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.

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

You can see a clear evolution by yourself on the chart: since they decided to play beyond their bankroll, two important things happened. Mr. Brown ($489)is totally back in the game and only $47 behind the glorious leader, Mr. White. In contrast, Ms. Pink blew up half of her bankroll and needs to get very bizzy to win the challenge.

Ms. Pink played some $30 tournaments of all kind, but wasn’t able to make them profitable. Conclusion: she’s a nice person and an above donkey-level poker player, but will never make a lot of money with it. Mr. Brown on the other side made his $33 turbo hu’s very profitable. Conclusion: he’s a nice guy and an absolute donkey, but because his opponents don’t know this, he’s able to make some money now and then. Catching ALL your outs helps too:

So he puts his opponent all-in and is a 27% underdog with his A8. Of course the flop helps him, but the calculator still says he’s a 40% dog. Luckily for him, the dealer saved all his possible outs for him. Mr. Blue is now slightly behind him with $487, so he lost more than 15% of his bankroll since last update. I wasn’t able to enlarge my bankroll neither, but at least I …

…CAN DODGE BULLETS BABY!

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

Yes, our loose aggressive fellow has taken over the lead in our challenge with a cracking $59 profit since last update, which brings his bankroll at $193. He accomplished this mainly on the heads-up tables, playing beyond his bankroll ($11 buy-in), so we expect a great downswing in a few days .

Joining him on those tables is tempting though if you see the hands he sends me. A little example:

Why on earth does that person bluff there??? Anyway, Mr. White has lost a little since last time ($161), he keeps blaming the ’sick bastards’ on the low buy-in tables for that. Mr. Blue’s run also ended this week, but he was able to control the damage: $115.

I’m standing between those guys at the moment with $127, about the same amount as last time. I don’t like it, but I have to admit Mr. White has some kind of a point: it’s hard to make profit on those tables with a buy-in less than $10. That’s why it’s so important your hands hold up in the final phase of such sng’s, because of the gaps in prize money between first and third place. And THAT’S why THOSE hands are so SICK:

Pfff, it’s still a long way towards that $1000…

Submitted by Ms. Pink

Because of the bizzy period some os us are having at the university at the moment, the challenge is put to a stop for a week and will be resumed in three days . However, a contribution today from yours truly.

To win a big tournament, you need some luck in a few showdowns. Or formulated better: if you play good poker, you need your opponent not to get lucky. This is exactly what irritates great players like Phil Hellmuth in tournaments. This phenomenon went through my head when I was watching some episodes of the 2008 WSOP and I saw the following hand (starts around 4′30″):

So besides Phil there’s the American pro Jean-Robert Bellande and the Russian Sarkis Akopyan on the table. Akopyan has a lot of chips and decides to play the T9 offsuit aggressively. Bellande moves all-in and you can see the consternation on his face when the Russian flips over his hand. Instead of being happy being a favorite in the hand, he fears the two live cards he’s against, because it’s such a typical tournament-situation to get knocked out in this way. What happens on the board is really infernal…

Submitted by Mr. White

As you can see, the most remarkable thing happening since last time is the comeback of myself . I was able to do this by making one very nice cash-out in specific while the other contenders didn’t succeed in expanding their lead.

Mr. White still leads the challenge with about the same bankroll as last time: $141. However, I’m obliged to say he had to take a very bad beat in a sng with 18 players ($5). Look at this :

He threw the hand into the calculator and preflop he has a 84,42 % chance of winning the hand. The player with KK still has a 10,54 % chance, mainly because he has two different suits. Instead he catches the case king… I’m happy I wasn’t in Mr. White’s room when that happened . Ms. Pink took advantage of this bad luck by making some profit herself on the 9 handed tables again ($5): $123. Meanwhile it seems like Mr. Brown ran out of luck on the heads-up and shorthanded tables, falling back to $106.

I also took maximum advantage of the other ones stagnating, upgrading my bankroll from $72 to $103! Most important was the first place in a sng with 18 players ($5), resulting in a $36 cash out. Below is the most crucial hand I won on the final table:

That Queen of spades was very important for my bankroll . I hope I can continue this run during the next couple of days.

Submitted by Mr. Blue

Well that’s very nice for him, but the most important news first: Mr. White is back on top of the rankings with a bankroll of $144! I had a little downswing last time, but I recovered pretty well from it. I stayed very focused and only played single table sng’s ($5) for a while, in which I made some nice cash.

I was even more cheered up when I heard that our lovely Ms. Pink had a little downswing by herself, leading to a bankroll of only $105. She’s not even on second place anymore, since Mr. Brown seems to have had a sick luck-run on the $6 (turbo) hu-tables, leading to $118 at the moment. When I saw some hands, I realised how unfair poker sometimes can be, look at this one for example:

So these are the landmines you have to avoid when playing a solid game. Subsequently I saw how some people apparently just donate their chips to their opponents on those hu-tables:

According to Mr. Brown, his ‘loose aggressive image made the other player pay off this hand’. Sure, J5 is the perfect hand to punish some loose luckbox with… (btw, Mr Brown, in the last post, losing with T7 against KK is a bad beat?! Hey, not calling with this junk will save you from this cruelty man.) Meanwhile Mr. Blue is still comfortably living in last place, altough it looks like he recovers a little bit from his missed start: $72. Btw, happy New Year everybody .

Submitted by Mr. White