Hello folks, I’m finally getting back into poker again. I didn’t play for a couple of months after the challenge, but I decided to deposit a small amount of money in my Pokerstars account and play some sng’s without much stress. And there you go: I won a tourney with 45 players .

I even saved some hands to show you. The first hand shows that it’s possible to win a nice pot with the magnificent Eight-Deuce:

The turn is a beauty for me and I offer the two drawers the wrong price to chase a flushdraw or gutshot with a 9 or a Jack. When the river comes the Ace of hearts I know I’m good and make a value bet in case somebody had a pair with his draw. Some moments later I make an excellent read as far as that’s possible in online poker:

Having AK on the button is of course perfect, your hand is always disguised. I also check the flop and bet the turn when I hit toppair. Now what you don’t see in the replay, is that my opponent took a long time before making the call. That’s why I check the river and notice my opponent made his flush on the turn. It are those hands and moments which determine if you’ll reach the money in a tournament, not the big pots that you win. Well of course, they are also important .

Yes it’s all over . I made a big cash-out of $351 just a few hours ago and that resulted in a bankroll of $1102, being the first one to pass the 1k-border! At that moment, Mr. Blue had $886, ending up as the runner-up, and Ms. Pink finished third with $202. They have the honour to deposit me $100, together with the 200 Mr. Brown-dollars^^.

So what happened? I decided to play a $24+2 Knock-Out sit and go with 90 players. KO means $20 of your buy-in goes into the prize pool and the other $4 is a bounty everybody receives each time he eliminates another player, so 90 in total. I played a very solid tourney and ended up heads-up, which was the point I knew I was gonna win the battle . Anyway I deserved to win the $576 for first place instead of the $351 for runner-up.

My final opponent played very loose-aggressive and I was just waiting for the right moment to trap him. This moment finally arrived on the next hand:

So I flop quads, which is nice , and I immediately knew I would be able to extract some chips from my aggressive opponent here. This happened right away on the turn when he moved with his flushdraw. Unfortunately, the moron got lucky a few minutes later:

I just move all-in for all my stack because I knew he would prolly call any lower raise and then I would have to make a decision on the flop if I wouldn’t hit. Of course he calls right away with AQ and catches one of the three Queens… Anyway, I’ll go treat the other players on some beers, I think I have some pocket change left .

Submitted by Mr. White

Trays, treys, crabs, call them whatever you like but they helped me a lot yesterday, leading to a nice cash-out of $162, which brought me in the lead in the challenge, with the $1000 within reach!

So let’s watch what happened. I decided to play a $30 sit and go with 18 players (I was running a little bad and the plan of Brown and Pink made me little nervous ) and things weren’t going that good: I was able to survive but without many ambitions due my short stack. Then I made a move with A3 suited:

So snowmen was not wat I wished he had, hoping for KQ or something. But the flop was very good for me and luckily he did have two red eights . Only two hands later:

So I limp in early position with 33 and flop a set on a low board. There’s a minimum bet and I decide to slowplay it. On the turn the guy who just called on the flop suddenly leads out with a pot sized bet, so I know he must be strong and immediately shove. He was indeed strong: toppair with an OESD. But luckily he didn’t catch a straight on the river. After those two hands I was totally back in the tournament and was able to finish as runner-up.

This second place gave me an advantage of $137 on Mr. White, who is playing a little status-quo lately, mainly in $20 9 handed sng’s. Behind us are Brown ($402), who experienced his expected downswing (still playing beyond his bankroll) and Pink ($138), who is all but dead. Maybe her best strategy would be to play on very low stakes and just wait for Mr. Brown to go broke first. Will save her $100 .

Submitted by Mr. Blue

Yes we had enough of it :p . A really big gap came into existance between Mr. White+Mr.Blue and Mr. Brown and myself, it’s $576+$540 versus $318 and $302. Luckily we have a plan to catch them again.

