Online challenge - update 2, "TV-Total" qualifikation and a "Happy New Year"

No, I don't suck at internet poker but I still only break-even with the 9-player SnG's. Interestingly I had similar problems to adjust my game to the live SnG's during this years WSOP. Maybe low stacks and fast blinds isn't my style?

I'm doing much better with Full Tilt's 90-player Deep-Stack SnG's. I'm in the black here and even took one down just yesterday. Beside the better results I feel much more comfortable in this kind of games. So I changed the online challenge and skipped the 9-player SnG's and only play the 90-player Deep-Stacks.

In addition I will try to play as much as possible (affordable) live "Deep-Stack"-tournaments. So if my time permits I will play the €800 freezout at the "Bregenz Open" in March and maybe the €500 "Ice-Poker" in Bremen next month.

I played some of PokerStars anniversary $5,000 Freerolls (buy-in 50 FPP's) but didn't last long enough to make it into the money. And of course I never was at the same table with Joe Hachem or anybody else from the Team PokerStars to get a shot on the bounty. One thing I can't understand is that PokerStars allows the observer chat in these tournaments. It's absolut ridicoulous what stupid questions people try to ask a guy who is playing in a tournament with a bounty on his head. And of course as soon as one of these people goes all-in almost everybody at the table calls with any two cards just to get a shot on the bounty (and to be able to say "they busted the champ").

Talking about freerolls ... there's another one at PokerStars (exclusively for players from Germany, Switzerland and Austria). Stefan Raab a german comedian did already two poker shows this year with some german "celebrities" and one online qualifier to win up to €50,000. To qualify online you have to play a freeroll which is an absolut crapshot. Up to 10,000 players (most of them probably never ever heard about pot-odds before) in a turbo structure with just 9 players qualifiying in each one for the final online tournament. Additionally they now offer some 10 FPP qualifier. I was surprised that these qualifiers only averages about 400 players each but offer 18 places each for the finals. Even the quality of the opponents was much better. Took a shot today ... and finished 7th.

So I just have to beat another probably 5,000 players (or more) in the finals in early February to make it into the show. Beating 5,000 donks, fishes, morons and some decent players of course ... that will be as much fun as crossing a mine-field. At least the blind structure with 15 minute blinds is much much better than in the qualifiers.

This will be most probably my last post ... for this year! ;-))
Good luck and good cards
(as long as you don't sit at my table!)
to all of you in 2007.

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Poker ist everywhere

Last weekend I checked out two different non-casino poker tournament events. Those two couldn't be more different. One was in a music club (the 4004 in Munich). Much space, 10 tables and lots of people (around 150 to 200) and very smokey. As the club itself advertised the event the crowd was quite young (20-30). They had a clear structure of prizes starting with a €1,000 tournament buy-in down to some playstation Wii and money for the sponsoring online poker room. While it is still not comparable to (real) tournaments were you can win prize money it was an o.k. structure compared to the €15 buy-in. What I appreciated most was the fact that they advertised the prize structure in advance. Their sponsoring pokerroom was supporting them heavily (even their german general manager showed up).

The other event was in a much nicer location - the Villa Flora in Munich (good food, non-smoking environment and a nice atmosphere). They had five tables there but unfortunately no players. One hour after the official beginning only 5 had people shown up. I think that was mostly because it wasn't advertised as good as the other event and they hadn't a clear structure about what you could win. They had some party poker logos on their tables but other than this no sponsoring could be seen.

You can make good money in these days by organising poker events but they aren't anything like printing money. You have to work for it and you have to find good partners. I think in a year only a few will survive and the others will fade away.

Oh, and of course one thing was the same at both: the crappy blind structure. But wait - is that good or bad? As a skilled poker player I would say it is bad because it increases the luck factor. But think the other way. Not from the organisers point of view. It's clearly good for him. More money in less time. But what about the players? Almost none of them was "skilled". Would it make a difference for them to have a better structure. Most probably not. They wouldn't be able to use the better structure or bigger stack as a tool. On the other hand they had to wait much longer to buy-in for the next round because the tables aren't finished in an hour. Those people want to make party, play with their friends, have fun and like to have a shot on the big prizes. They don't care about the structure ... and if they start to do they will find other opportunities to play on their new skill level.

Having seen that I changed my opinion about those people offering those tournaments for the huge public. I hated tose tournaments in the past, now I think they will help to keep the poker-boom alive. But no organiser should rip off the people. Of course there are restrictions due to the german law but beside that they should offer reasonable prizes (and many of them don't do so).

And one more thing: Everybody talks about gambling addiction in these days. Honestly, I've seen more gambling addicts in every single official casino than in this place. Of course you could find people drinking to much or behaving inapropriate like on every party in this age group but in general this was a nice bunch of young people having fun with poker!

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My online challenge - update 1

I accumulated 44 hours of online tournament play in the last week - which ist definately the most I played online for a long time. I saw a lot of weired hands. I received bad beats and I gave them of course.

The worst thing was a 44Q4 board. I held AK and was quite sure that my opponent didn't have the Q and I could be ahead here. The pot was already huge so we went all-in for the last bit. Then he showed me JJ for a Full House. I still had some outs but was in bad shape. But seing a 4 on the river making my A-kicker the winning card was one of the worst bad beats I ever gave to anybody.

On another table I saw more pocket pairs in 30 minutes than in a whole 3 hour tournament. In one hand we had KK, KK, AA (and my folded 99). No miracle, the Aces won.
During that 30 Minutes two pair and even trips weren't good at all. Usually you needed a nut-flush or better in that time. That table was brutal.

I thought I saw a lot of weired hands in my poker-life. But hell there's always a new way to win or loose a hand.

I changed my challenge a little as I added the 90 player "double stack" sng tournaments to my playing list. Those give you 3,000 chips (instead of 1,500) with a smooth blind structure. Those will be played with the same buy-in level as the 9 player sng's

So how is my challenge going? I'm breaking even after those 44 hours. Mmmmh, could be better and of course could be worse. So it looks like I will have to continue with my challenge to find out if I'm a winning online tournament poker player...

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More Mansion Promotions

You may remember Mansion from the fantastic sports-betting promotion they made a few months ago. Now they give you added money for several poker tournaments in december:

$250,000 added Tournament Series

And for all those who signed up via my affiliate link they have a monthly tournament (starting on Dec. 7th). This tournament which is exclusively for affiliates’ players will run on the first Thursday of every month at 23.00 GMT. It will be a No Limit Hold’em $10+$1 rebuy tournament with $5,000 Added to the prize pool. The tournament will appear in the lobby and will be open for registration 72 hours before the scheduled start time. It will be shown in the lobby as "Invitational $5,000 Added".

So if you signed up via one of my affiliate links send me an email for the password. And if you haven't signed up until now just do it here and send me a message to receive the password.

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My day off

Well, not really a day off :-))

What does a poker player who busted out of a tournament and is stuck in a city that is more than 400 miles away from his home? Find another tournament of course!

I called the new Casino in Hamburg (Esplanade) yesterday night and reserved a seat for their €100+10 Sunday tournament. Unfortunately they had reduced the number poker tables in the new place to two tables ... and I was only number seven on the waitlist. Anyway, it was a good opportunity to visit this brand new place.

I must say I'm not impressed. It's new and it's modern but it doesn't really fit into this old-style building. There are so many corners that you feel cramped in small rooms. Now I can imagine how the people have felt on opening night. The poker room has only the mentioned two tables and a Carribean Stud Table. Seems they want to advertise this crappy -EV game to their poker players.

They got lots of critics today (and the whole weekend) for reducing the number of poker tables and it looks like they are paddling back (and they are obviously sick of defending a decision they can't understand themselves). The head of the casino told us that this is just a transition time and more tables will come soon (they just couldn't be delivered on time) and they will get a separate area. For me this sounded fishy. First he said they will add one or two tables here, then it was up to five in a separate room and later the number was even higher. I'm sure they just realized their mistake and the potential loss of players with big money and try to keep the damage low. So people her in Hamburg can expect more tables in a few weeks but nobody really knows at this time how many it will be and were they will be located. And hopefully until then they get rid of those old roulette-type tournament chips and get better ones!

I was lucky to get a seat and was on the "active" table. I had some nice hands but couldn't add big money to my stack. Then I got QQ in the BB. There was a loose UTG raiser, I reraised all-in about three times his bet and he called my reraise. What do you think he had? JT of clubs! And what do you think happend? Yes, two clubs on the flop and another one on the turn. Out in 15th position.

