lol DPMaments

The DPM was surprisingly well organized this year, props to the Spielbank Hamburg for actually running a professional tournament. The quality of play was just as poor as I expected, there are so many German "live pros" who burn money for a living and call it poker. I don't want to know where the money comes from, but it's great that they pump so much of it into the poker community.

I survived Day 1 with a short stack, none of the hands I played were all that interesting. Going into Day 2 with blinds of 1200/2400/300, I knew it wouldn't take me long to find a shoving spot. I think it was the third hand where it was folded to me in the CO and I shoved 17k with 53o. Moritz Kranich woke up in the SB with AJ and reshoved, the board ran out KK4AA and I was busto in 40th place or so.

I hopped on the next train back home and now I'll be here probably until EPT Prague. I really want to grind it out these next few weeks, with a little luck I may end up even for the month ;)

Broke

*Warning: This post contains hand histories that may not be appropriate for all viewers. If you hate bad beat stories, stop reading here.

First of all, no I'm not broke (yet). I've been shotting some of the higher stakes games lately with less than stellar results. In a perfect world I should be breakeven, but the tally looks more like this:

It's a tiny sample size and short term results are meaningless anyway, but it sucks that I hit my downswing inevitably after starting to play some higher games. November is rigged and if you don't believe me, I have evidence.

I've been known to hit a one-outer every once in a while, so I guess what goes around comes around? I don't even want to know what my flop equity was.

He must know that he can't be in too great of shape for 130bb on that flop, maybe he felt it coming.

Swapshop aka Hei K O goes for the classy hit n run. Hit the ace and sit out.

Setup I guess, got it in bad. This is when things were getting relatively frustrating.

In hindsight this is probably a river fold vs this particular villain.

I don't always run bad. When he ships the flop it's obvious he has a ton of outs, but every once in a while dodging works out.

LOLovich is all you can say to this one.

Here's me sucking out just for good measure. I'll call this a half-Heiko, hitting the ace vs KK but stay sitting.

He was crushed, I was doing the crushing. And then along came Mary.

I popped my €200/400nl cherry by shortstacking. I built up a little, then busted with 88 vs KK preflop, but I did manage to stick in one tiny gem. If you don't play at Boss, you won't understand:

So now it's time to lick my wounds and hopefully get this turned around. It goes without saying that this downswing is the biggest of my life numbers wise, which is fairly obvious considering the size of the games being played. Still I'm proud of myself for not letting it affect my real life mood, this is something I am getting better at with every downswing.

I go to Hamburg midweek for the DPM, I'll probably blog again when I get back on the weekend.

Time is a flyin'

Live tourneys:
I skipped EPT Budapest because I really didn't feel like dealing with the travelling. Since I have a ton of travelling coming up in a couple months so I want to cherish my time in Berlin for now. I'll be playing the Deutsche Meisterschaften in Hamburg on November 13th. The fact that it's a crapshoot definitely increases my chances of winning :) It's certainly not a real German championship like they make it out to be, as it is pretty much exclusive to northern Germany.

Rake race:
Several people have asked me if I plan on going for the win in the next BossMedia rake race coming up on November 10th. It's only one week this time with the winner getting €12k. There are a couple reasons why I won't be playing it:
a) the money is less this time for the same amount of work
b) the Deutsche Meisterschaften are right in the middle of it
c) I like my life and I'd rather not sacrifice another week of freedom sitting here in front of my computer

Weight loss prop betting:
I've found a new victim. Ramin "raminator" Henke thinks he can drop from 89kg to 80kg by the start of the Aussie Millions. The bet is for €4k and 10% of the Aussie Millions. Anything between 80-81kg is a chop, I win at anything above 81.01kg. The chances of him winning are slim, his laziness will get the best of him for sure.

Online poker:
I didn't play much at all in October, but I can still be satisfied with the results. Some days all the networks are DEAD and some days there are more tables than anyone can handle, it's really a strange phenomenon. I've been spending my downtime watching tv shows and they are really consuming me.

Election:
And in closing, Obama ftw. They didn't send me my voting ballot so I guess I'm not voting this time around but I'll certainly be following it closely. Neither candidate will make a big difference for me taxwise, but Obama is clearly the better allround candidate all things considered imho. Germans are also following the race closely, click that link. It's worth it!

Made the big time

Cue it forward to 7:37 and watch closely for about 13 seconds. Finally I'm getting the TV time I deserve. I'm still undecided on which offer I'll take: Stars or Full Tilt.

Maldives

Vacation is now over and it's time to get back to business. The Maldives were awesome, the whole trip was very refreshing which is exactly what I was going for. Though the flight over there was 9 hours of hell. I've never seen smaller seats in an airplane, which says a lot considering I am a frequent flyer. I tried taking a sleeping pill but for some reason it was not very effective. After arriving in Male, we had a 45min water airplane ride to the island. Flying over all the islands is such a sick experience, you really realize that you are basically in the middle of the ocean.

My days consisted of great sleep, chilling on the beach. snorkeling and a daily massage. The massages were all fabulous (I highly recommend the Hawaiian massage) and after the first massage all the pains from the flight over had disappeared. The snorkeling was something I will never forget. The things you see right off the beach are sicker than in any aquarium around the world. All the colorful fish, jellyfish, sharks, etc. were simply amazing. I don't have any underwater pics, otherwise I could probably have 100 stunning photos. Here are some pics from the island:

view from the beach right outside the room

view from the balcony

a bat flew in and started eating the flowers on the tree

i almost shat my pants when i saw this right on the beach

gecko

view of a neighboring island

I'm still undecided on whether or not I'll play EPT Budapest next week, if I go it will really be a last minute decision. I'd kinda like to just hang around at home for a while, but on the other hand Budapest is going to have a very soft field. Maybe I'll just flip a coin.

Off and away

My well-deserved vacation starts tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited for it. I've toyed with the idea of not even bringing my laptop because I'm going to the Maldives to chill out and the internet connection probably won't be very good, but the nerd in me is probably gonna end up bringing it along anyway.

Since my return from London I've started to play a little bit more now that the post rake race stress is starting to wear off. I've been crushing pretty hard so that always make it even easier to sit in front of the computer. The rest of my time has been spent partying or mastering my Fifa 09 skills, which is a sick game btw. If anyone wants to play a money match let me know, I'm not that good yet!

When in London...

at the science museum, imax glasses are awesome

leyton orient game

sonja with runner runner ruthi

me and my favorite french canadian

eva!

a professional sportsbettor i know

this was kinda weird but hilarious nonetheless

everyone is on a different page in this one. the girl with the drink is especially funny

seb & freddy

why is messing with passed out people so much fun?

marilyn monroe

must have been my birthday

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. I had a great time in London! Now I'm back home until the 13th, so hopefully I can motivate myself to get some hands in.