First things first: where does Mr. Blue’s fresh cash come from? Well he made an important cash-out in a $24+2 sit and go with 45 players. He finished in fourth place, resulting in $108. He needed a little luck on the final table though, the keyhand:

So he’s really shortstacked and shoves with J9, I suppose hoping nobody will call. Another shortstack wakes up with AJ suited but Mr. Blue catches the straight on the flop. Mr. White also made about $80 profit, playing the $20 buy-in 6 handed tourneys. As he talks enough about his play when he submits a post himself, I will not further disturb you with that .

Now what happened to me this time? I was playing a sng with 18 players and reached the finale table, where we were down to six players. The player to my right came to the table as the chipleader and had been bullying a lot since the beginning, resulting in some losses. Then came the following hand:

So he raises my big blind again and I push his short stack all-in with AT suited. I was surprised he actually had a legitimate hand, but OK it still was a coinflip. Of course he has to flop a full house and river quads and I finish 5th, that is indeed on the bubble…

Because Mr. Brown also had a disappointing period again we have decided it’s time to take some risk: we agreed to not play according to our bankroll anymore and play for 10% of our bankroll each (about $30 per tournament) time till we go broke or have reached $1000 .

Submitted by Ms. Pink

Yes, the difference between our current number 1 and 2 is only $6. Mr. White has taken back the lead since a long time and has a $464 bankroll now, Mr. Blue is behind him with $458.

Mr. White made a profit of almost $100 the last three days, mainly by doing well in shorthanded $10 sng’s. He stated though he will no longer play at this stakes and will play $20 buy-in tournaments with his current bankroll, we’ll see how that will develop. So Mr. Blue has lost the lead but is still in second place with a decent profit by cashing in some multi-table sng’s.

While Ms. Pink is still in last place with only $275 (however, she only played yesterday, because she took a little break after her ‘bad run’, she even lost the pleasure in playing poker ), I remain in third place with $335. Now I saw some pretty sick things yesterday and the day before which prevented me from cashing more, for example (click to enlarge):

So I’m playing a 9 handed tourney and get K4 off on the cut-off. It’s raised under the gun and I make a logical fold. Flop and turn drove me crazy… THE VERY NEXT DAY:

So I make a small bet preflop and the player behind me makes a small reraise. The button calls and so do I. Flop is not helping me and the cut-off bets again and is called by the button, I fold. Turn and river made me very sick. I hope I’ll just catch quads on the flop next time…

Submitted by Mr. Brown

…which means he had to hand over the lead to myself, Mr. Blue. I went from $292 to $364 the last few days, which is enough to keep Mr. White ($318), Mr. Brown ($311) and Ms. Pink ($238) behind me.

My most important cash out this week was a second place in a $10 sng with 45 players. Let’s watch an important hand from that tourney, because that’s most interesting after all:

So it’s a hand between four players after the SB raises two times the BB :s , I mean why??! I catch the absolute dream flop: top pair top kicker with the nut flushdraw (OK it also could have been AAT, but small chance I would have been paid in that case). The SB bets 2 BB’s again and I make a small raise: obviously I want to build a big pot here. It’s checked to me on the turn which I bet of course, one caller. River gives me the nuts and I get called by QQ, which is probably played at his worst by this player .

Mr. White is also running quiete well and has a good run on the nine and six handed sng’s. Ms. Pink is trying to cath up with the rest meanwhile, but will need a big cash out soon to accomplice that. Finally I’ll show you a hand from Mr. Brown which he played during his bad run^^:

Hehe, nice board .

Submitted by Mr. Blue

That’s what it looks like if you observe the bankroll evolution in the last past days. Besides Mr. Blue, the other three players have about the same bankroll as they did last time.

Mr. Brown did improve with 30 dollars though ($398), but that’s not that surprising if you’re playing $22 hu sng’s .Mr. White won some and lost some and was in that way not able to do what he did before his tilt: make some solid profits every three days. He has about $269 now and is in third place. I’m still in last place and it just looks like I’m not able to be a winning player anymore. I even scored my coinflip situations this week to see if I was that unlucky and I lost 73% of them, so yes maybe a little unlucky.

