fast forward 8 hours and the table broke up with me ahead 500 Euros. I played at another table for a couple hours with minor fluctuations to my stack and at 7am we stopped playing in order to get some rest for the tournament the following day.

Our taxi ride back to the hotel was pretty funny. It was shortly past 7am and our taxi driver began telling us about all the “sick” people that go into CCC during the afternoon and play there until the next day. I’m pretty sure he was slighly embarassed when we told him that we had been there for playing for a good 14 hours straight. Little did he know, he was driving two “sick” guys back to their hotel. That just really got me thinking how unique poker players truly are. Not many sports/hobbies/jobs have people put in such long and crazy sessions as poker players do, and I must admit, I kinda like it!

Thursday: The 200+20 EUR PL Hold’em tournament started at 5pm. Fellow Poker-Tester players were gerlihard, bla, Shadow, and gistroy. We began with 3500 chips and 25 minute blind levels, which left a little room for some play. About an hour into it I made a pretty tough laydown: Blinds 25/50, I have AsKh and raise it up to 200 from MP. Both blinds call. The flop comes down 8s6s2s. Both players check it to me and I bet out 400, trying to take down the pot right there. The SB raises to 1800 and I regrettably lay my hand down after some hard consideration. Basically, I didn’t want to put my tournament life at risk so early on with an unmade hand, but the more I thought about it afterwards, the more I realized I should have shoved all-in. Oh well, I still had around 2500 chips at this point.

I got moved to another table and seated next to a very good player named Marco. As the blinds went up I was forced to go into shortstack survival mode, and luckily I didn’t get any callers when I didn’t want them. I remained shortstacked for quite some time before finally getting my breakthrough with QQ, when I doubled up to 14k in chips. By now the payouts were announced: 18 places paid, 11.000 EUR for 1^st place, 5.500 EUR for 2^nd place, and the rest was a normal payscale.

At this point there were around 30 players left with the top 18 getting paid. I built up my chips by taking down some pots preflop and before I knew it we were in the money. I then managed to double up again with TT vs 66 and found myself with 65k in chips at the 3k-6k blind level. I lost a couple of my attempted steals and with only 11 players left I had around 50k in chips, blinds 4k-8k. There were only 5 players at my table and I was dealt A8o UTG. I raised it pot-size and was re-raised all-in for 36k by a pretty tight woman sitting next to me. I only had to pay 8k more, which I did without any hesitation. She showed AK and I was in some serious shit. She flopped her king and I was left with 17k going into the final table.

Me at the final two tables staring at my stack and wishing it were larger.

Because I only had two big blinds, I knew that my chips would be getting in there pretty fast. The first hand I was dealt T3o and folded UTG+2. The very next hand I got AQ, which I gladly shoved all-in UTG+1. To my surprise, no one called and I won the 12k in the pot. Now sitting on 29k I was dealt AK the very next hand, which I once again shoved all-in UTG. I got an isolation re-raise from an MP player and as it turns out, he had AQ. I had him totally dominated until the flop came down QJ7. I didn’t get any more help and was eliminated in 10^th place for 490 EUR. That left a bad taste in my mouth because I was so close to making something happen, but oh well, my time will come. Thanks to everyone there for the support! The results of the tournament can be found here.

A quick cash game session brought me an additional +100 EUR after the tournament. So so far so good, but plenty more to play!