Oh, and I did make one big mistake yesterday in PLO. Well, my read was spot on, but the play was not. I was the preflop agressor, flop was something like T53, giving me a pair and open-ender. I bet from the button, got two callers. Turn was a J bringing in a backdoor flushdraw and it checked around. River was the 8, now the first player bet slightly under pot (like 80). The second player folded, and knowing his tendencies, I am pretty sure that this is a bluff a good percentage of the time. He knows that I almost never have a set or two pair here and he would definately bet with blockers. We were both deep - his bet was like 90 and I had something like 6-700 behind, he covered. So yeah, this is either Q9 or a pure bluff, of which he should have quite a lot. Now, my big problem is that I only have middle pair here, and some of his bluffs will have that beat as well.

Of course, the only correct option is to make it something like 200-250 and just take it down (or just fold and wait for a spot where you actually have it). I don´t think he would put in another bluff raise with blockers here (that would also be quite suicidal in PLO), so basically either he has it and I lose or he doesn´t and I take it down.

So yeah, as for results, I called, saying "I lose to some of your bluffs". He says "one pair". I ask which one. He says "overpair". I say it´s good. He takes it down with QQxx. Thinking back on yesterday, when I got tired (and was stuck) I started playing too passive - not really sure why. One example was in a double board bomb pot where I held QQxxx with two diamonds. One flop was Q65 with hearts, the other I missed completely, only having a backdoor draw. I checked in EP, someone bet like half pot, four players saw the next card. Now I improved to top boat and picked up a backdoor flushdraw on the other board. I check again, player to my left bets something like 50 (half pot), gets two callers and I just call, seeing monsters under my bed. This is such a slam dunk raise, since now I have one board more or less locked up and have also picked up equity on the second board. On the river, my hand gets downgraded to the third nuts as a K hits on the board where I had the boat, my draw bricks, so I check again and it goes check-check-50-call and I call. Should have won more in this spot, not check-raising the turn is criminally bad. One of the players did say he would have paid of a river raise as well (guess he had a smaller boat), but I think that raising with the third nuts on one board and nothing on the other one is over-ambitious.

Half an hour later or so I racked up - fatigue was certainly an issue, as the lack of sleep was setting in and these hands happened around 2:30-3AM. Kind of hard to play these games on weekdays when you are on a standard work/family life schedule.

Hoping For the Best But Expecting the Worst

We are playing a double board bomb pot, which we do every orbit, but this time we are playing Super Texas (NLT with three cards - you can use between 0-2 cards) instead of the usual PLO5, since the button chooses the game. I look down at a pretty sweet hand - A87, suited to the ace. The first flop comes down pretty meh, 972, but the second one is a beauty - Q65 with two hearts, giving me an open ender and a nut flush draw. I am in early position, so with good equity on one board and low-to-none equity on the other, I check. There is a bet and a bunch of callers, so I call as well. The turn improves my hand, as I hit two pair on the first board (972 8) and top pair on the second (Q65 A). I check, it checks to an aggressive player who bets around 100 as it folds to me.

Now, we have some history, we are both active players and although I know that his bet here is never air, it does not necessarily mean a nutted hand as well. I take some time to think about combinations - with only three cards out, my hand is actually very strong, especially if we are heads up. There are very few combinations of hands that I am in trouble against, mainly precisely T66. Of course, hands like AJT and A99 aren't hands I'd like to be up against as well, but the question is if A99 even calls a jam? For some history, in a recent pot I check-raised the same opponent all-in on a 876 board in PLO5 with two hearts where he had three-bet preflop, he ended up reluctantly folding aces after which I showed Ah8h8 (I thought that he wouldn't bet just naked aces on this board, so I thought he had a bigger piece of it - in hindsight I should have just called).

So, he has a bit over 500 left, and I cover. In the end, I decide that this is a spot where I need to jam as there are so few combos that has me in bad shape on both boards, and by jamming I will put a lot of his holdings in tough spots. The player behind me puts his last 100 in, and now the other deepstacked opponent goes in the tank. It looks as though he is about to fold, then he thinks about it some more, and some more, and... finally calls. So we head to the river in this 1500 EUR pot...

***

As I head to the game, I am a bit apprehensive, mainly due to being on a roughly 2000 EUR downswing since returning from Barcelona. As I have played exclusively in 1/1 blind home games, this is quite a lot, but on the other hand the games always play much, much bigger than a 1/1 game, and with a bomb pot each orbit (usually 5 EUR/player) and active straddling, it isn´t really that bad. However, when I played last time I was too passive and chose overly passive routes in certain spots, which in my book is one of the worst mistakes to make. This ensures the worst of both worlds, since you miss value when you have it, and miss this opportunity to take down the pot when you don´t have it or have a draw. As I am driving to the game, I am telling myself that I need to ramp up my aggressivity, even if I start out in the red. Falling into the passivity trap is one of the worst things to do, period.

I stop by at the ATM to take out some more cash, so I have a bit over 1000. I don't really feel comfortable going with less, and being 2000 down in December, I don't feel comfortable losing more than that. I also stop by to pick up some alcohol free beers, so I have something to drink while I play which isn't water. As I park my car and enter the building where the game is held, I remind myself to try to play good and aggressive poker.

***

"I have two pair on the top board", I say, and flip over the eight and the seven, "and the nut flush on the other board". The short stack to my left turns over 66 for a set on the top board, but he is of lesser interest to me - I am interested in the hand of the player with the big stack and the 1200 EUR side pot. He takes a look at the board, takes a look at his hand, shows AQ for top two on the board where I hit my flush and mucks his cards. Boom!

As the pot is shipped my way, I am feeling happy. Finally I am hitting some hands. Finally some real rungood in big spots.

***

The game has evolved, or maybe degenerated is the better word?, into a bomb-pot only game, with the button choosing the stakes - 5 or 10 EUR per person. We are now only five players left (although the second table, playing NLT only, is still full). It is a quarter past two in the night, I have announced that I will leave at 3 AM, and I am sitting on this beauty of a stack:


I am in for 450 in total, and am now sitting on nearly 2k in chips. With a win this big - a win that also ofsets most of my losses from the previous sessions - I am not really in the mood to gamble in marginal spots, so I basically tighten up. My fabulous run of cards is slowly ending as well, which of course helps - it is much easier not to get involved in big pots when you flop something like middle pair, no draw on one board, and bottom two on a board with three to a flush and three to a straight. Check, check, check, fold, fold fold. I do manage to lose a few smaller pots, then I pick up a bigger pot when I make the nut flush on the turn and get the only caller to fold to a pot bet on the river. Having the button with the nuts on one board in double board play is a nice feeling - you basically just bomb it and hope to fold out the chop.

Time passes and I announce that I will leave after my button. My stack is still very healthy. The first hand, I fold on the flop. The second hand actually gets checked through to the river, where I fold to some action since I have jack **** on both boards. Last hand now. I peel some rags, but rags are fine if you hit the flop. The dealer opens the first board, and I look at my cards again. Is this really happening? Yes, it is. The dealer puts out the second board. Really? I double-check my cards again, and, yes, I didn't misread my hand - I have nothing on both boards, no draws, no hope, no outs, so I fold to the first bet and cash out for 1860 EUR in total, a cool 1400 EUR in winnings.

It feels nice to end this poker year with a large winning session (there's a game tomorrow but I'll skip it), and finishing the year in the green when it comes to poker. Wish all the (few, if any) readers of this blog a great New Year!

I liked your instinct to raise that hand when you thought he was bluffing. Keep it up. Happy new year!

Same to you - hope you keep your impressive results up for 2023 as well!

Oh, one fun hand from yesterday. It was a bomb pot, I had J9942, there was no action on the flop or turn, but the river brought me good cards - one board was something like 64324, the other something like QJ635 - so basically I rivered a non-nut boat and the second nut straight. I don´t remember the details, but I checked, one player bet and then I check-raised to something like 100 or so. He tanks, asks me, "Will you show if I fold?"
I take a look at my cards. "Nah."
He thinks a little bit more, then I say "I will show you three cards if you fold. But these two only if you pay for it."
He asks, "Will you show the other three cards right now if I give you 10 EUR?"
I, of course, take him up on his offer. He flips me a chip, I turn over J99.
"Those cards don´t say anything about your hand", he says.
"I know", I reply and smile.

He thinks for a while longer and then makes the call. I scoop. So not only did I get max value, but also 10 EUR on top.

The game yesterday was good, and in general I feel that a lot of the players are quite clueless in double board bomb pots, and also PLO5 in general. Oftentimes they are on the passive side as well, which is great, since it allows me too see more flops and basically dictate the price of poker. A great example was in a double board bomb pot where I flopped the nut flush on one board, and like nothing, or a pair, on the second. I bet on the flop, got like four callers. I bet on the turn, got two callers. I bet on the river and got two callers again. The caller that lost on both boards called me down with the second nut flush and some crap on the other board, so I got great value. I didn´t go big on any street, but still.

Of course, sometimes this works against you as well. Later on in the session in PLO5 the flop came with three spades, I had the As for the nut blocker. It was checked to be, and I potted on three streets - 7, 28, 112. On the flop and turn I got two callers, on the river I got tank-called by someone with a low flush. Another guy commented that "it´s either the nuts or the blocker", and personally, given my table image, I probably don´t mind that call that much although I will have it more often than not with this line against these players, but man, is the comment regarding the nuts or blocker wrong. Of course, I didn´t say anything, but there is like no chance in hell that I don´t pot three streets with a K flush and probably also a Q flush in this spot, at least against players who I don´t suspect will check-raise me big with just the naked ace.

Yesterday the game was actually really fun, good table, good banter, good action. Maybe the fact that I won big also factors in when it comes to my perception of the game, it is after all much more fun to win than to lose...

The New Year will be here in three hours (in our timezone). Not going to make any resolutions (no use in them anyway) but when it comes to poker I really should start a spreadsheet to track my results. I am pretty sure I am in the green for 2022, but no idea by how much - a ballpark estimate is something like 1-2k EUR, but could also be less, doubt that it's more. I am no pro, nor do I aspire to be one, but I really should keep better track of results going forward.

Here's to a good and hopefully more peaceful 2023!

The First Session of 2023

Snow is falling as I drive to my first session of 2023 and I am thinking about money and how funny it is that I was upset over a misunderstanding that cost a measly four euro earlier this evening. The place where I go swimming had a campaign, if you bought a membership for the whole of 2023 you got a quite big discount and also free parking, so I went ahead and invested 592 EUR in my health. So far, so good. I called ahead and asked about parking, and the lady said that it will be activated when I activate my membership. So I picked up my son at kindergarten, drove to the swimming pool and parked my car.

