London Shmondon

I headed to the casino on Tuesday to check out Day 1A and see if I could spot any friendly faces. Eventually I ran into Seb so we went back to his hotel room to play some chinese poker to pass the time. We also played 9 Card Omaha, which is a game that consists of 97% luck and maybe 3% skill, but somehow I still managed to lose like every single hand. Niki Jedlicka and Florian Langmann joined us as well, we probably played for about 7 hours. Obviously the swings in those luck games are huge, as were mine, but I managed to end the night just about even after winning the final hand :)

Some people ask "How can you gamble around so much, I thought you were a poker player?" Well, I am a poker player and it's not like I'm gambling against the house. Playing games like that are pretty much neutral EV, so it's basically passing money around back and forth. At the end of the day, it's a fun way to pass time with friends, just like any other games that people play.

I then spontaneously decided to buy myself into EPT London to play Day 1B with part of my buy-in being staked. Little did I know, I would only last just over an hour in the tournament! I made a questionable laydown early on with TPTK and had 6k left when I was dealt QQ in MP. I raised it to 300, the button repopped me to 900, I considered my options:

a) Fold. Mega weak, without reads this would make me the King of all Nits.
b) Call. Not a terrible choice, but tough to play OOP when an A or K flops. I can checkraise a ton of flops all-in, though, squeezing an extra bet out of him from his contibets.
c) Shove. I get him to fold a lot of his range here and take down the pot (1350 chips) without a battle very often. When called, I am rarely in all too great of shape, as I would usually get called by AA, KK, AK or JJ.

After pondering for a few moments I decided to shove all-in and he instacalled with AA. The board came down 679T2 and I was toast. As of right now, Sebastian and Florian are both still in the tournament, so I'll be cheering for them from now on.

I wish this could have happened to me in Barcelona, where I could have at least enjoyed the nice sun and beach. Instead I get cold temperatures and plenty of rain to deal with. I'll probably go out partying with some friends tomorrow night and then fly to Vienna on Friday or Saturday. Expect my next blog entry to be from Austria!

Comments

I'm not sure why it was turned off before, but now anyone can leave comments in my blog. Before it was only for registered Google users, but now no one should have a problem. Comments are probably the #1 motivation for blogging, so I'd really appreciate to hear what any of you have to say (egal ob Deutsch oder Englisch)! Off to London now, wish me luck!

Schenefelder Herbstblatt tourneys

The Friday €600 Herbstblatt tourney started off pretty well for me. I had a set get paid off in full and won a nice little pot with a turned full house, catapulting my stack to 25,000 (7k starting stack) relatively fast. From then on I played smallball and gradually built my stack up to be above average. When we were down to the final 2 tables I lost a couple steal attempts and was forced to go into push or fold mode. That's nothing new for me, though, so I had no problems picking the right spots to make my shoves.

I probably shoved 10-12 hands and only got "caught" once when I had 73s and lost to TT. I had the player covered but it crippled me immensely. Luckily I recovered when I won 33 vs AT and then AJ vs A7. The very next hand I lost half my stack with AK vs A8, for those of you wondering if I ever get sucked out on :)

We eventually hit the final table and I was still in push mode. None of my pushes got called until we were down to 5 players, when I pushed 84o from the cutoff with just over 5BBs. Ben Kang called me from the BB with AJ, but the board came down T6728 and I lived on. I continued to apply pressure and when we were 3-handed I shoved 77 on the button with 11BBs. Jan "50outs" von Halle called me from the BB saying "Let's gamble!" The board came down A886Q and I was eliminated in 3rd place for €6614.

Saturday's tournament had an €800 buy-in but only 40 players. The tourney started off crappily (is that a word?) for me but I managed to rally a comeback and made the final table, where I met Benjamin Kang and Jan von Halle once again. Only 5 players got paid, but I busted in 7th place when my KQ did not improve against Jan's TT in a huge pot. Then I was super crippled and lost my final hand with A9 vs Alex Jung's AJ. The players all agreed to make an even-split deal right after I busted, oh well, shit happens :)

The poker management in Schenefeld is by far the best I've seen in Germany and most importantly they are constantly looking for ways to improve their poker service. As as player I really appreciate that and honestly it's going to be keep me (and many others) coming back time and time again for other tournaments. They are planning a nice tourney week in December with a €500, €800, €1k and €2k tourney, I will certainly be there.

