That's it for 2009 ... waiting for 2010

Back from the Poker-King Weekend at the PokerRoyale in Kufstein. Unfortunately no big paycheck but still successfull in some way.

Most important: It was a wonderful tournament. That was exactly the kind of structure I like. I was able to get my stack up to 24k from the 20k start but also went down all the way to 8k. Some really heartbraking hands - like having to fold a pair of Aces on a very dangerous flop. But still I managed to get my way back to 17k at one point again. That's real Poker! No need to get desperate after you lost just one important hand. A two hour dry streak? Can be survived. But at some point you have to make your stand even in a great structure like that. With about 40 left I brought my hand to war against Kurt Haindl (one of the two PokerRoyale managers). While I had hit my King with KT on a K67 board he had found two great draws with 89s. Unfortunately it wasn't just us two. While I would have won my hand against him (despite his huge number of outs) we both had been taken out by another guy with AK instead.

The 94 participants played down till 3:30am to the final table and returned today. With an avarage stack that represented an M of just little less then 20 and stacks between 60k and 300,000k there was much play left at the Final Table.

I can't say it often enough: Thanks to Daniel Dawid the tournament director who was brave enough to offer this kind of event in the small city of Kufstein. I'm really happy that this was obviously a great success and hope they will bring back this event in 2010 again.

Beside the tournament there was of course a lot of cashgame action going. After I busted I decided to play some cash too. Didn't know at this time that I was starting an over nine hour cashgame session that ended at 8am in the morning. This was a tough one: long dry streaks, some great hits and a lot of funny happenings. My stack bounced from the original €50 up to €70 and all the way down to €18. Almost dead I recovered and ended the session with a cute €135 win. Not a huge amount of money but a decent result for €0.50/0.50 No-Limit.

So my year 2009 ended somewhat friendly and I am looking forward to 2010. Next goal: getting together the bankroll to play the European Deepstacks Pokerchampionships in February in Dublin, Ireland.

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Hope you still enjoy reading my blog and follow my here and/or on Twitter in 2010 again.

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2009 is coming to an end ... but there's still something left

My poker year 2009 is almost over ... just the big finale that weekend is still around the corner. Good time for a short look back to the last 12 months.

This is by the way my 400th blog post. This year wasn't my heaviest year in blogging. In fact it was my lowest with only 65 entries. My top year was 2007 with 102 blog posts. Maybe I blogged less because I was less successfull...?

Pokerwise this was a horrible year so far. In 2008 I had a huge race in the last quarter with three big finishes. But I wasn't able to keep the pace in 2009. With some small and only two big cashes (St. Poelten and Rozvadov) this was a very dissapointing year. Especially my trip to the WSOP and play at the Venetian had much space for improvement. Unfortunately in most cases there wasn't much I could have done different ... I just was running super dry on cards for a very very long time this year.

There's only one outcome in 2009 tournament that I really regret and that still creeps through my head from time to time. That's the "just-shy-of-the-money" finish in February at the Deepstack Event in Dublin. In three crucial decisions I made one (laying down AK vs. an all-in) which I still would play the same way in a similar situation followed by two more hands which I had played absolutely horrible. Those two finally resultet in my too early exit. After coming back from a short-stack early on Day 2 I had blown a huge opportunity just a few hours later.

I had started again with cash games on a very low level during the WSOP 2009 and was running quite good in the beginning. Unfortunately my dry ran swept over to the cashgames too - resulting in some heartbreaking losses recently.

But there's always hope. And although I didn't cash in my last tournaments either - they ran so much better than all the tournaments before in the last 6 months. Hope for the coming weekend. I'm really looking forward to that: The Poker-King Weekend with a slow 40 min. structure and 20k startingstack. So far 85 are registered but they will without doubt sell out at 100 players plus waitlist. A 20k prizepool for the best 12% sound very good just before christmas.

