That’s a question I asked myself a couple of times this week. Playing poker online gives you the opportunity to see a LOT of strange things which makes you think: “Why on earth did he or she do this?” and sometimes “Why on earth are they paid off?”. I’ll show you a couple of examples, if anybody knows the answers to the questions above, please let me know .

So I’m playing a nine handed tourney on Pokerstars ($10) and limp into a pot along with four other players. Everybody checks both flop and turn, including me. It looks like it is going to be checked till the river when suddenly the heroic Player 9 decides to push the brilliant amount of 500 chips into a pot of 100. I’m not calling anyway of course, but I thought he had TJ or a slowplayed set on the flop, trying to ‘disguise’ it as a bluff, a standard rookie-move. Meanwhile, the big blind thanked god someone DID bet the river, and moreover, that it happened to be the most brilliant bet in the history of poker. The other player called of course, convinced his toppair was enough. A second hand:

So it’s obvious I’m not going to be involved in this hand, as I am not Queen Farha. So three players to the flop, which is checked around. Minimum bet on the turn and two callers. Another beautiful ‘minbet’ on the river from the SB, but then the BB decides he doesn’t want to get outdrawed on sixth and seventh street or something and shoves all-in with the absolute nuts. Player 9 decides to commit 75% of his stack with two pair… Well, these are the people that keep the game alive .

Time for some beautiful poker music then. One of the best albums of my large and growing collection is Pink Moon from Nick Drake. Drake was an English artist (singer-songwriter) who died in 1974 at the age of 26 as a consequence of an overdose. He was known for his rather depressive lyrics, caused by his own life. Pink Moon was recorded in two days in October ‘71 and in my opinion it’s the greatest Drake-album. Especially the songs Place To Be, Pink Moon and Things Behind the Sun are fantastic but the album doesn’t really have a weak spot in general. I hope you’ll enjoy!

Like I said last time, I started playing sit and go tournaments again on Pokerstars. In contrast with cash games, I prefer those tournaments to be longhanded. I was able to make some nice profit playing some 5$ tournaments. Whatever there is to say about the difference between tournament poker and cash games, one thing is certain: the swings you experience are way bigger by playing cash games than tournaments.

However, I picked out a very interesting hand I played in an early phase of a tournament:

So I have KQ offsuit in early position. I think KQ is easy to play preflop in a longhanded situation: you raise when you can open the pot and you fold it after a big (early position) bet and when you’re reraised. One player calls and I flop toppair on a dream flop: rainbow and non-connected. So I could have slowplayed it but decide to bet two thirds of the pot and get min raised. I just call to keep the pot small with toppair. The turn looks quiete harmless and I make a muscular bet. If my opponent raises right there (which would most likely be for all his chips), I have to decide if I’m against a set. Otherwise I’m in good shape as I excluded AK (considering the preflop call).

The other player just calls and I’m almost certain I’m against a worse King. But then comes the river and… it’s another King! I decide to check, being sure it won’t be checked behind me. My opponent does indeed bet… the legendary amount of 40 chips on a 1200 pot. But then I make the only mistake in the hand. Of course I raise, but not enough. Why not just go all-in there? He has to call anyway with a King. So I suppose I have to work on my value bets the next couple of days .

So after the bad run I had last time, I returned to playing hu-games on FTP. I didn’t make that much profit since that moment, but I found the pleasure in playing poker again, which is a good starting point . In fact, hu-poker isn’t that complicated: you can slowplay your strong hands and bet your weak hands.

I have a marvellous example of a slowplayed monster from the games I played yesterday:

So I flop a full house right away. The only thing crossing your mind in such situations heads-up is: “please have a flushdraw or a queen or something”. If that’s not the case and the opponent doesn’t bet, let him try to catch something else on the turn Out of the blue (s)he suddenly goes all-in on the river, trying to disguise his full house as a bluff. Well, this is a tactic that tends to succeed against rookies, but even they will call holding the third nuts (as 99 was of course impossible). Speaking about those Hellmuths, this happened to me on another table:

So I’m holding an absolute monster in the big blind and am allowed to see a flop for free. This was already a little suspicious, since my opponent was a maniac who raised my big blind about 80% of the times. So, I’m immediately planning a check-raise after I flop two pair. (S)he comes over the top and I instant call, waiting for him to show me his premium pocket pair. Well, it wasn’t that premium, but I only had to dodge the other two nines, the remaining three sixes and running clubs: a 67,88 % chance to win that hand. Those running sixes were a bummer. However, the next few days I’ll try to make my play profitable again with some sit and go tournaments. Grtz!

So I’m still watching some WSOP 08 now and then, maybe I have to decide to just watch it till the end, but I don’t like to watch one show in a row so I mix it up with HSP, PAD,EPT,… . However, I saw a very nice play from the Irish player James McManus today, sitting on the feature table.

