Challenge, The Review

I played my final session for the challenge yesterday:

Played hours: 2.2
Stacks: +1.24 (€1111.63)
Total stacks for the challenge: +25.34 (€22807.58)

Now it's official. I won the challenge and made a decent amount of money while doing so. I'm pretty happy with the results, I was aiming at 15-20 stacks before the challenge started. It was a great motivation to sit down and play every day, even though it became very apparent that I was going to win a couple days into the challenge.

As for the reward, I probably am going to choose skydiving. It's something I've always wanted to do and probably would never do alone so I'll take this opportunity to do it. We'll wait until Spring '08 when the weather is a little warmer, if anyone else wants to jump with us just let us know.

Before the challenge started, I said that anyone could drop me a comment and predict the winner of the contest, then I'd choose one winner at random who would get the choice between Super System II, The Theory of Poker and the FTP Strategy Guide. Well, rather than just picking one, I think I'll give a book to everyone who voted for me. So if you are one of these people, please send me an email to cortkm at berlin.de saying your comments name, your real name and address and which book you would like:

dublette
magru
voodoo
nonameff
gerlihard
Danny OC
ilyas
crazyhorse
arthur
metmaster2
maumaus
mayor84
olli
koort
bustedufish
figool
sutti
werhamster

I guess you can also call that a list of smart people as well :)

By the way, as some of you may have noticed, I took some shots today at the higher games at CelebPoker. I was splitting the action with a good friend of mine, and I won my biggest pot ever to this date. This was €50/100NL

Alright, time to pack my bags, my flight leaves in 8 hours and I have achieved nothing so far! Once again, thanks for the support during the challenge and we'll see if we can work out another one next year some time. My updates during the next 3 weeks will be sporadic because I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have during my stay in the States.

Challenge, Day 9

I broke my day into two sessions, one in the evening and one late at night:

Played hours: 3.5
Stacks: +2.12 (€1908.48)
Total stacks for the challenge: +24.07 (€21695.95)

I made over €5k in the first session, but as my results indicate, I gave back just over €3k in the late-night session. I'm happy with my play, though, most of the hands were just coolers that I wouldn't get out of if I were given the same situations again. I'll probably take Saturday as my final day off and then close out the challenge on Sunday. I fly to America on Monday, which means that it's more than likely that I won't play any online poker for 3 weeks :(

I'll be going to Foxwoods in Connecticut with Olli next weekend (the same day that the WPT World Poker Finals tournament begins), so hopefully I will be able to get in some time playing $10/25NL, even though I am beginning to dislike live poker the more and more I play it. Slow dealers, slow players, full ring, always being on the lookout for tells and being sure to try and hide your tells. Ugh. The negatives clearly outweigh the positives if you ask me.

Song of the day: The Four Tops - Loco in Acapulco

Challenge, Day 8

Heiko claims that he has given up the challenge in his most recent blog post. I think it's a real shame that things did not run well for him, I said from the beginning that I hoped we would both come out as winners (with me winning slightly more obv). Hopefully he can get back in his groove soon and finish the challenge with an upswing, although he has stopped counting his stacks.

As for me, I had a nice day once again:

Played hours: 2.5
Stacks: +5.53 (€4975.86)
Total stacks for the challenge: +21.95 (€19751.47)

That made up for yesterday's losses and then some. The key hands (no HHs) were a couple overpair vs overpair setups and one flopped set that dodged a flopped flush draw. It always feels good to get right back on your feet after a tough day. Also, I received my October rakeback payment which came out to be just over €2k. I still plan on playing days 9 & 10 out, even though the challenge is basically over.

Thanks again to everyone who voted for me to win, stay tuned as I'll post some news regarding the book giveaway in a couple days when the challenge is officially over.

Song of the day: Temptations - My Girl (reason being that I'm going to their concert in Berlin tonight)

Challenge, Day 7

Had a pretty nasty day at the tables today, here are my results:

Played hours: 2.35
Stacks: -4.42 (€3979.52)
Total stacks for the challenge: +16.42 (€14775.61)

I ran pretty bad today and was only disappointed with my play in one hand where I made a bad valuebet on the river against a big fish. Other than that, the losses today come from standard setups and several 2-outers. I just have to accept the losses and move on to a fresh day tomorrow. I may take the day off because I won't be able to play in the evening, we'll see...