For 2010 there's so much more poker to play. Not sure about my whole schedule but there are two trips that I want to do if possible in any way. The first is another trip to the Deepstacks Championships to Dublin (February). Not only because this is an event with an extraordinay great structure but also because it's time to end my nightmare from 2009. The other trip is of course a vacation with much poker in Las Vegas during the WSOP. Not necessarily for a WSOP event but for the atmosphere and more Venetian Deepstacks. If I had to choose ... those would be the two I would take over anything else. And if I would have to miss one of those two I would be very sad.

There are other options that might show up which I can't talk about right now. But as soon I can tell someting about that you will read it here first.

Mike Matusow writes in his book "Check-Raising the Devil" that real poker players don't make "New Years Resolutions" ... they make "End of World Series Resolutions". I really like that idea. But still this is the time to reflect the year and it's time to make peace with the year. So my resolution is not to look back in anger at 2009. I stil had a lot of fun and learned a lot things. It wasn't a winning year but it wasn't a lost year either.

What ever happens this coming weekend I will enjoy my last big tournament of 2009 as long as it lasts. Hope you join me on that last trip too.

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Back from a weird weekend in Vienna

That weekend went a little unexpected but it's one I will remember for a long time. After busting out from the Staatsmeisterschaft I was of course dissapointed. But there's not much I could have done different so no regrets.

It still amazes me how often people like to take coinflips very easily. I know myself that AK is a tough hand to fold. Especially from the blind. But it still isn't a made hand and most times it's a coinflip at best. So in a deepstack tournament (fast structures are a different animal) what sense does it make to commit 5,400 chips more (to the 600 from the BB) in exchange for a coinflip and giving up the right to act depending on the texture of the board? To be honest I was delighted to see that I had live cards, a flush draw and wasn't running into a made hand. Losing that hand sucked but that was the best possible spot for me to come back.

The next morning I looked out of the window and it was a grey, foggy and cold day in Vienna.  But I wasn't really unhappy  that this wasn't a day for sightseeing because I had an appointment with a book. A book I had started on my train ride to Vienna and that caught my attention so much that I was kind of happy to have the time to continue. So I went to Starbucks and continued reading Mike Matusows "Check-Raising The Devil". If you haven't read it until now I suggest you do. It's not the usual poker book and if you are an emotional person it will go deep under your skin. Of course it teaches you that you should avoid drugs (and it does it the hard way) but between the lines there's are so many lessons about poker and live it's unbelievable. But you have to be open minded to find that little gems between all the darkness in Mike's soul.

It may sound very strange but as depressing the book is in general it is indeed a great motivator too. I went to the Montesino for the 7pm tournament (which was played in the not so cosy 3rd level room due to the Poker Grand Slam running upstairs) and was really pumped to play. I was already well motivated before the Staatsmeisterschaft but I was even more that evening. And amazingly I had a great run until the first break. Unfortunately that run ended after the break and I wasn't able to keep up with the fast structure. At the end my timing was way off when I went in with AQ and was called from AK and QQ. I had even outs for a lucky straight before the River but a third King sealed my fate.

61st out of 158 wasn't a great result but there was more for me about that tournament. The great feeling about a rush at the table was back. The enjoyment when you are able to push people around. Of course good cards and good hits help a lot. But even more does help the right attitude and the passion of trying to take another one down. It didn't work out that weekend but it's just a matter of time until the next big hit. I had a horrible year so far but that doesn't matter anymore as I am now looking just forward again.

The next morning I almost missed my plane as I got a wrong schedule about the first subway leaving at my hotel for some reason. But again things turned out the right way as I reached the nightbus stop right on time to make my flight back to Munich.

I didn't cash that weekend but I won back a lot of confidence. And confidence can be worth a lot. So I don't count this as a losing weekend ... in some way ;-)

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No luck again at the Staatsmeisterschaft

Upon my arrival I met Jessy, a good friend from the dance competition scene. We had some nice talk about our last dance competitions and of course poker too. At the end she and her dad were so kind to give me a ride to my hotel. Unfortunately the hotel was a real dissapointment. I know you can't expect much if you look for a cheap place to stay but that one is very basic. At least it includes free internet access.

