I had a day off on the day of the EPT 1B. I was still feeling pretty sick, but slightly better than the day before, and ended up playing two tournaments.

First up was a 1500EUR WPT side event. It was meant to be a 1000EUR + 500EUR bounty, but it got very few players and almost no one seemed to want to play with bounties, so they changed it to a normal freezeout. I don't remember many hands from the tournament. All I know is the sad fact that I stone bubbled it. First I missed an open ended straight flush draw and a pair against top pair no kicker with 9x8d on AxJdTd9d against A4o on the bubble. Had I won that I would've knocked the guy out and got my first Czech Hendon Mob flag right there. After that I still had about 13BB which I lost J7s

Next up was the EPT 2k turbo bounty, one of the most fun tournaments on the circuit. To those not familiar with the concept, it's an awesome tournament where 1k goes to the prize pool and the other 1k is a bounty. This leads to hilarious spots where it's sometimes correct to call massive shoves with 72o. I played well and quite standard all the way into the money. To be honest I can't recollect almost any hands before the money, except that I made two huge double-ups with ATs against JJ and with QQ against AQ. I ended up chopping one bounty later when I called a 3-way all-in with QJs against QJo and 44 with the biggest stack. I turned a flush draw to scoop it all and get a monster chip lead, but sadly dodged it.

The tourney paid 20 players, and I was one of the chipleaders on the bubble, but to my disappointment I got moved to the table that was by far the toughest in the room with two stacks bigger than me who knew what they were doing. I made a kamikaze ICM disaster 4-bet bluff on the stone bubble when I opened A4o from the hijack with a minraise, SB with a bigger stack 3-bet and I jammed my 23BB stack in. It's been a while since I last 4-bet bluffed with 23BBs, but it was such an obvious spot for him to do it with any two cards. The downside is that because of the bounty, he could be planning to call lighter because of the extra value. The bounty doesn't matter much late in the tournament in reality, but most people don't realize that, so it was a bit of a guessing game if my move was awful or not. Luckily he folded.

The bubble burst soon after, I lost a small flip and was about 3/18 when a nightmare of a hand happened. When I think of all the hands I've butchered during my career, this goes to the top three for sure. I can't remember playing a hand in a live tournament this bad in a long, long time.

So: 18 players left, the average is about 15-16BB, I've got 26BB and the big blind who is the chipleader has about 40BB. He's a young Russian guy I've seen around, someone who I can for a fact tell is very good at poker. I'm pretty sure he remembers me too, and gives me credit for being a good player. The winner gets $70k but there's no real money to be made before the final table.

I'm on the button and find myself with A9o. The SB has 15BB or so, and the BB is our Russian. It's folded around to me and I make the standard min-raise to 40k at 10k/20k. I'm obviously snap calling a shove from either. SB folds and the Russian calls. The flop comes A66 rainbow, and I bet 30k into 100k. The Russian minraises to 60k.

I found this spot to be extremely hairy. Against a random Russian I'm obviously doing my best to make it look like I have a hard decision and just call call call every street, secretly fistpumping inside. This would also be true against almost any random player under 60 years of age. However, I knew that the guy was good, and that he almost certainly thought that I was good. I also look like a young scandi, and no hand reading capable young scandi is ever going to fold to that line since it doesn't represent shit. Basically, I felt like we were on the level where he was definitely not trying to get me to fold. On something like J22 or 664 or whatever I would have had a hard time letting my hand go. But on this flop he's just not trying to pull such an amateur bluff basically ever.

So, where does this leave us? He can well have a six, I'm not sure how wide he defends but definitely at least something like 65s, 76s, and maybe stuff like K6s or 86s? He's getting 5:1 and Russians like to play hands, so that could be a lot of stuff in my opinion. The key part about the hand is the amount of aces he can have. At the time I was pretty sure he'd shove all suited aces and something like A9o+ pre-flop. That's what I would do, and especially with the bounty it'd be a very profitable shove. However - and this is a problem I seem to have a lot - not everyone plays poker the same and I guess it's easily possible he'd flat weak suited aces as well. I still can't ever see him not shoving AT+ pre-flop, but the rest is up for guessing.

Anyway. So he raises the minimum. At this point I have basically no idea what I'm going to do. I end up calling because it seems like it's the only thing I can really do, but I already have the sick feeling in my stomach where I just know this isn't going to end well. Turn is a brick and he bets something like 90k setting himself up for a river shove.

My logic at the time of the hand was played was that he just shouldn't have an ace, and I basically put him on an extremely narrow and idiotic range of 6x. This is the kind of ranging gone bad that hasn't happened to me in a long time. I talked the hand over with Seabeast afterwards and I realized that something I hadn't at all accounted for is that he could have been check-raising the flop with a weak(er) ace to induce me and that was actually his most likely holding. It makes perfect sense - I look like a scandi who's never going to believe that check-raise so I'm going to be running spewy bluffs. It's the best possible way for him to get value with top pair when my range is extremely wide - to rep shit. Since we are 25BB deep BTN vs BB, if I happen to have a six or a stronger ace it's a cooler for him. And he can't have a stronger ace, so my hand is the nuts. What he's usually expecting to happen is that I'm either going to float or click it back, and he'll get to win a sizeable pot or possibly even to stack me with his disguised top pair that I'm not going to believe he has.

