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I might be wrong
Published 26 december 2011 14:34Is the title of Radiohead’s song on #140 of my top 200 best songs of all time list. But I was certainly not wrong when playing some poker online this week. I’ll show you some remarkable hands from cashgames as well as tournaments again and then the next 50 songs on the list.
The first hand was played in a multi-table tournament, the one with 180 players and a $4,40 buy-in which run all day on Pokerstars. I showed my opponent why minraising with Aces is seldomly a good plan:
To minraise is this players’ first mistake but he makes a second one postflop. He commits his complete stack with only one pair on a board that isn’t dry at all against a hand which only had to call a minraise. I say thank you very much. The next hand, played in a micro stakes cash game, is a hand which I just played good by myself:
A standard play by me with a raise in late position holding an Ace. The button calls but then I make an important play which makes me some more chips. I check my Ace so my opponent won’t believe that I’m holding toppair and he will commit more chips than he’d normally have done. It works out perfectly: he pays a good price thinking his King is good.
In the list of best songs of all time there are new songs from Songs:Ohia (Captain Badass), George Harrison (Apple Scruffs) and Tindersticks (Rented Rooms), three artists we’ll see again among the top ranked songs. This second part of the list is topped by Schism from Tool, which has another song in the top ten. See you next time for more poker and music!
Quads and the Jack of Hearts
Published 19 augustus 2011 17:47I’m playing all sorts of poker at the moment at Pokerstars. The enormous traffic in that room still is a great advantage compared to smaller poker rooms. I’m playing some micro stakes cashgames and small (multi-table) sit ‘n gos. And meanwhile I’m updating my top 200 list of best songs of all time.
In my cashgame as well as in a tournament I catched quads the past few days. Let’s watch the first one, the one from the cashgame:
I’m playing the .10/.25 game, with a maximum buy-in of 50 big blinds. This is actually the second hand I play at the table, after getting a walk on my first big blind. I call the button raise with T9 suited and flop the absolute nuts. My shortstacked opponent decides to make a continuation bet and I just call: I know all his money goes in when I slowplay this hand the right way. I fill up to quads on the river and win my first pot at this table. Then I played this single table sit ‘n go (9 players) and we were down to four of us:
Of course I’m lucky here: I’m down to ten big blinds and I’m obliged to push with T4 here. Bummer my opponent has a premium hand, but hey, I can beat that with quads 
.
Like I said, I made another update (the second one) to my top 200 songs. Which song will be the best song of all time? Previous number ones were Neil Young’s ‘Like A Hurricane’ and ‘God Only Knows’ from the Beach Boys. Today I show you #200-151, which you can of course find here . New songs from among others the Beatles (One after 909 from the album Let it Be) and the Velvet Underground (Venus in Furs), a warning for what’s about to come later. There’s Dylans song about poker at #181 and Nirvana tops the first part of the list with Dumb (1993).
Poker songs for the mind and body (2)
Published 19 januari 2011 11:23Here we go for part two of the poker songs for the mind and body! From five to one:
5. Bob Seger & Silver Bullet Band – Fire Lake
Perhaps my favorite Seger song. But on the poker table, this song is only for the REAL gamblers. With nerves of steel. Because this song is all about taking risks, big risks. Risks that can lead to your death, as perfectly stated in the following lyric: ‘Who wants to play those eights and aces – Who wants a raise – Who needs a stake – Who wants to take that long shot gamble.’
4. Eagles – Desperado
Well, of course this song had to be somewhere in this list ^^. ‘Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy – She’ll beat you if she’s able – You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet.’ You’ll better not draw the queen of diamonds. I’ll beat you.
3. Steve Miller Band -The Joker
You all know this song. Some people call me the spacecowboy, right? Great song for poker with wild cards.
2. Pink Floyd – Money
Probably one of the most famous bass loops in the history of rock music: ‘Money, get back. I’m alright, Jack, keep your hands off my stack’. I always love this song when I’m the chipleader. From Dark Side of the Moon of course.
