Cash games cont.

I've stuck to my gameplan of playing the shorthanded cash games and it is paying off. Yesterday alone I made 9 stacks in just 4 hours of play, which makes for one of my most winningest days ever. Poker always seems do damn easy when things are running well. Then things turn around and you begin to wonder if you even know how to play the game. It's a sick cycle yet completely inevitable for anyone who plays the game.

One thing I want to try and work on is playing longer sessions. I play for 2-3 hours and then I begin to get bored. I catch myself having 5 tables open but still trying to surf the internet or other stupid stuff instead of putting my full attention to my tables. I want to become disciplined enough where I can easily put in a 6-10 hour session and have no problems with it. I realize that may take a lot of time and training but it's something I would really like to prove to myself.

Shorthanded cash games

I've been playing the shorthanded cash games at CelebPoker since my return from Vienna with pretty decent success. It started off unbelievably well (I was on a pretty sick heater) and even after a nasty downswing of just under $2k today, I'm still up slightly over $3k for the month. The plan is to continue to develop my shorthanded cash game skills and see what my results are after a couple more months of play. People have always said that cash games is where the real money is to be made, over my 3 years of playing I'd say that there's plenty of money to be made in any game you play as long as you excel in it. I've still been mixing in some shorthanded SNGs at the end of each session to add some variety.

Sutti and I were actually planning to Schenefeld for the PokerOlymp.de Open but it looks like something else has come up that won't allow us to go. Too bad, I was kind of looking forward to it.

Jennifer Tilly, Poker Goddess

http://www.nbcsports.com/poker/feature1.html#

Click on Tuesday: Segment 2 and skip through until about 2:10 left.

"I thought you had pocket Kings!"

Vienna has come and gone

We got back to Berlin yesterday after a good 10 days in Vienna. Once again, CCC turned out to be nice and profitable for me, as it has many times in the past year. The beginning of the trip started off beautifully with me making a good €800 the very first day playing €1/2NL and surprisingly €2/5NL. Usually during non-tournament weeks the €2/5NL game barely gets played but I got lucky I guess.

The next few days turned out to be a rollercoaster pattern of me losing €500, then winning a couple hundred and then losing it back again. The only games being played were €1/2NL and I found it hard to keep concentrated during those games which led me to make stupid mistakes. As the tournament week approached, we finally were able to have a consistent €2/5NL game going on.

On Friday nights I took a trip to Casinos Austria in Vienna for a change. They offer €2/4NL with no capped buy-in on the weekends and I was told that the games were very lucrative. I was surprised myself at just how lucrative they were. There were a couple of Russians who had never played poker before right next to me (each buying in for €400). I relieved one Russian of his stack when he couldn't let go of his QJo on a JT652 board. I had KK and value betted the whole way down, knowing he was going to be calling light.

A couple words on tighties:

• Most people would classify me as a tightie, especially at a full ring table. I also see myself as pretty tight.
• Tighties seem to dislike other tighties.
• Many tighties get scared to play big pots with big stacks. Knowing who these tighties are can be very profitable and easily exploitable.

There were a couple of real tighties at the table:
Tightie #1 - played two hands while I was there and they both turned out to be AA
Tightie #2- bought in with €1k and I spotted him a tightie from the moment we sat down. Because he sat down before me I sat down to his right in order to have position on him. As soon as he realized that I was not there to mess around, he played musical chairs twice until he finally was able to move two seats to my left. I knew exactly what he was doing and was waiting for my chance to reposition myself but a real chance never arose. I easily laid down AA against him after I raised to €16 UTG and he called in EP. The flop came down Q92 and I fired out €70 into an €80. He raised it to €200 and it was the quickest fold I made all night. It turns out he had 99 (patting myself on the back). OK that's enough about tighties. I ended up making €565 for the night.

Quick notes:
- I took 16th place in the €80 rebuy for a mere €590.
- We bought the Concord Aces bank one night but failed to capitalize and only won €150.
- I failed to qualify for the Main Event and because the trip was not going good for Sutti we decided to return to Berlin on the 11th rather than extend the trip.
- I paid for hotel/cabs/food/flight and still came out with a profit of €2k.
- Next trip to Vienna will most likely be June for the Austrian Masters.