When the hand was played, I was entirely incapable of even giving a thought to this happening. I was totally blinded by my fear of him having a six, and my idea of how he'd play an ace (check-call x3). I ended up folding. He didn't show, and I guess there's still a decent chance he had a six, but against his overall range I definitely should have stacked off by either click it back/snap calling the flop or calling turn and river. I can't stress enough how badly I played this hand and how crushed I still am by it. I mean come on, top pair against an aggro young Russian 25BB deep Button vs BB? How hard can it be??? To my credit, at least I wouldn't have pulled a bluff here if I didn't have it, I would've just shrugged and folded to the check-raise.

Soon after I got what I deserved when I got it in with AT against A3 for a pot that would've made me 2/15 or possibly even the chipleader. The flop came a hilarious 333, so I didn't have to sweat it, and I busted in 15th cashing for 5200a‚¬.

Okay, after this I don't think anyone's gonna knock me off from the first place in the Finnish OPOY race... have fun trying though! I got 5th earlier in the iPoker 33r, ran horrible at the final table and found myself 1-tabling the PokerStars 55r at about 2AM with over 100 players left. It's been such a cursed tournament for me, I'm not sure if I've even cashed it before. Since I was monotabling so early I decided to make the best out of it. Results:





Such an epic ft with so many strong players. I think I did pretty well though, I screwed up a couple of hands for sure but on the flip side here are a couple of pretty sick plays that worked out perfectly.

1) 10 players left at this point, for once this actually worked. Everyone involved was a reg. That's obviously a dream cold 4bet spot for the SB, and the opener knows this, so it's quite likely no one actually has anything and if I get called I usually have 35% anyway. http://weaktight.com/4200166

2) This was against my buddy tollgate. He's hyper aggressive and in general it's impossible to almost ever fold two pair against him. However in this exact spot it's pretty easy to eliminate almost all worse value hands from his range, and there was almost a 0% chance this was a bluff, and he wouldn't play even a good draw this way given the icm implications. This was a really absurd fold, especially given how the hand played out, but he had flopped a straight so nice life me. Flame all you want! http://weaktight.com/4200168


Man, I heated my sauna about three hours ago, it's now 7.20 in the morning and I'm pretty sure it's gone all cold. Oh well.

It's been a week since I came back from Prague, but I haven't had time to write with Christmas coming up, my birthday and the online grind where I'm desperately trying secure winning the Finnish PocketFives OPOY race this year. It's pretty intense but I think my lead is enough with only one Sunday left this year, especially as it's Sunday the 25th of December and I don't think most guys will be playing that day. I'm not entirely sure how the formula works, but based on a gut feeling I think someone has to either grind like crazy or win something big to beat me. If I've managed to get a 250 point lead over 354 days, it shouldn't be easy to gain that many points in just 11 days left, right? And I'm going to grind probably about seven more days this year too. You can look at the rankings here by clicking at the Finnish sortable rankings on the right: http://www.pocketfives.com/sortable-rankings/

I had a pretty good shot at boosting my rankings yesterday when I was comfortably deep in many Sunday majors. I started to run bad at a pretty critical moment though. First I stone bubbled both of the 300EUR highrollers I played, getting 31st with 30 paid and 37th with 36 paid. The only really, really deep run I got was in the iPoker $215. I was in the top ten from 250 players left or something, and ended up being 13th out of 1100+ players. I got something stupid like $1700 when the winner, MTT legend Seabeast got $44k. I wouldn't mind it otherwise, but the way in which I busted what was basically a guaranteed final table and a LOT of much-needed OPOY points was pretty brutal.

First, I had been 3-betting some stupid Finnish player a couple of times with air and he had folded. I had been inducing him because I just knew he'd lose it the next time, so I was waiting for a hand I could 3bet/call against him. I finally got my spot when he opened UTG about 30BB deep (I covered) and I had AK UTG+1. It was a bit dumb, because I didn't think he could possibly stupid enough to spazz here in a 10-handed table with 20 players left in a major, but obviously I went for the 3-bet/call anyway. He snap jammed with deuces in what was one of the worst blow-ups I've seen in a long time. I was never ever bluffing there and my range for 3-betting was incredibly tight, so while that was a flip on paper it was godawful from him and it's so wrong he got rewarded when I lost the flip.

Then finally my exit hand with 13 players left. A player who was clearly scared money opened UTG+1 with a minraise, and I had 20BB on the big blind. Folded to me with pocket sevens, and I had to call 20k into over 100k, so it's a clear setmine against a super nitty range against which I'm always going to get value if I get it in. I flopped a set on 764, we got it in and he had pocket eights. Turn 3, river... 5. GG.

Anyway, I'm going to finish the Prague stuff now before I forget about it all. There aren't many positive things to tell, though.

I told about my awful hotel in the first entry and how the room was insanely cold, right? It turned out that my snap move to Hilton wasn't snappy enough, as I had still managed to catch a cold. I had a bit of a fever already on the WPT day 2, and it only got worse after that.

When I was playing the EPT satellite on the off day between my WPT bustout and EPT day one I was already really sick and dizzy. I wouldn't have played it at all had it not been at the Hilton so that I was able to simply take the elevator to the casino. The buy-in was 500 euros with one 500 euro rebuy and no add-on. I was so ill that I don't really remember much from the tournament, except for three things:

1) Everyone seemed insanely bad, and that was the easiest 5300EUR seat I've ever won anywhere.