The structure itself is great: You get 3,000 chips, blinds double from 20/40 but the rounds are 30 minutes (20 minutes in later levels). Unfortunately some dealers seem to be quite new and we got only 2,000 chips this time due to a mistake. We didn't realize until the second level as they provided the blind-charts too late. Well, at least we all had the same conditions :-(( Unfortunately they have no computer and screen to show the levels and remaining players - otherwise we may have realised the mistake earlier!

In general they lack in knowlegde and professional behavior in comparison to Schenefeld but they have a great structure for a small regular tournament.

As I was back to the hotel in time I decided to skip the dinner in Schenefeld and play the monthly Poker Academy tournament. Unfortunately I didn't have enough on Neteller at this time to fund my Titan account. Good thing there was a paysafe card machine just two minutes from the hotel.

I had a good start but lost some crucial pots later (didn't hit my speculative hands on the flop) and went out 12th of 30. Due to a weired payout schedule I even got some money as the payed 15 places this time. But I'm sure they will fix this till January.

This is my 150th post. I hoped for some better news in this anniversary post but that's poker. But to make this a special post in some way I announce my plan to challenge myself in playing online. As you may know I suck in online poker. I have some major flaws online but I know them and they can be fixed. On the other hand I played way to less hands to decide if I really suck. More worse I played quite unconsistantly at different buy-in levels and in different tournament types.
So here's what I will do: I put away a small bankroll sufficient for playing $5 one-table SnG's. I will play them on FullTilt and I will only step up after I have increased my bankroll to 50 buy-ins of the next level. If I go down below 30 buy-ins I will step down again. So this is simmilar to the way Chris "Jesus" Ferguson challenged himself by making a five figure win out of a single dollar by good bankroll management. If I loose my bankroll I'm officially a sucker in online poker, otherwise I may win a fortune in a few months. Due to the fact that I still have free time in Dezember I try to play as much SnG's as possible in the next weeks. I won't start to post hand histories here - that's just not the style of this blog. But of course I let you now how this challenge is progressing.

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Never joke about desaster

As always the Casino Schenefels made everything to make the players feel welcome. There was a little pre-christmas present on every seat and everything was well organized. As in the last deep-stack tournament I started on table 6. So I knew that this table would most probably break as first or second. All the people I knew very well had been on other tables but I recognized almost all players at my table in some way from past tournaments.

In general the table was o.k. except for one player who raised almost every hand. We all knew he couldn't have a hand everytime but it was hard to play back. I had to muck some marginal hands that I had just called and minimized the play of calling hands. There was some weired play, like going all-in with pocket-aces pre-flop on a quite small-pot at the first level (20/40). Or a guy who showed a stone-cold bluff that succeeded. I got some good hands (e.g. QQ) in the beginning and increased my stack to 5,500. Quite soon my cards went dry or the playable once refused to connect on the flop

A tough hand I got was A9 on the button. I raised it and the SB called my raise as he did several times before. Another player called my raise and all others folded. Flop was AJ7. The SB checked as did the other player. I knew my kicker was weak but decided to play my Ace here with a bet of half the pot. SB folded and the other player check-raised to three times my bet. Wow! The pot now had about 3,700 and I had to call another 1,300. I got 3:1 pot-odds here and under normal circumstances I would have called. The problem was: Although this player is definately capable of fancy plays the check raise can't be underestimated. At this time I had about 3,700 left. So the bet would have dwarfed my stack to 2,400 (at 60/120) ... and I was sure there would have been more betting on the turn and/or the river. So if I continued with the hand I most probably would have been willing to bet it all due to the pot size. I was beat by any Ace with a decent kicker (especially AJ). Another Ace most probably wouldn't improve my hand and even with a 9 my hand could be still dominated. I never found out what he had as I mucked my cards here. Later I was able to rebuild my stack to 5,500 with aggressive play of AK and 99.

The "every hand raiser" hand built an impressive chip lead but dumped it off quite soon with some very bad plays.

With blinds of 100/200 our table was broken and I was moved to an interesting table: Katja on seat 9 with a short stack, Sebastian (miamivice) next to me on my right and the table chipleader directly on my left. Received some good cards early and picked up some nice pots on the flop. With a stack of little over 6,000 I got Q8 in the SB. With two callers in front I decided that it was worth investing 100 chips to see the flop. BB checked. Pot was now 800. The flop came 789. Being aggressive before I decided for a 500 bet to define my position. One player folded but the BB had called, as well as did a player in middle position. That wasn't to good. I was prepared to check the turn and fold to any bet as another 8 appeared. Well, time to think again. Now I had trips with a Q kicker. No flush on the board but a flush draw was still possible. Due to the betting I didn't expect a made straight (but maybe a straight draw). And I had a good number of outs for a full house. To kill possible draws I bet 1,500 into a 2,300 pot. The BB folded as expected but the other player called. What the hell...? The river was a Jack! Ouch! But could he play QT that way? Should I check and see what happens? If he checks fine, but if he bets and tries to represent the straight do I belive him? I decided I won't belive him so I can bet anyway. If he pays for two pairs, good for me. If he had pocket 99's for a bigger set I'm doomed but he was to passive for that kind of a hand. Anyway, I bet 3,000 into a 5,300 pot and he went all in for about 1,600 more (he had me covererd by about 200 or so). Now I knew I was beaten. But with a pot containing over 12,000 chips there was no way I fold here and preserve those last 1,600. He had indeed played QT. I was out on 48th of 63 in the middle of the next to last level of day one. What a desaster.

I never had a bustout hand that made me think about my decisions so much than this one. Did I play it right? Was I to aggressive? Sould I have played it different? After analyzing the betting in the hotel room I came to the conclusion that we both made mistakes. But my opponent made the bigger mistake and got rewarded. The turning point was the third 8 on the turn. With any other card (except a Q) it would have been easy for me to let this pot go. It was o.k. for him to chase his draw here as he was last to act and the BB calling my bet gave him sufficient pot-odds. I could have bet more but I think I would have overbet the strength of my hand if I did so. But on the turn I was an 81% favorite and due to my betting I could have had two pair or a made straight. Remember I was SB, so a great range of playable hands was possible pre-flop. I don't think he had enough outs to justify chasing his draw here. But with the Jack on the river I was in trouble now. With blinds of 100/200 and a stack of 4,600 left I should have checked here. The pot had 5,300 and there was absolutely no reason to risk my tournament life on it. On the other hand it would have been annyoing to fold to a bet without knowing if I got bluffed or if he had rivered his straight. Bluff Magazines odds-calculater tells me that I was a 3:1 favorite against any two random cards. So even if he went all-in I had to invest only 4,600 into a 9,900 pot ... giving me sufficient pot-odds except I was sure he was holding QT of course. But in this case it would have been neccessary to think beyond pot-odds. With 4,600 chips left I would have been short stacked but still not on life-support. I was always proud on my short stack play so there was still hope even with changing gears to "all-in or fold" mode. There's definately a difference between a 2-4 hour tournament and a 2-day tournament. How could I forget...?

Tough decision either way. And that's the main problem: It was definately not the smartest decision to bet the river but beeing faced with a bet wouldn't helped much more. The mistake I made was much earlier: Don't build big pots out of position (remember I was small blind). Not betting (and increasing the pot) I most probably would have folded the hand earlier (e.g. to another players flop bet) and avoided desaster.

Sometimes you just have to go broke ... but this wasn't the hand for it.

After feeling very devastated for the rest of the evening I feel much better now. Poker is a game of mistakes. Those who make the least mistakes will be most successfull. No player, not even the best play without mistakes. But you can always learn from your mistakes. Just don't do them again ... there are so much other mistakes you can try ;-))

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Back to Schenefeld

This weekend Schenefeld hosts another deep-stack tournament. The buy-in of €500+40 gets you 5,000 chips and 45 min. levels.

Originally I had other plans for that weekend: a small dance tournament with my girlfriend. Although my girlfirend isn't into the poker thing at all I could convince her that this is a very special tournament and I would be very unhappy if I miss this one. So she wished me luck and let me travel to Schenefeld ... what a wonderful girl.

I was lucky to get a cheap flight from Munich to Hamburg. The downside was that it was an early flight at 7am in the morning. Good thing the Hotel Klövensteen had my room prepared early too. So I will get some sleep before the tournament starts. It will be fun to meet Cort, Katja, Jan and all the others again.

I feel good and well prepared. So the path for desaster is open ... just kidding! You never know how a tournament develops until it has started. But feeling good and well prepared helps to be open minded for whatever is happening.