And when I activated my subscription, it turns out that I can't get free parking for this day since I have already entered the car park, which has an automatic system that reads the licence plates. I say that over the phone I was told to just go here and that they'll fix it, the lady apologises but says that there is no way to activate the free parking for my car if my car is already inside. She offers me a solution: leave the car park, wait outside for a few minutes and then drive back in. As this would mean that my son would be late for his swimming class, this is not really an option, so I decide to take the loss and pay for the parking on my way out.

So, I am driving out to a poker game, 1000 EUR in my pocket, but it still irks me that I had to pay four euro for parking. Kind of weird, I am in no ways nitty when it comes to spending and living life - quite the contrary. So why am I pissed about this?

I don´t find an answer to this question as I pull up into the parking lot, ready to do some gambling for the first time in 2023.

***

I start off well and am a couple hundred. The biggest pot I won so far was easy money - I had raised QQJ9 in PLO (J9 of diamonds) on the button and got a million callers, as is the norm in this game. The flop is more than wonderful - QT4, with QT of diamonds. So I flop top set with a straight flush draw - can´t ask for much more than that, can you? It checks to me and I pot it for 49, folds around to a player who jams for 160, I snap him off and instantly show my hand. The runout goes blank-eight, and my nut straight is good. But then I lose a big one.

One of the few aggressive players - on the LAG side for sure, usually a winner but has huge swings - opens big, to something like 35 from the first straddle, after a limp or two. I am on the second straddle (this hand is playing 1/1/2/4), we are playing my least favourite game - Crazy Pineapple. I can play regular Texas, I can play three-card Texas, but Crazy Pineapple - where you have to discard one of your cards on the flop - is basically the worst of both worlds. Anyway, I look down at QQ2 rainbow and although this is usually a hand I would raise with, I am not too thrilled to do so in this spot, since we are playing 600 EUR deep and my hand is quite trashy if a lot of money goes in. So, I just call as does another player.

The flop smashes my range - it comes down 875 with two spades (I hold the two of spades, so I have one flushdraw blocker). The preflop agressor now continues with a bet of 25, which I raise to 75. I am basically turning my hand into a bluff right away, since it´s a great board for my range and a shitty one for his considering his opening size. Nonetheless, he calls. Turn is the four of spades, putting four to the straight on the board and completing the flush draw. He checks, I play it just like I would if I had it and bet something like 140, but after a bit of thought he ****ing jams on me, putting me all-in. I have a tad over 300 behind and there is of course no way that I am calling this bet. He probably made the flush with an Ax type of hand, or chose to turn something along the lines of AA with the As into a bluff, knowing that it is hard for me to call off here, and that I would not have an easy call also with smaller flushes.

Oh, well. Reload time.

***

After a while we decided that the button can also choose to play a double board bomb pot with all players posting a 5 EUR ante (otherwise we play bomb pots one per orbit), so the game is now basically 80% PLO5 bomb pots, 18% other game bomb pots and 2% normal hands. Suits me fine. Anyway, this next one is interesting, and I actually quite like my play. I don't quite recall the action, but I think the flop checked through and on the turn a player bet quite small - I had two pair and a gutshot to the non-nut straight on one board, and a flushdraw and straight draw on the other board, and we went to the river three-handed. On the river, one board was QJTxx (not in that order - if I recall correctly, the queen came on the river), and on the other board my flush hit - a jack high flush, which, given the board and the cards out, was the second nuts, only the queen high flush beating me. On the first board I had crappy two pair with JT, on the second the second nut flush.

The player who bet the turn bet out small, like 30 into 100 or something along those liens, which made me 90% sure that he had a medium-strength hand, maybe something like the sucker straight on one board and two pair on the other, or something like that. One caller and it is back to me. Now, I could just call, expecting to chop the pot, but here I feel that the correct play is potting - the player who called should have the nut flush like never, since he did not raise with only one player left to act, and I need to apply pressure and keep my opponents guessing. So I pot it, don't recall the exact sizes but pot was a tad over 200. First player reluctantly folds, second player snap-calls so I expect to chop.

And then he show QTx for the nut flush and better two pair to scoop the pot. Wtf? Such a weird play, especially not jamming over my raise since he is guaranteed half the pot. Okay, if he jams I would fold anyway, since he plays on the tighter side and he is not the type of player who would jam here with less than a monster, but why someone would first just cold-call a small bet with the nuts on one board and only one player behind, and then only call a pot-sized raise, is beyond me. And no, rake isn't an issue, this game plays with a 5 EUR cap. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on this - obviously I was wrong in figuring that my second nut flush is the effective nuts, but I still think that jamming here should be the best play. But maybe I'm wrong?

So, yeah, I lose a big one and then I proceed to lose another one which I don't really remember, and then I reload for 500 more since I am not about to sit shallow in this game. Go big or go home.

***

For the next few hours my stack fluctuates in the 400-600 range. Not much going on, missing a lot of boards and bomb pots aren't really the place where you will run multi-street bluffs into the field. I do pick up some steam when I pick up AAQQx double suited in a pot, flop top set on one board and a nut flush draw on the other, bet the flop and get quite a lot of callers, turn brings in the straight on the board where I have my set and pairs the board where I have the draw (just lovely, eh), so I check and it either gets checked around or someone bets really small (don't remember), but on the river I make quads on one board. I chose to check, expecting a bet from somewhere, and I got a 50 EUR bet from the player to my left. Folds around to me and I pot it, after tanking for a long time he folds and I scoop quite a big one. Maybe aces up would be good for the scoop, maybe not, but I was happy to get a fold.

Then came my biggest win of the night. The first board was T97 with two hearts, the second board 553. I look down at an absolute monster - AJ865 with nut hearts. So I flop the nut straight with a redraw to the flush on one board, and trips with top kicker on the second board. Checks to me and I bet, get called, then a player jams his last 150 or so, I just call, the player on my left has something like 300 behind and jams, I call. The runout on the first board could have been better, as it comes QA, bringing in possible higher straights, but on the second board I boat up twice - first on the 6 turn and then on the J river. My hand is good for the scoop against A5xxx for the player on my left and unknown hand for the other player.

One of the guys I stacked wires me 200 EUR and the table agrees that I give him chips from my stack, so now I am only in for 800 total, and sitting on a stack of around 1000. I was actually supposed to leave after this hand (which I had announced previously), but after winning such a pot I decided to stick around for another half an hour or so, although it was 3 AM and I knew I had to be up by 8 AM.

***

The penultimate hand was also quite interesting. I had 99 (don't recall the other cards). Flop checked around, on the turn there was a small bet and a number of callers, and on the river the first board was KJ9KJ, the second something like 76278. One player bet 20, got a caller behind, and now the button potted it to 165. Button is the LAG previously mentioned in the Crazy Pineapple hand, and I am pretty sure he has the nuts on one board. The question is just which one? As I block nines pretty hard, and as the board blocks the boats on the first board, I actually assume there's a good chance he is playing the second board. The player who bet I am not too worried about, he has less than the bet left, and if he had the nuts somwhere he would have bet bigger. The caller I know I have beat on one board.

So I tank-call. The original raiser folds, now the next player goes into the tank and finally overcalls. Now my nemesis flips over an absolute monster - KKJ88. Wow. Turned quads, rivered top boat. The player who overcalled had the straight on the top board, and I assume he had at least a piece of the second board as well. Sucks to run into such a hand and I should have just folded. I have like nothing invested in this pot and am calling for a chop, so I need to get overcalled by worse quite a lot to make this call worthwile. This was poor play from my side, but it almost 4 AM, I was leaving in two hands, and managed to talk myself into losing most of my profit on a stupid call.

***

I head to the car park and haphazardly clean the snow off of the car windows. It´s snowing massively, the weather forecast wasn´t wrong, but I can´t be assed cleaning the roof and the bonnet thoroughly, since I´ll have to do it again in a few hours when I drive my son to kindergarten. As it is 4 AM, the roads are covered in snow and ice, the driving conditions are quite extreme, but I like it. Don´t know why, but for some reason I like driving in such conditions. Doesn´t make me scared or anything.

As I plough my way home I once again have mixed feelings over my session. I am happy to book a win for the first session of the year - in for 1000, out for 1110, for an hourly rate of nearly 17 EUR - but at the same time I am pissed, since the win should have been nearly 200 EUR more if I just ****ing fold my umpteenth nuts in that ****ing hand. I do feel that my overall play has improved a lot in the past months, which is positive, and playing in this game should yield good results over the long term. The drawback is that this game usually runs on Wednesdays, and since I have to be up for work and family stuff, I get very little sleep after these games. And the casino still only spreads NLT, and still is reg-infested and oftentimes nitty, but sometimes the 5/5 on weekends is really good (at least according to players that have played there). Of course, those times it´s often hard to get a seat and the waiting lists are long, and by the time you get a seat the game might just as well be a regular nitfest again, and the casino also has other drawbacks such as killing time playing table games/slots while waiting - at least here my inner degen is confined to just poker.

So yeah, for now I guess I´ll stick to this game. Anyway, feels good to start 2023 with a W, albeit a small one.

On Confidence

Confidence helps in a lot of aspects of life but at the same time there is a fine balance between being confident and acting accordingly, and being over-confident to the point of stubborn refusal to look reality in the eye. In a way poker exacerberates this - an over-confident losing player will refuse to acknowledge his losing ways, instead ascribing them to external factors. A brilliant example of this is the Paisting thread in this forum. But at the same time an over-confident winning player will, sooner or later (as he moves up the stakes and/or faces better opposition), start to lose (or at least win less) due to the failure of looking at things objectively. Thinking that you are God´s gift to poker (or other aspects of life) is rarely productive.

However, you have to play with confidence, otherwise your play will inevitably suffer. And this is where I think I largely failed in December. I mean, Barcelona was okay, the games were bad, except for the first night my play in PLO was bad (should've stuck to NLT - playing full ring PLO against nitty players isn't really a game where I'll have any edge whatsoever), and when I got home, I had a huge losing session, dropping something along the lines of 1500 EUR in one night in the 1/1 game I play. Yeah, it plays much bigger, there are a lot of bomb pots, and I did run really bad, however in the next sessions I didn't play as aggressive as I should, and this was probably due to a lack of confidence.

What made the hammer come down was writing one of these blog posts, where I included the hand where I called down in PLO with just a shitty pair because I thought there was a good chance my opponent was running a bluff in this spot. I was right, but his overpair turned his bluff into a value bet. The only right play is raising, of course, but this made me realise that my play hadn't been optimal the entire month, which was made worse by running bad (I mean, I did lose AAx vs AK7 all-in preflop in Crazy Pineapple in a 1500 EUR pot - pots like these make a huge difference for the bottom line).

