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)