This is a two day tournament and the first mission to accomplish is to survive day one (preferable with an above average stack). So stay tunded for more news from Schenefeld.

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Rebuy-Mania in Linz

Went to Linz for the €20 Rebuy-Tournament at the CCC to polish my game before Schenefeld next weekend. Due to the bad weather I decided to take the train instead of the car and had a nice trip that gave me the opportunity to re-read the important parts of Phil Gordons "Little Blue Book".

I got the craziest table of 86 players with a total of 26 rebuys in 60 minutes. Next "best" table was "only" 21 rebuys. I had to rebuy for two times and took the add-on. The total prize-pool was short over €6,000 (the biggest they had in the three times I played this tourney)

This was one of those tournaments were I didn't get much cards to play. But those cards I got were really great: 3x Aces, 1x Oueens and 3x Jacks (Hope there are still some pocket pairs left for next weekend).
Unfortunately that was the majority of all playable hands I got in 4 hours. More worse, due to the crazy playing style in the rebuy time my action was somewhat limited. Fortunately especially my Aces paid off big two times (but even then my raises didn't get much respect).
I ended the rebuy time below average with 8,000 chips. Our table broke and at the new table I was able to pump up my stack to 42,000 chips (very decent at that time with blinds 1,000/2,000) and was even chipleader at my table for some time. But then the blinds hurt more and more with nothing to play. With several short stacks at my table I had to let go some medicore playable hands against all-ins in front of me. So my stack went down and down and down.
Went all-in with JJ and 12,000 left (blinds 3,000/6,000), got called by KTs and a King came on the flop ... out on 17th (with 9 getting paid).

Too bad the Jacks didn't came two rounds earlier. That was a perfect example why you should go all-in early enough. With just 6,000 to call for a 21,000 pot the guy with KTs (and a big stack) made the right move. Nothing to complain here for me. Two rounds earlier I had a 21,000 stack. In that case he had to call 17,000 for a 31,000 pot (and I doubt he would have done this). Not a good day for Jacks as I lost big with them two times today.

Overall I was satisfied with my play and what I made out of my limited opportunities. Not much to complain (except that I didn't win any money of course)

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No. 1 of 1,420,000

I like to thank all the readers of my blog and homepage because it's mainly your traffic that made it possible!

If you use the terms "Shadow", "Poker" in a Google search you get 1,420,000 results. And the first result you get is ... this blog! Even my homepage can be found on 4th place.

I know how hard it is to get even listed in Google. But getting that placement with just two search words that aren't that specific at all is awsome.

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Cashgame vs. Tournament

Tonight I had a nice live cash game with some friends. There were some more experienced, some rookies. Some are having jobs related to poker (but no professional players), some not. It was a bunch of people you wouldn't expect sitting at the same table playing against each other - so it may be good that we don't have a photo this time ;-)) It was an interesting and funny evening and beside playing some $1/2 NL Hold'em we had some very good conversations. But this evening showed me again something I already knew: I'm much better in playing tournaments than in playing cash games.

There are two reasons:
1. I like an aggressive style of play with lot's of selective action. This works fine for tournaments but creates a much to loose style during cash games.
2. Changing gears. Beside the aggression I'm willing and able to change gears in a tournament to protect my tournament life. I'm not very good doing the same in cash games.

At the beginning I was up about $150 due to some nice draws that hit either on the turn or the river. I don't think I overplayed them but the odds I got there had been at least borderline and I doubt that I would have played these draws the same way in a tournament. I even flopped my second straight flush in my life. Made a small invitation bet as we usually got some callers everytime. Unfortunately not this time and I didn't get much out of that monster. I didn't get a lot to play after that. To make things worse I had to fold several times after the flop or turn because I didn't hit anything (or enough) to donate more to the pot. So my stack went down to $38.

Then one key hand came up: I can't recall the action completely but the important point is that I was facing an oversized bet in front of me after the flop. The flop wasn't very scary for my AJ and it was clear that he tried to represent either Aces or Kings. I decided that this bet size smelled fishy. I never would have bet the whole amount but my all-in was only a small fraction of his bet. Unfortunately I oversaw two very important things. First: This bet wasn't directed at me. It was directed against the third guy still in the pot (with a much bigger stack) who was calling a lot of bets. So the oversized bet made sense and smelled less fishy. Second: Even if I thought the first one hadn't Aces or Kings I should have considered that the other guy will either fold or had me dominated (e.g. AK) if he calls. So I don't had any implied odds to take into account. The third guy folded and I faced indeed two Kings. No help for me.
To make this call in a tournament I would have been either 150% sure that he was bluffing or I would have been so super-shortstacked that this was my only option anyway. In almost all other cases it would haven been a fast muck.

Somewhat later I lost another big pot with a board of AKQ7A. I was holding Ax. Not only did I fell in love with my pair of aces (small kicker) to much but more worse I was so happy about my set on the river that I didn't consider that I could run into a full house. My opponent played his pocket kings very well still offering a good price (as long as I didn't put him on the set of kings). But again I'm sure I wouldn't have made this play in a tournament. At least it never would have been that costly.

At the end I was down $200 and had learned things I already knew. But it's good to rehearse them from time to time.

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New Passport, Old Memories

Today I got my new passport. And before discarding the old one I browsed through all the visa stamps in it. I tried to re-create the reasons for all the trips from my memory. Since early 1999 I went to the United States over 20 times. The first trips weren't gambling related at all. I was there for business, the honeymoon with my former wife, a dance competition ... and a dance workshop.

The trip to the dance workshop in June 2005 was the one that changed my life. The funny part is that it was just by chance. It was just a two day side trip to Vegas because my dance partner had some business meetings. This wasn't my first trip to Vegas and it was like the last two times: Enjoying the city, the entertainment and some slot play (for small money). And of course I lost some money. On my way back to L.A. I found THE book in a bookstore at McCarran airport: Ed Thorp's "Beat The Dealer". I read the whole book on my flight back to Germany and I was caught by the Black Jack bug.

I studied a lot. Found Stanford Wong's webpages and made my first Black Jack related trip to Vegas in September 2000. I ended the week with a whooping $12 win and felt like a big winner. Since then till January 2005 I made more than 10 BJ related trips to Vegas, Reno, Tunica, Biloxi and the Indian casinos in California. Sometimes I was able to combine the trip with some business but the main purpose was always "BJ".
I had good times, I had bad times ... but the trip I remember most was a four weeks trip through all the gambling places mentioned above. That was a great time (the big wins I made on that trip helped of course). Unfortunately this was an all-time high for a very long time and "standard deviation" showed her ugly face (some call her "Lady Luck" for some reason). It took me almost two years (and three frustrating trips) to reach my next all-time high ... just to get slapped in the face again by this "nice Lady".

But there is always a reason for something. On that trip in early 2005 I decided to take a break from Black Jack and take a poker lesson in the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas. And after doing a lot of reading and brainwork I was caught by a new bug. Three months later I made a poker only trip to Las Vegas in May 2005. That's were this blog started...

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Another small success

After I busted out quite early in the last poker-tester and openBC tournaments I made it to the final table in todays poker-tester tournament.

There was a reason for my failure in the past. I played very aggressively but was overbetting several times ... building big pots out of position. Avoiding this mistake helped me in Schenefeld as well as today. I'm still aggressive and you have to find an unraised pot if the Shadow is involved. But I do care much more about position now. If you don't know what I'm talking about I suggest to read Phil Gordon's Green Book or his Blue book (or both if you don't know either).

We had 46 players this time. And I made 6th place with 9 being ITM. And I busted Cort with KK to collect the bounty! Unfortunately I was falling back into my old mistakes (see above) and was busted with A10 vs. AK by the eventual winner of the tournament. I should have waited just two more rounds (and I had enough chips to do so) and I would have made at least 4th, maybe 3rd place. Position, Position, Position!!!

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Tuesday Tournament in Schenefeld (€200+10)

As always I love to combine business and fun. I had to go to the northern part of germany for a two-day business trip and decided to make it to Schenefeld again.

This time they had 26 players on 3 tables. Due to some traffic jam because of a concert (George Michael) several locals arrived late and the managment decided to start the tournament about half an hour late (which was o.k. for me). I knew several people from former tournaments - including Jan and Katja. Katja was on my table and I hoped for some interesting play ;-)) We had been on the same table for some time during the "Deep Stack Tournament" but didn't play much hands in that time. Unfortunately Katja was somewhat unfortunate and busted out early. That's always the problem with this kind of tournament (15 min. blinds, doubling every level) ... you have to take some risks or you will be behind quite early.