In the last session of the year, I made a profit of 1400 EUR, erasing most of my December losses. And I did feel differently playing - I was making confident moves based on the information that I had, trying to figure out the best move for the spot in question. Of course, I did run good, scooping a 1500 EUR bomb pot in a spot where I got it in good, but still needed to hit one of my 15-or-so outs on one of the boards and dodge the opponents 4+ outs on the other. However, if it had been in the previous session, I most likely would have just called on the turn instead of re-raising all-in, and then my opponent would most likely have folded the river as he had two pair on the board where I made my flush and I doubt he would call a 500+ jam on a river with just two pair on one board and worse than two pair (my middle two held there against him) on the other board, even though this was Super Texas and not PLO. So I would have split the main pot with the shortstack for a profit of maybe 150 EUR instead of 5-600.

When I went to play this week I reminded myself of this, and that I need to keep my confidence levels up - and it worked out fine. Of course, there was some rungood (as in hitting one of my nine outs on one board for the scoop against an opponent in a big pot where we both had A5xxx on 553 with me having one of the boards almost locked up with a straight), but without some rungood in big pots no confidence in the world will make you win.

Now, just for some context, I am not sure that I am even a break-even player. Based on how a lot of the other players play in this game, I should be a winner, but I have no results to back it up with. Last year I think I made a profit, having a huge 5k score in spring probably ensured that, but the yearly profit wasn't large in any case - perhaps 1000 EUR or so. I have made a resolution to log my results this year, hopefully I won't slack off on this front, and I probably shouldn't since I just made a simple Google spreadsheet which I can access from my phone as well, but still. I might be a gambling degenerate loser who tries to convince himself that he can turn a profit in poker. Who knows, it's just a hobby anyway, but it would be nice to have a hobby that brings some cash in instead of bleeding my pocket dry.

I guess we'll see in which direction it points after a few months.

Played from 9 PM-4 AM last night. Managed to lose 250 EUR due to some bad calls and some bad spots, and some bad play early on in the session, when I just couldn't hit a hand and they had it every time I called a river bet. Probably were bluffing the times I folded I guess. Was in for 1000 total and in my lowest point I was down to something like 250, and I caught myself going into passive mode, luckily before calling off all of my chips - so I switched gears and started to play poker again. There were some fun hands, biggest pot I won was the following:

PLO5, I am in the 16 straddle (1/1/2/4/8/16) - we were nine-handed at this time, so when someone chose PLO5 as a game, we had a rule that you either straddle or sit out until at least one person sits out. Anyway, the person to my left chooses not to straddle to 32, there are a couple of limpers and I look down at a monster - K7532, single suited to one of the low cards. However, since noone raised I get to check my option and I get the best flop I could ask for with this trash hand: K64r. I flop a 16-card wrap on a rainbow board. It checks to me and I choose to lead to thin the field a bit, fold out some random gutshots and ****, I bet something like 40 or 50 into 80. A tight player on the button jams for something like 110, and the player two to my right now tank-calls this three-bet, so with the chance to re-open the action and see both cards I jam for something like 550 total. The cold-caller tanks and then says something along the lines of **** it and puts his chips in, I barely cover him. Turn is a queen, river is a five, completing the backdoor flush. The player who jammed shows top set, I say I have a straight, the other big stack mucks and my hand is good for a huge pot that takes me back in the green. Not sure what he called my jam with on the flop, maybe middle set or something like that?

An orbit later I did give back quite a lot of chips, I was once again in the 16 straddle in PLO5, but this time I looked down at a monster - AA877ds, double suited to both aces. So after a bunch of limpers I pot it, to 90-something if I recall correctly, and get two callers. Flop is KQx, a short stack jams his last 100, second player folds, and although I hate this board, I have double backdoor nut flush draws so I don't think that I can fold this one getting 1:4 odds. It's close, but as long as his entire jamming range isn't just sets, I think it's a call. We run it twice and I lose both boards against KK.

Then there was an interesting hand where I am quite torn whether I played it right or not. I was on the button in PLO5, flop was A72r. I think it checked through but maybe there was a small bet and some callers. Turn was the four of diamonds, putting two diamonds on the board. I had A53, with A5 of diamonds, so I turned the nuts with a flush draw to go with it. Now one of the better players at the table bet out for 26, which was roughly 2/3 pot, and got a call behind. Back to me and here I got greedy and chose to go for a small raise in order to string both players along - I made it 78 to go and they both called. River was one of the worst cards I could imagine, the five of hearts, so now the board was A7245 and my straight just got a major downgrade, and I now face a 170 EUR river bet. The opponent is one of the few players who knows how to utilise blockers and bet scare cards, so he does not need the nuts here, and there are not really that many combos he should have that plays like this - so I basically say, ****, you hade some god dawn 865 combo or something like that? And then I tank some more. And finally call, only to be shown the exact combo I called out (with a diamond draw as well). Given that I hold the nut flush draw in my hand, I think this might actually be a fold, although for around a half pot bet on the river against this player it really is a close call.

One of the worst plays I made followed soon. A quite tight player raises UTG preflop to 8, a bunch of callers and I defend the straddle. Flop has two diamonds, checks around. Turn is another diamond, checks around. I have the J-high diamond flush, which is the third nuts since the king of diamonds is on the board. On the river the SB bets out 15, I call, now the preflop aggressor makes it 75. I have a feeling that there is a good chance he is doing this with the Ad blocker. Buuuuut... now the button (same player from the hand above) tanks for a couple of minutes and then cold-calls. Original bettor folds, it's back to me and I have a clear fold with the third nuts, but here I level myself into thinking that the button also knows he might be doing this with blockers and that my call is weak and... yeah, basically I just threw away 60 EUR. Turns out that UTG had the nut flush, button second nut flush, I had the third nut flush and the person who bet the river had the fourth nut flush - so 11 out of 13 diamonds were accounted for among our four hands. But yeah, this was hands down the worst play of the night.

Shortly after someone asks for a lap om bomb pots ("I need to leave soon, let's do a lap of bomb pots"), which turns the game into a game of almost exclusively PLO5 double board bomb pots for the last two hours that I played. Unfortunately, I was completely card dead, so I bled off some money and rarely made it past the turn (although mostly I had to fold already on the flop).

All in all I am not too dissatisfied with the result (could have been much worse), however I did not play well. Without stupid calls like the one above with the third nuts, I would have had a break even session, now I lost 250. And I have gotten like four hours of sleep, so I am tired and cranky today. Oh, well...

Go with your gut buddy! keep it up.

The Choices of a Gambling Man

I go down to the car park together with two other players, who are going for a smoke break.
"Are you sure you are going to leave? The game is great!", one of them says.
"I brought a thousand and I lost it, I´m out of cash, so yeah, I´m going home", I reply.
"I have cash in case you want to keep playing. Maybe you´ll win it back."

He offers me a way back in the game. As we are walking towards the door, I consider my options. Yeah, I am down 1000, but it is early - just half past midnight - and I haven´t really been playing that bad or tilting. But I did go to the game with the intention of not losing more than 1000 EUR. But the game is great, today it is much more aggressive than usual and there is a ton of action. I vape, the other two players smoke, we chat a bit and I make my decision.

"Can you give me 500? I´ll wire it to you right away."
"Sure. But don´t wire it, if you lose just give it back to me in cash some other day."

***

The game started out in aggressive style, but it started out pretty poorly for me. I bought in for 250, quickly reloaded for another 100 after losing a pot, and then I lost another one where I made the second best hand and couldn´t find a fold on the river (story of my life). So I just took out the rest of my cash and reloaded again. I see a lot of players on these games who buy in for 100-200 and then reload the same amount, sometimes they do this 4-5 times per night or more, and I really don´t understand it. I mean, maybe it makes sense if you just want to play for a longer amount of time, but financially I fail to see any reason at all - if you are in for, lets say 400 EUR, and reload for 200 and double up you are still in the red. If you lose and reload for another 200 you need to double twice to break even. But if you reload bigger you can win it all back in one hand. I don´t know, just seems quite senseless to me.

Anyway, after my reload I keep bleeding chips. As always, after a few hours someone suggests that the button should be allowed to also choose double board bomb pots as the game, and as always the table agrees although there is one or two players who aren´t too thrilled about this - however, none of them want to switch over to the NLT table instead. This, of course, means that the bomb pots get progressively more common - first maybe 1-2 per orbit, then 3-4 and at the end of the night the game is 90% bomb pots.

Personally I quite like this, especially as stacks get deeper. I´ve noticed that quite a lot of the players don´t consider things like bet-to-pot ratio but look at the money involved instead. Therefore they will often play more and more incorrectly as the bets get larger. Of course, this applies not only to bomb pots, however since bomb pots exclude the option of folding preflop and since you often will have a piece of at least one board, I actually feel that this - despite the SPR going down a bit (but not by much) I feel that double board PLO5 bomb pots are probably the game where I probably have the highest edge versus the field.

However, bomb pots aren´t fun when you are on the bad side of variance. I get it in against two players on the turn with nuts on one board and a small flush draw on the other board and lose on both boards, as one board pairs up and the second board bricks out (turns out that my baby flush draw was live) and I am down to crumbs - something like 250 left, although I am in for 1000 EUR.

Pretty soon it is GG for me as we play a variation of PLO/NLT, where you are dealt four hole cards and discard two after the flop. For the first two streets the game is played pot limit, for the next two streets it is NL. I open something like AQJ9ss over a couple of straddles and calls, another player three-bets, we go four players to a flop of Axx with two diamonds. It checks to me and I jam my last 200ish, get a call from the preflop aggressor, I keep my AQ, we run it twice, diamonds hit on both boards and he flips T7 of diamonds for the scoop.

***

I sit back down at the table with my freshly loaned 500 EUR. And finally I get off to a decent start, I stack a shorter stack in a pot where I had him dominated. And now the game flow completely changes - in all those hands where I bet the flop with good two-board equity only to get called in a bunch of spots and be forced to fold when the turn cards hit I know start to hit my hands instead. Unfortunately, I have quite bad recall from the second part of the game yesterday. I was playing a lot of hands, quite a lot of big spots, and I didn´t take notes because I was so into the game at this point, trying my best to claw myself out of the hole I had gotten into.

IThere was a spot where I flopped the nut straight on one board and a usually useless flush draw on the other board (something like five high) and I bet out, only go get something like four callers. On the turn the board paired where I had my straight, but I did hit my baby flush. I checked it, a player who seemed to be tilting (was up something like 500 EUR but was at this moment stuck something like 500 - when I left he was stuck for over 1k) bet and I chose to call. On the river he bet once again, but not too big, something like 70 into 200, so I had to look him up and to my surprise I scooped the pot.

