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Monday, November 24, 2008

Winter Wonderland in Seefeld

This weekend the "Beat'em All" event took place at Casino Austria. With three places almost in the same distance (Salzburg, Innsbruck and Seefeld) I decided for Seefeld for various reasons: Well run poker room, nice casino and the option to have an extended weekend with my girlfriend to relax. Therefore I choose a slightly better hotel with a decent wellness area. Little did we know at the time we made our arrangements that it would become a real special weekend due to the fact that we should get the first snow of the season.

I picked up my girlfriend at the airport (she just came back from a business trip) and we drove to Seefeld on Friday afternoon. We managed to arrive before the big snow but up in Seefeld it was white already.

On Saturday we had a nice walk through Seefeld while it was snowing heavily (the picture left was taken at noon!) and went swimming before my tournament started.

Unfortunately I lasted only four levels. While the structure was o.k. (5K chips and 30 min. levels) it definately wasn't deep-stack. Therefore not to get any playable hands for more then two levels is really tough. I never managed to get beyond my initial stack. Finally I went all-in from the button with QJs just to get called by the Big Blind who woke up with JJ :-(

It's a real shame. The quality of play was so poor and I wasn't able to take advantage of it. My favorite line: "Do you have the Queen for the straight? I pay because I want to see it" ... Well, no I didn't had the straight that time but my hand was ahead anyways ;-)

Busting in 77th of 100 that played here in Seefeld wasn't what I had expected from the event.

Fortunately we enjoyed our wellness-weekend nevertheless. Had some nice dinner with the girlfriend at the casino restaurant after the tournament. Not cheap but really good ... definately a reccomendation if you are in Seefeld!

The next day the sun was shining down from the blue sky and we had a nice walk throug the snow followed by more swimming, sauna and massage. We completed the weekend with another nice dinner and went back monday morning.

Now looking forward to real deepstack play at the DuskTillDawn in Nottingham in two weeks...

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Saturday, November 15, 2008

Streaks exist!

There is a lot of discussion about streaks and if they exist or not. I had these discussions im my Black Jack times and I still have them with poker players.

Of course they exist. It's a natural thing. We all now that that there is a certain probability for some things to happen (or not to happen). And the distribution of these events is not linear. Therefore it's no wonder that there are clumps of similar events that always seem to proof probability wrong.

While my event in Graz had a more or less equal distribution of good and bad events, Linz was different. I was extremly lucky two times there. Both times I was down to about 5% to win my hands and managed to escape. Seeing the the Hand were Scott Montgomery busted Craig Marquis at the WSOP final table was a real Dejavu. And in addition I won a good amount of coinflips in important situations.

But after Linz everything seemed to go vice versa. I went to the CCC in Salzburg for the €10+4 Rebuy tournament and went in everytime with the best hand but got hit every single time. This continued with my online play in the last days. Even being 70% ahead isn't enough at this time.

So streaks exist ... unfortunately they can only be seen from the past. There's no way to avoid them. And if we are in them nobody can tell how long they will last. You have to play through them no matter what. You can't change your play because the streak may have just ended and changing your game is just the wrong thing to do at this moment. I can only hope the bad streak was just a short intermission as I have several interesting events coming up till the end of the year.

Next weekend I will be in Seefeld for Casino Austria's "Beat'Em All". It will be a nice weekend as I travel with my girlfriend and we arrive on Friday and stay till Monday ... having a good time together beside playing poker.

A new addition to my schedule is a trip to the DuskTillDawn Pokerroom in Nottingham from Dec. 5th to 8th. Originally I had planned to play an event of the Christmas Poker Championships in Bregenz but then this opportunity came up. The DTD celebrates their first anniversary with a little festival. While the 4-day main-event has a superb structure, the £1,000+60 Buy-In is beyond my bankroll. But they have two side events with £300+30 and £200+20 that still have a very good deep-stack structure. The PF of these events is over 26 so they compare with the Caesars Mega-Stacks I played in Vegas this summer. I was lucky to get a flight with Ryanair for a total of €30. So even adding the trainride to Frankfurt-Hahn this is still bargain!

The weekend after, there is the Pokertour.at final in Vienna. Most probably I will add some smaller events at the local places in Vienna but haven't made my exact plans yet.

There are several interesting tournaments in January and February (mostly beyond). So keep your fingers crossed for me that I make some money in December to keep the pace here.

My next bigger online event will be the FTOPS X, Event #24 on Sunday. Beside that I will go small ball in online tournaments in the next time as I keep a good portion of my bankroll for the upcoming live events.

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Sunday, November 09, 2008

Back-to-Back final tables

To be honest ... being 4th in chips after day one and not to make the final table would have been a big dissapointment. But the day started as bad as it could be.

