Hello poker addicts and other gambling people. Now the PSOP have passed, I started to concentrate on my online game again. The PSOP made me realize I still have to work on my tournament skills, because I want to become the best overall poker player, not only a brilliant cashgame player. So I returned to the poker room where it all began for me, Everest Poker, to play some tournaments.

Pity: the hand histories from Everest Poker are totally disgusting, so not a single poker hand replayer will convert them. So I’ll just paste the hand history over here:

Starting game 5003919898.

Mr Brown69 is at seat 0 with 2,375.
mandrin81 is at seat 1 with 985.
elmelun888 is at seat 2 with 715.
Henry6 is at seat 4 with 950.
sodos is at seat 5 with 990.
fortunafreak is at seat 6 with 1,000.
9hertz40 is at seat 7 with 1,000.
madjumber is at seat 8 with 995.
nicomathilda is at seat 9 with 990.

The dealer is seat 1.

elmelun888 posts a blind of 5.
Henry6 posts a blind of 10.

(Mr Brown69 is dealt 5c 2c.)

Pre-flop:
sodos calls for 10.
fortunafreak folds.
9hertz40 folds.
madjumber folds.
nicomathilda folds.
Mr Brown69 raises 30.
mandrin81 calls for 40.
elmelun888 folds.
Henry6 folds.
sodos calls for 30.

The flop comes
 4c 6c 7c.

sodos bets 10.
Mr Brown69 raises 70.
mandrin81 folds.
sodos raises 295.
Mr Brown69 raises 885.
sodos goes all-in for 575.
310 is pushed back to Mr Brown69.

Showdown:

sodos shows: 10c Qc
 Qc 10c 7c 6c 4c
 Flush, Queen high

Mr Brown69 shows: 5c 2c
 7c 6c 5c 4c 2c
 Flush, Seven high

The turn comes Kc.
The river comes 6d.

Mr Brown69 shows: 5c 2c
 Kc 7c 6c 5c 4c
 Flush, King high

sodos shows: 10c Qc
 Kc Qc 10c 7c 6c
 Flush, King high

sodos wins pot (2,035).

You see, this is obviously a clear case of punishing the good player and rewarding the poker donk. I make a very good raise on the cut-off with an hand which is very easy to play after the flop in that position. Two loose players call this raise BUT I FLOP A FLUSH + THE STRAIGHT FLUSH DRAW! Donk 1 leads out with the minbet, I raise while opening a bottle of champaign. Then I get reraised by this monkeyman as he flopped the higher flush. He’s so lucky I don’t make my straight flush. I’ll keep informing you about my pushes.

Submitted by Mr. Brown.

The Pokerheist Series of Poker have come to an end. It was Ms. Pink who won the deep stack Main Event, her second ‘bracelet’ and a 210€ prize. In the overall classification, Mr. White and Mr. Blue ended up with the same amount of points (20) and as both won one event, the classification of the Main Event was deciding for giving away the 150€ and as Mr. White finished third and Blue fourth, White also won our second ‘challenge’.

By winning the Main Event, Ms. Pink was the only player who won two events. Just like in the real Main Event, the best players were knocked out first, with myself finishing in sixth place. Ms. Blonde was eliminated next in fifth place. What followed was a very long period of play between the other four players, mainly due to the fact that both White and Blue knew that if one of them was eliminated next, the other one would win the overall ranking and the 150€. In the end it was Mr. Blue who was knocked out by Ms. Pink, when they both turned a flush: 8 high vs. K high.

White played like real nit meanwhile to avoid elimination and had become very shortstacked and that’s why he was busted in third place. Then it was between Ms. Pink and Mr. Orange, both already owner of one bracelet. Ms. Pink had about 14500 chips, Orange about 9500. This hand decided everything after twenty minutes of heads-up play:

Ms. Pink (button, sb 200)  KsJd

Mr. Orange(bb 400) 3c3s

Pink raised it up to 1000, Mr. Orange made it 2500, Pink called. Flop came Js8s3d . So top pair versus bottom set, a flop which would create some action you would think. But Orange slowplayed his set and Pink checked behind. Turn came 2s, so Pink added a King high flushdraw to her hand. Then Orange bet 3000, and Pink moved all-in, putting Orange all-in. Orange made the call and river came… 7s, making Pink a flush. This challenge was a new succes, we’ll see about a third one!