The chipleader at that moment, the Norwegian player Sigur Eskeland, was also at that table. Interesting to know is that those two players already had a little history on the table: Eskeland had been using his stack and had been the table bully for a certain period. McManus noticed this behaviour and decided to stop it when he ‘bluffed’ Eskeland’s pocket sixes away preflop earlier with JdTd. Subsequently the following hand occurred (starts at 6′40″):

So Mcmanus senses excellently that Eskeland is trying to keep pushing the table around with another big reraise. But also after the second gigantic all-in reraise from the Norwegian, he’s still convinced his AQ is in good shape. Great play with all the camera’s pointed at you on the feature table to say the least. The AQ holds up on the board, like it always should be in poker after a showdown .

Now, I asked you after your favorite song on your poker-headphone a while ago and it happens to be that Hotel California from the Eagles is popular among the visitors of my blog because it won with 24% of the votes! I’m a little disappointed though that my personal number five, God only knows, didn’t receive any votes . Anyway for all the Eagles-voters, a live version of ‘Hotel’:

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…and I don’t like that . Just when I found my believe back in the essence of being a winner pokerplayer, that is making profit in the long run if you keep playing a little better than your opponents, I had to face a lot of bad beats and unlucky situations.

It’s really annoying to lose almost every coinflip AND nearly every showdown where you’re a favorite in a short time period. The only thing which makes me smile at that moments are the reactions in the chat. Wherever you are seated, there’s always at least one player who shouts something about how this room is ‘rigged’ or things like ‘Pokerstars Special’ . Well, I’ve played in almost every room now and I can tell you this is of course utter bullcrap: you’ll face this kind of things everywhere. That’s poker.

I selected one of my beats I had to take this week:

First of all, I don’t like the kind of poker my opponents are playing at all, minraising and minreraising preflop and stuff. But I flop middle set and suppose I’m in very good shape. So I make a bet and a big reraise when he reraised me. Of course he has to lay down his pocket fives right there but he doesn’t and makes the straight. I already took a little break since that hand and plan to resume playing online poker again with some hu-games. I’ll let you know how that worked out .

Hi there. I really enjoyed the shorthanded cashgames again yesterday and I’m making some nice profit there. A basic tactic which I apply in those games is ‘going south’ on the right moment. Going south is leaving the table you’re sitting on and cashing out your chips. After that, you sit down again with a lower amount of money. This is of course ‘not done’ in a live game, but you can easily do this online because of the great numbers of available new tables you can sit at. When I reach the point my stack is 150% of what I started with, I pick a new table.

So this is the first thing what I did yesterday when I sat down with $20 on a $.10/.25 table and flopped quad kings!! I made a nice picture for you (click to enlarge):

Luckily I won a decent pot with it because my opponent had a strong pocket pair I guess, but feared that I had AK, so he didn’t call my riverbet. I played another interesting hand, which I converted for you:

So we play a family pot and I flop top two pair top kicker. I’m willing to make a check-raise, because a paired board tends to be betted automatically by somebody in late position (something we saw last time ). But it was checked around the clock so I didn’t know at all what was going on in this hand. So I betted the turn and was flatcalled by 2 players. I didn’t give them the right price at all to chase a flushdraw on a paired board so I convinced myself they couldn’t hold that (however we’re playing a micro-stakes game here…). I was kind of confused and decided to check and call a small bet if the player in last position would try to steal it. Well, it was pretty fast clear to me I wasn’t holding the best hand at all here and quickly folded!

That must have crossed the mind of the player I was sitting on a table with, when I was playing some shorthanded cashgames again on Pokerstars. This was a classic example of a wrong bluff, on the wrong time and in the wrong place! Now look at this:

So everyone is pretty deepstack at this table, which I prefer, and there’s a raise under the gun. Some players can play a wide arrange of hands because of their stack size and decide to call. Everybody checks to the button on the flop, who makes about a 4/5 pot sized bet with his set of trays. It’s probably the size of the bet which makes the preflop raiser think this player is trying to steal this nice pot from the button. Well, that’s not a bad thought but then he decides to come over the top for ALL his chips with Q high ?! I think that isn’t the best option in that spot . The player with 44 in the hole was of course already having a big party at his house when he saw this in front of him. Player 6 knew he was in VERY BAD shape from the moment this player called, and probably crying for his mother when the other one did so too. Funny thing is: the big bet from Player 3 did have the effect he wished for, but was crushed by the slowplayed full boat.

That player won a pot of 240 big blinds right there, quiete enormous. I also won a big pot myself today, which made my day profitable, because I was playing break-even till that moment. I have to admit I needed some luck to win it:

So I was putting him on some suited Ah on the flop after my check-raise. On the turn he comes over the top and I thought about an overpair for a moment. But why didn’t he reraise me again on the flop in that case? So I called and catched an ace on the river. Once again, that’s poker .

ps: I’m planning to make a top 50 of the greatest albums of all-time now, so a new list with great music for your poker headphones coming up