2) I met 2+2er Gags30 for the first time, when he was on my left at my last table without me knowing it was him.

3) I got two silly spots near the bubble where I made nitty folds since it was a satellite. First I folded AQs in the BB to a 7BB shove when I had about 14BB and the bubble was two spots away. Then I open folded QQ with 13BB on the exact bubble from UTG.

I got a seat really easily and it only took me about four hours. Easy game. That was the first of my two scores of a similar amount I managed to get in Prague.

I played the EPT 5k on day 1A on the next day. I saw a lot high stakes players all around on that day and it seemed that the field wouldn't be anywhere near as soft as I thought it would be. And on top of that I was really, really sick now. I had 39,6c of fever when I walked down to the casino according to the Czech thermometer I had bought. I had hardly slept at all because I couldn't find a pharmacy on the night before and the feeling in my throat felt like I had swallowed a cactus. I definitely was not in a shape to play my A-, or even my B-game, but I didn't have a choice.

Luckily I got a really good table draw. Only a couple of young players, and they turned out to be nits too, and several 50-year old Greek and Italian players who were awful. I decided that since it's a long, deep tournament, I was feeling awful and I couldn't think clearly I'd save the big bluffs for later and play relatively solid.

This turned out to be a good plan, as I got a couple of massive donations from some Greek guy. In the first one I 3-bet him with AJo and fired three big barrels on Jxxxx and was good. In the second one I 3-bet again with AK with the king of hearts. He called and the flop came Ah3h8c. He donkbet big and I called. Turn 4h, he donkbet again and I called. River was the beautiful Th giving me the nuts, he check-called my almost pot-sized bet and didn't show.

I played a fun hand against one of the young nits soon after, copy-pasted from 2+2:

Villain is an online MTTer based on his appearance and what he's done at the table but I don't recognize him, 25 year oldish euro guy. He doesn't seem to be the type to 3-bet bluff air, but rather 3-bets light with playable hands like JTs type stuff, also flats them sometimes. I think his flatting range here contains most broadway combos, pairs, suited aces, possibly even AQ. He seems to be on the solid side and hasn't been out of line at all. We haven't been to big pots together, but I've managed to do pretty well in general and everything's gone my way so far so I think he probably gives me respect for knowing what I'm doing. BTN is a random live fish who loves to flat pre, almost never folds his button, but plays fit/fold post. He's fired huge bets with made hands and I doubt he ever has anything in this hand.

100/200/, I've got 60k+, both villains around 35k.

I open from MP to 500 with red 99, villain flats CO, the fish flats BTN, the rest fold.

Flop Ah2d2c (1800)
I elect to check, villain checks, fish checks

Turn 6d (1800)
I check, villain bets 1050, the fish folds, I call.

River Kd (3900)
I check, he bets 3500 which I'm sure he realizes is a big bet, I think about it for a bit and throw in 11k and change. He thinks for a while and folds.

In a perfect world I know my line kind of sucks, because I only rep KK (although I think I rep that really well), slowplayed aces, slowplayed quads, extremely oddly played 66 or AK or to some people maybe a good backdoor flush although I would never have played it this way. However in a big live tournament against someone who's clearly playing over his head and is scared BUT who also understands a thing or two about MTTs I think it's a pretty cool bluff. If I put myself in his shoes, I'd have a pretty hard time calling a 55BB river check-raise on a relatively bricky board for a third of my stack with a low backdoor flush and I'd snap fold an ace. I think he can reasonably have a lot of aces that he's trying to get me off a chop with. Melanie Weisner pointed out an interesting point though, when she said she'd like this more if villain had bet less or more. I wholeheartedly agree. Against a bet of over the pot this would be an absolutely genius bluff, and against a smaller bet it'd be a pretty standard one. Anyway, I still kind of like my play. Maybe it's a bit optimistic to think he'd ever fold a flush, but I'm pretty sure he had an ace and he folded pretty fast, so I'm happy with the results at the least.

After the hand it didn't go so well. I had got the aggressive image anyway, not that I would have really laggied it up that much, but more because I just had a good card run and didn't have show many hands. My pre-flop card run continued and I found playable hands every other hand, but I couldn't hit any flops and most of my bluff attempts didn't work. I went down from 70k (when the average was still just 30k) to about 50k without anything special, and my stack surfed between 40k and 70k for the remainder of the night. I played one more big hand before bagging the chips, again pasted from 2+2:

We are mid-way through day one. We started with 30k, I have almost 70k. Villain1 has 44k and Villain2 about 30k.

Villain1 is the guy from the previous hand. I know nothing about villain2, he sat down an orbit ago, hasn't played a hand, he looks like he's from Israel or maybe like Italy or Greece and is ~25 but he's got headphones and looks like someone who has a clue (no bling bling but instead a hoodie).

I have an ok image, I've played a pretty solid 16/14 or whatever, I have 3-bet/folded just a couple of times. I haven't been barreley at all either. Villain1 has showed absolutely no interest in playing back at me whenever I've opened, he hasn't 3-bet me once despite having had about 30 good spots to do so. Based on how he plays pre-flop I think he always flats pairs and KQs KJs type stuff, maybe/probably JTs QTs KTs, and would almost certainly fold the offsuit versions of those hands.

