Poker is a strange sport or game, however you name it. Somebody who has no clue about what he’s doing is most likely to be ruled by somebody who controls all aspects of the game in other disciplines. However in poker, ANYBODY can beat you in ANY situation.

I came to that conclusion again in a very strange homegame last week. We were playing micro-stakes (€ .10/.20) and a lot of people who consider poker as a pleasant form of pastime and only posess a basic knowledge of the poker rules sat down . Well, I have to admit this, I had a very pleasant evening, but this was mainly caused by the booze, weed and company itself instead of genious poker plays . Sometimes I literally had to pick myself off the floor from laughing after seeing what happened in the game. It’s however astonishing to observe how people outside the ”poker world” perceive poker as a cosy and social game of luck. The scenario that’s subsequently carried out is also beautiful to watch: the players who have some clue about the game all try to catch the easy money as fast as possible. Unluckily I was a little carddead and ran about break even. Some tips for those games:

* People pick up their cards from the table to see what they have, like in a game of hearts. Peeping is allowed in that case.
* The dealing of the cards is mostly very chaotic, what gives you the opportunity to ”read” a lot of hands already in an early stage.
* While you thought you ended up in a No Limit Game, everybody else seems to play Blind Limit. Seldom you”ll see a raise before a flop is dealt, so feel free to limp with any two cards.
* Try not to get irritated when a hand is interrupted for a small chat. This is not a tournament, when the intermezzo is over you can pick up the pot without anybody noticing it.
* Don’t forget to reload somebody’s booze now and then.
* If you hit the flop, don’t hesitate to make a big bet. A flushdraw is like holy to beginning players and they’ll pay anyway.
* If you make a bluff, show it! From that moment you’ll be perceived as Mr. Bluff. Makes good money if you have the nuts.
* Don”t be surprised if anybody asks you if poker books really do exist after saying you read somewhere you should always call with KK preflop.

I hope you can use these tips when playing some kind of homegame . Now it’s time for number ten in the all-time music list, Beatles - I am the Walrus (Magical Mystery Tour, 1967):

I think these are the Beatles at their very best, that’s why I rated this song the highest of all. It has got everything: Lennon’s voice is better than ever, Ringo’s drumming is an example of how something simplistic can contribute to a song in a great way, the clip has a level of absurdity never equalised later on, brilliant costumes and the lyrics are how psychedelic lyrics are meant to be. If you like the psychedelic side of the Beatles, you should absolutely see the movie Magical Mystery Tour, where the song originates from.

Yesterday I played another evening in the $ .10 /.25 livegame. After what happened I can only conclude one thing: that table is cursed.

On my way to the place of evil I enjoyed the paradisiacal sounds of Guns ‘n Roses’ Use Your Illusion II on my headphone. In my opinion this is one of the best albums of all time and certainly of the nineties. Therefore and because my special fan Carl missed some music in the last contribution , I’ll tell something more about it. Use Your Illusion II is sometimes seen as the second part of the double-album Use You Illusion, but is in fact a separate album. I very much prefer this album to the other work of GNR because it contains a lot more than the simple straight-away rock they made before: it also integrates blues and classical music. Moreover there’s much more space for Axl playing the piano on this album which transforms GNR more or less from a hard rock band to a progressive rock band.

Besides the beautiful artwork, which is ofcourse a detail from the very famous painting The School of Athens (Raphael), the albums contains pieces of art like Civil War, 14 Years and especially the magnum opus of GNR: Estranged. This song lacks every aspect of the traditional verse-chorus-verse structure and its video (seen as the final part of a trilogy, after Don”t Cry and November Rain (both on Use Your Illusion I)) costed about eight million dollars.

After enjoying listening this, I arrived at the table (9-handed). The evening started terrific, as I picked up KK on the first hand. Altough the flop paired two aces, it was quickly clear my only remaining opponent didn’t have one of those other two babies in his hand and I took down a nice pot. Then began the horror. I picked up TT in middle position and the person UTG raised to € 1.10. The following two players also called and I also just called, as my hand had now become a drawing hand. Another two players behind me called, as they had good pot odds now. The flop came Js Td 8d. The preflop raiser checked and the next player betted €3. After a fold I made it €8 to call. One player behind me (chipleader) did so and the initial €3-raiser now shoved all-in for about €5 more. I shoved all-in over the top for about €4 more and was called by the opponent behind me. The clown in front of me showed 8c9c and the player behind me, who was gradually sucked into this pot, showed 8h9d. So I certainly wasn’t in bad shape with my set for a €60 pot, against two OESD’s. The turn came 4d and then…the river: Ad. The one with the 9 of diamonds took the pot which was made enormous by the other ”89 player”, what was he thinking with only bottom pair and the OESD? Well he sure used his illusion…

You’ll probably know them. It’s a very special sort of people. They fill their wallets with a lot of ammo before they go to war. When they arrive at the frontline they load their guns with a first buy-in. From then on, you can observe their greedy eyes from a distance, waiting for two random cards to shoot at a pot.

Me and another seven players had the honour of having two members of this race on our table at a weekly homegame (cashgame, €.10/.25). I was playing a very solid game and was able to upgrade my stack from a €15 buy-in to an amount of approximately €28, basiccaly by just overplaying most of the other seven opponents. Luckily for those poor guys they were restacked now and then by the brilliant play of our two heroes.

Unfortunately for the game, the first clown had to leave after he lost his last ammo on an all-in preflop call (€30, 120 big blinds that is) with the legendary Q3 offsuit against the other one (how could we, anxious and tight as we are, know that he made a fabulous call after reading his retarded opponent and knowing he was against 22 and thus had two overcards). We praised ourselves lucky for the fact that his partner in crime couldn’t get enough of showing us his absolute brilliance in the following hours.

After I enjoyed watching the miserable play for about an hour, I woke up with two kings in early position. I raised to €1.25 and the table folded to my great hero with his big stack. When he announced a reraise there started one big awesome party inside my head. Finally it was my time to get paid off. He reraised €5 and I came over the top with €15, knowing this was the only way to double my whole stack in case an ace didn’t appear on the flop. He called, the flop came T 7 2 rainbow and he betted my stack. After a quick call he showed me an ace without showing me the other card (he probably thinks he’’s a genius by making this terrific move). Turn and river came 9 8. His other card was a lousy offsuit Jack. An enormous desire to throw up on the table made itself master of me.