I was a little more lucky to pick up some medium pots. Therefore I was able to maintain an average (or slightly above average) stack for most of the time. There was one key hand for me that I won't describe in detail for obvious reasons: I was in the big blind with a hand that usually doesn't allow to call a raise. UTG just made the minimum raise and I decided to call that one. I wouldn't play this kind of hand in better structured tournaments but as said before in this tournament you have to make some speculative moves (especially when you get them quite cheap). The flop was a poker players dream as I flopped a straight that couldn't be seen easily by my opponent. Unfortunately the turn made a flush possible. River was meaningless. Finally I was faced with the decission to call a raise from my opponent on the river. That was a tough one as I could have faced either a higher straight or a flush. Due to his betting pattern I expected him having trips or two pairs but I couldn't be sure. Most probably I would have laid down that hand in a bigger tournament as I had to risk the most part of my stack on this hand. But in a structure like this there was no way I could get away from this hand. And I was rewarded as he had the lower straight.

As the blinds started to bite even my average stack I was dealt AT in the BB. Two people (who I had covered) went all-in in front of me. Usually that would have been a classical fold. But I expected both to play with medicore cards and considered the possibility that I was ahead at this time. With the big blind paid already and the opportunity to double up I decided for a call. I was right this time. Don't recall the cards completely but it was two face cards (no pair) for one player and something like Jx for the other. No help for either of us and Ace high was good. That put me into good shape. Still low comparable to the blind levels but good compared to the average. Think I was about 2nd to 3rd in chips at this time. That amount allowed me to sail into the money (5 players) as I was card dead for some time.

We lost player five and I busted player four. Had him covered with A8 vs. a low pocket pair as I made a 8 high straight. There's always some luck involved and this time I had the lucky end. Unfortunately I couldn't survive my next all-in (7,000 chips at 1,200/2,400 blinds) with J9s. Second place had me slightly covered and I was out on 3rd place earning € 950,- Not bad for two hours of fun.

This could be a great tournament but unfortunately the blind structure makes it a hard one. The tournament started last year as a STT. The blind structure was o.k. for that. But with three tables they should add at least two levels in between to make it a really good tournament. I know that this is a time issue as they only have a total of three tables. But maybe they get one day rid of the two Black Jack tables in front and permanentely add one or two poker tables!

They will host another "Deep Stack Tournament" (€500+40 / 5,000 start chips / 45min levels) with up to 70 players on December 2nd/3rd. Hope I can change my time schedule to play that one!

Remark: Hamburg is no definately on my list of preferred travel locations: They have poker and now they also have Starbucks here. :-))

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FTOPS Satellite at FullTilt

The "openBC tournament" was uneventfull (at least for me). Went out 14th of 14 after my bankroll had shrinked fast due to some more or less severe bad beats.
So I decided to try a satellite for one of next weeks FTOPS events at FullTilt Poker.

Didn't get much in the beginning, was lucky one time to catch a three on the river after being all-in with 33 vs. 66. After that I got some good cards and could pull some good moves. At the final table I went out 8th of 90 with this hand: Was dealt JJ in the big blind. UTG (who had about double of my chips) called, everybody else folded to me. Went all-in (with 5xBB left) and was called by UTG with 44. A four on the flop and another one on the river sealed my fate. Still some money but no seat for next weeks FTOPS.
At least this was after a long time an online-tourney (except for the openBC & poker-tester tourneys) I really had fun with. Some things went the right way and I was able to pull some good moves and get respect (either as a big stack as well as a short stack).

A golden FTOPS avatar would be a great thing for sure (as well as the money to win) ... long way to go!

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Stardust Las Vegas is closing forever tonight

Just read a sad post on 2+2 telling that the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas closes his doors forever tonight.It was known for a long time that the Stardust is done and Echelon will follow but I wasn't aware of the actual date.

It wasn't one of the fanciest places and I don't have the best memories regarding this place as it's one of the few places that gave me the "we don't like your style of play" speech during my Black Jack times.
Nevertheless it's a place with great history. Some of the history and the man who influenced the Stardust in his early years (try to google Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal") can be seen in Martin Sorsese's "Casino" with Robert DeNiro. I will miss the big Neon-Sign displayed in so many films, clips, reports about Las Vegas. I will miss the race & sportsbook. Old but one of the best in Las Vegas.

Of course the new four billion dollar Echelon will help to make the North-Strip a great part of the new Las Vegas. But after 48 years another icon of the old Las Vegas will be gone.

Remembering Stardust
created by
"Vegas Today and Tomorrow"

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German Poker Championship sold out early

I still was undecided wether I play the German Poker Championship in Berlin or not.
Fighting for this title sounded good but the structure of the tournament isn't the best. At least that's what many people who should know told me.

But sometimes somebody else helps you to make your decision:
Just read an article at pokeracademy.org.uk that the event was sold out in the first hours of the signup period.

Well, maybe it shouldn't be ;-))
I have some other plans for some tournaments till end of december. I will let you know as soon as my plans are fixed.

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Getting slaughtered in Linz

Went to Linz again for the €20 Rebuy No-Limit Tournament at the CCC.
They had 83 people playing and I made a big strike quite early. I had raised QJs in late position and got one caller. The flop came JJ9. Great! The caller made a decent bet and I took some time to think what he could have: J9 for a full house? Would you call a raise with that? AJ? More likely as well as 99. Both hands that would kill me. But it was still rebuy time so I decided to take some risks and called his bet. Turn was a Q ... Bingo! He bet again and I flat called. The river was meaningless and he went all-in. I called immediately and he presented 99 for the lower full house. I felt somewhat sorry for him. But this was an opportunity nobody can let go in rebuy time. But I made a mental note for myself to be more carefull with this kind of flop in freezout tournaments. Like Phil Gordon said: "The texture of the board is very important". And depending on this texture even a full house may be a weak hand sometimes.

This pushed my stack to 8,000 with blinds 50/100 and I ended the rebuy time with that amount. I took the add-on (so the whole tournament cost me only €40+4) for a total of 12,000 chips with blinds of 200/400 for the next round. There wasn't much to play for me in the next time. And somewhat later I had to change the table. My stack dropped to 10,000 due to the increasing blinds as I found QQ in late position. Raised it to 2,000 (blinds 300/600) and got an all-in of 4,000 from the button. Everybody else folded. This was an automatic call for me but I wasn't delighted to see that I went against KK. But a Q on the flop made me happy again and sent my poor opponent to the rail. Back to 16,000 chips. So far the lucky part of the story!

Folded some decent hands to due raises/all-ins in front of me and finally got ATs in middle position. With the blinds now at 500/1,000 I raised it to 3,000 and got one caller. On the flop came an Ace and two low cards. Being the first to bet I decided that checking would result in a bet from my opponent and I would have been forced to fold. So I bet 5,000 hoping to chase him out of the pot. Unfortunately he went all-in for 1,000 more that I had to call anyway. He showed AJ and neither a T or the flush was available to help me. That hand had cost me about half of my stack and should have turned out to be the reason for the coming desaster. Should I have played this hand more carefully? I don't tink so. With the blinds getting bigger and bigger you have to take risks sometimes.

To make things worse I was due for the blinds and the blinds had increased to 750/1,500. I couldn't defend them due to real crap I got dealt in that two rounds and was down to 4,500. Finally I got K9s shortly before the blinds arrived again. Went all-in, got called by a shortstacked 47 and guess ... he found a 4 on the flop. Down to 1,500. Folded the next round. Now I was early position and got AKs. Called the blind (which was an automatic all-in). It was raised in middle position and one all-in in late position with 1,000 chips. The blinds folded. The raiser showed AQ and the short stack showed A3s. Guess who won this hand? Right ... A3 won the hand with a 3 on the turn. No help for AQ and I got 500 back from the side-pot. Now I was the big-blind and was all-in with my remaing 500 chips. I didn't look at my cards. There was a raise and everybody else folded. My opponent showed 44 and I flipped over QJs. The Q on the turn was meaningless as my opponent had flopped his set with a 4. Out on 38th of 83.
In little more than one orbit I went from 16,000 to nothing. That's what I call "getting slaughtered"

Remark:
Just reading through several other blogs and found this in the pokerstars.de blog: "tomba26" from Unterhaching, Germany won over $100,000 for his third place in the sunday million. No, unfortunately this wasn't me. But it's amazing ... this small town has about 22,000 people but this is now in a short time the third poker player from here (including me) that I'm aware off.