In another spot I had an absolute monster, AAQQ7, but semi-missed both boards. However, the board setup was such that any set I hit would be the nuts on the turn, and I also had backdoor draws, and if I hit my set against someone who is playing only one board I have the chance to scoop him even without improving - so I called on the flop. Binked a queen on one of the boards on the turn, now one of the smaller stacks jammed for something like 90, another stack behind him put his last 150 in, and a big stack to my right cold-called the bet. So, decision time for me - do I re-pot it all-in or choose the low variance route? I opted for the low variance route, see the river and evaluate, since both boards were scary and if I jam and get called, I doubt that I will have a chance to scoop. Of course, this means that a part of the time I might be forced to fold the best hand on the river, but in double-board games it generally isn´t too good of an idea to pile in massive amounts of chips with good equity on only one board. The river made my decision easy, since I rivered quads, so when it checked to me I jammed and didn´t get a call. Split the main pot with the shortest stack and scooped the small side pot. Oh, there was another fun one where I had KJ2 in Super Texas, one flop was Kxx and the other Q9x. I bet and got a bunch of callers, and super-binked the turn with a K on one board and a T on the other. I checked it, there was a bet from EP and three or four callers, so I jammed over the top - unfortunately for me, I didn´t get any takers.

At 3AM I am slightly above break even and feeling good, however I am also getting tired and I know I have to be up early for work, so I announce that I will be leaving in half an hour. Another player says that he´ll also call it a night then. As my final hands approach, I am still in the green, feeling massively good about having turned a 1k loss into profit. I announce that my button will be the last hand that I play, and although I basically intend to fold it, I hit top set on one board and a straight draw on the other board. Action goes bet-call-call-call, and now I have a decision to make. As my top set was quite vulnerable (99 on something like 962), I took a look at the remaining stacks of the players who were still in the hand - one of them had something like 7-800, but the others were at something like 300-400 max, so I decided to just pot it, which turns out to be 291 EUR in total. The shortest stack of them all to my left calls of his last 100, the other players fold, and we split the pot as my set holds up.

I cash out 1920 EUR in total for a profit of 420 EUR. What a crazy game.

***

This time the decision to stay and play was the correct one for the gambling man.

Another great story. Thanks!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Keep the stories coming, my favourite thread here by far, you have a knack for writing these things up

Thanks! Comments like these make me want to keep it up. Luckily (?) for me, I've always been a better writer than poker player.

Unfortunately my wife is working on Wednesday night, so won't be able to make my regular game. Probably will play on Friday instead - not sure yet what games will be running, there probably will be a 1/1 w/ bomb pots and straddles going at another venue, or maybe if I feel lucky I'll scope out the Nit Limit Holdem game at the casino (on weekends they spread 5/5 and 5/10 NLT).

The Degeneracy Strikes Again

"Are you sure you should play tonight? You´ve been sick, you´ve slept little, it really doesn´t sound like a good idea", my wife tells me while we are having dinner - for once just the two of us, since my mother has taken our kids to a play.
"Yeah, I´ll be fine", I reply, although I am tired alreday and I know that she is right.

I do have an ace up my sleeve though. I know that the games for the past few days have been running into the early morning, next day and sometimes even into the next evening and morning. Of course, these sessions are fuelled by cocaine. And what better way to clean your nostrils than through insufflating an illegal substance for recreational purposes?*

***

I arrive after 10 PM, and the game is five-handed. I am a bit worried, since I don´t see any of the faces that usually use coke while playing, however I immediately proceed to ask about the cocaine situation and get a negative reply. Now, that kind of sucks, but I don´t worry about it much - guess I´ll just play a shorter session then and go home when the fatigue becomes overwhelming. I managed to catch a ****ing cold again and this is the first day feeling somewhat okay. I still have a slight cough and nasal congestion, but at least I did sleep somewhat decently this night, which was not the case the previous nights - I never sleep well with my nose clogged up.

Add to that the problems of being an adult - that you have a cold doesn´t entitle you to just laying in bed, working from home and ordering take-out for every single meal. No, you still have to get the kids to/from kindergarten/school/swimming and football practice and all that other stuff. You still have to play with them in the evenings, check that the kid in school has done her homework, do all that kind of stuff. My wife had a quite busy work schedule as well, so I couldn´t push the responsibility over to my wife this week.

However, I really wanted to play this Friday, since next week will be poker-free as my wife travels with a friend to Holland next Tuesday to celebreate her birthday, and on Friday we are leaving for Switzerland for a childfree weekend, and the week after I go to Sweden on Friday, so no poker until that Saturday. At least hopefully not, I am meeting up with childhood friends on Friday, and ending up in the casino or poker club that night might be a financially extremely poor choice.

I start of as usual - by getting stuck. I don´t remember the details, but I am in the game for around 900 when two twings happen: a cocaine fanatic arrives and soon after a guy brings a gram of coke. So now we are all sorted with regards to the dope. Soon afterwards I win a big pot, I flopped bottom set in PLO, action went bet-call-allin from a player with 150 or so left, I just call and then the first caller pushes (same guy I am sharing the gram of coke with) for 400, and after tanking for a long while I call. On the river, the top card pairs the board but surprisingly my hand is good against both players, who were on a draw. Now I am in for 900, sitting on 1300, and feeling absolutely ****ing brilliant.

***

My judgement is crushed to pieces, as I also start consuming beer, and start to lose. First I just run awfully - I get it in decent, but lose. So I head to the ATM and withdraw 2000 EUR when I bust. And my judgement is getting worse and worse by the minute, although I am feeling unbelievably good. At the table I felt that the coke wasn´t top notch, was decent but not more, however in retrospect I have to say that it was pretty damn good. That I only thought it decent just tells how awful my judgement was at the time.

My second buy-in I lose when I make a big multi-street bluff. The spot itself was pretty decent, I had called a flop bet, and I check-raised big on the turn when I picked up additional equity with a backdoor flush draw. The river paired the lowest card, and I went for it as I had said up the turn sizing so I would have precisely a pot bet left. However, my opponent tanks forever, so I guess he has a boat, and unfortunately, after tanking for ages, he decides to call with the third nuts as he is only losing to top set and four of a kind, with four of a kind being unlikely - who in their right mind check-raises big with bottom set on the turn? Maybe should have given up with the board pairing though this is a bluff which I find not too awful even when sober. And if I was sober I might have actually gotten it through, I guess that my condition (and the hyper-aggressive play that followed from it) was a big factor in his decision-making.

***

I look at the time. Boy, time flies when you are feeling great. It´s 5:30 AM and I really should leave at 6, 6:30 at the latest, since my wife will be up at 7 to get ready for work. Not being home then would be massively -EV. I am stuck around 2k at this time and the time pressure is getting to me - I am playing extremely aggressively, however I can´t make a hand, so this isn´t paying off. At this point I am in a really weird place - mentally, I am feeling just amazing, can´t remember when I last felt so good, however at the same time I am tilting quite hard. That´s such a weird combo, normally being in an amazing place mentally ensures non-tilted play. Isn´t it interesting what substances do to our minds?

I lose some more when I check-raise 96s on the river in NLT, only to get tank-called by bottom set. The board was scary and I could very well have a straight here (which I had a blocker for), but in the end I have top pair against a set and lose again. Now I am down to something like 400, the clock is ticking, so I ask the table to play PLO5 double board bomb pots until I leave, which is very soon (I should already have left by now). At this point I am down to potting it blind when UTG, but... I can't make a hand. And when I do, I get ****ed over anyway - I bet top two with AK on one board with a monster draw (wrap+NFD) on the other, get called. Pot it OTT, get called. On the river, I blank out my draw and the last card completes straight and flush draws on the other board. So I check, my opponent pots it, I can't call it off with just two pair on one board hoping to chop, so I fold. Final hand, my taxi is already waiting for me, I am down to 250. I flop a boat on one board (553) and a pair+straight draw on the other, I pot, get called. On the turn I jam, get called. River blanks on one board, completes the flush draw on the other, so he scoops with a five that boated up OTT and a flush draw that hits.

I leave 2900 EUR down, my biggest loss in a long, long time. I mean, I can afford it, although it sucks to lose so much, especially since it means that my bankroll for my Sweden trip will be much lower than I would have wanted - I guess I'll have to make due with something like 1-1,5k or so. And if I lose that I won't be able to just buy in for 1k in games and shrug it off (or reload) if losing for a while, since we have expensive vacations coming up (two weeks on the Canary Islands in March - with four people travelling it adds up to quite a lot).

***

"Where the **** are you? Why aren't you home???" reads a text from my wife.
"Don't worry, I'm in a cab, I'll be home in five", I reply.

I go straight to bed, but can't sleep - not surprisingly, as stimulants tend to have such an effect on people. As I lie in my bed, I still feel great, despite of me tilting away massive amounts of cash while high. "Oh well", I think to myself while trying to fall asleep since I have to be up in no more than two hours, "the degen can't win everytime!"

* Of course, as always, all of the above is just a made-up story, a figment of my imagination, as I would never partake in any activities involving illicit substances.

On a More Serious Note

That I go on tilt and punt off a massive amount in a few hours of course isn't something that I'm really comfortable doing. This just means that it is even more important than ever to play poker only sober - driving a car to and from the games is the best way to ensure that I won't go off the rails again. The money lost itself isn't that big of an issue - what it basically means is that if I don't run good in the near future, playing slightly bigger games and/or always buying in deep will be impossible for at least a couple of months. Considering the big life expenses I have coming up (two weekends abroad in February, family trip to Canary Islands in March), I won't really be able to afford to drop significant amounts of cash on a poker table. Of course, it could be a lot worse - in my youth there were times when I basically lost my entire life money in a weekend of drunkenness shortly after getting my salary. This time the money just puts a dent in my spending budget.

And, of course, it sets me back for my upcoming Sweden trip. My original plan was to bring something like 2-3k or so, with more money as backup on my bank card, but now I will have to limit my bankroll for the trip to something like 1-1,5k. So basically this means playing slightly lower limits than intended, no shot-taking on high limit PLO this time. Of course, I only have one day set aside for playing, since my main goal is to hook up with a couple of childhood friends, but still. It would have been nice to not be so limited bankroll wise.

Even though it may not seem this way from reading my last blog entry, I do feel that I have most of my degenerate tendencies in a tight enough rein. With regards to drugs I think I have smoked weed three-four times and done cocaine three times during the past year. Hardly qualifies as a major hazard. Of course, coke is a drug you need to be extremely careful with, it has a major addiction potential since the upsides are so great and the downsides are quite small as long as you use it rarely and recreationally. However, this also makes it dangerous, and I totally understand how people get so addicted to it. Feel worn out and crappy? Nervous before that big work presentation? Just go to the toilet, do a line, and you'll ****ing be on top of the world again.

