I’m still not able to convert some PLO hands from Cake Poker, but this had one big advantage this week: I decided to play some cheap multi table tournaments and the result was more than excellent: from a total buy-in of $2,60$ I was able to made $82,30!! I made this beautiful picture for you (click to enlarge!):

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!

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…

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)

People who play poker on a regular basis will immediately know what I’m talking about. You sense that your hand isn’t good enough, but you make the call anyway, most of the times because your own hand is so enormous. Maybe it’s even more frustrating than making a donkey play. When you see somebody else doing it, you ask yourself why and some time later you do the same thing.

Today I saw an excellent example of this on the World Series of Poker (WSOP) from this year. The hand proceeds between the Italian player Andrea Piva from Rome and the American pro Erick Lindgren, who met eachother already in some previous hands. Piva picks up AcKc and raises to Lindgren, who calls with 44. The flop comes as following (starts after approximately 3′):

Ofcourse this is terrible for Piva, especially because he’s playing against Lindgren, who plays his monster very well (wonder if Sheiky would play it like this). The turn and river don’t help Piva and then he’s confronted with another enormous bet from Lindgren on the river. Piva suspects that Lindgren flopped his full boat with 44, he even says this out loud several times, but still it’s too tempting to call the bet and so he does.

Most of the times, those situations are about big pots, and that’s why it’s so important to be able to lay such hands down to make your way through big multi-table tournaments.

In the next section of the music list you’ll notice that the Beatles’ A Day in the life and Pearl Jams Black, two songs you can vote for in the poll, will certainly not be number one. Radiohead is well represented in this section with three tracks, with the recent and beautiful Reckoner on #73:

75 Dire Straits - Private Investigations (1982, Love Over Gold)
74 White Stripes - The Air Near My Fingers (2003, Elephant)
73 Radiohead - Reckoner (2007, In Rainbows)
72 Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone (1965, Highway 61 Revisited)
71 Zombies - Time of the season (1967, Odessey and Oracle)
70 Nirvana - All Apologies (1993, In Utero)
69 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Sweet Hitch-Hiker (1971, Mardi Gras)
68 Pink Floyd - See Emily Play (1967, Piper at the Gates of Dawn (US) )
67 Beatles - A Day in the Life (1967, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)
66 Metallica - One (1988, …And Justice For All)
65 Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand (1976, Presence)
64 Guns ‘n Roses - Civil War (1991, Use Your Illusion II)
63 Radiohead - Paranoid Android (1997, OK Computer)
62 Death Cab for Cutie - Soul Meets Body (2005, Plans)
61 Nick Drake - Place To Be (1972, Pink Moon)
60 Monster Magnet - Negasonic Teenage Warhead (1995, Dopes to Infinity)
59 Jethro Tull - For a Thousand Mothers (1969, Stand Up)
58 Pink Floyd - Brain Damage (1973, Dark Side of the Moon)
57 The Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man (1965, Mr Tambourine Man)
56 Kraftwerk - The Man Machine (1978, The Man Machine)
55 Metallica - Sad But True (1991, Metallica (’Black Album’) )
54 Pearl Jam - Black (1991, Ten)
53 Al Stewart - Year of the Cat (1976, Year of the Cat)
52 Guns ‘n Roses - 14 Years (1991, Use Your Illusion II)
51 Radiohead - Knives Out (2001, Amnesiac)