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Fast end of a tournament

The poker-tester tournament was over shortly after it begun. Right in the beginning I flopped the nut flush just to get beaten by a full house. But I wouldn't call this a bead beat. With two 9's on the board and the betting pattern of my opponent I should have considered the full house here. Indeed I did but didn't hear on my feelings. I'm not sure if I would have been able to let this hand go in a life game but I would have thought much harder then I did here.

With most of my chips gone I picked 66 as a good spot to go all-in ... just to get a call from AA. Bad timing. Out 44th of 45.

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3rd openBC tournament

Tonight was the 3rd openBC tournament on PokerStars. Unfortuntely we couldn't increase the number of participants too much but nevertheless we had much fun. We had one "rookie" and seven who had played before so we had some nice chat between us all. I caught some great cards in the beginning but they didn't connect on the flop and I had to lay down several raised pots. Later it went a little better and I received several pots uncontested. "MunichAces" told me that he will start to challenge me if I continue with that as he was my victim (unintentionally) in most cases ... and I was ready to rumble ;-))

But he shouldn't get an opportunity as I became the victim of the later winner "grt.". Unfortunately he was to my left and always came over my top when I had good cards and hit at least something on the flop. Maybe I didn't challenge him enough but I was sure he hit something better due to the texture of the flop. Soon I became short stacked.

Went all-in for two or three times and picked up the blinds but finally my all-in with KQ of hearts got called by "grt." ... who else ;-)
And again the flop was amazing: JKT ... a pair for me but "grt." flopped the nut straight with his AQ. The 9 on the turn (for the lower straight) and the 4 on the river had been meaningless - out on 7th place.

Next monday will be the poker-tester tournament at PokerStars and I hope for a better result there.

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"The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act"

Lot's of discussion has started about the new "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act" and it's impact on the future of online poker and poker at all.

A good analysis can be found here by I. Nelson Rose - an authority in gambling laws.
Another interesting analysis can be found from Allyn Jaffrey Shulman as she comes to the conclusion that the new law can't be enforced on online poker due to past court decisions.

But not much has been said about the way this act has been attached to a total unrelated bill about port security. Not being a US citizen I usually avoid critics about internal laws of a country that isn't mine. But this is an outrages abuse of democracy and everybody (not only poker players) should be alerted about what happend here.

Fortunately there had been at least one person who spoke out what lot of Democrats (and hopefully at least some Republicans) must have thought. Kudos to Shelley Berkley and her speach before the voting (and thanks to Jan from 50outs to post this first on his blog):



There are two great organisations that need your support now and will help to defend this law as good as they can. For every US citizen interested in poker they should consider to join the Poker Players Alliance to create a strong lobby that can't be overheard in the next elections.
Additionally I would again stress my support for the World Poker Association. The WPA is an organisation for tournament poker worldwide and we all know that tournaments are one of the most important channels for bringing poker to the public.

I really like Allyn Jaffrey Shulmans conclusions and the PPA is doing the right thing in my opinion as they try to clearly exempt poker from this law. If her conclusions are correct the PPA should have a good stand to succeed here.

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€20 NL Rebuy-Tournament CCC in Linz

As Oct. 3rd is a holiday in Germany I decided to take Monday off too. Originally I had planned to check out Wiesbaden for two days. The Rookie-Tournament on Tuesday was something I always wanted to try. But the 450 km trip was too long for just a single tournament and I wasn't comfortable with forking over €150 for the rebuy tournament on Monday at this time. So I decided to check out the €20 NL rebuy €2,000 guaranteed in Linz. It's "only" 250 km and I decided to drive home after the tournament to avoid the hotel cost.

From my former experiences with the Concord Card Casino in Linz I expected a "Poker World"-type crowd of about 20-30 people barely covering the €2,000 guarantee.

What a pleasant surprise when I arrived there: They had 86 players signed-up (good thing I reserved in advance by phone) and it was more like the CCC Vienna crowd. Quite young in general.

The structure could be better but there are ways to take advantage to it as you play with a lot of inexperienced people. They start with 2,000 chips and 50/50 blinds. Next to levels during rebuy time are 50/100 and 100/200 (20 min.). Add-on is 4,000 chips.
After the Add-on the blind go to 200/400, 300/600, 500/1000, 750/1500, 1000/2000, 1500/3000, 2000/4000 ... Unfortunatly the blind length goes down to 15 minutes after the add-on.
What I don't like is there chip structure: 50 (green), 250 (pink), 1000 (yellow), 5000 (light-pink). It's a very odd denomination (Poker World in Vienna is simmilar) and it causes you a lot of brain work to count the chips correctly. Strange how this can affect your play if you are not used to it.

I was able to hold a decent stack of almost 10,000 due to a single good hand and a good rebuy strategie ;-)) after the rebuy time was over. I started to get some good hands and was able to run my stack up to 30,000 during the 750/1000 and 1000/2000 levels. This was well around or even above average at tis time. The interesting thing was that there had been a lot of stacks above 25,000 directly at the end of the rebuy time but most of them paid a price for not being able to adjust their game to the freeze-out time and the huge number of short stacks fighting for survival.

Then my key hand arrived. I was thinking about that hand for the whole drive home and was sure I played it badly but after a night of sleep I decided that I couldn't have played it different and that it's just that kind of hands that will cost you a bunch of money: I had AJs in the small-blind. Three people just called the big blind and I decided to raise here to 3 BB's. The big-blind folded as well did two others. But the button called my raise. The flop came KQ7 (two of the same suit but no flush draw for me). Damm, I missed even a single pair but had a straight draw with the 10. If he was holding AK or AQ I was in a bad shape. If he was holding a pair 10 or below I had about 10 outs left. Unfortunately I was out of position but decided to bet here as a check would have invited a bet from him (and he was that kind of player who takes advantage of weaknesses). He called and I got no help from the turn. Even worse the turn made a flush possible. Now this was a tough decision. Due to the pot-size I had only two options all-in or check/fold. I felt that an all-in would have been called (he had covered me) and that I didn't have the best hand here. We both checked. The river was another King and there was no way I could bet here again. I checked, he bet and I folded. That pot cost me half of my chips in total.

So why was I thinking that I played it poorly? Because I went against an important rule: "Don't build big pots out of position". But after re-thinking I'm not sure about that anymore. Raising with AJs from the small-blind to reduce the competition was a good reason to raise (and worked). Betting after the flop (even out of position) was mandatory. Due to the texture of the flop there was a good oppotunity to either get him off the hand, get another card to improve or fold to his re-raise.
Just that kind of key hand that makes or breaks your tournament.

I was able to stick in for another two levels but finally were forced to go all-in was 79 against JJ. The 7 on the turn gave me some hope but that was all. Out on 18th position (9 got paid from the almost €6,000 prize-pool).

They just recently added two more Hold'em tournaments to their schedule: a €50 rebuy NL on Friday and a €20 Pot-Limit rebuy on Sunday. Especially the €50 rebuy should be interesting as you get 3,000 chips (add-on is 6,000).

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Austrian Classics - the €100 NL Rebuy Event

"Spanische Hofreitschule" in Vienna

The second day of the Austrian Classics wasn't a good one for me either. Quite early I received QQ made a standard raise and a short stack went all-in. I called the rest and my Q's lost against AK as a K appeared on the flop. Now I was the short stack, didn't get much playable and had to rebuy for the first time during level two. Went all-in later again in level three (stack was shortend due to some folds against post-flop bets) with ATs and lost against AK as we both didn't get any help. 2nd rebuy. I was able to maintain my stack during the rest of the rebuy time and could even add a little as I flopped the nut straight with KQ once.

I took the add-on after the rebuy period and went into the post-rebuy time with a decent stack. Had a good start as I limped with a medium pair and decided for calling a raise as I was offered good pot-odds due to several callers in front of me. Even better: I flopped a set, was first to bet and everybody except one folded. The turn wasn't good for me as a third spade appeared. Many people may check here but I preferred to make a stand with a bet of half the pot-size. If he just called I would have seen the river (knowing to check and fold if I miss to improve) or I would have folded against any raise immediately. He was thinking and talking for a long time giving away so much information that I was sure he hadn't a flush and wasn't on a flush draw. So I changed my mind and would have taken him all-in if he decided to raise me here. He folded showing AT (no spades) for a pair of tens. Still a nice pot. After that I got some decent but dangerous cards (if contested) and was able to force the table to fold for several rounds in a row. Unfortunately this was only a small highlight and soon I went back to fold 62, 74 and more of my typical cards of the last two days.

