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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