So I am a cashgame player. Very, very occasionaly I play one of those donkaments that everyone is talking about winning tons of dollars and stuff like that. Everytime I start a tournament I do that to take a "fun" detour of cashgames for an evening. Everytime I play a tournament tho, I only stronger realize the hatred I feel for them deep in my hearth over and over again. The stupidity is unheard of, you play perfect for hours, lose one coinflip or get coolered and its all over.

So anyways, two times now I have had the urge to play the mother of all online donkaments, the Sunday Million. The first time was a few weeks ago, in which I ended in the 3rd hand ffs:

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: ckingusc ($9850)
Seat 2: HERO ($10000)
Seat 3: banbh99 ($10050)
Seat 4: TreeWoman ($10150) -
Seat 5: oldschool043 ($9950) -
Seat 6: stefic ($10000) -
Seat 7: Bballmike222 ($10000)
Seat 8: Festivuss ($10000)
Seat 9: cliffej5 ($10000) Sitting Out


PRE-FLOP:

oldschool043 posts small blind $25
stefic posts BIG blind $50
Dealt To: HERO


RAISE Bballmike222 ($200)
FOLD Festivuss
FOLD cliffej5
FOLD ckingusc
RAISE HERO($650)
CALL banbh99 ($650)
FOLD TreeWoman
FOLD oldschool043
FOLD stefic
RAISE Bballmike222 ($10000)
CALL HERO($9350)
FOLD banbh99


FLOP:

Pot: $20925




TURN:

Pot: $20925




RIVER:

Pot: $20925




SHOWDOWN:
Bballmike222:

HERO:


Bballmike222 collected $20725 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $20725 Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: ckingusc folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: HERO showed [Kh Kc] and lost with two pair, Kings and Jacks - Net Gain/Loss: ($-10000)
Seat 3: banbh99 folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-650)
Seat 4: TreeWoman button folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: oldschool043 small blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-25)
Seat 6: stefic big blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 7: Bballmike222 showed [As Ac] and won 20725 with two pair, Aces and Jacks - Net Gain/Loss: ($11175)

Seat 8: Festivuss folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: cliffej5 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)


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Obviously I am never folding kings there, obviously he had aces.

So anyway, fast forward to today, somewhere in I guess some sort of manic psychosis I got the idea to play the Sunday Million again. And guess what? It went ok! Well for the first hour that is. I got some nice value out of sets and managed to triple my original stack. Then, obviously, I got kings and the following happened. Note that if I win here I would have had a top 20 stack:

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Seat 1: zakooza ($23672)
Seat 2: HERO ($24799)
Seat 3: ownage699 ($13181)
Seat 4: Grady1275 ($13188) -
Seat 5: adam eterno ($25590) -
Seat 6: calamitas ($9651) -
Seat 7: intervntion ($9881)
Seat 8: jonkmanovic ($11327)
Seat 9: Zonnywhoop ($52150)


PRE-FLOP:

adam eterno posts small blind $200
calamitas posts BIG blind $400
Dealt To: HERO


FOLD intervntion
FOLD jonkmanovic
RAISE Zonnywhoop ($1119)
FOLD zakooza
RAISE HERO ($3150)
FOLD ownage699
FOLD Grady1275
RAISE adam eterno ($6400)
FOLD calamitas
FOLD Zonnywhoop
RAISE HERO ($24799)
CALL adam eterno ($18399)


FLOP:

Pot: $54467




TURN:

Pot: $54467




RIVER:

Pot: $54467




SHOWDOWN:
adam eterno:

HERO:


adam eterno collected $51117 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $51117 Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: zakooza folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: HERO showed [Kd Kc] and lost with a pair of Kings - Net Gain/Loss: ($-21549)
Seat 3: ownage699 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: Grady1275 button folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: adam eterno small blind showed [Qs Qd] and won 51117 with three of a kind, Queens - Net Gain/Loss: ($26318)

Seat 6: calamitas big blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-400)
Seat 7: intervntion folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 8: jonkmanovic folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: Zonnywhoop folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1119)


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FFS F*****G DONKAMENTS

Anyways, here is the entire tournament just now, I think I played it flawlessly, but comments are always apreciated:

So it has been a few days since my last update. I have pretty much run breakeven with about 1 BI profit in 3 days due to a lot of coolers and losing coin flips. I did clear a $325 bonus, and won a $11 5-table tournament (of which I had a free roll entry still on party) for $150 (ZOMG). Martingaled that up to $300 in partycasino and then cashed it to everest. So I am up $800 or so overall. For your amusement here are some of the coolers and coin flips of the past days:

Coolers:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626058

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626066

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626070

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626074 (same villain that stacked of with KQo TPGK in limped pot in my previous post)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626077 (overlimp-raising the CO?? wtf)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626079

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626085

Coinflips:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626080 (a lot of history involved here)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626082

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626084

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626087

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2626089

Anyway, I purchased Pokertacker 3 yesterday, and I must say it is really amazing. For the first time I can now use pokerace stats in Everest instead of only vpip/pfr/af that gametime+ gives. The 3bet stats are also really usefull on the tables.