1. Motörhead – Ace of Spades
Not very surprising. No further explanation needed. I mean:
Pushing up the ante
I know you’ve got to see me
Read ‘em and weep
The dead man’s hand again
I see it in your eyes
Take one look and die
The only thing you see
You know it’s gonna be
The ace of spades
Posted in Poker Music | 
ace of spades, desperado, eights and aces, fire lake, motörhead, poker songs, queen of diamonds | Leave a commentPoker songs for the mind and body
Published 23 november 2010 17:56I discussed my favorite music a lot of times already on this blog. Now I’ve chosen ten songs that particularly (well, sometimes^^) have something to do with poker. So get ready organising your homegame and add this songs to your playlist. Ten to five today!
10. 16 Horsepower – Sinnerman
This song isn’t dealing with poker in particular, but it just takes me back to the early days of poker. It creates this whole atmosphere of Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim, Chip Reese and Wild Bill Hickok sitting around a small table. Cards in their hand, whiskey to the left, gun to the right. Original song from Nina Simone of course.
9. Electric Light Orchestra – Poker
Also Jeff Lynne and his band made a song about poker and the similarities with love. Hear all about high cards calling the tune, losing everything you have, aces up the sleeves and gamblers ruling the night.
8. Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit
What does this song have to do with poker? Not that much, but I so LOVE this song! And there are all the hidden messages in it that can relate to the game of poker. ‘Chasing rabbits’, for example, can refer to chasing your draw AND to the rabbit cam. The fact that your mind is moving low when you had some kind of mushroom makes clear that you can’t play your A-game when doing drugs. And when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, the Red Queen’s “off with her head”: you will get killed by your opponent hitting that queen on the river.
7. ZZ Top – Viva Las Vegas
This of course HAS to be your favorite song when you’re a professional Vegas rounder. ‘There’s a whole lot of money that’s ready to burn – So get those stakes up higher!’ And what about this one: ‘Oh, there’s blackjack and poker and a roulette wheel. A fortune won and lost on every deal. All you need’s a strong heart and a nerve of steel.’ Original song from Elvis Presley of course.
6. Bon Iver – RE: Stacks
If you see the title, it looks pretty obvious where this song’s about. But the song doesn’t really sound as a poker song at all. But as the singer stated himself : “This song is for anyone who’s been at a poker table and sort of seen their soul. Good or bad”.
See you next time!
Posted in Poker Music | amarillo slim, doyle brunson, poker songs, red queen, sinnerman, stacks, viva las vegas, wild bill hickok | Leave a commentSMiLE when you get A4
Published 6 oktober 2010 11:56Last time I showed you the concept of pot control when I played A4 in late position during a tournament in the online casino of Pokerstars (casino.org for more information on internet casinos). I played another such tournament the other day and as a matter of coïncedence I won another nice pot… with A4. However, this time it was suited and I had to play it in early position. So instead of pot control, it’s all about ‘raising on a draw’ today. In the end, I’ll show you what are the best albums of all time in my humble opinion.
Now what happened at the online tables? It was again during those early blind levels and like I said, I get A4 suited under the gun (UTG). A standard move is to limp there, but if you feel you’re on fire, you can as well raise there. I limp and flop a very cheap nut flushdraw. Let’s watch the rest:
The BB leads out with a minimum bet. I raise of course, not only because this bet was a sign of weakness, but also because I hope this guy will slow down on the turn if I don’t catch my diamond. So as a matter of fact, I try again to get the pot control in this hand. Everybody calls, so I know it’s gonna be sweetness when I catch my card. The BB leads out again with a slightly bigger bet and on that moment I hope this guy was also on a diamond draw so I just call so this guy would bet on the river again. As a matter of fact, he made two pair on the turn, but I think I made more chips this way instead of raising him immediately on the turn. You can read more tips on this matter at www.casino.org .