I was really motivated for the event but again I couldn't make it to Day 2 of the Staatsmeisterschaft. A total of 211 players were registered (194 showed up) to create a prizepool of €42.200. Among those trying to survive until the last 21 will make the money were some friends that I met at the IPO (Reinhard Schneiber from Austria and Thomas S. from Munich) as well as Peter Haszjan from the PokerRoyale.

I started at the same table with Reinhard and Peter and it was a decent start. The 45 min. levels and the 10k startstack were tailored for quality poker play. Although I didn't get too many playable hands I was able to pumped up my stack to almost 13k in the first two levels. Despite the fact that the CCC Prater is very smokey, the aircondition is very bad and I had a light headache this seemed to become a good tournament day. Until ...

... the "call of doom" from tournament director Jonathan Luetkenhorst that forced me to change tables. The new table was a tough one as they already lost four players. I was seated left of the chipleader with almost 40k in chips. But to make things worse I went on a dry run of cards. It doesn't get worse? It does! On the seldom occasions were I found a hand I wasn't able to connect to the flop at all. My once decent stack went down to 8k until the first break.

After the break things didn't ran better and I reached my low at 5k. With blinds already 150/300 (25) I went into push and fold mode and was able to get my stack back to 10k. Unfortunately this was only a short intermezzo. The dry run went on and with blinds 300/600 (75) I was down to 6k again. Finally I took a shot from the button with two suited live cards and ran into AKo from the big blind. With a flop containing two hearts I was in a decent position to more then double up but turn and river bricked and I went out in 127th.

That's poker. I didn't make any stupid mistakes during my play. I never missed a golden opportunity and at the end I was just on the wrong end of a coinflip. I definately had worse tournaments. Still dissapointing that I couldn't make a decent result for such a long time now.

But there's still another big one around the corner for this year with the Poker King main-event in Kufstein on Dec. 19th & 20th. It's not over till it's over... ;-)

Tomorrow evening I will play the €20+5 1RB at the Montesino to end my short Vienna weekend.

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Staatsmeisterschaft at the CCC in Vienna tomorrow

This will be a very short trip to Vienna but I'm still looking forward to it because I'm quite proud of making it to the finals two years in a row.

This year was even harder as I had only two shots. I really love the Pokertour.at series as they still offer great structures for a decent price. So I originally aimed to play as much of the events as possible. Unfortunately it turned out that most of the events happend the same time I had a dance competition. Therefore I skipped every event except of two (St. Poelten and Lake Woerth).

The good thing was that I made the final table already on the first one in St. Poelten and received the ticket for the final. Even better: the buy-in was a birthday present from my girlfriend. It was a really nice present as she isn't into poker at all.

Unfortunately this present turned out to force a tough decision from both of us. Later the year the date for the german boogie-woogie championship in Augsburg was announced and it fell right on the same day as the pokertour grand finale. Usually we have an agreement that dancing competitions have priority (that's why I missed the 2008 IPO) but this time it was different as I had won that ticket already. It was still a heartbreaking decision for both of us but we finally decided that I will play the Staatsmeisterschaft in Vienna.

Unfortunately my schedule doesn't allow for an extended trip to Vienna. So I will take the train tomorrow morning. Thanks to a "Bahncard" I received from my company I can travel 1st class for the same price as 2nd class :-) So expect me to arrive at the tables well rested and refreshed! Of course I hope to play on Day2, too ... but if not I might play a smaller event at the Montesino on Sunday evening. I will be back early Monday morning. Got a cheap flight with AirBerlin that allows me to be in Munich on time for my computer training at 10am.

I don't know if I can provide live twitter updates this time. They moved the event to the Concord Card Casino Prater and I don't know yet if they have W-LAN there too. But anyway I will find a way to keep you updated about my Vienna weekend.

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New Blog Design is up

No, don't go away ;-) This is still Shadow's Poker Blog!

Just thought that it might be time for some change. So I gave the blog a much more modern look. In addition I changed the layout to give all the widget a better position on the page. Of course I hope you will enjoy the new design. But anyway let me know if you like it or not. There's still some fine tuning left but in general this is what it will be from now on.

The next post will be again poker related because next weekend the great Pokertour.at finale happens at the CCC Vienna Prater. So stay tuned for more poker stories.

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