250/500/50. Folded to me in the CO, I make it my standard 1100 with PRAWNS!!!, in other words 3d 3h. Villain1 from SB calls, Villain2 from BB calls.

Flop Th5s3c (3700)
Checked to me, I make it 2250, Villain1 thinks about it for a bit and calls, Villain2 thinks about it for a bit also and calls. They both give the vibe where they are unsure what they should do here.

Turn Kd (8200)
Checked to me, I check back. Basically I'm sure that if I bet here, V1 will fold everything except precisely KT or 55 (or TT), and there are only 2 combos of KTs and he probably folds KTo pre-flop, and if he check-raises me I'm going hate my life and probably fold (?). Even that it's a classic bluff card he's just not going to call with a ten, as he's just such a nit/scared money. It also seems pretty unlikely to be able to take V2 to three streets of valuetown unless he has exactly KT. and neither of them seems capable of running a huge check-raise bluff, so I check back.

River comes 8d (8200) V1 checks, V2 bets 5500, V1 still seems interested in the hand and I have a very tough decision. I think this could very well be a bluff, as it seems both V1 and me have given up the hand. It's going to be hard for me to get value from either by raising. Basically I have to figure out whether it's more likely to get V1 to call too by calling or to get either of them to call if I raise. If I raise, V1 is never going to call with anything I can beat, and V2 would have to be quite a hero to do that. If I raised, I'd make it pretty much the minimum, say 6500 more. If I call here, I think V1 will call something like 30-35% of the time, so V2 would have to call my raise something like (I can't be arsed to do the exact math) something like 27-30% to make raising here more profitable than calling. I didn't think it would happen as he's bluffing so much, so I tried my best to look as uncomfortable as possible and called. V1 tanked for the longest time and finally folded something that was almost certainly a ten. V1 instantly mucked, and as per the EPT rules I didn't have to show either. I obviously showed just one of my treys, and neither of the villains looked happy.

For the last couple of levels I was starting to feel worse and worse and pretty much just blinded down being both card-dead and braindead. I bagged 55k chips which was slightly above average and a comfortable 55BB going into the day two.

I packed my bags for another live tournament trip three days ago. This time my destination was Prague, since it was hosting a solid 30+ live tournaments within a time span of 11 days, including a WPT, an EPT and a GSOP and a bunch of well-structured side events.

My flight had a six-hour stopover in Frankfurt. This happens to me every time - when I'm booking flights in the comfort of my home, I put money over comfort, and on the day I'm traveling I regret it and would pay double the price to get to my destination without a stopover. And sure enough, this time too instead of buying 350EUR direct return flights I ended up buying 220EUR ones with a stopover both ways.

Frankfurt has become my most common stopover recently, because Lufthansa flights out of Helsinki are a bit cheaper than the ones British Airways, Finnair and whoever else flies out of there and I like the airline. However, despite being to the Frankfurt Airport more than 10, possibly 20 times in the past couple of years I'd never been to the city. Since I had six hours to kill, I decided to get something outside poker done on a poker trip for once, and took a train to the city centre.

Due to my lack of sleep (I had to get up a 4.30AM) I was really tired, the day was cloudy, and I couldn't find anything from Frankfurt. I had checked its wikitravel page before traveling, and it had a list of three metro stations that would be in the "heart" of Frankfurt. I got off at the centremost one, and when I was waiting for the escalator to slowly reach the street level, I expected to soon be seeing shopping centres, restaurants and possibly hot German girls wearing Oktoberfest gear. Instead all I saw was office buildings. There was no one around except for random BMWs passing by, there was not a single store anywhere. Just buildings. Ugly, meaningless buildings, that were just tall enough to look like office buildings, but not tall enough to look like skyscrapers.

I spent a good three hours walking around Frankfurt, and all I could find was the river and about 150 sex shops and all kinds of peep show places that were open at 10AM. One of the joints had a huge sign outside that said "transvestite dildo show 24/7!". If I ever find myself in need of seeing bizarre sex acts or purchasing out-of-the-box sex toys, it seems Frankfurt is the place to go. For anything else, though, it seemed like it had nothing to offer. I probably just didn't find any of the cool places in my limited time there, but whatever, I can't see myself being arsed to go back the next time I have a stopover in there (which is on my return trip from here and is apparently seven hours this time, fuck my life).

When I finally gave up with the city and returned to the terminal, I spent the rest of my waiting time drinking various Boost Juice smoothies. Those who haven't been to Australia probably have no idea what Boost Juice is (hint: there's one in Tallinn's Rotermanni and it's the best way to cure a hangover from too much Estonian vodka), but I'm telling you that it's the nuts. They have all kinds of healthy smoothies with no added sugar or anything, just fruit and frozen yoghurt and different kinds of boosters such as protein and antioxidants, and they taste better than 99,9999% of things I've eaten in my life. If I ever get enough money I'm going to open a Boost Juice franchise in Helsinki.

