Here’s the hand I’m talking about:

I’m just calling the preflop raise again and when the preflop raiser checks and the other guy leads out with a retarded minimum bet, I put this one on exactly the hand he has: a flushdraw. This is typical move by amateur players: minbetting their draw. They must have misread a chapter about block betting somewhere. As I know he’ll draw to his flush which will be crushed by my Ace I decide to make a big pot, besides my hand is backed with my Kings. My opponent calls and when the turn gives me two pair, I try to induce a bet so I can check-raise but he doens’t bet. I don’t really like the river, as the other player could have had a 5 with his draw. But when he bets half size of the pot, I know I’m good and call with Kings. Note there’s no value in raising here: he won’t call with exactly the hand he has, but only with a hand that beats me. You’ll have to master those skills when trying to be a winning player in online poker games.

And now, as I announced last time, the ten best live music gigs I’ve ever witnessed. If you’ve seen my other all time lists, it won’t be a big surprise that Tool is at the top of this list. It was a close call however with Animal Collective, which was the last show I saw from the ten below and which made an amazing impression on me.

1. Tool - Lowlands Festival (August 19th, 2007)

2. Animal Collective - Dour Festival (July 17th, 2009)

3. Pearl Jam - Rock Werchter (June 29th, 2007)

4. Radiohead - Rock Werchter (July 5th, 2008)

5. Sigur Rós - Melkweg (October 9th, 2002)

6. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Rock Werchter (July 4th, 2009)

7. Fleet Foxes - Ancien Belgique (November 20th, 2008)

8. The Prodigy - Lowlands Festival (August 19th, 2005)

9. Interpol - 013 (November 20th, 2007)

10. Bon Iver - Lowlands Festival (August 21st, 2009)

(parts of)both last songs of the two best gigs ever seen: Vicarious & Brother Sport 

Here we go:

I fancy this starting hand of course, with the Kings having two connectors here. However, I’m out of position so there’s no need to raise here. I flop the full boat and can only hope my opponent has something like AhAc9h8c or something like that . Turn comes a third club and if I want to make ány money in this hand I’ll have to bet my hand here. The Ace high flush (which I’ve already crushed) calls and I improve to a STRAIGHT FLUSH! On that point it’s in my disadvantage that the board had already paired on the flop, but I’m able to extract the maximum value out of this hand. Next one:

Jacks in late position and I make a rather small raise. I call the reraise to see what comes on the flop and get my free set on the turn The guy who flopped top two thinks this is the moment to get all his chips in and I even improve to quads^^. Stay in touch because next time I’ll show the best live music performances I’ve ever seen!

It all started when I noticed that I still had a ticket for a New Depositer Freeroll since I created an account at Cake. I was playing for a while and, used as I am to the amount of action when playing at multiple (cash) tables, I was getting easily bored. I saw a Rebuy+Add-on tournament with a $.25 buy-in and rebuys for $.15 and gave it a try. I was doubling up early a few times because everybody played quite loose (because of the cheap rebuy option), but two full ring tables still wasn’t enough. What’s better for some action than heads-up play? So I also registered for a $2+.2 hu shootout with 96 players.

I was on a great roll and when the breaks started I was among the best twenty players in both MTT’s, and I bought an add-on in the ministakes tourney. This was also the tournament where I was knocked out first, finishing 14th out of 212 players, cashing $5,24. I was on fire in the hu shootout and was able to reach the final hu-table. Pity I didn’t win but finishing 2nd out of 96 is not bad. I was already at the final table in the freeroll at that moment and finished  4/140 over there. A very successful evening

Now it’s time for the final fifty songs in my top 200 list. First of all, as you can see, there’s a new number one: God Only Knows from The Beach Boys is the best song of all-time at this moment imho. Once more becomes clear that Brian Wilson is the greatest genius ever in pop music, with other songs at places 4,12 and 19. And the new Brian Wilson is already there, with Panda Bear at 7. And we have a new best Beatles song: the brilliant In My Life from Rubber Soul. Enjoy all the magnificent music!

