I don’t have a lot of time anymore lately, but when I have some I play some multi-table tournaments on Pokerstars. Like I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I’m really starting to like the minimum raise preflop. It serves several ends: you can represent a very strong hand, you can add extra value to the pot and you can filter the number of players who’ll enter the pot (especially after the pot is opened with another minraise).

I have a couple of examples for you from some tournaments I played this week. In the first one there is a minraise in early position and a caller to my right:

Now AJ off suit is not my most favorite hand and I decide to minraise to both represent a strong(er) hand and to prevent that the button and the blinds can enter the pot cheaply. The players in front of me show a lot of weakness again on the flop and I know I can just take the pot by making a good raise there. In the second example I was a little unlucky:

The player in the cut-off obviously just want to rob the blinds so I minraise to play heads-up for a quality pot. On the flop he leads out with a rather weak bet and I make a mistake there by not making a big raise. If I did so, I would have taken the pot even if he had hit a Ten. Then I decide to pull the trigger on the turn, just when he made his crappy pair of Jacks…

Meanwhile you know that if there’s one person who loves both of them, it’s me. It’s therefore kinda disappointing for me that I know so less about the personal taste of a lot of pokerplayers. It’s exactly for that reason I was so happy to see episode 15 of season 2 of Poker After Dark the other day.

A small conversation arises in this episode between Kristy Gazes and Howard Lederer. Gazes is a former cash game player from Los Angeles (she already announces her later switch to a career in the stock market during these episodes) who loves HORSE and HOSE games. That’s why she’s sometimes called ‘Mixed Games’. We know Howard Lederer of course as the brother of the great Annie Duke . But he also plays poker.

Kristy states during this episode that she discovered the British band Muse. Now that’s good for her and Muse is not a bad band, but then she says it’s a band ’similar to Radiohead’. Personally I think she is way off here: I think Radiohead’s music is a little more sophisticated than Muse, definitely if you compare their latest albums (Muse was a lot better on their first two albums, Radiohead was able to almost equal their former albums Kid A and Amnesiac with In Rainbows). Susequently Howard mentions that he’s gonna watch the Smashing Pumpkins in Brussels. Now why’s Howard going all the way to Europe to watch the Pumpkins? He must be a big fan . I’ll try to discover more personal tastes of the pro’s, meanwhile some lists, because I’m addicted to them:

Best Muse songs:

1. Sunburn (1999, Showbiz)

2. Plug in Baby (2001, Origins of Symmetry)

3. Apocalypse Please (2003, Absolution)

Best Radiohead songs:

1. Karma Police (1997, OK Computer)

2. Reckoner (2007, In Rainbows)

3. Knives Out (2001, Amnesiac)

Best Smashing Pumpkins songs:

1. Cherub Rock (1993, Siamese Dream)

2. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans (1995, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness)

3. Bullet with Butterfly Wings (1995, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness)

One thing being so great about this game is the fact I can combine it so easily with my other passion, music. Sometimes poker can be a great way to meet other people who happen to have the same taste as you, even during an online game.

That’s exactly what happened to me a couple of days ago, when I was playing a multi-table sit and go on Pokerstars. As you maybe know meanwhile (due to my alltime music lists) I’m kind of a big fan of the band Tool. So I sit down on a table, and the great feature of Pokerstars is of course the personal avatars, and I notice this guy from Spring Hill, Florida with the Tool-avatar:

Now he takes down a nice pot down here while we are talking about the next Tool-album to be released . He also told me he had the honour to sit down on a bar one time and drink some beers with Justin Chancellor, the band’s bass player. Now I finished just outside the money in this tourney, but I got a nice hand to show you which demonstrates a move I like lately:

As you see, it’s the minimum reraise preflop. This kind of raises look very suspicious and as you can see: you can represent a very strong hand on the flop thanks to your earlier move. See you at the tables, till next time!

Hi, I played another few sessions of hu-confrontations for cash as well as tokens. And I was able to get such a token once again, although I needed two shoot-out tournaments this time. However, that’s still an investment of $13.80 with a return of $26 . The most important hand from the shoot-out I won:

My opponent makes a decent raise of four big blinds and maybe I should have instant raised hu with my Tens, but I prefer to just call here. Flop is a dream scenario: I flop top set. I check for obvious reasons and my opponent makes a pot sized bet. I really put him on a (better) overpair here also, so I just call again. Turn gives me a boat but it’s checked back behind me this time…checking an overpair here wouldn’t make much sense so perhaps he has two high diamonds. That’s why the river was so beautiful and I was able to extract maximum value from it.