I also bought a couple of books. I considered buying the Steve Jobs autobiography, but ended up saving it for later, and instead bought a book on Andy Warhol and Max Brooks's World War Z. I'm a lazy reader when I'm at home, mainly because I grind so much and when I don't I just don't have the brain power to concentrate on a book, but when I travel I always try to read a book or two. I almost never buy fiction, because it's just not my thing, but instead usually choose something on sports psychology, something Gladwell-esque that has vaguely something to do with poker, autobiographies, or random self-help-books on subjects I have no knowledge of. I've read quite a lot about Andy Warhol but never in the form of a book, so that one was quite an obvious choice. World War Z sure wasn't, but it seemed interesting and I've grown such a huge Walking Dead obsession in the past couple of months that anything with zombies would do for me right now.

I had booked myself a four-star hotel about 200 meters from the Corinthia casino, where the WPT and GSOP are being held. There was a deal on 2+2 that offered the Corinthia for 99EUR/night, which is a five-star hotel. However it seemed that everyone was going there, and based on my experience when there are hundreds of poker players in the same hotel, the internet never works at all. Damn poker players downloading porn while grinding. I value internet more than most things when I'm traveling, because after you bust out tournaments it's just the best to crawl into your bed, take your laptop and start browsing to forget about whatever brutal beat you just took. I didn't want to risk being internet-less for the entire trip, so I booked myself a room just a stone's throw away.

The room ended up being a disaster. I'm not really picky with my hotels, as I used to do a lot of low-budget traveling before my poker career, and I'm used to sharing hostel rooms with seven other people and seventy cockroaches. This just happened to be a little too much. To start with, my room's door didn't have a lock. It only had about half the lock left after what looked like a succesful attempt at breaking into the room. The shower wasn't working except for a couple of random drops of cold water, and it was freezing inside. There was no air condition or anything, it was just freezing. And the internet wasn't working at all. I was so tired when I got there that I pretty much just passed out, but when I woke up at five in the morning on the day I was supposed to play the WPT day 1B I made the decision to get the fuck out of there.

I tried to get a room from the Corinthia, but it was full. All I could find was random four-star hotels (I later found out that four stars in Prague means two stars in most other places), and I didn't want to face another disaster. I decided to get a room from Hilton (where the EPT is being held), no matter what it would cost. Well, of course they didn't have any rooms. Poker players had bought them all. I was on the verge of tears when I realized I might have a couple of outs in the form of EPTHotels.com. Maybe they would've reserved a few extra rooms from the Hilton in advance to ensure poker players get the extra rooms in cases like this?

I sent them an email from the incredibly crappy internet connection that worked only on my mobile when I was sitting on the lobby couch, cutting off every 30 seconds. I labeled the email urgent. They got back to me within 10 minutes, saying there was a room available for 1080EUR for 10 nights. Fuckkkkkkkkkkk yessssssss. I snap called the offer and moved here. My room is spacious, warm, the shower is working great, the internet is working great, and all in all I have a really good feeling about this place. Next time I'm going to book this in the first place (and direct flights).

I played the WPT 1B on the day before yesterday. It was a re-entry event, but I wasn't aware of it when I booked my flights, so I ended up using just one bullet. The day was full of players who had busted on the previous days plus some random amateurs. My starting table was reasonably good, with three massive fish and three or four competent players. The only obstacle was the crazy Czech Martin Kabrehl on my left. I hadn't played with him before and only found out later who he was, but I could tell that he was one aggro player. Most of his plays seemed to be on the verge of spazziness, but then again he's won EPT highrollers, so what do I know.

I got involved in a big pot with Martin only a couple of orbits in (I didn't know who he was at the time):

I came 15 minutes late and have only been at the table for about 15 hands. Starting stack 30k, 50/100 level. I've played two hands: 1) I open HJ to 300, villain makes it 900 from CO, I fold. 2) I open UTG+2 to 300, only BB calls. I fire flop and turn on J643r and tank sigh call villain's 1/3 pot river donk bet with aces losing to K6. I have 26k left and villain has the same.

Villain's played a few hands during my time at the table winning them all with a cbet, no showdowns. All of his actions in this hand were REALLY fast, like 1-2 seconds, but that's how he's timed all of his actions. I called turn a bit too quickly to induce big river bets, but I still don't know if I can call this.

I make it 300 UTG with 77, villain calls UTG+1, rest of the table folds.

Flop Kc Jc 7c (750)
I bet 450, villain makes it 1200, I call.

Turn 3h (2950) Check, villain bets 3000, I call.

River Ts (8950) Check, villain insta jams 17k. I tank for an eternity and finally fold, he doesn't show.

It's all downhill from there, too, for a good couple of levels. I fail to win a single pot except for one succesful 4-bet bluff against Martin. He busts at 150/300 and when he gets replaced by a new guy with lots of ante chips I end up getting caught 4-bet bluffing, having to fold leaving just 12k behind.

My stack goes down all the way to 8k, and I'm already eyeing the side event program. I soon have just 20BBs left, and I'm happily looking a for a 3-bet shove spot to either gain some chips, double up or bust especially with a side event starting soon. I couldn't be happier when I get my chips in with AK against someone's QQ - it's a win-win situation. The board runs 2339...K!

With my new chips I put my headphones on, start listening to M83 and get my groove on. I have a bit of a loose/weakish image, I've played a lot of pots but haven't really found any good spots to fire multiple barrels on, and an awful lot of pots have ended in me giving up on some street. I finally find a spot to bluff with all my chips against a competent player, who's been the most active at the table:

150/300/25, effective stacks ~30k.