I do have to be careful with everything addictive though. I am a natural-born addictive personality. I have had problems with addictions all my life. Curiously enough, never with drugs. But gambling? Hell, yeah. Alcohol? Well, sometimes when I read old blog entries from something like 20 years ago (when I was 20) I wonder how the **** I am still alive today. I was so extremely self-destructive back then. With age, this self-destructiveness has largely gone away, and after quitting alcohol gambling is basically my only vice. And if I gave up gambling, I'm pretty sure that I'd replace it with something. Some other high-risk activity that would give me some kicks.

The problem is that although I am quite satisfied with my mundane upper middle-class life, it's never going to be enough to keep me satisfied. Nothing ever is, I always need something more. And this "more" isn't money - if I wasn't so lazy, I'd probably earn way more money than I do (and I am well off), but why on earth would I want to fight and work 12-16 hours each day just to be able to take more expensive vacations in the future when I am content as it is? And this, never being able to be completely content, will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

Poker is a pretty good outlet for my addictive personality. I've played on and off for a long period of time, something like 20 years or more, and I am pretty decent when I play well. Which I mostly do these days. Of course, being a degen at heart does lead to me having en excessive VPIP, and probably leads to me making a higher number of high-variance plays in spots where you could go for lower variance, but all in all I have a decent grasp of how the game is played, of equities, ranges and pot odds. I used to be much better at live reads, this skill has dropped since I haven't played so regularly, or maybe people nowadays are just better at not giving off small subleties that you can pick up on, but I think I am okay enough. At least as long as I play in games where I feel most players aren´t miles better than me. And poker isn´t getting in the way of family commitments, although the late nights do take a toll on my sleep. If not for family reasons, I´d probably play more often as well, but I often struggle to be able to play a bare minimum one night a week. Guess I at least have some of my priorities straight...

So, yeah, dropping almost 3k in one night is pretty bad, and it diminishes my options for the currently best (and only) outlet for my degenerate personality. But, funnily enough, I don´t feel bad about it. I usually do, I get depressed, second guess myself, ask myself "why did I **** up again?" and so on. Not really sure why, not sure if it is positive or negative to be honest. But it is what it is.

Anyway, as I won´t be playing for a couple of weeks, this blog probably won´t be active - hope you all run well at the tables!

P.S. Please don´t advise me to do psychotherapy. Tried it once, didn´t do ****, don´t really feel it is something for me.

On the Road Again

As I´m doing laps in the pool I finally feel that I am progressing again. My stroke is all of sudden rythmical, my breathing is controlled and I just keep going, lap after lap. I think to myself that adding an interval training routine seems to have done wonders. And I feel good. I feel something that I have rarely felt in the past months - an inner contentness.

***

"You know, come to think of it, I´ve been quite depressed for the past few months", I tell my wife as we are sitting on the train from Zürich to Luzern.
"I know. Don´t you think I´ve noticed?"
"I guess you have, you aren´t like me, as observant as a rock", I smile and reply.
"Think it´s something more serious than your usual seasonal depression?" my wife asks me.

I pause for a while, considering her question. It´s true that during winter I quite often get depressed. Usually I notice it, but this time I have let all the signs slip. The fact that I am only ever feeling good if I am on drugs, playing poker, wasting my life away playing Football Manager or travelling. Running away from life.

"I guess not. I was just surprised that I didn´t realise it faster."

***

The first evening in Luzern treats uz to one of the most majestic sunsets I have ever experienced. This trip was actually my surprise Christmas gift for my wife - I arranged so one kid stays with one grandma and the other kid with the other grandma and bought plane tickets. I picked up tickets to Zürich, since those were the ones that had the most suitable departure and arrival times (early enough so we are there in the early afternoon, late enough for us to drop off kids at school/kindergarten). I have a friend that lives in Switzerland, he recommended Luzern (where he lives with his wife) instead of Zürich, and he recommended a hotel which was really expensive, but **** it, right? It seemed nice, so I booked us a double room lake view room.



Now, I´ve stayed in a bunch of five-star hotels, this one was rated at four stars but it was much better in all aspects than a whole lot of five-star hotels. For example, the Sofitel where I stayed in Barcelona had nothing on this. Although the Sofitel was almost three times cheaper...

***

As we are flying home, after a lovely weekend in Switzerland, I can feel the shroud of apathy trying to cover me again, but this time it is somehow less pronounced. The next day I go to the office and for the first time in ages I don´t feel bored and demotivated. After work in the pool I feel stronger and faster. And so the week goes by. Spring is rapidly approaching us here in the North, at least when it comes to daylight, and my seasonal depression looks to disappear together with the long hours of darkness that plague us up here. I can´t really fathom how people further north live, where you have no daylight at all for months at a time. How do you survive that?

***

"Hey mate, this is kind of embarrasing, but if I need to, can you borrow me a larger amount of money? Something like 1-1,5k or so. I´ll wire it to you next week."

It is late Thursday afternoon and I am leaving for Sweden the next day. I will meet up with childhood friends - me and the friend we won on the horses on will take another friend out for a nice steak dinner. He stopped joining in on our horse betting adventures a while ago, and therefore missed out on a big score, so we decided on taking him out for dinner Friday night. But on Saturday I want to hit the poker tables - and I am for the first time in a long while really low on available cash.

My business partners have, for the first time in like a year, not paid an invoice on time - they had a malfunction with their accounting/banking software, so I wasn´t sure if the payment would arrive in time on Friday, and getting money out of my savings account would take at least 2-3 weekdays. So basically I risk being stuck in an awful situation - going to Sweden with the plan to gamble with something like 1k EUR to my name in available cash. And out of that I still have to pay for dinner and other life expenses until Sunday evening. It would be more than enough if I didn´t want to gamble. But I do.

"No probs, mate. Want me to wire it to you?" he replies.
"Nah, wire probably won´t arrive on time. Can you give it to me in cash on Friday?"
"Sure. I don´t quite know the weekly limit on cash withdrawals on my card, but should be at least 1k or so."

***

On Friday I leave home in the early afternoon, as I don´t want to be stuck in Friday evening traffic on my way to the airport. I hate waiting in line, I hate sitting in a car that´s stuck in traffic (although if the choice is between sitting in my own car and in a bus stuck in traffic, I´ll pick my car any day of the week). I check my bank once again, no money. I know the invoice has been paid, but will probably arrive on Monday or Tuesday. But it doesn´t matter - I´ve got my roll sorted and I´m set for a great weekend.

I spend the afternoon working, people-watching and plane-spotting. Actually get quite a lot done. As I head to the bar to do some final work and to type this up, I am feeling very content. With everything. I actually don´t mind not having played poker for something like two weeks.

My winter depression is finally lifting and I am set for a fabulous weekend in Stockholm. Hopefully I´ll also have some rungood at the poker tables, since my last cocaine-fuelled loss has put me in quite a big hole for the year...

Visiting the Casino in Stockholm

As I enter the casino on Saturday evening and beep my players´ card to get in, suddenly the guard tells me to wait and that I need to speak to a manager. I am dumbfounded - what the ****? I browse through memory lane from last night, and I remember everything, I didn´t do anything wrong or shady. I behaved just fine. Or has it something to do with my friend giving me money and me giving my friend chips later on? Or is it something else? I am nervous and fidgety, and the manager doesn´t show up for several minutes. I ask the guard:
"What´s up with this? Have I done something?"
"Don´t worry, mate", he replies, "they probably just want to give you some money back or talk about responsible gambling or something."

Another five minutes pass before a lady shows up.
"Are you A?"
"Yeah, that´s me."
"Yesterday when you cashed out you forgot to take one bill. Follow me to the cashier, we´ll sort it out for you!"

As I pass the metal detector the guard looks at me, smiles and says:
"I was right, wasn´t I? Have a good night!"

***

It´s past midnight on Friday night. After a wonderful steak dinner with two close friends we are sitting in a bar. One of my friends suggested going to the casino after dinner, but the third one in our party (who doesn´t really gamble) didn´t want to go. Now he says that he will leave to go home. As soon as he´s left us, my friend turn to me and says:
"Time to hit the casino!"

I´m not one who needs a lot of convincing, so off we go. We start of by playing roulette, and we are ice cold. My friend runs out of cash and heads to the cashier, then I finally hit a number and win something, so I am actually up. My friend returns, continues to be cold, so I slip him some chips. After a while we both have lost a bit and now I am in the red as well, my friend says he wants to play slots so we head downstairs to the slot room.

Our bad run continues. We can´t hit a bonus and the few times we do, we get a really shitty one that pays peanuts. We lose and lose, and at some point my friend decides to call it a night, and I decide to head up to the poker room.

I get a seat at 25/25 (SEK) PLO, so it´s 2,5 USD blinds, but in reality the game plays big and deep as all hands are straddled and most players have deep stacks at this point. It doesn´t take long to see that the game is extremely loose, aggressive and splashy. I proceed to quickly lose one buy-in when I three-bet AKQT9, get four-bet, and then two players go all-in. Not much to do but stack off here I guess, since I already had put in a quarter of my stack and am getting decent odds on a call. The board runs KxxxA and a guy with KK scoops it all.

I reload for another 5000 SEK and finally hit some rungood when I raise AQQT9, get re-raised and with a bunch of callers inbetween I put in the call (something like 1600) leaving me with a tad over 3000 for the flop. The flop is Q high, so I jam, player behind me (preflop aggressor) goes over the top and another player calls it off as well. I boat up on the turn and my hand is good, now leaving me 5000 SEK in the green.

However, I go completely card dead, can´t connect with any flops, so I bleed it down to 10000 - back to break even. The PLO game breaks and I move over to NLT for a few final hands, and in the penultimate hand I can´t keep my bluff never under control. I raise 22, get three callers, cbet small on a K86r board and get called by one player. Turn is a 3, so I decide to keep telling my story and bet again, and he calls again. I am sensing major weakness here, so when the river comes a J or something I decide to go for it and get him to fold his shitty king or pair+draw and bet 3000, but he unfortunately tank-calls. I flip my cards, and he turn over 62o - called me down three streets with bottom pair. Why can´t I for once in my life bluff with a hand like 98 or TT in this spot?

I cash out my chips and am 8k in the red for the night - around 5k from table games/slots and 3k from poker. Although it actually turned out to be 1000 less, since I somehow had managed to not take a 1000 SEK bill while cashing out.

***

On Saturday I only brought 4000 with me to the casino, figuring that I´ll play 10/10 PLO with two bullets or 25/25 NLT with one this evening and if I lose, so be it. I get my extra 1000 from yesterday and change another 1500 for chips. As there is a tournament running, the waiting lists are long and there are only a few cash tables running, so I play slots to kill some time. Today I am running hot - hitting bonus after bonus and slowly increasing my money.