I decided to use the token to register for the 34k Gtd. Now the nice thing about all those gtd. tournaments is not so much the fact that there’s a guaranteed prize pool (it’s almost always exceeded by the amount of players) but the fact that you really play tournament poker here. Unlike the regular sng’s, you start with a double stack here (3000 chips) and the blind levels have a duration of 10 instead of 6 minutes. So you get a lot more time to build up a stack. However, sometimes you don’t need that much time:

So I already double up during the first blind level, that’s very nice . What happens? I limp with TT and there’s some strange minimimal raise in middle position and a suspicious small reraise from the SB. Now I don’t want to overplay my TT in this early stage of the tournament with all the cards yet to come. So it’s a very nice pot on the flop and the flop itself is very good for me, all unders (rainbow). I make a big bet and the reraiser preflop just calls. Now it makes no sense he has a bigger overpair here (would have betted or at least reraised the flop) or a flopped set (reraise preflop in early position with a small pair??) so I fire again on the turn. Again just a call and then he moves all-in on the river when the sevens pair; I figured this is just an amateur who can’t give up AK and tries to win it with a bluff but it was even worse: AJ. After that double-up I was very deepstack and was able to play a nice tournament and finish in the money (49th, $71,75)!

I started watching season four of High Stakes Poker this week. According to the poll, this is also your favorite pokershow. Not very surprisingly, the WPT didn’t get any votes ^^. Btw, if you want to see more interesting poker fragments from the pros, you can find it on this poker blog . I have to say this season is very very amusing till now . Of course this is mainly due to the presence of both Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow at the same table. Another spicy aspect is the fact the players introduced the famous ’seven deuce-rule’ in this season: every player has to pay $500 to the player who wins a hand with 7 2, with or without a showdown.

It was already in the first episode when the famous hand between Matusow and Hellmuth was played, which I already saw a gazillion times in various fragments elsewhere (starts at 4′30″):

So Phil reraises Mike’s Kings and the reaction from Esfandiari exactly says where it’s all about: you never know when somebody has AA or 72 . So maybe you can try a similar thing in your homegame to create some extra action^^. It’s very clear Matusow indeed thinks Phil has a very big hand here but he should have figured out there’s a reasonable chance Phil plays 7 2 to show everybody and boost his ego this way.

However, less famous but maybe more interesting is the last hand of the eipsode where the amateur Antonio Salorio almost goes broke thanks to the rule that was introduced by the pros (starts at 37′). Funny detail: it’s again KK versus 72. This time 72 is raised by the KK from Brian Brandon but Salorio doesn’t wanna give up and reraises. The flop doesn’t really help Salorio, Brandon flops quad Kings . Notice the excellent speech from Brandon after Salorio leads out: like Kaplan says, this is not something somebody would say holding quads. In what follows, Salorio only drags himself further and further in this pot and looses a LOT of money with his 72^^.

I took a little break from playing hu and big MTT’s and played some regular tournaments again this week. First I played a little bit on Pokerstars (regular $5 tournaments), later on I returned to FTP. During a game on Stars I saw a phenomenon I discussed earlier when I was talking about online tells:

Some player makes a standard raise in early position and I call because the blinds are still low and I have position on my opponent with my A5 suited. The flop comes all hearts, and the other player bets the same amount as preflop. Now this usually is a sign of weakness, certainly on a dangerous board like this. So I raise and he flatcalls, so I figured he didn’t hit hard but has a strong heart he can draw with. After his call on the turn my thoughts are confirmed. Now, on the river I still only have a pair of fives, but this is important in poker: stick with your read! Your opponent won’t most likely call an extra bet with Ah8 for example, but will win the hand if you don’t fire again.

After making some small profit after two sessions (about $40) I decided to play some shorthanded tourneys on FTP. I saw a very spicy hand over there:

So this player lets everybody limp in with his pocket Queens and only bets half the pot on the flop… simultaneously another player flops the nuts and improves towards the second nuts with a straight flush . I didn’t cash in this tournament and will return to playing heads-up for some tokens so I can play another big multi-table tournament .

Finally we arrived at the BEST TEN ALBUMS OF ALL TIME (imho^^). If you don’t have one of those, withdraw from your bankroll and buy them :

10 Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti (1975)
9 Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (1966)
8 Zombies - Odessey & Oracle (1968)
7 Jethro Tull -Thick As A Brick (1972)
6 Radiohead - Amnesiac (2001)
5 Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
4 Tool -Aenima (1996)
3 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cosmo’s Factory (1970)
2 Brian Wilson - SMiLE (2004)
1 Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

So it has the best of classic (hard)rock (Led Zep & CCR), progrock (Thick As A Brick), psychedelic rock (Beatles’ MMT), psychedelic pop (Zombies), progmetal (Aenima), art rock (Amnesiac) + perhaps the most brilliant person in pop music éver (Wilson with SMiLE as well as Pet Sounds) and the best concept album ever: ‘DSOTM’ still is the best album ever made in my opinion.