MP opens to 750, CO flats, villain on the button flats, I call in the BB with Kc9c.

Flop Js Tc 3s (3350)

Checked around to villain on the button who bets 1500. I raise to 4225, MP folds, CO folds, villain calls in rhythm.

Turn 2h (11800)

I bet 5600, villain calls.

River 7s (23000)

I shove for 19000, villain folds.


Soon after I fall a bit card-dead, winning small pots and losing big ones, and my stack stands between 30k and 40k. for the next three hours. On the last level of the night I get moved to a new table, decide to go absolute spastic and end up 3-betting the same guy three times within two orbits as a bluff. The first time he called and folded on AK7 flop, the second and third time he folded pre-flop. I ended the day with 44,400, which was a bit below average but still a nice 36BBs for the next level.

Day two was pretty disastrous from the beginning. My table draw was actually very good, the only person I recognized was the November 9er Eoghan O'Dea, but he was directly to my right. The only thing that sucked for me was an incredibly spazzy Israeli guy on my left who didn't seem to have a fold button at all. He was so, so bad I'm having a hard time finding words to describe his play. Anyway, having someone who never folds anything pre- or post-flop makes it a bit hard to open too much, so I played pretty solid from the beginning. Early on I 3-bet Eoghan's blind vs. blind open with A8o with the intention of calling a shove about 35BBs effective, but he folded. After that I don't think I won a single pot. Every time I found a reasonable spot to raise with the Israelispazz flatted and I bricked the flop hard. The one time I found a great spot to 3-bet bluff with about 30BBs a nit woke up cold 4-bet jamming his stack in my face. The blinds went up twice, and all of a sudden I had just 18BBs at 1000/2000/300 (big antes, yo). I shoved my stack in the middle a couple of times with no showdowns, then had to fold two orbits in a row not finding half a spot to 3-bet shove, and then finally shoved 15BBs from the button with Q6cc (the Israeli had no clue about shortstacked play and called too tight) and ran into the Israeli's AA. Come on, at least give me a sweat there. The big blind showed two clubs as he folded to my delight and I was drawing dead by the turn. Oh, how much I would've wanted to give the israeli a bad beat but sadly it didn't happen.

I tried to register to the 1k side event but the registration had just closed. On my way out I had the honor of meeting the 2+2 legend p3rc4, who was smoking a cigarette despite being in the 1k as we spoke. I asked him why he wasn't at his table, and he said that he had a casual 7x average before the antes even kicked in. Hero.

Today is a bit of an off day, as there's only a 500EUR one rebuy satellite to the EPT that I'm going to play and a 430EUR turbo at 9PM if I bust the satellite in time to make it. There's a 1k 6-max too, but I'm going to skip it as I think it's going to get a very tough field (the fish usually tend to avoid 6-max but all the online kids are surely going to play it). I'm going to play the 5300EUREPT tomorrow on 1A, obviously regardless of whether I satty in or not, and the rest of the week is going to be all fireworks with great sides on every day.

I've had this problem throughout my poker career. I'm never satisfied with any amount of money I win, even when it's without a doubt more than I should have according to my expected value. I always want more. The bad feelings my losing streaks cause me are just so much stronger than the good feelings I get from winning. If I lose $25,000 in a month, I feel like shit. If I win $25,000 in a month, I shrug and think "yeah, that was ok, but I could've done better". If I bink two big tournaments in a session and lose heads-up in third, I'm devastated about the heads-up loss, not satisfied about the wins. That's just how I am. In a way it's great, because I always give myself way more shit than I should when I lose and force myself to study and go through hand histories to get better. I just wish that I could sometimes be like a normal human being and enjoy the glory and stop worrying about perfection. After all, it's quite unlikely I'll ever win every tournament I play in a month.

I've had a pretty amazing month. I'm now done grinding for November, as I only have a couple of days in Finland before flying to Prague, and I have things I need to take care of such as spending time with my girlfriend, shooting my next CardRunners video and buying christmas presents. This is what my graph for the month looks like:





The dip in the end isn't as deep as it should be, I guess Sharkscope hasn't fully tracked everything yet as I'm writing this. I dropped quite a bit of money today, and all in all I ended up about +$75k for the month.

If someone would've told me a month ago that I'd be making this much money in November, I would've been excited. Making $75k marks the best online month of my career, and during the month I also won my first Sunday major, topped the PocketFives worldwide monthly rankings for a few days and will finish in the top 10 almost certainly, and I also climbed to first place in the Finnish OPOY rankings for the first time ever. I know it's just statistics, and I acknowledge it's naive and silly, but being the #1 online MTT player of my country according to the best resource in the internet right now fills me with pride. Even that I know it might not last long, and emeriaa or someone else is probably going to bink a major next week to send me to 2nd place again.

So yeah, what an amazing month. But still, I feel like shit. Why? I only have some of the answers.