Don’t ask me for a special explanation or something, I don’t know what the hell is going on here^^. Ok, it could have been a misclick on the turn, but why is he calling on the flop in that case? Anyway I hope the bug in the converter will be fixed soon and the advantage for now is that I can talk some more about the next 50 songs in my music list . As you can see, there are two new songs from Tool in it, both from their last album 10 000 Days, which I’m starting to appreciate more and more as the best Tool album. That’s also the case with Metallica’s Ride the Lightning, with the magnificent For Whom the Bell Tolls at spot 95. And at 54 you’ll notice Animal Collective’s Brother Sport , the closing track of the last album from one of the best live bands I ever saw. I can already mention they’ll be back once more in the last 50 songs .

However, I converted that one and you can see it here:

Now of course it’s PLO and I’m not playing $10/20 but $.10/.20 . The things that happen preflop aren’t as strange as they look like: it’s just a limper’s pot and I’m in for free on the big blind. I flop what’s sometimes called ‘el nutzo’: this hand will win every showdown at this point. However, I bet pot, as lower straights, sets and flushdraws will call for sure. Now my move after the reraise is crucial here and can be very profitable, especially in pot limit games. I just call here, risking to be outdrawed by a flushdraw or a ‘fulldraw’. I turn a set of threes with my straight but that isn’t that important: my opponent doesn’t give me credit for the nuts because I just called the flop and raises me practically all-in on the turn with the lower straight. I hope Cake improves his hand histories and makes them more suitable for converting, I mailed them about this.

Luckily there’s still the top 200 to enjoy, as I’ve revealed numbers 150-101, find them as always with the all-time music lists button. New are two tracks from My Morning Jacket, the wonderful NYC from Interpol and Tweeter and the Monkey Man, a song from Traveling Wilburys, the band with amongst others George Harrison and Bob Dylan.

I was able to build up a decent bankroll on Everest the last couple of days and a friend told me that having rakeback can be a great advantage when multi-tabling on cashgames frequently. I searched for a room that offers rakeback and I found Cake Poker . Now I had never heard of this room before, but it became clear soon that the graphics etcetera were reasonably good. Besides, I received a 100% deposit bonus on my $350 deposit, so that’s great also. I’m playing for a couple of days now ($.10/.20 PLO, sixhanded, 3 tables) and am curious how big my rakeback is gonna be in the first week .

Anyway, I already won a really great pot on Cake, and this one shows once more how juicy this game can be. I’m still having some troubles with finding the hand histories so I copied this for you:

As you see, it’s all about Aces again . I have a suited Ace and two connectors so I bet pot after one caller. The guy behind me decides to raise this for some reasons with only Kings. The guy with 7889 calls, which is not that bad if he can see a flop for this price. However, he could suspect that it’s gonna be raised again. The next guy also calls, which is of course a very retarded call. I make a big reraise, as I prefer a situation where I’m heads-up with one caller to a four way pot. INSTEAD: Mr. Kings reraises me and all the other players throw in their money as well. I’m of course very happy to flop my Ace, as this knocks out a lot of hands and draws, but on the turn I have to beat two flushdraws. So I’m very relieved when the club hits the river and win the $54 main pot. That’s more than 250 big blinds, PLO can be so sick .

No song of the day today, because I updated my top 200 songs of all-time and you can find 200-151 right here! Forty new songs this time, amongst other the magnificent Do You Realize from Flaming Lips and a new Beatles song: I’m only sleeping.

The hand I will speak about here is Ah5hAd3c. Those are relatively good aces: you have the suited one and two connectors with your aces to make a (small) straight. So you’re definitely raising with this hand, look how it worked out:

Now this flop is no good for my hand: my flush and straight draw are dead now so I’m only playing my Aces till the river. The board pairs, which can be an advantage for Aces: you have Aces up and there’s a chance you’ll win the pot by leading out right there. However with the connecting 8 out there, there’s a small chance this will happen so I check. It’s checked around but the turn really kills any other moves I had in mind. The guy who flopped a boat bets pot and gets called by the guy who makes a straight flush^^. So remember: don’t overplay your Aces, preflop as well as after the flop.