Song of the day: Chicago - You're the Inspiration

Challenge, Day 6

Another good day, here are my results:

Played hours: 3.5 (max allowed)
Stacks: +5.20 (€4676.58)
Total stacks for the challenge: +20.84 (€18755.13)

Once again I ran pretty well, I'm also glad that Heiko ran well today, too. Though it's going to take some serious work on his part on some serious downswinging on my part for him to win the challenge, it would be nice for it to get somewhat close again. I saved some hands from today, here they are:

I'm not really sure what my opponent was up to in this hand. It's possible that I sucked out on him, unless he had something like AJ. He certainly didn't have the hearts, perhaps a set? I don't know, nor do I care :)

I really don't like the way my opponent played his hand. A 4bet is unnecessary imo, especially considering he was not even involved in the hand to begin with. My image was somewhat laggy but nothing to justify this.

Here's some proof that I don't always run hot! I called his 3bet in position preflop because the effective stacks were 230BBs and he is a pretty big donk. I have no idea what he thought he was beating on the turn. Matter of fact, I don't think he did much thinking at all.

Same opponent, a short while later. I'm pretty sure I didn't even need the fourth 8, but it was comforting anyways.

Once again the same guy and basically the same situation as with my QJ button raise. This time I have J8s and we're deep. His play is a little more understandable than in the previous hand, he typed in "AA" in the chatbox shortly before calling the river.

Standard and boring, overpair vs overpair against an extremely aggressive opponent. Not much I can do, considering how active this guy is.

I was really disappointed with myself in this hand. I picked a tell and was too stupid to follow my gut instinct, which was to call his squeeze and check/fold a missed flop. I obviously tried to take it down preflop and unfortunately committed myself, was certainly not surprised to see the showdown.

Song of the day: Dobie Gray - Drift Away

Challenge, Day 5

I broke my day into two sessions, the first one netting me 3+ buy-ins but the second one seeing me give most of it back. My results in a nutshell:

Played hours: 3.5 (5 were allowed)
Stacks: +1.24 (€1114.23)
Total stacks for the challenge: +15.64 (€14078.55)

I wanted to play the full 5 hours but most of my tables died off to the point where I became bored and unconcentrated, so I pulled the plug on the session. I'm still leading the challenge by a good margin, as Heiko once again did not have a great day at the tables. If I can keep this pace throughout the rest of the time I'll be very pleased by the time this thing is over.

Song of the day: Eric Clapton - Layla

Challenge, Day 4

I monitored the tables today and to my surprise there was no action whatsoever, so I procrastinated my session til the very late evening. I mixed in some tables at EverestPoker as well due to the fact that there weren't enough tables at Celeb. My results:

Played hours: 3.6 (5 were allowed)
Stacks: +6.72 (€6047.77)
Total stacks for the challenge: +14.41 (€12964.32)

I had a couple sick setups go against me at Everest but I made up for them over time and ended up profiting pretty well for the day. I was pretty tired towards the end of the session and that's the reason I didn't play the max time allowed. 5 hours are also allowed tomorrow so I'll definitely try and get all those under my belt and hopefully continue to increase my lead against Heiko.

Once again, the stupid hand histories are now showing up (have I mentioned that Windows Vista is a pile of crap?) Maybe I'll get Pokertracker sometime soon and see if they show up then, its certainly worth a shot. I've got a soccer game in the early afternoon, then I'll probably rest a couple hours and then fire up the tables tomorrow evening.

Song of the day: David Guetta - Love is Gone

Challenge, Day 3

Sunshine follows rain! I had a great session today, playing the full 3.5 hours over one stretch in the afternoon. Here are my stats:

Played hours: 3.5 (max allowed)
Stacks: +9.78 (€8804.67)
Total stacks for the challenge: +7.69 (€6916.55)

It feels great to get back on track after the crappy day I had yesterday. There were some nice fish at the tables today which always helps the bottom line. Also, I got the best of the regulars today. That's not all that importat, though, what's important is not to be losing to the regulars. Fish are the main moneymaker in any game, which is why game and table selection are so crucial.

I finally found a way to retrieve some HHs, here are some ones from today. You may notice that there are not many of me losing. For some reason, they are not displaying properly (no kidding!). I do lose, though, I just don't have much evidence :)

Sucking out is fun, here I hit my 2-outer after getting it all-in on the flop on a drawy board.

Battle of the blinds, once again I hit gin on the turn. Pretty unlucky for him, but I did get most of the money in when I was ahead.

I'm not too thrilled with my play in this hand. I 4bet OOP pretty deep against a very aggressive opponent who I tangle with on a daily basis. I flop a gutshot in addition to my overpair, but I think I am creamed more often that not in this spot. I make this call sometimes.

Here my opponent basically hands me his stack. This is one of many reasons why playing K8o OOP is not a great idea.

This is a call that I don't make against a lot of opponents, but I know this player to be weak and I knew that he would be gunning for me as I was constantly throwing 3 and 4bets in his face. I won the hand as a slight favorite (52% to 48%)

And finally, here is a hand where I took my opponent to valuetown and back.