Travelin’ Band (Cosmo’s Factory) and Brain Damage/Eclipse (Dark Side of the Moon)

Hi, I continued playing according to my new concept the past few days at FTP: play some shoot-out tournaments for cash and combine this with shoot-outs for satellite tokens. Subsequently, try to make it in the big tournaments with these tokens.

I have to say I succeeded very well in my mission. I made some profit at the cash tournaments, among others thanks to catching a straight flush :

As you can see, I really had squadoosh on the flop and didn’t improve that much on the turn. The river really was a miracle card, but the pot only consisted of 2 BB’s (100) at that moment. As you can see below on the picture I managed to disguise my bet on the river as a bluff by overbetting the pot (betting twice the size of the pot), which made my opponent call the bet with his marginal flush.

With the $26 token I won I participated in the 21k gtd. KO tournament. From this buy-in, $20 goes into the prize pool and the other $4 is a bounty you can win by eliminating another player. I didn’t succeed to finish in the money, partially thanks to one particular hand relatively early in the tourney. However, I’m able to control my damage by sensing my opponent was strong and not overplaying my own hand:

So a standard raise in early position with AQ, three callers and I flop toppair. My continuation bet is only flatcalled by one player. The turn gives me top set but I check. Then my opponent bets about the same amount as I betted on the flop which makes me very suspicious. However, a lot of online players play AJ or AT exactly the same way so I can hardly fold. He fires again on the river, but I’m happy he makes a bad value bet with his full house, he should know I must have three aces in that spot. However, maybe more succes next time!

We’re coming closer to number 1 in my album list and what follows are the numbers 20 till 11. You’ll notice the first two of three Beatles albums in the top twenty of the list. Fans of so-called stoner rock will like Powertrip, which really has become a standard album in that scene.

20 Beatles - The Beatles (’White Album’) (1968)
19 Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007)
18 Monster Magnet - Powertrip (1998)
17 Tool - 10 000 Days (2006)
16 Simon&Garfunkel - Bridge over Troubled Waters (1970)
15 Metallica - Master of Puppets (1986)
14 White Stripes - Elephant (2003)
13 Pixies - Doolittle (1989)
12 Pearl Jam - Ten (1991)
11 Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Vicarious (10 000 Days) and Keep the Customer Satisfied (Bridge over Troubled Waters)

I’m really into tournament poker the last couple of weeks and besides regular sng’s and heads-up confrontations I want to give the so-called ‘multi-table tournaments’ (MTT’s) a try. However, those tournaments ask a lot of time which I don’t always have at my disposal so I’ll still keep playing heads-up .

Now I don’t play the regular hu’s anymore (winner wins opponent’s buy-in) but prefer the shoot-out tournaments (turbo, 6$ at FTP) with 4 players where you play two ‘match rounds’ and win the entire prize pool if you win both. I compared my profits from this tourneys with my runs on regular hu’s and I happen to win reasonably more playing shoot-outs. Playing against those people helps:

I make a standard hu-raise with KJ and flop toppair. What happens subsequently appears to be an online phenomenon: some people like to lead out with the minimum bet on the flop after calling a pre-flop raise… I raise of course and get reraised. Now in these situations it’s very easy for me: just move all-in right there against those players who obviously don’t have a clue about the game. He calls and shows me the magnificent bottom pair with the powerful 5 kicker. Thank you very much. Now you also have the possibilty to play these tournaments for $6.5 instead of $6 and in this case the winner gets a $26 satellite token instead of $24 cash. With this token you can play several MTT’s with a lot of prize money and that’s my plan for the coming weeks .

In ‘preparation’ of playing these tournaments I played a $2 sng with 180 players. And guess what? I finished 4th right away, good for $36. This was prolly the most important pot in an early phase of the tournament:

I’m in the BB and am allowed to see a flop with A2 as two players in late position just limp. Again, I flop toppair and AGAIN, somebody leads out with the minimum bet. Everybody flatcalls and I raise to know where I’m up to. The minbetter runs away and SB calls. He almost certainly got to have a flushdraw so I fire again on the turn and my opponent calls again. No spade on the river so I make a last bet and my opponent appeared to have middle pair with his missed flushdraw. I was deepstack from that moment on and was able to play my best game till the final table .