Submitted by Mr. Brown.

So it looks like, after four events, it’s again between Mr. White and Mr. Blue in the allround classification. Maybe we should admit by now that they are the best tournament (important) players in our middle. However, we’re talking about the overall ranking here, the big money still has to be earned in our ‘main event’.

Mr. White planned winning the winner takes all event last time and so he did, we must give him credit for that. He defeated the surprising Ms. Blonde heads-up, won 120€ and acquired six important points for the overall ranking, where he is one point behind leader Mr. Blue (17) now, who finished fourth. But also Brown and Orange (14) and even myself (12) still can win there, only Ms. Blonde is eliminated (11).

The first two to be eliminated yesterday were our last two bracelet winners, being myself (6th) and Mr. Orange (5th). When the other four remained, White won the deciding pot of the evening towards his victory. Here we go (without suits, as they aren’t important in this hand):

Ms. Blonde (button) 2950, 86

Mr. White (sb, 30) 3800, TT

Mr. Brown (bb, 60) 1700, K3

Mr. Blue 3550, 99

Blue is under the gun and makes it 200 to go. Blonde gets out of the way and then it’s up to White with pocket tens. He makes it 750 and with Blue calling the two deep stacks go heads-up to the flop. Flop comes K 6 9 so Blue outdraws White by spiking his set. Blue leads out with a bet of 850 and White calls. The turn gives White a higher set: T. Blue shoves his resting 1950 chips into the pot and gets of course insta called. The river comes another 6 and White wins a 7130 pot with the best full house.

Mr. White was very happy he got to eliminate personally Mr. Blue as he knew it was important that Blue didn’t finish top three, regarding the overall ranking. Mr. Brown was knocked out in the next blinds level and the deep stacked Mr. White remained with Ms. Blonde. White finished her with A3, which was played curiously. He limped to trap, while Blonde had K2. flop came 7 A K and Blonde shoved, White called. Up to the main event now!

Submitted by Ms. Pink

It was time for some Pot Limit Omaha in Event 3 and it was our newbie Mr. Orange who happened to be the best in this game, winning the Event after already finishing second in the first event. Mr. Blue leads the overall ranking with 14 points, Mr. Orange became second with 12 points (Pink 11, Brown & White 10, Blonde 6).

Mr. Orange had to beat Mr. Blue heads-up after I was knocked out myself in third place in the event I really wanted to win. Now I have to really go for it in the last two events to catch up with Blue in the overall ranking again. The most important hand was played when we were all still in the tournament. Here we go:

Mr. White (button) 2400, XXXX

Mr. Orange  (sb, 15) 2550, AhAs5hQd

Mr. Blue (bb, 30) 1600, XXXX

Mr. Brown 1200, 8s9hTdJd

Ms. Pink 2700, KsKc6s6h

Ms. Blonde 1500, XXXX

Mr. Brown limps from under the gun, Pink bets pot, Orange raises pot from the small blind, both Brown and Pink call. Reasonably good plays from these PLO-donkeys. Then the flop is creating a lot of action: AcQhKh. This is a HUGE flop for Orange: flopping top set and the nut flush draw, while Brown flops the actual nuts (broadway) and Pink middle set. Orange leads out with a pot bet (I didn’t expect this good play from a n00b), Brown raises the maximum, Pink calls and Orange comes over the top again. Now Brown moves all-in and here’s the first donkey play: Pink calls again while she must know her middle set is never good here. Orange moves of course also and Pink is commited.

Then come the runners: 4c4s . So Orange takes down a HUGE main pot with Aces full (eliminating Mr. Brown) and Pink wins a small side pot with Kings full but is also crippled with only ten big blinds left. So Pink is eliminated next, followed by the other lady. I was knocked out myself because of a lot of bad luck and then it was Orange versus Blue again, just like in Event 1. This time it was Orange who won, by winning the crucial hand where he flopped a set of tens and Blue the nut flush draw. The draw wasn’t made and Orange took the bracelet. I’m going after that Winner Takes All bracelet.