The giraffe is protecting a small stack (Source: Concord Card Casino)

To make it worse I had to change the table and went from being upper level at the old table to lower level on the new one (comparing chips sizes). Nothing to report here for a long time. I went from decent to short stack quite soon as the blinds went up and the antes kicked in. Caught some blinds and antes going all-in with Ax suited or QQ (my best card all day). After recovering somewhat due to this I got JJ in middle position. Raised it and got two callers. Unfortunately I ran into an AKQ flop. The BB raised me almost all-in and I decided (after thinking for a while) to fold JJ again (you remember Schenefeld?). I know I was on a draw but the way he played it (and played before) I was sure that he either already completed the straight or had at least a set or two pair (giving him a lot of outs to improve either). He didn't show but said "good fold" (which seemed to be an honest comment). I saved a lot of my stack but still lost a lot due to my raise. The blinds and antes increased even more and I became super-short-stacked. KQ was the best I got but I wasn't able to go all-in due to an all-in raise in front of me. With 3,900 chips left (200/400, 50 ante) I finally went all-in on the button with J7. Got called by a big stack with KT and another middle stack with JT. What the hell are those people thinking? Everybody has his one style but commiting 25% or a third of their chips to an all-in raise in front of them isn't what I would call a good strategy (maybe I'm wrong). Well I should be happy that people are willing to triple me up ;-)) Unfortunately it shouldn't be this time. The flop was K7x. I had beaten the JT but was behind the KT. No further help and the old lady took out two at once and improved to a real big stack. Out on 71st of about 145 players.

Cort was still in the tournament at this time with a stack of 15,000 and miamivice was sitting on 17,000. Andreas Krause was still in but I didn't check his stack. So I hope they survive at least until the last two tables two make it ITM. BTW, Cort made the final table yesterday (10th place). Congratulations! Another player entering the Hendon Mob database as I expect the Austrian Classics to be listed there!

It was fun two play this tournaments (despite the results) and I wished I could have stayed longer. Unfortunately we had to leave as we are invited to the 40st birthday of a very good friend.

REMARK: Cort send me a message that he made third place! Congratulations again. I suggest to check out his blog for the full story: Cort's Blog

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Austrian Classics - the €200 Pot-Limit Event

The good part was to meet Bla, Cort, Sutti again and Gerli, SickAndRich, Mishkin for the first time. It's always funny to meet "virtual" people in real life.

Shadow on the right (Source: Concord Card Casino)




"The giraffe" - my card protector (Source: Concord Card Casino)

Unfortunately there isn't much to report about the tournament itself. I played about 5 to 6 hands in around 4 hours. In the early beginning I had to fold raised JJ and TT on the flop due to huge overcards. After that I got no more hands. Heavily short stacked I went all-in and could recover a little as my AQ held against AJ in a big pot that almost tripled me up. We both made a 4-flush on the board with the Q being the better kicker.
Somewhat later I made a pot-size raise with AKs but got no callers and collected the blinds. My last hand was ATs beaten by AJ. Out on 81st position from 169 players.

The tournament itself was good organised by the CCC. The structure was o.k. with 3,500 starting chips. They offered a free dinner break with a nice buffet in a tent outside on the parking lot.

The dinner tent (Source: Concord Card Casino)

Tomorrow will be the €100 RB NL. With 1,500 starting chips but 3,000 chips AO this should be a decent structure too (as long as you are willing to take at least the AO).

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It's a small world

Today's poker-tester tournament wasn't a big success. I came 10 min late, got some small pots and lost half of my stack with K's against all-in J's. Next round I got the J's and lost the rest of my stack on a semi-bluff. So I left after 10 more minutes 51st of 57 players (a new record number of participants!).

Having some free time I decided to play a 180 player ($20+2) SnG at PokerStars. I had a good start but went card dead during the middle of the tournament. Finally went all-in (eight BB's left) with TT. Got called by the table-chipleader with AK ... a King hit on the flop and I was out at 56th place. Chipleader or not ... calling an all-in that may cost you about half of your stack with AK is a very "optimistic" play.

But there was something that made this tournament remarkable: While waiting for the tournament to start I saw a familiar city displayed in the players list. There was indeed a player from my own city (which is a quite small city near Munich). We had some nice talk during the tournament. He had a good start too but was hit heavily with a flush against a full house and went out sometimes before me. I tried to direct him to the poker-tester forum (avoiding any violation of the PokerStars rules). Hope he got the hint correctly as it would be fun to talk to him a little more.

And regarding my last "Winds of change" post:
It's now official that I quit my current job. We still have to discuss the final date but quite soon I will start with a new position. The new one will lead me to southern Bavaria, Switzerland and Austria. It will be a sales position for computer software. I'm really happy about the new position as I will work for a good and successfull company with great products. It's a nice area to work (I love Switzerland and Austria) and it will be great to be on the road again after three years in the office.

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Winds of change

There will be some changes in my life (non poker related) in the near future.

I can't tell much about it right now but it will be a positive change without doubt. And as an added benefit it may allow me to play some more poker at some interesting places (e.g. Vienna) more often.

So I'm really looking forward to those changes in my life...

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Blog without words ... to remember 9/11

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What a difference a day can make - 2nd day of the "Schenefeld Deep Stack Tournament"

The day started so great and so relaxed. Everything went fine up to the moment the tournament started. I never had any chance to get into my aggressive rhythm. There was something wrong with my "music" and I never could really figure it out. It was just one of these nights were you can try as hard as you want but nothing works right.

Our table was broken very soon and I got a seat at Cort's table. There's not too much about my hands that I can tell except that my stack mostly went down and very seldom went up. I was able to pick up some blinds and limper bets with good raises/all-ins but those decent hands or usefull position opportunities had been too rare to make any positive impact on my stack. I tried one steal attempt with a very questionable hand (not really my style but it was a good position play at that time). Unfortunatly I ran into a strong hand of Cort and had to fold pre-flop.

The whole night had basically three key hands for me:

No. 1: Raising with JJ in early position just to find an all-in from a late position raiser. He could have had a hand or not (he had played a lot of crap too). But I decided that with 12,000 chips (average was 15,000) and an opponent who had me slightly covered this wasn't the time to risk my whole tournament life. Not yet, not now!
I almost never show my cards but decided that if I had to fold those JJ they should at least be of any use. As this was shortly after the above mentioned raises/all-ins that had been all uncontested I thought it was time to show that I have a hand when I raise it. Just folding would have made me vulnerable to steal raises from several opponents. The comments I earned showed me that a lot of people don't understand the difference between an all-in raise and an all-in call.

No. 2: Last hand before the dinner break. I'm in the BB and the next level SB is lurking after the dinner break. I have around 5,800 chips (average was 17,000) and find KT. Bigstack in MP raises to 2,000. It's folded around, people get up to go to dinner... and Shadow raises all-in! Uuups ;-)) I was sure he hadn't anything big. I expected something like JT. At least I was sure he was on a steal. He thought for a short moment, called (that's the crux if you're super-short-stacked) and showed 55. Yes, he was on a dinner break steal but with a better hand than expected. But I stil had two overcards. The flop brought me an open-ended straight draw and I had about 10-14 outs at this time. Turn was blank and the river paired my Ten. The guy wen't almost nuts. "How could you call this but fold JJ"? Different circumstances require different game plans!
This cost him an important part of his big stack and he went out not long after the dinner break.

No. 3: Again no cards for a long time and my 12,000 stack melted down to 7,000 (average was now about 23,000). The next blinds came closer and closer being 500/1,000 with a 100 ante. It was folded to the guy next to me who raised to 2,500. That was a weired raise for him. Looked like he wanted to get the pot now but at the same time trying to minimize his risk. I had originally planned to go all-in with my KQ but re-thought it after the raise. Anyway, KQ was my best hand for ages. The blinds were lurking. There wasn't much I could do so I raised all-in. He thought for a long time but finally called and flipped over 22. The flop paired my Q, the turn was blank and the river was a 2 ... oh, hell! Out on 23rd position. This guy played amazingly bad the whole night but had all the luck in the world. He busted Bedros' AA with Q9 making runner-runner Q's. He busted another AA with 66 getting a 6 on the river (and that's only a small selection of his weired pre-flop all-ins) ... and now me!

Too bad but not dissapointing (well, a little). Making 23rd place in this field and that tournament (it was the first time I played that kind of a tournament) is a decent result but doesn't pay any money :-((
Michael Keiner went out shortly before the dinner break and day 1 chipleader Andreas Krause somehow managed to lose a big chunk of his chips during the evening and went out somewere between 14th to 20th position. Same happend to miamivice.