First of all, I really, really wanted to finally win a Triple Crown. For those of you who don't know, it's one of the most prestigious and hard-to-achieve online awards there is. You can get it by winning three different tournaments with prize pools of at least $10k within 7 consecutive days. It has to be on three different sites, and all fields must have as least 100 players. Now that there's no FTP anymore it's pretty hard to get, because sites other than Stars don't host that many daily tournaments that fill the criteria. And the ones that do get quite massive fields. Off the top of my head; iPoker runs a 33r twice a day, a 55r once a day, Ongame has a 22r, a 54r, a 108/15k and a 108/10k, Party has one 11r, a 22r, a 109/15k, and on top of that there are some random huuuuuge field 5rs and 10rs on multiple sites (where you have to beat fields of 1000-2500 players). I'm probably forgetting something, but the point is that there really aren't that many tourneys after you've won that Stars tournament, and you need to win two tournaments on two different sites on top of the Stars one.



I got a head start when I won both the Second Chance and a random Party $55 that just exceeded the $10k mark last Sunday. So I had a full week to try to bink something. How did I go? Well, I lost heads up for a crown twice, losing a total of 6 flips, of which I would've needed to win only one to get the crown. On top of that I lost QTvsT6 on QT6 board for 2/3 in iPoker 33r, lost AAvsAK for 1/8 in iPoker 55r, AKvsAT for 2/3 in Ongame 108, AKvsAJ for 70% of chips in another Ongame 108, and all in all I got a whopping 11 Triple Crown eligible final tables within that week. Eleven. Usually you get three if you're lucky. But sure, I ran pretty bad at the critical moments in those tournaments, and finished 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th, 8th, 8th and 9th in my chances to bink a crown. I'm pretty sure I won't get another chance too soon.

Another reason for my bad mood despite just closing off a great month might be that I'm simply a little bit burnt out at online MTTs right now. I do already miss them (having finished a session 45 minutes ago), being the addict I am, but I've just played so, so much in the past few weeks that it's probably been a few MTTs too many for my psyche. I know 1000 MTTs in a month isn't much for many people, but I don't play turbos at all apart from a couple of random Ongame ones. I mainly play well-structured MTTs that last for a long time, 12-14 hour sessions, 5 days a week. I haven't been able to exercise at all because of my stomach condition, so I've spent most my off-time when I haven't been socializing watching poker videos and studying. I've played approximately 240 hours of poker in the past four weeks, constantly under the influence of caffeine pills, having fucked up sleeping schedules, and having a painful stomach condition. I've played in a state of extreme concentratedness for the most part, and a few times after a session I've been sweaty just because I've given it all I've got. I guess it shows in the results that I really tried harder than ever this month, and it's of course a great feeling to see that hard work pays off, but maybe I could've played just a little bit less. Thank God there's Prague, I'm so excited to be playing live as it's totally different thing than online poker. I'm pretty sure I'd have to take a few days off right now if I wasn't going there, because I just couldn't take grinding another 60 hour week clicking buttons alone at night.

But mostly it's just what happened this weekend. I was already up about $10k for the week at some point, but ran terribly all weekend to finish at breakeven or even slightly losing for my 60 hours of work. It shouldn't matter at all, and when I think about it it doesn't, but it just feels so dumb. Every time. It doesn't matter how well you've done in the days and weeks before, I am the kind of person that if I don't get results *right now* I'm always disappointed, even that I know it's not up to me in the short run. Obviously it doesn't make me tilted or affect my decisions, it only strikes me after the session. But for me, it's just so, so hard to accept that you just lost $10k clicking buttons on the internet, even that it's just variance. The mistakes you made during the session feel so much worse than they were, the bad beat when you failed to win a 70-30 with 18 left in the Entraction major (sigh) feels like a traumatizing beat when it was only like a $3k beat in reality, and every great play you made owning someone feels worthless. At least to me.

I know I'm going to feel extremely good about the month, the P5s #1, my first major win and everything once I get some sleep. And I'm sure I'll be excited as heck to be on the live felt again as soon as I land in Prague on thursday afternoon. It doesn't help a lot right now, since all I can think of is the weekend of missed opportunities, close runs and stupid bluffs that cost me way too many big tournaments, but I know it will soon. Actually, I'm pretty sure that when I wake up tomorrow, with no rush anywhere, being able to download the latest episode of The Walking Dead, going christmas shopping, printing my plane tickets for Prague, looking at the schedule thinking of every cool tournament I'm going to grind during those 10 days, I'm going to feel awesome. Fuck, I just had the greatest month EVER and I have no doubt I'll continue having results online in the future as well.

But man, why couldn't the AK just hold in that Entraction major?

Just when I thought that last week's success couldn't be topped, I got my biggest online score ever - I won the Sunday Second Chance on PokerStars for $42k. I also binked a $55 on Party earlier for $3k, meaning I have all week to try to bink a Triple Crown. Earlier in the session I got 5th in a 300 euro highroller tourney, too. I only slept 6 hours last night and I've been up for way too long now and it's 10AM, so I'm not even going to try to write anything else. All I can say is that man, I'm a happy panda right now.

Ironically, I saw a dream last night that I won the WSOP Main. I don't really have poker dreams like that, I sometimes dream about hands but never really about glory. It was such a crushing feeling to wake up. I think this soothes the disappointment pretty well.