Finally, here are another ten albums you should buy before you go broke so you can still listen to them while playing poker. On 28 is the first album from the heroes from Tool, who also have three of their legendary albums in this list and on 23 is Nick Cave, who I am looking forward to see live this summer .

30 Jethro Tull - Stand Up (1969)
29 Crosby Stills Nash & Young - Déjà Vu (1970)
28 Tool - Lateralus (2001)
27 Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I (1969)
26 Doors - Strange Days (1967)
25 Wolfmother - Wolfmother (2006)
24 Guns ‘n Roses - Use Your Illusion II (1991)
23 Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues (2004)
22 Neil Young - Harvest (1972)
21 Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland (1968)

Reasons for Waiting (Stand Up) and There She Goes My Beautiful World (Abattoir Blues)

Last time I showed a pretty sick hand, when I catched quad fives on the river. I received an email from a reader, René from Belgium, with the history of another spicy hand and the similarities are a little bit sick . I converted the hand for you:

So René (playing as ‘BaronGussie’) is seated in an heads-up confrontation and has pocket fives. His opponent makes a standard raise and he decides to see a flop. Unlike my hand last time, he immediately flops a set, just like the other player with the pocket sixes. The turn gives him quads and it’s checked towards the river where René is happy to see his opponent díd pick up something on the board, sixes full ^^ .

I played some shorthanded tournaments myself this week, but nothing really exciting happened, no spectacular hands and no spectaculair bankroll swings . The only exciting thing appeared during a hand I wasn’t involved in. We were down to four players when:

So it’s a limper’s pot (I don’t think raising in the big blind with KJ is a useful move). Somebody minbets the all hearts flop with a suspicous minraise behind him. After moves like this I’m not investing any more chips in such pots . Turn happened to be a very spicy one, as it created a straight flush against an A high flush. Notice the player with the straight flush plays a little better on the turn than on the flop, by making a pot-sized bet, simply because he knows the other player wouldn’t have called on the flop without a big heart. I hope I’ll be involved in some exciting situations next time

The next ten albums in the ‘FAYSBBYGB’-list then, with among others the first albums from Led Zeppelin and Radiohead, who both have three albums in the list. I really recommend Fragile for all the fans of progressive rock btw!

40 Led Zeppelin  - Led Zeppelin II (1969)
39 Girls In Hawaii - From Here To There (2003)
38 Yes - Fragile (1972)
37 A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms (2000)
36 Kraftwerk - The Man Machine (1978)
35 Nick Drake - Pink Moon (1972)
34 Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)
33 Alice Cooper - Killer (1971)
32 Traveling Wilburys - Vol.1 (1988)
31 Moody Blues - In Search of the Lost Chord (1968)

Magdalena (Mer de Noms) and Legend of a Mind (In Search of the Lost Chord)

Yes I played one of my most exciting hands, maybe thé most exciting hand ever, yesterday. Lately I’m playing some tournaments on FTP that give you the opportunity to win so-called ’satellite tokens’. For example, you play a $6+.5 sng with 18 players and the top 4 players will receive a $24+2 token. You can use this to play a satellite for a big MTT or just play a regular MTT with this buy-in, like I did.

I used a token to play in the $ 27.500 guaranteed. Now I wasn’t able to finish in the money but I did play a very interesting hand in the beginning of the tournament, giving my opponent a really bad beat. I made a nice picture for you:

It was raised preflop by the pocket sixes and a lot of people called, so did I with 55. Flop was certainly not bad for me, as I prolly still had the best hand and a gutshot straightdraw. It was checked towards me and I made a big bet, which was only called by the slowplayed pocket Sixes. Turn gave me a set and it was unlikely I was against a 3 so I fired again and was against flatcalled by the 66. I really had no clue where I was against but the river made me quads and suddenly the other player shoved all-in. Instant call .

I also witnessed a marvellous donkey-move in another tournament yesterday. It’s really sick sometimes to see the play of some people, watch:

So it’s the button versus the big blind (f*ck those texas dolly’s ). They check it all the way to the river and the the heroic big blind decides to shove all-in with two pair on a 100 chips pot. The button thanks God for having a drunk player on the table and instant calls with the nuts .

As I promised you last week, I’ll start this week with showing my favorite all-time Album List. I have named this legendary list the ‘50 Albums You Should Buy Before You Go Broke’ . Those are the ones from 50 to 41:

50 Love - Forever Changes (1967)
49 Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)
48 Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed (1969)
47 Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (1998)
46 Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (2008)
45 Golden Earring - Moontan (1973)
44 dEUS - The Ideal Crash (1999)
43 The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
42 Eels - Electro-Shock Blues (1998)
41 Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002)

All Alone Or (Forever Changes) and European Son (The Velvet Underground & Nico)