I completed my list of 50 greatest albums of all time meanwhile, and you can check out the list here . As you can see, George Harrison is in there four times, three times with the Fab Four and with the solo album. Animal Collective and Tool are responsible for the albums from the past 10 years and at the top you can find the legendary epic Tull album, right behind ‘DSOTM’ and Brian Wilson’s masterpiece ‘SMiLE’. Discover and enjoy!
Back to Hold’em: pot control
Published 17 september 2010 14:08I hope you enjoyed all the Pot Limit Omaha tips I gave you the past few months. But recently I returned to the mother of all pokergames: No Limit Hold’em. I started to play some tournaments on Pokerstars, just for fun. Great thing is I have the opportunity to listen to all the great music out there meanwhile and that’s why I was also able to update my top 50 of greatest albums of all time.
So I’m completely in tournament mode again and I always love the first blind levels in these tournaments. You can play a lot of hands, trying to get a lot of chips in the beginning of the tournament. Certainly when you’re in late position, your range of hands that can be played is enormous and what’s important in these cases is the fact you’ll have ‘pot control’ after the flop is dealt. I picked out an example for you from the tournament I played yesterday:
So with only one middle postion limper in front of me and me sitting in late position, I like to raise in that spot with an Ace. I get called by the BB and the limper and the flop is perfect for me, as it’s paired. However, the BB calls my continuation bet and another small card comes on the turn. Now, most of the times when you’re called in those spots (with a paired board) it’s likely that your opponent holds a (small or medium) pocket pair and is not very likely to fold. But I have complete control on this pot which makes that he checks the turn towards me, which gives me a free card. I make a wheel with that river and notice the fact you can still extract a nice amount of chips against such hands with a good value bet.
The 50 greatest albums of all time then. I published number 50-25 today and as always you can find them right here . There’s some beautiful psychedelic sixties music of course with Big Brother and the Holding Company and 13th Floor Elevators, two progressive Yes albums from the seventies, the beautiful sitar of Ananda Shankar and on top the amazing White Light/White Heat from the Velvet Underground. Enjoy!
The perfect Omaha call
Published 2 augustus 2010 14:39Hi all, playing some omaha hi again the past couple of days. And did I show you a hand with kings in the hole on the blind last time, this time I will do exactly the same. What’s different this time that’s worth showing you all? This time, I didn’t have the best hand all the time and the ultimate nuts in the end, but I had to make a very good call to win the pot.
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.
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
The Low Stakes Queen!
Published 19 mei 2010 21:07I’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 $5,24. I was on fire in the hu shootout and was able to reach the final hu-table. Pity I didn’t win but finishing 2nd out of 96 is not bad. I was already at the final table in the freeroll at that moment and finished 4/140 over there. A very successful evening 
Now it’s time for the final fifty songs in my top 200 list. First of all, as you can see, there’s a new number one: God Only Knows from The Beach Boys is the best song of all-time at this moment imho. Once more becomes clear that Brian Wilson is the greatest genius ever in pop music, with other songs at places 4,12 and 19. And the new Brian Wilson is already there, with Panda Bear at 7. And we have a new best Beatles song: the brilliant In My Life from Rubber Soul. Enjoy all the magnificent music!
Problems with hand converter…
Published 26 maart 2010 12:54I already mentioned it last time: I have some troubles converting the PLO hands from Cake Poker. Last time, the only problem were the hand histories themselves, who weren’t really compatible with the converter. But as it seems now, the converter doesn’t convert any PLO hands at all anymore… This sucks of course, but the Queen of Diamonds will never disappoint you: I played a 5$ NLHE hu sng especially for you, so I got at least something to show you . And I discovered these heads-up games are also on Cake very entertaining. I mean look at this delicious donkament:
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 .
Running good on Cake
Published 15 februari 2010 18:53Hello there. As far as concerned the profits I’m making, I like Cake Poker. No I LOVE Cake Poker. I think it has been since the period I played a lot of heads-up games per hour that I had such a great profit rate. Only thing that sucks enormously about this room are the hand histories. I wanted to show you two hands from today, but I couldn’t convert one of them at all and the other one is pretty fucked up.
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.