And what's about Cort? I think you will find the details in his blog but he went out on 13th place with the same hand (but other opponent) that busted me: KQ
He was super-short-stacked and had to make a move but AJ busted him. To sad because 10th place was the first ITM for about €1,200.

We left after Corts departure so I can't tell you who made it to the final table. Katja and Jan had been still in (but with below average stacks if I counted them correctly) sitting next to each other on seat 1 and 2. Andreas Krause was seat 10 on the same table before he was busted. Poor guys on the right of them ;-))
I think you will find the results on Jan's page or the german PokerStars blog very soon.

Great tournament with an ending that could have been better ... next station: Austrian Classics.

REMARK:
Jan has released the results in the German PokerStars Blog. Winner was Benjamin Kung from Berlin, Runner-Up was Dr. Schwarzer and 3rd place went to Jan himself. Unfortunately Katja went out one place after Cort also short before the money.
I had the opportunity to play with Benjamin at the same table for some time and I'm happy for him to win this tournament. He is not only a good player but also a very nice person to play with. Congratulations!

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First day of the "Schenefeld Deep Stack Tournament"

This tournament is absolutely great. The best I've played ever. Congratulations to the casino Schenefeld and Marcus Jost as well as Katja and Jan who supported them regarding the setup!

This was a long day for me that started with the last quarter of the PIT/MIA game in the morning. I then had to work and went to the airport early afternoon. The plane was 30 minutes late due to a flat wheel but I got my rental car fast so I manged it to be there on time. Currently they celebrate 750 years of Schenefeld so the whole area around the casino is a zoo.

Katja was already there as the "Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR)" filmed some scenes for a report they will send later. She is obviously doing a great job in promoting poker.
I met Cort and Sutti from the poker-tester forum and we had some nice talks before the tournament started. Unfortunately I couldn't watch him during the tournament as he was on a different table. We met Sebastian (miamivice) as well as Michael Keiner. So we expected a very tough field and not many bustouts during the first day (5 levels 45 min. each) due to the 7,000 starting chips and the moderate blind structure. So wrong!

The tournament started somewhat late but we had a great time anyway. I got seat 5 on my table which was a good position. I had Michael Keiner on my table but unfortunatly he didn't play many hands (for whatever reason). The first levels started well and after some after-flop folds I got into the right gear and could play the aggressive way I prefer to play. My stack was always at or slightly above average.
Cort was sandwiched between "miamivice" and Andreas Krause which wasn't a comfortable position at all.

Unfortunately our table was broken shortly before the end of level three. I didn't know any of the players on the new table (except for one guy from the former table) and I got the ugly 10-seat. This table had a fast pace but I was able to pick up some pots and maintain my stack.

The first player went out of the tournament during level one and Andreas Krause busted two on his table. But my new table had some really hot seats. We lost 6 players at our table in just one and a half level. Due to table balance we got some new players including Katja and Andreas who had over 30,000 chips at that time.
In total we lost more than 20 players (out of 67) which shows that a lot of people don't know how to play a deep stack tournament. One of the most arkward hands happend on my first table: During level 2 it was raised heavily before the flop and more after a ragged 932 flop. My estimation was high pocket pairs against each other (like KK and QQ maybe AA). The turn was another blank and the betting between the two players continued resulting in an all-in that was called. AA vs. QQ with one card to come. The river was a Q for a 2-outer and we lost one player. The Q's were very lucky here. I know it is tough to let the ladies go but if I would have holding those Q's in that situation I'm sure I would have folded them.

With the last level of the day the antes kicked in. Unfortunately I went card dead most time of that level (getting 72 two times in a row and other crap). Fortunately I got some cards again before the level was over and was able to recover my stack. At the end of the night we were down to 43 players and I had an average stack of 10,900. Katja has exactly the same chipcount, I think Jan has about 7,000 and Cort something above 6,000. Miamivice is in good shape with more than 16,000 and Andreas is day 1 chipleader with 37,000 chips.

Play will resume on Saturday 6pm and luckily our table will be the next to break. There's no official payout schedule right now but we can expect 9-10 player being ITM with 1st place maybe around 30% of the total prizepool of € 46,900.
The German PokerStars blog (written by Jan) has some additional informations and pictures of other known players in the tournament.

My day tomorrow will be easy going. Don't get up to early. Enjoy the great breakfast wich is available till 11am. After that I will make some sightseeing and/or shopping in Hamburg. Hopefully the hotels massage therapist is working tomorrow. I have some back-pain from some aerials we did during our last dance trainings and sitting the whole night wasn't really helpful.

I said it in the beginning but it can't be said enough: this is the best tournament structure ever offered in Germany and I'm happy being part of it. I really hope they do it again. And if they do I will be back!

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The Mansion promotion and "The Art of Poker"

First about the Mansion promotion: It was a huge success for everyone. The Pittsburgh win made 5,000 people happy and somewhat richer. Thanks to Miami for the missed challenge call. This TD was the key IMHO - after that the Dolphins handed the game over to Pittsburgh.

(Source: NFL.com)

I had decided to hedge the game and I'm still happy with the decision. It was much better for my health and I enjoyed the game much more. I can imagine the pain of all who had PIT -4.5 without a hedge. The interception TD must have been a great relief for them. Even with the hedge I was more on the PIT side as I hedged it to win $551 with PIT but only $408 with MIA. So I'm more than happy with the result.

We will never know if everything would have gone o.k. with the refund but anyway - I cashed out after the game and I received the money about three hours later. I could imagine they had a lot of withdrawls to handle so they showed real class here. Mansion went from "not-so-important-to-look-at" on the top of my list (right after FullTilt and PokerStars). I'm not doing much sportsbetting anymore but having somebody in the portfolio like Mansion who offers poker and sportsbetting is a real good thing.

And now something about poker: In a few hours I will be on my way to Schenefeld for a great two day tournament with very player friendly conditions. I will meet some people again and some I just know from the internet so this will be a great weekend regardless of the result.
But being out for dancing last night some thoughts came to my mind. You may know that dancing is my second (or better first) passion. And I consider dancing a form of art. For me it's not just movement to the music its the way to interpret what happens in the music. Pick up the flow and go with it. As I said in a post before you have to learn the basics first but as you improve you can put them aside and concentrate on the connection between the music and your feelings. And if you get to this stage you will experience how the music together with your movements can create something special and unique.
I encountered that this is similar in poker. You have to master the basics first. But beyond that point you have to pick up the rhythm and the flow of the game. You can't control the flow of the cards and you can't tell if you're on a cold or a hot streak before the streak is over. But you can evaluate your circumstances: the other players, the room were you are, the stage of the tournament, the overall atmosphere etc. All those things together with the (good or bad) cards you receive are your "music". Pick up this "music" and find your own way to move to it. If you get the right connection to your "music" then you will be able to get good results (regardless of your cards). This is what I call "the art of poker"

Hopfully I will be able to feel comfortable with the "music" played today and tomorrow... ;-))

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Thoughts about online poker

It seems it's no fun for me anymore to play online. After I came back from the last Vegas trip (and lot's of live play) I hadn't much time to play online (at least I thought that was the reason). Then I played a great live tournament in Bregenz and more is coming up: I signed for the €700+50 in Schenefeld and I will play the €200+20 PL at the Austrian Classics (and most probably the €100+20RB NL the next day).

The last days I started to play some online tournaments again and the results were bad and I didn't have much fun. Don't get me wrong: It wasn't much fun because of losing it was vice versa. I lost because I played badly due to the fact that it isn't much fun for me to play online.

It seems I'm really infected by the live game virus and with several opportunities coming up around Germany I will try to keep my money and invest it in some more trips and opportunities for playing live. As said in the Bregenz post I was mentally dead after all those hours of playing the tournament there but it felt so much better than a single hour online.
I will continue with some classic tournaments like the poker-tester or the openBC tournaments (because it's fun to play with those people). But despite that I will limit my online play to some satellites trying to sneak cheaply into some bigger tournaments.

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An offer too good to miss!

Well, this sounds unbelievable but it looks like it is true:

Mansion offers you the following: Bet $1,100 (and exactly that amount) to receive $1,000 on the upcoming Steelers - Dolphins game (on Sep. 7th). If the Steelers cover the spread you win $1,000. If your bet loses Mansion will refund your lost $1,100.

I read several threads at 2+2 and Pocket5's and it looks like this offer is legit. If you have doubt's (or will be sure that you do everything correctly) just contact their live support and walk with them through the bet (like others did before). If I can get enough funds in my Neteller account early enough I will use this offer for sure!

BTW - Mansion also offers online poker and runs the poker dome in Vegas.