Unfortunately, things did not go very well for Heiko today. I say that sincerely, too. I really want him to make a lot of money in this challenge as well, just not as much as me obv :) Looking forward to tomorrow...

Song of the day: Tubthumping - Chumbawamba

Challenge, Day 2

Day 2 didn't quite run according to plan. My results:

Played hours: 3.5 (max allowed)
Stacks: -5.39 (€4852.62)
Total stacks for the challenge: -2.1 (€1888.12)

The results are a combination of poor play and obviously bad luck. I played my A-game for about 90% of the session but I made some dumb errors that probably cost me around 1 stack total in expectation. I often got the feeling that I was playing my hands face-up to my opponents, because a lot of the things I were doing were just too predictable.

My hand histories are still not showing up so no HHs from today either. It's probably better that way anyway, because no one wants to hear or read bad beat stories!

Challenge, Day 1

Day 1 has come and gone and here are my results:

Played hours: 3.5 (max allowed)
Stacks: +3.29 (€2964.50)
Total stacks for the challenge: +3.29

I'm pretty happy with the result, even though Heiko outdid me for the day. Overall I ran relatively well, which is nothing I'm not used to to :) I broke the day into two sessions, one in the afternoon for 2 hours and one late at night for 1.5 hours. This is something I'll probably continue to do to get the best of both worlds.

Here are some interesting hands (predominantly large pots) from the first session of the day. For some reason the hands from my second session are now showing up right now, I may need to recover those tomorrow.

In this hand I was playing $10/20NL HU against a superaggressive opponent who had been going after me left and right with raises and 3bets. I clearly committed myself on the turn but I guess he figured his T2 was still good.

Same opponent, just a couple hands later. Pretty standard preflop and postflop, I give him rope to hang himself on the turn even though a case can be made to just continue firing at the draw heavy board. I had a supereasy call and dodged his 9 outs to take down the pot. He quit me after this hand.

This next hand is all but standard. I isolate a limper preflop and get a coldcall from the BB and the limper. I shut down on the flop and it is checked through to the river, where I hit my boat. Now all of a sudden the BB fires a pot bet and I have a decision. Call, raise or shove? My first instinct was to call, because anything he is checking through the whole way then potting the river is either killing my tiny full house or is a pure bluff where I am getting no value from a raise anyway. However, because the guy is a huge fish, I took the high variance move and shoved. I assume he called me with KJ or QJ, unfortunately the HH does not show his mucked hand.

Fish and I are each 200BB+ deep, I once again isolate his limp and we see a pretty nice flop for me where I hit bottom set on a 3-flush board. I fire rather large flop and turn bets, only to see him donk the river pretty strong. It's a pretty trivial call for me, as I'll be shown the naked ace of spades a ton in this spot. Needless to say, I was pretty shocked to see his hand.

Another set, I was obviously really happy to get it all in on the flop against a tilted opponent. He hit the flop pretty hard as well, though.

Once again, I have some more hands from the evening session but the HH function is currently not working. Looking forward to tomorrow...oh and thanks for all the people who voted for me to win, I'll do my best not to let you down!

The Challenge

The rules for the challenge against Heiko aka Swapshop have now been set. Starting this Wednesday, there will be 12 days to play as much as possible, limited to 3.5 hours during the week and 5 hours/day during the weekend. The ultimate goal is to win as many stacks as possible during the just under 40-hour period we each have to play. Because of the slight difference in stakes, we've calculated Heiko's avg. stack size at €200 and mine at €900. In theory, it is easier to win a stack at NL200 or NL400 than it is at NL1k or NL2k but I still have confidence that I can come out a winner.

Each of us can take 2 days off where we either don't play or just don't have our results judged for the contest, obviously to be determined before the session starts. Besides the evident goal of winning the challenge, I am hoping to come out of this with several new stacks to my name! The motivation for winning the challenge is also made up by the prize that the winner gets from the loser. Some examples (taken from the Jochen Schweizer website): skydiving, helicoptor flying, racecar (palindrome btw) driving, plane flying or Ferrari speeding are all valid suggestions that the winner can pick if he chooses so.

For any readers who predict the winner before Thursday at 23:59, we'll pick one at random and he/she can choose between Super System II, The Theory of Poker and the FTP Strategy Guide. Just drop a note in my comments and in Swapshop's comments as well using the same screenname.

I'll be playing pretty much only at CelebPoker, although I may need to sneak in a few iPoker tables if there isn't enough action at Celeb. Most of the time I'll be playing between 6-8 tables simultaneously, which will hopefully continue to run just as good as it is right now. I've been on a pretty nice heater these past few days and that is a great confidence booster going into the challenge.

Let the challenge begin!