All in all the trip was pretty expensive for me (have I mentioned that I hate chinese poker???) but I had a ton of fun so I have no regrets. My flight leaves for London tomorrow afternoon, I'll try and post an update sometime in the next few days.

Let the journey begin

So in a few hours I'll embark on leg 1 of a pretty extensive poker trip these next weeks. I'll be driving to Schenefeld to play in both Herbstblatt tournaments over the weekend (€600 on Friday and €800 on Saturday) but I'm not expecting too much due to the luck factor in winning such one-day tourneys. I'm pretty sure I'll have a good time, though, as I'm driving there with Alex Jung and we'll be sleeping at Seb's place.

Speaking of Seb, I just so happened to secure myself a 10% swap with him right before the start of WCOOP #5 ($530 NLHE). I busted shortly after the 3rd hour of the tourney and was playing chinese with him on the side when he would constantly mention that he was going to win the tourney. I eventually went to bed at 7am not expecting much but woke up at 3pm to still see him playing! He eventually took 2nd for $260k, which gave me a payday of $26k! Not bad for a good night of sleep!

Poker for me has also been going phenomenal lately. I am having yet another record month at the tables and things could not be running better. My results are very consistent both for NL1K and NL2K so I'm pretty stoked about that. Also, I purchased my EPT Baden seat for a great price so I'll be playing that as well. Unfortunately things did not work out for an EPT London seat, so I'll be using my time in London just to visit friends, hopefully watch a soccer game and perhaps make one or two trips to the casino.

I try and remind myself not to take what I have for granted. I am living a lifestyle that most people could only dream about and I am constantly wondering how I got here. Sure there are kids who are a lot richer, sure there are kids who are a lot better and smarter at the game, but my skills allow me to live very comfortably and I couldn't happier about it!

TnT "Deepstack" in Bremen

88 players showed up for the Tnt Hold'em tourney in Bremen on Friday, creating a prize pool of €88,800. I expected the field to be generally weak, but I was certainly not expecting the field to be sooooooo weak. With the exception of Frank Koopmann and Tobias "PokerN00b" from 6thstreet.de, the quality of play at my table was at times painful to watch. Limp/fold, limp/call, 10bb openraise, 125BB all-in raise after two limpers, etc.

I didn't have too many spectacular hands on Day 1, but I was pretty disappointed to see how quickly the so-called deepstack tournament became a crapshoot. 45 minutes levels are alright and 10k starting stacks are also nice, but the blind increments were too extreme IMO. Of the 36 players who made Day 2, 16 of them had less than 10 big blinds. Anyway, I made Day 2 with just 12.6k, so I knew that I'd be pushing a ton of hands early on if the situation was right.

Indeed, the very first hand of the day I had QQ UTG and shoved, but unfortunately got no action. A short while later I shoved T9o and again received no action. A few hands later I shoved again with 99 UTG and once again got everyone to fold. Eventually I shoved AJo from UTG+1 and the SB found AK and knocked me out. Shit happens, life goes on.

I still had a great weekend (I was able to win credit card roulette for who pays dinner, who pays the hotel and who pays gas for the car, woo hoo freebies!) and am sincerely looking forward to driving to Hamburg/Schenefeld next weekend for the Herbstblatt tourneys. Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I've been grinding a ton online and have been very successful in doing so. Life is good!

Good advice on bad habits

Occasionally I get asked what I do away from the tables to improve my game. Though I don't spend nearly enough time improving by reading books or watching videos as I should do, there are a few things that I began implementing 9-10 months ago. One major thing that too many players neglect is personal hygiene.