Submitted by Mr. White

Our second Event in the PSOP took place yesterday, a NLHE tourney with rebuys and add-on and it was win Ms. Pink who won the Event and $126, beating Mr. Brown who won a $54 prize but was down six bucks nevertheless .

That was because he had to rebuy when this was still possible and decided to buy an add-on, so he was in for 60€ total. However, by finishing second, he acquired 5 points for the allround ranking, where Brown, Blue and Pink all have 9 points now (Orange/White 6, Blonde 3). This was becaused Mr. Orange, runner-up in the first event was eliminated early this time and didn’t opt for a rebuy. Some moments later exactly the same happened to our other newbie, Ms. Blonde. So it was the old gang from that moment on .

Ms. Pink and Mr. White (each one having eliminated a player) were the chipleaders, Brown and Blue were short. Brown went broke right before the break and decided to rebuy and add-on one hand later. Pink also opted for an add-on. Right áfter the break, Mr. Blue was eliminated by Ms. Pink when his pocket Tens didn’t hold up against Pinks AQ. I didn’t have to see the rest of the tournament and decided to throw my laptop on the table and play some online poker for the rest of the evening. Not a bad decision: I made $70 playing some double-or-nothing tournaments. The deciding hand in our tournament was again played threehanded:

Mr. White (button) 3800, Kh9s

Ms. Pink (sb, 50) 9500, 8s3d

Mr. Brown (bb, 100) 4700, JdTh

Mr. White raises it up preflop (350) with a reasonably good hand shorthanded and gets called by Mr. Brown. The flop comes KsQs3h and gives Mr. White his toppair but Mr. Brown the OESD. Brown checks and White makes a continuation bet of 550, called by Brown. The turn is the one you probably already guessed: the 9 (of diamonds). Brown checks again and White bets 1250 and Brown moves all-in. White puts him on a spade draw and calls of course. The river is a blank, the Ace of diamonds.

It were two big stacks against each other from that moment on in a very long heads-up session. At one point Brown had a chiplead of 13k vs 5k, but when Pink was short stack and finally HAD to play aggressive, she took some big and important pots. Final showdown was Pink shoving from the SB with KJ, called by Brown with KT: KJ held up. PLO next time!

Submitted by Mr. Blue

I’m very happy to inform you about my victory in our first Event of the PSOP . I beated Mr. Orange heads-up in the quest for 90€ and six points for the overall classification.

Mr. White and Ms. Blonde were already knocked out during the second blind level. Blonde went broke on slowplaying Aces against Mr. Brown, who catched his flush on the river. And Mr. White couldn’t throw away his Queens preflop against my Kings. About 45 minutes later, Ms. Pink left the table and Mr. Blue, Mr. Orange and Mr. Brown were left to play the most important pot of the evening:

Mr. Blue (button) 4600, 6c7c

Mr. Brown (sb,30) 3800, AcJc

Mr. Orange (bb,60) 3600, As7s

So some pretty huge hands three handed. I raised it up from the button to 180 and I was raised by Mr. Brown to 600. Orange called, so did I. Flop came: 5cAd4c. Brown bets 600 again with toppair and the nut flushdraw, Orange min raises to 1200 with hís Ace and I shove with my huge draw. Brown of course calls and Orange folds. Turn is 8h and gives me the straight, river is a blank: Ks. After that hand I have 10200 chips against Orange with 1800 chips left.

When the blinds were 100/200 the final hand was played. Orange pushed his 2200 chips in the middle with KdQd and I called with 88, which held up. Looking forward to Event 2!

Submitted by Mr. Blue

Yes, that’s right: we are going to have our own Pokerheist Series of Poker very soon! We were having a homegame at Mr. Blue’s place yesterday and right there we launched the idea of organising 5 sixhanded tournaments, events, with the four of us and two other people who were in the game and agreed to the plan. Let’s call them Mr. Orange and Ms. Blonde from now on .

