I moved my blog to a new home. Your browser should automatically take you there in 5 seconds. If it doesn't please go to http://www.fifthstreet.biz/ Fifthstreet Blog: December 2006

50k guaranteed, Kings Casino Rozvadov, Czech Republic

Saturday, December 30, 2006

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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Monday, December 18, 2006

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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Thursday, December 14, 2006

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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Tuesday, December 05, 2006

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:


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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Sunday, December 03, 2006

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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Saturday, December 02, 2006

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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