Now in PT2 I had different databases because I am such an idiot that I only figured out a few months ago you could just filter your hands per year and you don't need to make a new database each year to keep track of the year. As I am also such an idiot that I didn't realize you can convert a PT2 database I just imported every hh on my laptop, which is most of my lifetime career (first few months where I made about $2k max are missing). And I was happy to see that my winnings where only shortly below $10k yesterday. This morning I crossed this $10k official winnings! I was above it since bonuses aren't included, about $2k was missing and life earnings of about 2,5k euro weren't included, but it is still nice to actually see the number now in pokertracker.

Note that 10nl and 50nl are 10nl and 50nl while $1nl, $2nl and $4nl are 100nl, 200nl and 400nl (lol shortstackaments). the 3-6 is HORSE on pokerstars.

So now about a full day has passed since I started my cardrunners membership and watched some of the videos, and I am $1k up for a healthy bankroll of $5k. I have started to implement some new plays (like the light 4bet) in my game and it works out really well for me.

(note that this is all 6max, pokertracker doesn't import new tables without dis. protection as 6 max yet)

I'll post a few of the bigger hands that aren't the usual standard AA/KK/AK whatever pf all-in winning some flips. First of all it is curious how some players still manage to go broke in a limped pot. Take the following hand, where my entire range for playing the flop like this is EXACTLY 66:

Hand 1

Granted top 2 is a strong hand and if he just raised his AQ preflop like he should then the money would have gone in anyway, but still my only hand I felt this flop with is 66, I wouldn't want to play A6 like this, AA, QQ, and AQ are surely raised preflop.

On the same topic, this hand is even more strange:

Hand 2

Again my entire range on that flop is 66/77, I wouldn't even overplay oesfd's like that. Now the odd thing here is that I don't have villain as an idiot. His stats are 16/10/4 on a 1k+ sample size, and I see him as a poor to average regular TAG. Yesterday I saw a video of (I think, not sure, could be CTS too) Silentassasin where he mentions the memory of players. He says that if someone sees a very weird or possibly donkish play he could very well remember that one occasion and be biased in his opinion on you due to that occasion. So I took a look in PT to see what hands he saw me play, and sure enough I see two 200bb+ pots where in one I went allin with JJ on a QQ high board (note: against a mayor spewy donk) and won, in another hand I pushed with QcTc on a ThJcAc board and obviously hit both a K on the turn and a club on the river. Now solely based on these two hands he could think I am quite a spewy donk who (in his opinion) overplays his draws. This is just theory tho, he could just have been very very drunk.

As for losing hands, This hand is a good example of how 3betting and 4betting more affects the table, this guy was a solid reg.

Hand 3

This is a hand I totally butchered:

Hand 4

CO opener was quite loose and aggressive, and BTN was an aggressive reg. I think this is a good spot to do the squeeze. After the CO 4betted I was a bit lost, but thought his range of hands mostly included smaller pocket pairs, possibly a higher pp that he mixed his play with. Now I pushed since I figured I would be flipping against his smaller pp's and I have a decent equity against the higher ones.

Hi everyone

I am Sacha from Amsterdam, and this is my first blog entry here. Hopefully a lot more will follow.

I have been playing poker for about 1,5 year now. Starting with a $50 roll on party playing the $5 SnG's for some time to learn the game. I began to learn cashgames playing 25nl on FTP and Party without very much success until early 2007 I moved to Everest Poker and I did a lot to improve my game and started playing 50nl with a decent winrate (but cashed out quite a few times). 2nd half 2007 I "decided" to quit poker due to starting a new study and not being able to emotionally cope with the swings. I cashed out my roll of $1500 or something and spend it all. Up till then I think my lifetime winnings were something like $3k

In November 2007 I went with my brother to a 50 euro rebuy tournament in the casino of Amsterdam, my father staked me and I ended second place for 2250 euro of which I only needed to pay the buyin back to my father. I spend most of the winnings on a clause for my girlfriend. December 31 I decided to deposit $500 to play again, and have since then been very serious on improving my game a lot. In January I majorly improved my game and quickly moved up to 100nl. I quit my weekly job in February ( I only earned 200 euro per month there tho) so now besides the normal students loan from the government and some monthly money from my father, poker is basically my income). In February I took some shots at 200nl which didn't go so well, and due to exams I didn't play for like a month or 2. Cashed out $3500 to safe for driving lessons and buy a 24inch screen on which I can properly 6table. Moved my entire roll to party because I didn't trust the dollar and went on a $1k downswing their mainly because my computer ran very slow with pokerace and datamined stats.

So anyway, had $2k when I moved back to Everest about 3 weeks ago, after running it up to $2300 I wanted to take a shot at 200nl which went good. I now permanently play 200nl, and have a roll of exactly $4k.

And that's basically my poker career in a nutshell. Below are my stats for 2008 so far. 200nl is so low because I had some drunken tiltnights playing 200nl and losing a lot of buyins some months ago. The two big downswings in the end are two blowup moments past weeks which I seriously need to work on. As you can see after the blowups where I donk 4 bi or so away to an idiot, I usually clear my mind and win the money back. I think I can be a good winner if I get rid of my blowups.

(note that except for the HU this is all 6max, pokertracker doesn't import new tables without dis. protection as 6 max yet)