Song of the day:

Kraftwerk - The Robots (The Man Machine, 1978)

That’s what I did yesterday when playing the micro stakes on Everest. I just sat down on the table (I decided to play deep stack, with 100 big blinds) when I got the following hand:

As you this is not a premium PLO hand, but the (potential) pot odds made me make this call preflop. Now, in Hold’em this would be a great flop, as I flop the flush and other people could also certainly have made a hand. But in PLO, this is only a marginal flush BUT I draw to the straight flush of course. So I have a reasonably good hand + a reasonably good draw (my hand would be huge if I would hit it but I only have two outs to it), so I make a minimum raise to see where I’m at and add some value to the pot. Now nobody reraises, so I’m almost sure nobody flopped the nuts. With that in mind, it’s of course ME who can represent the A high flush, so I make a suspicous minraise ont the turn again. On the river, I know my only remaining opponent has a low flush (even Q high is kinda low here) or flopped two pair so he can never call a big bet on the river. So if he had the better flush here, it was easy for me to get him to fold that hand here. Finally, the song of the day:

Radiohead - Idioteque (Kid A, 2000)

The first hand shows a typical beginners move in PLO. The contrast with a more experienced player is even more clear because I have the same hand as this beginner, but I play it like it has to be played . Watch:

I have four connectors again so I make the move that’s already known to the readers of this blog. Then comes the flop and yeah, I make a straight, but you don’t see me being all too happy about it, flopping the baby straight. So when somebody makes a pot bet in front of me, I immediately fold, knowing I’m probably already beat by AT and I’m not very likely to improve much. As you can see, ‘Player 6′ does exactly what I didn’t.

With the second hand I really made a very nice profit myself thanks to the donkeys. It’s one of those hands which you push all the way preflop in PLO (now the converter makes some error with the pot size, as ‘Player 5′ doesn’t get enough money returned, total pot size was about $25):

So I have Aces, and I have pretty good Aces: a suited one and with a King on the side. So I make a BIG pot preflop and am really stunned to see the hands where I’m called with and especially the hand which raised me, being ‘Player 1′. However, my Aces are never really in danger and I make trips Kings on top of it. Thank you very much! The song of the day really is a song to celebrate such winnings with:

Animal Collective - For Reverend Green (Strawberry Jam, 2007)

So let’s watch the hand first:

As you see, I minraise on the button in this hand, for reasons I told you earlier: IF you make a hand, it’s most likely a big hand and/or a draw and it’s easier to protect it this way. Now on this flop this is not even the case: I’ve got the OESD and the flushdraw, but I would have preferred two pair with the OESD. That’s exactly why I don’t raise the flop. However, i catch the straight flush on the turn and am lucky to be paid off by only the J high flush.

Just like in NLHE, it’s sometimes a good tactic in PLO to show weakness on the river in order to be paid off maximally by someone who missed his draws and isn’t likely to call another bet from you. I applied this tactic perfectly in the next hand:

I see a free flop from the BB and the flop is quite good: toppair with a double bellybuster, as a 4 and an 8 would make me a straight. So I lead out immediately and get two callers, most likely flushdraws. Turn gives me top two with the same draw so I keep betting the pot. One caller and a totally harmless river: IF I was against a straight draw on the flop, it was most likely against the OESD (42) and in that case he would have made the straight on the turn and would certainly have raised me on the turn because of the double flushdraw. So I check, knowing he’s not going to call another bet, with the purpose of getting him to bluff at this pot. Worked out perfectly.

More lessons next time, for now the song of the day:

Brian Wilson - Roll Plymouth Rock (SMiLE, 2004)