The only one who made a decent improvement on his bankroll was Mr. Blue, who won among others a $20 sng with 18 players. He sent me some key hands:

So he escapes there with a spade on the river, but he can’t really escape from that all-in with only 10 bb’s left. A couple of hands later:

That’s really a sick hand . So Mr. Blue’s again down to 10 bb’s and shoves against 2 monsters. Of course he’s a big dog preflop against KK, but a two to one favorite against AK for the side pot to stay alive (this improves to 77,96% after the flop). But the case King drops down on the turn (down to 4,76% suddenly) and then he catches one of the two remaining sixes. I hope I’ll have some of that luck the next couple of days so I can compete for victory again .

Submitted by Ms. Pink

As you maybe read last time, FTP tried to take away my bankroll last time. I quit playing for a day after that sick beat and steaming. However, I played some 9 handed tournaments yesterday and was able to reach the money a couple of times: $220. Still $78 behind Mr. Brown though.

His run couldn’t last forever and ended yesterday when he was down some dollars since last time: $298. Between us is Mr. Blue, who made a rather small cash out ($24) in a MTT again this week, with $254. And not far behind me is Ms. Pink in last place with $211. Conclusion: after a fair amount of played hands, nobody was able to create a big lead and neither did somebody go broke.

Ms. Pink sent me some hands to post, to show an essential phenomenon in tournament poker: sometimes you’ll be able to finish in the money as a shortstack because of donkeyplays from the big stacks.

So Ms. Pink is shortstacked when the next player to be eliminated will be the bubble boy/girl. For some reason however, somebody moves all-in with top two pair on that flop against a set. Thank you very much. Another hand from a sng with 27 players:

So Ms. Pink has less than 10 bb’s here with 8 players left (top six finishers will cash). One player is out anyway, with only 5 chips left, but the other player must have looked dazed when he saw his toppair getting called by AK . Thank you very much again, chipmonsters.

Submitted by Mr. White.

Yes, we got ourselves a steamer in our middle . After weeks of solid play, Mr. White got on tilt yesterday and blew away 25% of his total bankroll. This results in $204 and only third position in the challenge. It all started with one particular hand.

He was playing a tournament with 45 players on FTP, when the following hand was dealt:

Yes, I know ^^. He imported the hand into the calculator and on the flop he’s a 92,93 % favorite. Even on the turn, when the board paired, he’s still a 90,91% favorite. That hand crippled him in the tournament and was the starting point for a period of steaming on other $10 tables.

Meanwhile Mr. Brown climbed to first place by continuing his very good run at the tables. He mainly played hu-games and six handed tournaments. I was also able to move past Mr. White in the standings, without making much profit. Luckily I was able to win a 9 handed tournament thanks to this hand:

Finally, Ms. Pink is carefully making her way back towards $200 again, ending up at $184 yesterday.

Submitted by Mr. Blue

Yes, bad news for our two players over there: Ms. Pink and Mr. Blue. Especially Ms. Pink had her first downswing this week: down from $171 to $132.

She had a bad run on ‘her’ territory: the 9 handed $5 sng’s. After that she decided to have a shot at the 180 handed sng on Pokerstars ($5). That didn’t go that bad, she was coming close to the money but was getting shortstacked. Pocket ladies are welcome at that point:

Not funny if you played two hours to end up like this… It also looks like the party at Mr. Blue’s house has come to an end: he’s down to $205. He tried some MTT’s again after his last cash out, without much success. Then he was close to a win in a sng with 18 players, when he had a deep stack and got aces:

So that guy could dodge bullets and Mr. Blue ended up as runner up in that tournament . Meanwhile Mr. White is happy he finally has some bankroll and can play the $10 sng’s, which he did pretty well, leading the challenge with $279. I also had a good run and was able to upgrade my bankroll from $173 to $218, playing a mixture of hu-games and 6 handed sng’s.

Submitted by Mr. Brown