I take a break, hang around at the bar watching a football game, and then head down to the casino floor. Play some Ultimate Hold´em for an hour or so, in for 2500 and out for 2700, then back to some slots where I manage to not lose money, and then I finally get called for 10/10 PLO. Again, most hands are straddled, so it is playing as 1/1/2 and deep. I complete in the big blind with a trash hand and check-fold the first flop. I complete in the small blind with a semi-trash hand and fold the second flop. I call a raise on the button on the third hand with a decent hand (QQT9ss) and fold the flop. On the fourth hand, I call a raise in the CO with KK64ss.

The flop is KT4 with two hearts, so I flop set. The initial raiser bets out 500 and gets a call, and for a while I debate just calling to conceal my strength and sticking it in on the turn, but I figure I am too shallow for that with only 2500 behind, so I jam. A shortstack puts his chips in the middle, the initial raiser re-raises to something like 10k and the player after him tanks for a while and then calls for his 6k-something. We run it twice, the first runout seems clean enough with two low spades (so I only lose to a backdoor flush and A3), the second runout is two low cards, but unfortunately one of them is a heart.

And I get scooped by the initial raiser who had AT98ds with AT of hearts and 98 of spades.

And at this point I decide that I am just so ****ing sick off losing so I leave the seat I spent 3-4 hours waiting for and head to the cashier to cash out.

I actually manage to cash out a small winner thanks to running hot on the slots, so this night wasn´t too bad and for the trip I lost a total of 8-9k SEK which isn´t that bad considering that I lost 5k on table games and slots the first night, as well as something like 8-9k on poker in total, but winning at poker seems to be mission impossible for me at this moment. Heading home this evening, will see when I play next time, but I will probably skip gambling at least next week - I am low on confidence that I´ll turn this losing streak around any time soon, so don´t really think I´ll be playing until I feel a little more confident.

The Pots We Lose, the Pots We Win

One of the most fascinating aspects with poker is how single pots can have a huge impact on the bottom line outside of the pot in question, at least in live play. On countless occasions it is that single one big pot that will make or break a session. Although I don't play a lot online I have a feeling that this is much less of an issue here, partly due to the fact that online is mostly played with 100BB:ish stacks and partly due to the fact that you just get such a huge volume of hands dealt in such a short period of time that single pots have a much smaller effect on your session as a whole. But the live games I play are mostly played very deep.

One example of the back of my head is a game I played some time in December. Blinds were 1/1, but almost all hands were straddled and some double-straddled. I had gone from stuck to slight winner, but then I got 700 EUR in preflop with AA9 vs AK7 in Crazy Pineapple. Flop was 77x and I lost. If I win that 1400 EUR pot, I am sitting on a profit of almost 1000 early in the night. Instead I was stuck 500 and ended the session with a loss some hours later. And in January, when I found myself 1000 in the hole but decided to take a player up on his offer to loan me 500 more to keep playing and ended up in the green, despite being in for 1500. And now this weekend.

I could have just played my 22 hand described above passively. Check-folded flop. Granted, it's a pretty decent board to cbet, but after my cbet gets called, why don't I just shut down instead? That decision cost me almost 400 EUR. And dented my confidence. As a result, the next day when I got stacked on the fourth hand I played, I decided to call it a quits despite having money in my pocket. If I had 400 EUR more in my pocket, would I have played on? Almost certainly.

On the other hand, if I had more liquid cash, would I have even sat in the 10/10 SEK game? Probably not, I probably would have sat the 25/25 SEK PLO5 game instead. Maybe I would have gone to the poker club instead of playing at the casino, but after taking a loss the first night I didn't really feel like spending half an hour to go to another location instead of playing at the casino 5-10 minutes by foot form my hotel.

And if I would have won the pot with top set, I would be sitting on a stack of close to 1000 EUR. And at that point I probably would have put my name up on the 25/25 SEK PLO5 game list. No telling what would have happened. Of course, these aren't really that big issues if you are a pro and have an adequate bankroll of available cash, but for a rec player like myself I find it quite interesting how single pots have an effect on things that stretch way outside of the pot in question.

Anyway, back to work for me. ****in' Monday...

Might do a writeup later, but probably not, no inspiration. Played four hours on Friday, boring four-handed PLO5 game, in for 500, out for 550. No real fun hands and biggest pot I played was something like 200 EUR, so not much action, but still nice to book a win to end the month.

Short Friday Recap and Degenerate Out of Action

The game starts seven-handed as a Dealer´s Choice game - one orbit of NLT, one orbit of three-card NLT, one orbit of PLO and one orbit of PLO5. I buy in for 300. I am feeling great, finally back in action after having spent a great evening with a friend I haven´t met in quite a while. I start out by losing some small pots - don´t really recall how, but a twenty here, a twenty there, and I add on for another 100. And continue to run pretty bad. After a while more players arrive and a second table will open. As we are several players who want to play PLO5, we move over to the other table and start up a PLO5 only table. We are four players that move.

Here I continue to lose small pots and add on for another 100, before I finally win a slightly bigger pot. I three-bet AKKQQ preflop, flop is JT8 with two spades. Checks to me, I bet 25, and a short-stack check-raises all-in to 62 total. No way I can fold for 37 more although I have no flush draw and block my own outs. Turn is an offsuit ace, river is a blank, my opponents says "straight", I say "I guess we split then", but it turns out he had Q9x with a spade draw for the lower straight. I was in bad shape on the flop. but no way I can fold to such a small raise. Too bad we werent much deeper, I would never fold this flop to a check-raise and after binking the turn I would have gotten a lot of money in.

Noone wants to join our PLO5 game and also the new players that arrive opt for the other table, and unfortunately the game is quite boring. Noone is splashing around too much and although pre is loose (as expected four-handed), the game isn´t really that deep and not much is going on. At the high point I do build my stack to 800 after bluff-catching twice with aces (once in double-board PLO with AA overpair+blockers, we split, once in regular PLO where I made managed to get quite a lot of money in pre, checked behind on two streets and called the river bet with some blockers and missed flush draw) and winning half of a multiway double board bomb pot when I turned the straight flush.

But the game is still boring. I lose a pot where I got greedy, check-raising the third nut straight on the river, only go get called by the nut straight. I asked why my opponent didn´t raise me, he said, "What´s the use? If you dont´have the same hand as me, you´re never calling anyway." That is, of course, true - I had a quite disguised straight and on a board with a missed flush draw I decided to go for some very thin value in case he bet a set or something (and also for some balancing purposes), but yeah, failed spectacularly. Did win a fun pot where I thought I had flopped straight and two pair on a 764 monotone board - called a small flop bet, turn was a board-pairing 4 not filling me up, check-check, river was a blank, I check again and my opponent bet 10. Before mucking I decided to check my cards again for some reason, and I noticed that I actually had 66 instead of 76, so I check-raised to 40 and my opponent was so confused about my line and play that he called it off with a flush.

As it was a Friday night I knew I had to get up early since my son has football practice at 9 AM, so slightly past 2 AM I decided to call it a night and cashed out for 550 total, for a profit of 50 EUR. Basically as uneventful as it gets, although my stack did fluctuate quite a bit durign the night.

The bad news is that I won´t be able to play more this month. We have an almost two-week long family vacation to the Canary Islands coming up in ten days, and I checked my finances for the month - considering the amount of money that we´ll spend there (before even leaving I need 2k for hotels and 350 for the rental car (+300 deposit), and that's not counting all the money we'll spend down there (having kids is ****ing expensive), I don't really feel like I can afford to take a loss of more than a couple of hundred EUR, and I don't feel like playing with less than 1k in my pocket. What's the use of freeing up an evening to play, buying in for 2-300 and then going home after a couple of hands when you get stacked? Also going to Switzerland and Sweden in February wasn't particularly cheap either - the budget for degenning is basically exhausted due to travelling.

After our Canary Islands trip we don't have anything planned until late September (Mediterranean cruise, but we're not sure if we're going yet), so with no travelling I'll hopefully have more of a poker budget to play around with then.

A Friday at the Casino

We are sitting in the corner of the casino sportsbar, chatting and vaping. As my friend has brought a weed vape pen, we are actually vaping weed in the casino sportsbar. As we are a totally backwards country with regards to drugs, weed is illegal here, but we are feeling great and having fun. I have just filled my lungs with that sweet marijuana smoke when I see a girl from the bar walking towards us. Ooops.

As she approaches us, I hold the smoke in so I don´t accidentally blow a huge cloud of marijuana vapors in her face as she approaches us.

"Hey guys", she says. "You´are not allowed to vape here!"
"Really?" my friend replies surprised. "Is this like the only place in the casino where you can´t vape?"
"Yeah, basically it is. You can go vape in the slots area if you want to, okay?"
"Sure, no problems!", my friend replies and she turns around and walks back to the bar.

I turn my head to the left and exhale.

***

"Hey, can you pick me up before dinner in your car and drive me? I need to drop off some stuff at my friend´s apartment", my friend texts me Friday afternooon. Of course, I have no problems with that. Turns out he is watching his friend´s cats while he is away. I pick him up, we drive there and chat, he goes to drop off the stuff and then comes back to the car. As he sits down, he takes a toke from his vape and exhales. I instantly feel the unmistakeable scent of marijuana.

"You got a weed vape?"
"Yeah! My friend left cannabis oil for me when he left. He has made it himself, it´s great stuff. Not particularly strong, but very, very nice."
"So, this is the stuff you get popcorn lung from, yeah?"

My friend proceeds to explain that popcorn lung comes from additives that were added in weed vapes to make them stronger, or something, and that this stuff is home-made and great. Sounds sweet, so after I park my car at home, the first thing I do when we walk away is ask him to pass me his vape pen.

As we walk to the restaurant, we are chatting and passing the vape pen among eachother. I mention how funny it is that when you were young, you were all paranoid and afraid, smoking in dark corners being afraid of getting caught, but now we´re just walking the streets on a Friday evening, doing weed and not having a concern in the world.

***

After a steak dinner my friend says that he wants to go to the casino. I actually had no plans to hit the casino tonight, but if someone asks me - especially a friend who isn´t a gambling degen - I won´t be the one to turn down the offer. The vape pen is really nice - a mellow high that doesn´t make you space out or anything, just a perfect feeling of comfort and light-headedness. I tell him that if I ever ask him to hook me up with weed oil, he should just send me to rehab.

I know myself, and I have my nicotine vaping habits to back it up - if I would have a pen like this, I would suck on it a lot. Okay, probably not during office hours, since most days I have to drive my kids somewhere after work, but how can you pass up the opportunity to boost your well-being if all you have to do is do a few tokes every now and then?