The PSOP will consist of the following events:

- Event 1: NLHE Freeze-out, 20€ buy-in; 1st place 90€   2nd place 30€

- Event 2: NLHE Rebuy + 1 Add-on, 20€ buy-in; 1st place 70%  2nd place 30% 

-Event 3: PLO Freeze-out, 20€ buy-in; 1st place 90€  2nd place 30€

-Event 4: NLHE Freeze-out Winner Takes all, 20€ buy-in; 1st place 120€

-Event 5: NLHE Freeze-out ‘Main Event’, 50€ buy-in, 1st place 210€ 2nd place 90€

Each event will have  a 2000 starting stack, except for the Main Event, which will be ‘deep stack’: 4000 chips. And besides those events, everybody pays 5€ ‘rake’ per event, so that’s 30€ per event, 150€ total. This prize goes entirely to the player who has the best all-round results over all five events. The cumulated amount of money doesn’t count here, but the cumulation of places. When two players have the same score, the number of events won counts. When the score is still the same after this, the classification of the Main Event counts. We’ll shuffle up and deal as soon as possible and keep you posted about the results of our first event!

Submitted by Mr. White

LOL did Mr. Blue show a royal flush from me last time in Pot Limit Omaha, this time I just flopped a straight flush in TEXAS HOLD’EM! I just cashed out my bankroll when a couple of dollars rakeback was deposited in my account, so I decided to play a little sit ‘n go for a buck or something when I was bored .

I was playing like almost every hand and the funny thing was: I almost won 60% of them ^^. So we were down to three players when I got…

…KQ suited in the big blind. A shorty moves with an Ace and is CRUSHED LIKE HELL on the flop hehe. As the odds of flopping a straight flush depend on the kind of hand you hold in the hole, it’s hard to say what my exact chances were here. The best chance you have is when you hold  mid range suited connectors from 45 to TJ, you are about 1 to 5000 in that case to flop a straight flush. Guess I was lucky^^.

Submitted by Mr. Brown

Unlike some people predicted last time, there still isn’t a winner of our battle . Moreover, Mr. White had a little downswing and was obliged to hand over the lead in the challenge to Mr. Blue: $831 vs $807.

I finally had a good run myself again, making some $80 profit (bankroll at $234). However, it’s not that important anymore concerning the challenge, but at least I can pay my $100 with it . So it’s still very close between the other two guys and it seems like they have both chosen the least risky way towards that magical $1000: by playing heads-up sng’s.

Mr. White played some so-called ’shoot-out’ tournaments with 4 players. You play heads-up, but you have to beat two opponents in a row to win the entire prize pool. As I told you, he didn’t have a very good run at these games, but some guy really chose the wrong moment to bluff against him:

Mr. White flops the nuts in an unraised pot and gets the perfect value from his opponent who just moves all-in on the turn, drawing dead to win the hand (a split pot with a 6 on the river is his best scenario). He experienced another exciting situation heads-up as he flopped quad aces yesterday^^. He made this picture:

The difficult thing about flopping quad aces with only one ace in the hole (the odds of this to happen are 1 to 19 599, or 0.01%) is extracting some value from your opponent. Of course, your opponent turning a full boat helps^^. Maybe we’ll have a winner next time!

Submitted by Ms. Pink

So this graph makes at least one thing very clear: Mr. Brown is eliminated in the battle and will have to pay $200 to the winner, which is most likely going to be me . He and Ms. Pink played their ‘now or never-tournament’ and Mr. Brown was eliminated in 5th place. So from that moment on Ms. Pink knew she’s wasn’t going to end up last if she would reach the money, which she accomplished with a second place, worth $105. She’s now at $153. Brown only had $25 left and lost his last money on the heads-up tables.

Meanwhile I’m preparing myself for receiving an extra $400 besides my soon to be $950 of poker profits, after taking back the lead with an $868 bankroll. I played some big multi-table tournament for a change and was able to make a nice cash-out of $145. This hand was very important in the ‘final’ phase of the tourney:

So I make a standard raise with pocket Queens and the chipleader shoves all-in with his enormous stack. Now with QQ you only fear two hands: KK and AA. Now it makes no sense to just shove with those 2 hands so I had to call. It sucks to play a coinflip situation for your entire stack but luckily it held up. This means it’s $868 vs $802 (Mr. Blue) now, so the battle can be over any moment now…

Submitted by Mr. White

Btw: Mr. Brown is playing on Party Poker now, he said it’s interesting when you use the Party Poker Bonus Code.