This is just for information purpose - I'm not liable if anything goes wrong!

Note: The promotion has ended. They had 5.000 participants wagering 5.5 Mio. Dollars.
Now let's all hope for a PIT win (even better a HIGH win as a lot of people are stuck with the original -4.5 spread)

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My new homepage: FifthStreet.biz

I really love my blog and it gets more and more readers every month. I spend a lot of time to create some unique styling to the standard blogger design. But right now it feels that I started to overload the page with content in the sidebar (links, calender, email subscription etc.).

Therefore I created a new homepage called FifthStreet.biz

No worries - the blog itself will stay were it is!

But will move some parts of the sidebar to these new page(s) and leave only the most important pieces in the blog. Of course you will still be able to access the blog directly with the known link. But I hope you will enjoy my new homepage too.

This will be an ongoing process in moving the sidebar content to the homepage piece-by-piece due to restrictions in my time schedule. So far the whole "links" section (including the other poker blogs) and the tournament calendar are already moved to the homepage.

Another reason for the new homepage was the possibillity to provide a catchy URL to those interested in my pages.

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The beauty of AQ - a tale from Bregenz

Just came back from the €200 rebuy tournament in Bregenz. This one had all drama this kind of tournament can have. Fast rewind to yesterday afternoon.

I had decided to take the train to Bregenz as it was just more relaxing and the main station is directly next to the casino and the hotel. I had to work that day so I took a train that would arrive about one hour before the tournament starts. Plenty of time for the hotel check-in and changing clothes (you need a shirt and a jacket for the casino). Well, not really "plenty of time"! First I missed the subway and therefore almost missed the train. Shortly after the train went on to Bregenz they announced that due to some construction work there will be a delay of about 30-40 minutes. Damn! To make it worse the train itself had some technical problems and stopped several times. I think if I hadn't already sent the buy-in I would have gone home. It felt like the whole day was ruined and nothing works out correctly. Bad mood to play a tournament (especially a rebuy tournament). So I tried to calm down. I enjoyed some good food in the train, read my adapted version of Fuel55's "Dannenemann Sheet" which starts with "You're here to have fun...". Now I was starting to focus on the game again. I called the casino that I may be late and the told me that this is no problem because my seat will be reserved. I took a nap and enjoyed the outside scenery which is really nice in that area (especially as you approach the Bodensee).
Finally we arrived in Bregenz and even with the delay I had time for the hotel check in. Back on track.

Met Sindbad (the winner of the openBC tournament) and some other guys there. Nice crowd. They were fully booked and with the alternates we had about 155 players after the 2-hour rebuy period. I was card-dead as always in Bregenz but was able to increase my stack slowly but consistently. I didn't play to much hands in that time but it was still remarkable that I never had to show my cards at any time. They were heavily contested sometimes but they never went to a showdown. Looks my aggression factor has increased since my last Vegas trip. Talking about Vegas I was really surprised about the level of play here in Bregenz. There are a lot of "regulars" here that play very often. But I saw a lot of crappy play (pushing pairs with an ace on the board, pushing middle pairs, going all-in with nothing). It went a little better after the rebuy period but still there was alot of odd play. I took the add-on but never had to rebuy and still was in a decent shape.

Our table was in a side part of the poker room (usually used for BJ tables) and I was somewhat disappointed that this most probably would be one of the first tables to be broken. It turned out that I was wrong an indeed it became the second to last table. I wasn't forced to move due to table balance so I stayed at may table in a good seat for the whole tournament. There was only one time during the 7th and 8th level were I felt uncomfortable as I had a really big stack to my left. But fortunately he got moved somewhat later.

So what's that all about AQ? Well, the AQ part started after the rebuy period was over. I lost a good chunk of chips as I missed my flops for several times and became severly short stacked. Finally picked up AQ, went all-in and got called by JJ. A lucky Q on the river saved me and I stayed in the game. From there I hit some really good cards and was able to increase my stack to about double the average. The fun part is that whenever I played AQ and I got them about 5-6 times in a playable position I made some kind of a hand or was in front against an all-in. This became a running gag at the table especially as I severly hit a stack that just arrived and couldn't succeed against my AQ with his pair of nines ("We should have told you to fold against his AQ's")
But the best of all the AQ stories was this one: I limped from early position with AQ and the BB just checked. Only me and the BB. Flop came TJK for a straight (all rags). The BB bet and I called, turn was blank, BB bet again and I called. The river brought a Jack. The BB checked and I raised him all-in. He called and showed Jx for a set of Jacks. This guy went nuts on how I could call all his bets till the river. He obviously wasn't realizing that he was already beaten on the flop with the first Jack.

Finally we went down to two tables. The prizepool was about €78,200 and 15 got paid with places 11-15 getting a flat €782,- each.
Play went tighter and tighter and the blinds increased more and more. The structure of the tournament is great (half hour blinds increasing only 50% for the most part). But at this time the tournament was already in it's 7th hour and the blinds had gone to 4,000/8,000 (no ante) with an average stack of about 50-60K.
We lost the next players quite fast as we had some real short stacks on both tables but it took us more than half an hour to eliminate the bubble-boy. In that time the blinds increased to 6,000/12,000 and my stack of 50K was melting down to about 25K. As we got to 16 players I made a decision for myself: Knowing that I invested only €400,- but would get €786,- for 15th place I decided that I don't wanted to be the bubble-boy on this one. I would take my stand with a valueable hand (we had a short stack who folded JJ against a standard raise ... I wouldn't have gone so far). Most times it had been easy folds because I got nothing, was out of position or faced a raise with a medicore hand (e.g. 55). Usually I would have played it much more aggressively here but I wanted to make it into the money.
And finally the bubble bursted :-))) shortly after that I went all-in with my last 7,000 with KQ and got called by AQ and KJ. The ace high won and I was out on 15th place. Despite other times I busted I didn't feel depressed about busting out here. As said before I made the decision to secure the money knowing that this will most probably cost me a shot on bigger money (11th place would have been around €1,500,-). So I was happy about the outcome and mentaly exhausted after exactly 8 hours of play. I have to look it up but I'm sure this is my longest tourney ever. I played cash game for 18 hours once and it wasn't as exhausting as this one. I wouldn't have found my room number if I hadn't written it down as my brain was totally mashed up (it was 4:30 am in the morning when I busted).

Was I lucky or just not unlucky? Of course! You have to be lucky one or the other times to go that deep. But I think I played a good tournament with no severe mistakes. So luck wasn't the only factor.

I got exactly one hour of sleep before I had to wake up. I enjoyed a nice breakfast went to the train and got back to work in Munich. I had some wait-time in Lindau and realized that we have the 23rd of August ... the date the first issue of the "Deutsches Pokermagazin" will be available. So I went to the news store and tried to find it. After a while I spotted it next to some chess magazins in the cultural section. Buying it at 7:25 am in the morning I was most probably one of the first buyers :-)))
Originally I planned to sleep in the train - but you can imagine what I did? Yes, I read the "Poker Magazin" ... and I really like it. Interesting stories from good authors (e.g. Michael Keiner). They only have to polish their grammar a little as I stumbled across some things (and I'm far from beeing an expert in that area). But I think the will get this done and I wish them all the success they need to keep it a regular magazin (will be issued every two months for €4,60).

Trust me I will sleep very early and very good tonight. With the win in Bregenz either Schenefeld or the Austrian Classics are an option now. But I have to check the travel possibilities first.

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Two online tournaments

Monday was tournament day at PokerStars.

Last week we had the poker-tester tournament. No luck and no good cards there. Went out 29th of 34. Can't recall some interesting hands as there weren't any.

This Monday was the "1. openBC Poker Challenge". As it was the first one we expected to start with less people. And indeed we only had 10 for this week. But anyway we had a lot of fun and some well known participants ;-)) But I won't release any names here until they allow me to do so. I can reccommend this tournament to everybody. Just join openBC and go to the poker group. I'm sure this on will grow more and more in the future.

For the results: I had some good hands. One time I held AA and flopped quads (and even got paid somewhat on this). I raised QQ on a raised pot and got re-raised all-in. Tough fold but I expected AA on the re-raisers hand.
Bad mistake sometimes later: flopped a straight with 67 on a 89T flop. Play was three handed. Small stack went-all in and medium stack went all-in too. Should have folded here but couldn't believe that someone else flopped a straight. Small stack got busted with AA but medium stack had indeed 7J for a higher straight. Now I went from healthy stack to severly short stack. Could recover somewhat and survived 3 more players but finally went out on the bubble (4th place). Next time... ;-))

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