When I wake up in the morning afternoon, I make sure that before I start playing poker, I've taken care of a few necessities beforehand. First, I always make sure that I've showered. This is not only for personal hygiene but also helps wake me up and get my brain functioning. Brushing your teeth has a similar effect and is totally essential.

Second, I make sure that I eat breakfast. Whether it be just a yoghurt, cereal, or a sandwich from the bakery downstairs (super convenient), I feel that this is an absolute must. They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and playing on an empty stomach is simply not optimal. I usually end it with a Nescafe Express iced coffee to give me that last spurt of energy.

Then I turn on the computer, fire up 4-8 tables and begin earning my bread and butter. I have tried to totally eliminate surfing the internet from my habits while playing and I have noticed a direct reflection of this in my winrate. Also, I keep messaging very brief, if at all, while I'm playing. This ensures that I am entirely focused on what's happening at my tables, even when I'm not in a hand.

Finally, I stop playing when I am tired or drunk. Drunk is the obvious one, yet you still see more and more players losing huge portions of their rolls after a drunken night out. I've never had this problem and I never will have it. Tired is the slightly more tricky one, because usually you can combat tired with a quick Red Bull or coffee. However, once it becomes noticeable, I just quit when I begin to feel that I am not playing my A-game.

I used to be that kind of guy who would roll out of bed and turn on the laptop for an early session while still laying in bed. Man am I glad that I broke that habit, I had no idea what I was missing. By eliminating these bad habits from your game, you'll not only watch your hourly rate increase, but also your general happiness and energy levels potentially skyrocket.

Barcelona Recap

My time in Barcelona is now over and I was welcomed back to Berlin by a rainshower at the airport. It's a pretty drastic change to go from perfect temperatures and warm sunshine to cold temperatures and wetness, but I guess that's the price you have to pay for living in Berlin.

All in all the trip was an awesome experience. It was not only profitable for me (thanks to me sneaking in the money + a small share of Nikolaus "Kaibuxxe" Jedlicka) but also very eye-opening for me to see how important it is to remain concentrated at all times. Also, it once again reenforced the fact that hard work and dedication can and will result in amazing achievements in poker. The German "young guns" are not successful because they are the luckiest kids ever, it's because they've put in the hours to work on their games and be one step ahead of their opponents.

Anyway, as always there was a ton of gambling going. Wii Tennis was the most popular game, but I stayed away from it because I suck so bad. I played two Chinese Poker sessions, netting me +43 points total. I also won €500 in a little NL home game we played, but I lost that back to Sebastian at the FC Barcelona - Atletico Bilbao game. We had a 4-way bet for €500 each (Seb, Nico, Alex and myself) on which minute a goal would be scored in. I came super close twice, but Seb that Luckbox won the bet with a really cheap goal in the 71st minute. The atmosphere in the stadium was not what I expected, but I still enjoyed the game a lot.

Other than that I spent my days relaxing at the pool or on the beach, I miss it already. Unfortunately my camera went busto the second I tried to take my first picture in Barcelona, so I have no pictures from the trip :(

*Edit: Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I played the €1k Freezeout in Barcelona. I somehow wasn't really in the zone and I eventually busted after about 6 hours of play when my 66 couldn't hold up against A5s. It was kinda strange but I was relieved to be done with the tournament and leave the casino. I'm sure I'll find my motivation again in time for the Bremen TnT Freezeout on the 14th-15th of September.

EPT Barcelona Day 3

I messed it up pretty bad. The very first hand of the day I made a resteal all-in with AQo which catapulted me to over 50k after the raiser folded. After letting the blinds go through me, I was on the button with A8o and slightly under 50k. The action was folded to me and I openshoved (16 BBs) only to discover that the BB woke up with AA. That's about the worst possible scenario for me and my hand found no help on a J4242 board. I don't know why I openshoved, I just got caught up in the moment instead of sitting back for a second and analyzing my options.

I came in 52nd place for €10,500, which is disappointing because it's the absolute minimum that was possible after making it to Day 3. I was pretty upset about my play yesterday, even though several people said my shove was OK (probably just to give my mind peace).

I'll consider this amateur mistake a big lesson learned.