***

At around half past midnight my friend and another friend of ours that came to the casino later go to another bar. I choose not to join, as I have to be up at 8 AM and take my son to football practice and do a workout at the pool myself. However, as we walk out the door I get an SMS from the casino waiting list system - a 2/5 NLT table is opening up. Oh, well... it´s destiny, isn´t it? If I receive that message five-ten minutes later, I would be at home, and I would never walk back to the casino to gamble, however I am just out the door now...

I buy in for 500, expecting to be one of the shorter stacks, however the other four players all have bought in for less. Initially it is smooth sailing - the other players are playing too snug for a five-handed game and not playing back preflop, so I basically build my stack by winning a bunch of small pots. The only larger pot I win is when I three-bet A2s from the BB after the SB opens and get called. Flop is pretty sweet, A54r, giving me top pair and a gutshot to the straight. He checks, I think it over and check behind - although I will have a bunch of AK/AQ/AA on this board, with my particular hand I don´t think I´ll get any value from worse, and I am either way ahead or way behind here. Besides, I probably would check back AA/AK on this board at least part of the time for this same reason. The turn is a 7, now he bets out something like 50-60 and I call. No way am I folding for this price. Don´t remember the river, but he checks and I check it back and win as he shows KT. I win another one where I flop a set on Q43, turn Q, river x, but unfortunately noone has a queen since both my opponents fold to my river shove. Win another one where I three-bet big with JJ from the BB or straddle, get a caller, and I open-jam on a QQx board with two hearts (I hold none) since my opponent has roughly a pot-sized bet left and I hope he makes a hero-call with something like TT or 88 or whatever, but he folds.

The game unfortunately starts to fill up, which means that I actually have to start folding more than the bottom 10% of my range preflop, but I continue to run pretty well. One fun hand was when I was in with Q9s from the BB five-ways in a single raised pot, flop was 962 or something, checks to the button who bets 25. Now, this player I´ve played with quite a lot earlier, when I played less home games and more at the casino, he likes to stab quite a wide range in spots like this, so I check-raise to 60, hoping to take it down. Unfortunately, he calls, and when the ace peels on the turn I am done with this hand. I check, but to my surprise he checks it back. The river is another ugly card, a king, so I check again and after thinking for a while, and obviously listening to the voice in my head that says "CHECK-IT-BACK-CHECK-IT-BACK", he checks. I show, he shows a nine and mucks. Good times.

There was another fun hand I wasn´t involved in. The lady to my left was in a pot with another player, who bet the turn. On the river he put out a big overbet, something like 130 into 90, and from the way he acted and handled his chips, I was sure he was bluffing. The lady went deep into the tank before finally calling. He had total air, the lady showed 55 to take it down. Not sure I would have found the courage to call with a hand that weak (there were four overcards on the board), but kudos to her for making the correct read and going with it. And it was a slight boost to my confidence as well - after all, I made the very same read.

It´s now starting to get late, and I start to get worse and worse cards, meaning more and more preflop folding, so at 2:30 AM I announce that my next hand will be my last. I open 54s to 15, get two callers, and then get three-bet to 50. If it wasn´t my last hand, I´d fold (the other players had too short stacks to make this call remotely justifiable with a hand this weak), but hey, it is my last hand after all, so I call, as do two players behind me. Flop is nice, 974 rainbow. It checks to the preflop aggressor on the button who jams his last 56, there is no chance in hell that I am folding for 56 more so I call, now the player behind me jams for 131 total, and there is no chance in hell I am folding for 75 more so I call. The board bricks out, shortstack shows AQo for ace high, I muck my five high and the next player shows 97o to take it down with two pair.

Too bad I couldn´t hit this hand, then I´d have cashed out a profit that would have covered my pit/slots losses, but in the end I cash out 620 after being in for 500. Down 600 total in pits/slots though (but that was money I had written of before I even entered the casino), but feels nice to at least have two winning poker sessions in a row, albeit for small amounts. The casino 2/5 seemed to be easy to play at least, so I guess I´ll play a bit more at the casino when I get back from the Canary Islands in the end of March.

***

It´s Saturday and I have just gotten back from the pool. The workout was kind of shitty, didn´t get into a good flow and I said **** it after only around 30 minutes of swimming, but I still feel pretty good about myself - after less than five hours of sleep and a night of light degeneracy I did haul my lazy ass to the pool instead of going home to sleep after I dropped my son off at practice, and even if the workout was kind of shitty it is still better to work out than not to work out.

Oh well, over and out from me - degen mode is turned off, caring family father mode turned back on!

Poker on the Canary Islands

After having spent a lovely week on Tenerife it is time to move on. As we are sitting on the ferry between Tenerife and Gran Canaria, I am starting to check out gambling options - after all, I have spent an entire week with my family, so taking an evening off to gamble seems like a good thing to do. I notice that a casino runs a poker tournament at 21:30, and that casino is like a 20 minute drive from our hotel, so I OK my plans with my wife.

The ferry is rocking a bit in the ocean, however the calm that I feel out on sea is just amazing - I move outside, to the small and windy sundeck out back, and soon my kids join me. It is a sunny day and we can see both islands - Tenerife off in the distance and the mountains of Gran Canaria coming closer and closer. For once, both kids are happy to just sit and engage in random conversation instead of picking fights with eachother, so we relax in the wind until the ferry starts slowing down for the entry into Agaete port.


View from the ferry departing Agaete a week earlier

***

As I arrive in the casino, I try to find a parking spot. I notice there are some gates leading up to the building next to the casino, so after turning around in the next roundabout, I turn off there. However, they do not open. As I put the car into reverse, the gate suddenly opens and I drive in. To my surprise, it doesn't look like an official casino parking, but a parking attached to the residential building and hotel next door. I park my car anyway and then head inside.

From the outside the casino looks nice and flashy, with a large area for having drinks, smoking and relaxing just outside. However, when I get inside I find myself in a cramped small room with slots and stairs leading down to the game room. This kind of surprises me, as it looks worse even than a lot of underground poker clubs I've been to, but whatever - I'm here to gamble, not to roleplay as an interior designer.

I show my passport and get a small printed ticket (was kind of expecting a player's card or something), and get told that if I come back tomorrow, I can just bring this ticket and not my passport. I go to the bar to ask about the parking, the bar staff explain that they have no parking, that the parking belongs to the hotel next door. So out I go. Fortunately for me, the lady in the hotel lobby was very nice and she said it's okay for me to stay there, and that she'll let me out when I leave.

I take her word for it and head back into the casino.

***

The downstairs room is a bit nicer than the upstairs one, however, it is still quite small, dark and not really inviting. I see only one roulette table, one Black Jack table (which is closed) and a couple of poker tables in the back. For a casino with the name "Gran Casino" I can't help but wonder if the other casinos on the island are even smaller and more run-down? Anyway, I register for the poker tournament (80 EUR rebuy with a 55 EUR addon), donk off a 100 on the roulette and then get my chips and my seat. To my surprise, it turns out to end up a sit and go, with nine players (with one player busting pretty soon and opting out of a rebuy, and one player joining in during late reg). Three or four of the guys seem local, the rest are tourists.

"Is it always this empty?"
"No", the local next to ne replies, "but tonight there is a carnival, we get 20-30 players normally."
"And what about cash games?"
"Haven't been a cash game here in two months or so, not enough players to get a game going."

Considering the sheer amount of tourists here, and that the population is approximately the same as in Riga where I live, I start to realise that maybe the state of poker and gambling back home isn't as bad as I thought it was. After all, although the casino here usually only opens 1-2 cash tables and the tournaments currently have a four table limit, the casino is very nice in itself and there is a cash game running most days. And a waiting list you can see and sign up to online. And up-to-date info on the homepage. Of course, I mainly play in private games, but still - this gives me some perspective on things back home.


My chips, right around the start. Oh, by the way, the chips were quite cheap and light.

***

"You aren't doing any drugs tonight, are you?" my wife texts me after a while.
"You crazy? I drove here!", I reply.

Drugs hadn't really crossed my mind, and although I have smelled weed quite a few times on and around the beaches on the Canary Islands, I haven't even made an effort to find some. I feel more than content knocking back alcohol-free beers and enjoying the sun and the water. After all, this is a family vacation, not a degen trip with my buddies. And for a family vacation, the Canary Islands are just a fabulous place.

The first week we spent in a small village, where there was nothing more than a complex of apartments for short-term rental (we staid at Nivaria Beach, highly recommend it if you want to relax and disconnect - cheap as well, we paid around 800 EUR for a two bedroom sea-view apartment for four people), some housing, a few restaurants and shops, and a nice beach with volcanic sand. It was just what I needed - we didn't do much, although we did an excursion to Teide Volcano, a nice zoo and some other beaches in nearby villages, and that was just what we wanted.

The last four nights we stayed in a more upmarket hotel, Marina Suites in Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria. This hotel is much more expensive (1200 EUR/4 nights, 4 persons), but it is of course much more luxurious and offers a quiet a lot of services, including a really nice infinity pool next to the ocean. And the location is much, much more touristy than in Tenerife.


View from our hotel balcony.

On the way to the hotel, we took a detour through the mountains - from the port of Agaete we had the option of driving around, on the highway, or going up through the mountains in a straight line, passing Gran Canaria's highest point, Pico Las Nieves, on the way. And this detour was so, so worth it. Climbing up and down through serpentine roads and seeing amazing sights which the pictures I took during stops don't do justice to at all, driving through the clouds, seeing the varying nature including a high-altitude forest. It was just wonderful.


View during a random stop.


View from Pico Las Nieves. My daughter saw the guys in front climbing towards the rock formation (one of them is unfortunately also on the picture), but I didn't let her go past that first peak. It did look quite easy after the first peak towards to the second (not sure if you can climb the second one), and she has gone to climbing classes for a couple of years and is sure-footed, however letting a child walk a ridge with a sheer drop of several hundreds of metres alone is out of the question and daddy isn't as confident and daring when it comes to heights, so she had to stay at the first peak.

Life in Puerto Rico was relaxing - we did a lot of water activities (parasailing, catamaran tour, jetski), we also visited a nice water park nearby, and all in all it was a beautiful and relaxing holiday.

***

As the tournament progresses, I learn that the guy two to my left is from Sweden, and as I grew up there we start chatting. He's here on a golfing trip with some clients of his, we chat about business, running a company in Riga, and a lot of other stuff. He seems very likeable and sociable, which is always nice, since there is so much folding you have to do in a NLT tournament. After a while I do manage do lose my first buy-in, first I bluff the river and get called by second pair (as it later turned out, this player was a calling station who called down with basically any piece of the board), then I check-raise the nut flush draw on the turn and get called in one spot by that same player as above and chicken out on a river push - he won it with bottom pair and a lower flush draw. Might just have gotten him to fold it if I push, however his previous call put me off.