I was located next to a very small stack and on the first hand of the day he was in the big blind while I was the small blind. Everybody folded to us and setting him all-in was mandatory in that situation. Unfortunately with 36 I was holding the worst possible hand for that play. He thought for a long time and finally called with Q9. I would have hoped for a fold (what would have been a huge mistake on his side). He doubled up and my advantage to the other players had been shortened somewhat.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make many plays in the next time and my once great stack dwindeled down to average due to the blinds. I finally became a shortstack with 21 players left and it was again me and the (former) shorty in the SB and BB. I tried to steal his blind with J2s and wasn't delighted to hear a call on my all-in. I was even less delighted as I saw that he woke up with pocket aces in the BB. What now came was the worst bad beat anybody with aces can get: The flop was J-2-x. He had slightly less chips then I and was out of the tournament. Although happy to be a survivor (with a now close to average stack again) I felt very sorry for this guy. Nobody deserves to leave a tournament in that way after more then 10 hours of play!

With 18 players I got a tough decision: I had raised with JJ from early position and got an all-in from a much bigger stack in middle position. Usually a fold. But this guy had seen me playing the J2 hand on the other table ... so maybe JJ was still good here. While thinking about what to do there was a seat open call on the other table. Only two more to go for the money. I'm not sure if I had folded anyway but in this case it was an important factor to decide that I have still enough chips for a better situation. I open folded my JJ and he mucked without showing.

My turn came only a few hands later. A short stack went all-in for about five big-blinds. A player in middle position with a decent stack just called. I found QQ and moved all-in. Now the open fold of the J's turned out to be a good move. He thought for a long time and finally mucked as he gave me credit for a good hand. Not exactly sure but I assume it was a very good (but drawing hand). The all-in player had KQ and I added some more to my stack.

Down to 11 and back form average to shorty again. This was the flow of the day. I never really improved but was able to hang in. But now I was in real danger as I was extremly short as well as two others on our table. All the players on the other table had stacks big enough to easily await that one of us three will bust.

The final table came faster then expected because a big stack wiped out the other two shorties in just one hand at once. With 9 players everybody was granted at least €620. With only 65,000 chips I was on life support. The next lowest stack had about 150,000. Went all-in with JT and got a coinflip against AK. Doubled up, picked up the blinds and antes three hands in a row and was now back in the game with 184,000 chips early after the start of the final table.

From there I was able to survive three more players and keep my stack at this level for some time (average now little over 200K). But with six players left we played a long time with no action for me and my stack went again down to less then 100K. With the blinds now at 15,000/30,000 (3,000) I decided that A8s was a reasonable hand to play. Unfortunately I ran into AA and left on 6th place with €1,355.

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Saturday, November 08, 2008

Pokertour in Linz - 4th in Chips after Day 1

How great is that ... I just checked the redraw for day 2 and I am 4th in chips with 77.300! We started yesterday with 139 players in the PlusCity in Linz and are now down to 37.

Usually the Pokertour events happen in a CCC location. But the CCC in Linz is too small for such an event therefore they moved the event into a shopping mall. It's been a long time since I played under these circumstances. The location was a bit noisy until the shops in the mall closed at 9pm and the beverage service of the nearby bar had some problems due to the high amount of players but in general it was an interesting location. Reminded me of the times when we played in public at the Schrannenhalle in Munich.

My starting table had some decent players and some who didn't have a clue and were real calling stations. I was able to take advantage of this somewhat and brought my 10K startingstack up to 15k quite soon. From there not much happend for a long time.

With about 90 players left our table was broken and the new table turned out to be very good for me. Due to some good moves I earned some respect from my opponenents which helped me a lot during the last hours of the play. One amazing play (which I unfortunately can't explain in detail) brought my stack up to 40K. Some more blinds and antes (already 800/1,600 - 200) pumped it up to 52k.

With just half an hour before the day ended I got my share of "luck of the day". With AQ I raised it to 5,000 and got an all-in from a short-stack with 17,000. From the way he had played before I was sure he had a Pocket Pair but decided to take the opportunity this time (he had made this move several times before). I was delighted to see that it was a small pair (33). The Flop brought him a set but also KT. The turn was blank. And the River a Jack! I felt sorry for him as he was one of the very decent players remaining but I was happy to go into day 2 with a big stack instead of a small stack.

My new table for today looks very good. I am chipleader there and my closest opponent has 41K in chips. Blinds start at 1,000/2,000 (300) today and average is around 30K.

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Saturday, November 01, 2008

P5s in german discontinued

Sad news for me ... on Thursday it was decided that the german speaking offerings of PocketFives will be stopped immediately.

I am very dissapointed about that decision. I know that the pages weren't as successfull as expected but we had to work on a zero budget. There was a discussion about either spending some money or stopping right now and unfortunately it was decided to stop.

I'm sure with some kind of a budget we could have made this a succesfull offering in the german speaking countries. Of course I am not happy with the way they handled it ... but I think this is still an interesting site worth to visit.

So what are my next plans? The trip to Linz for the next Pokertour event (coming weekend) is already booked and I am looking forward to this. The day before I will play the starting event of the FTOPS X. Not only a 6-max event but also one with an increased starting stack (5.000 chips instead of 3.000). On November 22nd I will play the Beat'em All event at the Casino in Seefeld.

And of course I am trying to find a new job. Hopefully I will be able to work in the poker industry again. If not I have to go back to the computer business. Time will tell.

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