The blind structure is fast, and pretty soon I find myself with something like 15BB left. There are a bunch of limps, I see a suited ace and push, and get called by a local who had limped AA. Off to the counter for a rebuy! I more or less get to the end of the rebuy period with a little less than starting stack, after addon I have something like 40k with quite high blinds. The next three hands I play I fold to three-bets/pushes after a raise, and I am now crippled, sitting on 16k with 1k/2k/2k blinds. I keep folding, looking for a spot to push, and when it folds to me on the small blind I look down at Q5o and of course jam. I get snap-called by the local to my left who holds ATo, queen in the window and I double up. He says something in Spanish after the hand, I say "I got to push, you got to call", and he says "yeah, that´s poker for you".

However, a hand later he suddenly turns to me and tells me that I shouldn´t have pushed. I ask him, why? Now he explains that he has a lot of chips and therefore will call me light, and Q5 is a bad hand. I choose not to argue with him, since it´s just pointless discussing strategy at the table with an older local who obviously wants to showcase his "superior" poker skills to me, the poor tourist. I could, of course, go on explaining that even if he calls light, the push is still making money on average, and that if he folds I will increase my stack with 30% which will allow me more time to wait for a spot to double up, but what´s the point? Better to play the clueless tourist role and shut up.

A while later, I think at blinds 1,5k/3k/3k, I find KQo in EP and push for 25k or so, which was what I had left after paying a round or two of blinds and antes. My Swedish friend is in the big blind and he calls with 77, I flop two pair and he doesn´t find a miracle seven, so I score a nice double-up. Nothing much happens for the next orbits, I think I steal the blinds once, and maybe even get a walk on the big blind. My Swedish friend busts out in fifth place with three places paid. On the bubble there is an open from the other shortstack (I am the shortest with 65k on 3k/6k/6k, he has something like 75k) and I look down at pocket aces on the small blind. I push, he calls with 99. Flop is low, turn brings him a gutshot, so I have to fade six outs going to the river... which is a 9.

Oh, well. Oh, ****ing well. At least I got it in good when it mattered, right?

Anyway, I spot my Swedish friend at the roulette (we did play a bit in the break as well, won a little), so I join him as we chat and play, and then I hit this beauty (I have the chocolate coloured chips):


4x36 + 4x18 + 8x6 for a nice 264x hit. With the minimum bet being 2,5 EUR, I win a tad over 600 on this hit, so I ask the croupier for 500 cash and the rest in colour. Unfortunately, no more hits for me, and when the coloured chips are gone I head to the cashier and cash out. I leave the casino with 375 EUR more than I came here with, which is sweet - always a good feeling to leavae the casino with more cash in your pocket than you came with.

Fortunately for me, the hotel receptionist was true to her word and let me out, so I got home at 3 AM after a nice evening at the casino. And I have to say, although the casino was small and worn, the tournament was very professionally ran, albeit with a very steep blind structure. But kudos to the staff that handled the poker.

Now I am back home, more broke than I have been in a long time, but not due to gambling - being abroad for almost two weeks with your family really adds up. 2k for hotels, 350 for a rental car, a hundred here, a hundred there, souvenirs, shopping and so on... But it was totally worth it. I give the Canary Islands 5* as a family holiday destination. Not a good place to go for gambling though.

Lol, Donkaments

As I hadn´t been playing any poker since getting home - and I do not count that one 1h session I had on Friday night, when me and a couple of friends where partying, started to do lines at 3 PM and had a nice night out before running out and heading to a poker game where there usually are people using, which ended up with me sitting at the cashgame table (that was playing quite shortstacked) with 200 EUR (1/1 blinds) while my friends chilled at the bar, and results-wise we first busted on the coke-quest and then my friends went to another bar to drink and I stayed at the cashgame and an orbit or two later lost with OESD+NFD vs two pair and pair+low wrap, so I just headed home to get some sleep, but this wasn´t a poker night, this was a party night with something like an hour of poker ending up happening, so it doesn't count, right? - I was eager to play in my regular Wednesday game again.

They have started running tournaments now, I guess to expand the player pool a bit. They will run 24 tournaments, 20 best results are counted and 2000 EUR will be divided among the ranking leaders after the tournies have been played out. Yesterday the tournament was a 50 EUR rebuy, starting stack 1500 chips, blinds at 10/20. First three levels 30 min, afterwards 15 min levels. My plan was to arrived near the end of the rebuy period, so I could basically just do either a double buy-in + addon or just a buy-in+addon and not donk off a lot of cash on dubious plays during the rebuy period, however, when I got there a bit after 10 PM it turned out that the tournament had started late, so I basically joined at the very and of the first level.

And then I ran hot. I mean, mega-extremely-run-like-this-for-a-week-to-win-the-WSOP-hot. First hand of note I had raised A8 pre, flop was 877 with two diamonds, I bet, got raised, said "**** it, I guess you have the seven" and jammed, got snap-called by K4 of diamonds and held. Then I won a flip all-in pre with QQ vs AK. Then I three-bet 88 against an active and good player I've battled with quite a bit before (mainly cash though), flop is 982r, he checks and I decide to check it back. Turn is a 2, now he bets out for around half pot and I just call. River is a 7, he bets big, I jam, he calls, I win. Oh, also flopped a straight on J97 w/ T8 on the button, checks to be, I bet, got check-raised and I called. Turn was a 9, he bet, I called. River another J, and with the board being J979J he now lead, but very small - something like 600 into 3000 or something like that, so after tanking for ages I decide to call, and to my surprise I get shown QQ. Good think he didn't jam on me, he had just over pot left OTR in his stack. Then I win another flip in bizarre fashion, as I get it in with AK vs TT - flop is Txx, but the turn and river come J and Q to give me the win. So, at the break I am sitting on a stack of 15 000...

While at the table during the rebuy period I did say, multiple times, that I was afraid that I had wasted all my luck early on, and that I would have none when I would need it the most. Of course, I realise that past results in no way affect future card distribution, but for how long can you run good? There has to be a limit, right?

***

As I sit down at the final table (nine-handed, four places paid), I have a playable, but unspectacular stack of around 10-11k. With around 130k chips in play, I am slightly below average, but not yet in dire straits. As I suspect, a lot of players (except for the two big stacks) are playing passively, so I find some good spots here and there (and some cards to go along as well) and build up to around 18k without a showdown. Oh, except for when I raised on the button with K6s against a player in the BB with only two blinds left in his stack and won against some random hand. Some players dropped out and we were down to six-handed, when two hands came up that I am a bit unsure of. Four places paid, prizes are something like 350-450-680-1040, if I recall correctly.

1) UTG shove for 8BB, I have around 18BB OTB. Look down at AJo. Have a stack with 30+BB to my left and a stack with something like 5BB in the BB. Decide to jam over his raise. Is this is a fold?
2) 600/1200 blinds, I make it 2800 UTG with 99 playing a 30k stack. Chipleader (covers) defends. Flop is K75, he checks, I bet 2500, he calls. Turn is another brick, he checks again, and I bet again, to the tune of 6500. He calls again. River changes nothing, he checks, I check back and lose to K3. I think I should have stopped barreling after my flop bet gets called here, right?

***

The bubble has burst. I am the third stack, but pretty close to the second stack. I raise 98s UTG to 3500 (we are playing 800/1600), playing roughly 30k. The chip leader in the BB defends. We see a flop of A76. He checks, and I decide not to barrel here and check it back. The turn is a beautiful offsuit five, giving me the absolute nuts. Now the BB bets out, something 5k. I debate raising vs calling but opt for the passive route and just call in position here. River is a three, and when my opponent puts out a bet of 11k I am just absolutely overjoyed. I jam, he calls, and I am all of a sudden the chipleader. It was a real cooler - he had 43 for the turned lower straight. The very next hand the same player jams his last 10ish BB from the small blind, and I look down at ATs and of course call. I win against A8 and the big chip leader is out in two hands, and I am now the one sitting on massive piles of chips.


And then it happened. I finally lost the second significant flip of the tournament. The shortstack on the SB jammed, I had 55 and called. He flipped over J9 of hearts. Flop was T8x with two hearts, turn a blank, but the river was a jack to double him up. Instead he now starts chipping up, and then we play a big one. The short stack opens to 5k with something like 13k behind, he calls from the SB and I look down at A6o. For a while I debate a squeeze, but in the end I decide that it is not worth the risk, so I just call. Flop is A84 with two spades. It checks around. Turn is a jack, and now he fires 7k from the big blind. I have no reason to think that I am not good here, but raising seems a huge overplay, so I call. The initial raiser gets out of the way. River is an offsuit ten. Now, he thinks for a while, stacks his chips, announces "25k" and pushes out a stack of 500:s, with hands shaking a bit. The stack was only 12,5k as he mis-calculated, but of course his verbal announcement stands (not something that I even questioned, it was the dealer that noted that the stack he put out was short of his bet). Now, I am sure he isn´t bluffing, and I beat zero value, but I still think it over, ask him if he wants a call from two pair, before muttering how sick the situation is and folding. I was sure he was extremely strong here, I said I folded A4 for two pair, he flipped KQ of spades for a good draw on the flop, a monster draw on the turn and the absolute nuts on the river. FWIW, I would have folded two pair here even if I had it - although then I probably would have raised turn.

After this hand, I am left with around 30k, with the other shorter stack being at around 25k. We fold, push, fold for a while, before I look down at KT in the small blind and jam, and the big blind snaps me off with AJ. Off to the races - flop is low, turn is low, and I have resigned myself to a third place finish, but then the dealer flips over a magical king on the river. My good run isn´t over yet, baby! I barely cover, but we are now heads up, so we discuss a chop. The other player has around 70k while I am sitting on around 50k, we do an ICM calculation which came out to something like 900-820 in his favor, he said that he´d then rather play on since his gain is so small, I offered him a twenty on top since it was 4AM and I am more than happy locking up an extra 100 on top of second prize money in this spot, although I felt I might have had a slight edge on my opponent.

I ran extremely well - I think I was something like 6:2 in flips won:lost, and I also played good, solid poker for the most part. Pretty sweet to play a tournament where you rarely bluff, since you get good cards and flops!

In for 100, out for 800, a succesful night. I was a bit schocked to find myself in a snowstorm when I went to my car though - it was a nice and sunny (albeit chilly) day, and when I drove over six hours earlier I didn´t expect to be caught in yet another bout of endless winter. Got home at 4:30, went to bed at 5 AM, tired today, but happy with my play and the results. Now, if only this everlasting winter could **** right the hell off - it´s almost April, shouldn´t it be spring soon?