I think the past 7 days might have been the best of my online career so far. The following is missing my 4th place finish for 3,5k in the Stars 109/40k just a few moments ago but otherwise it should be pretty accurate:


I played five days this week, and when I played I played very well for the most part. It started with the iPoker win (see last post), then I went on to win the 22 6max rebuy for $3,5k, chopped the PartyPoker Saturday $215 for $11k, got second in a $120 turbo for $5k, won the Stars $33 quad for $3,5k, got 4th in the aforementioned $109/40k for $3,5k (despite having 70% of chips at one point and a massive fish having about 20%, sigh), and final tabled a bunch of other stuff for random $500-$1500 scores. HEATTTTTTTTTT.

How all this happened still baffles me slightly, especially when I find hands like these from my HEM database that I've played just today (I'm sure there are many similar ones from the past few days):

http://weaktight.com/4095214
http://weaktight.com/4095217

Of course I've ran really hot and such ROI at these stakes isn't really sustainable, but hey, I've ran bad since the summer so this feels pretty deserved. I feel like my everyday playing has a got a lot better since I stopped traveling for a bit. Like Seabeast wisely said, you need to get into the rhythm of everyday grinding (which is impossible if you're traveling somewhere every week) to play at your absolute best. So since online seems to be going well, I'm gonna skip EPT Greece and the Merit Cyprus Classic and whatever liveaments there are in November and just stay at home and grind. I'm going to the Prague Poker Festival early in December to play the entire WPT-->EPT-->GSOP thing with all the side events, but apart from that I think that's it for the live grinds this year. I think it's a good decision, even that a part of me always wants to chase some live glory.

Hey guys,

I'm Chuck Bass and this is my first CardRunners blog entry. Given that many of you have probably never heard of me, I guess a short introduction would be in order.

I'm from Finland, always been addicted to all kinds of gambling and I was a somewhat succesful sports bettor since middle school. I spent most of my free time betting on horses, soccer, ice hockey and whatever I wanted to bet on. I did pretty well and had multiple $10k+ scores before I turned 15, but I also had a massive slots addiction and blew it all on other gambling. My biggest bet ever was in the 2000 football euro championchips. I bet my entire roll on Italy to win. I can't remember how much it was anymore but it would've been over $20k had I won... and I was 13 at the time. Italy led 1-0 until the 94th minute (when the referee gave way too much extra time), France luckboxed an equalizer and Italy lost on extra time. Traumatizing.

I found poker in 2007 when I was 20 and living in Australia (I had left Finland for a two-week holiday that ended up lasting two years thanks to hot aussie chicks and the beauty of the country). I probably would've stayed Down Under even longer, but in the end I found myself $20k deep in debt after my first attempts at poker didn't go very well.

So I got back, absolutely piss poor and I got myself a job at a gas station. I got a rakeback payment of what I think was around $120 and I grinded it up from there playing low stakes sit and gos. I reached the $20k in a couple of months to pay my debts and soon after moved to cash NLHU. I still remember how I got into it. A friend of mine told me about a video site called CardRunners. I had never ever heard of poker videos, but I instantly bought a subscription and watched the video where Taylor taught Ezra to play HU, I think it was at 5/10. I caught the bug and started copying everything people did in CR's HU videos. I did pretty well, playing HU professionally for the next 1,5 years and I played regularly at 5/10 at my highest, but I also had massive tilt issues and blew my roll more than a few times.

In 2009 I got sponsored by a poker company and in the end got scammed out of my entire bankroll by them, and in the end of 2009 I again found myself in debt. I had made some pretty awful life decisions earlier gambling away money too, and looking at it afterwards I'm pretty sure I would've reached the rock bottom again sooner or later even if I didn't get scammed (for what was over $50k) back then. I just wasn't ever meant to be a cash gamer. It never suited my personality, I tilted way too much and I suffered from the syndrome where you have to chase your losses after every bad session.

I found MTTs in December 2009 and something just clicked instantly. I had played some live tournaments but never really online apart from random Sunday tourneys. It took me maybe two days to realize that this is what I should've been doing from the benning. So many things just clicked and I loved being able to push people around in ways I was never able to in cash. I've had decent success from the beginning and now, almost two years later my graph looks like this:



On top of that, I've also toured a lot of live tournaments and I've cashed a little over $260k (source: Hendon Mob http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=128047). I've bought in for about $130k-$140k so I guess I've won approximately $260k in my tournament career so far. I got my first $100k+ cash this year, winning the annual Helsinki Freezeout in my hometown. One of the best days of my life for sure, being able to win the thing in front of my friends and a big rail of people I knew, going to the poshiest night club in Helsinki straight after and just enjoying the win.

On top of playing I write regularly for the Finnish Card Player magazine and I've written some English strategy articles as well. Here's a sample, it's about floating in MTTs: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/183/midstakes-mtt/scandinavian-float-974896/

I spend a lot of time studying, and I can say with full confidence that the effect studying from multiple resources (mainly 2+2 and video sites) has had on my game is huge. I was always a pretty lazy student when I played cash and only watched a couple of videos a month, but as an MTTer I've for some reason always had motivation and it's paid off really well. I know that playing is much for fun than studying, but trust me, it'll pay off. I hope that I can help some of you to get better at MTTs by watching my videos, at least I'll be giving it my absolute best shot.

I just wanted to get the introduction out of the way so I can get into more regular blogging. I've been blogging in Finnish for a long time and my blog has been the most read poker blog in Finland ever since 2007 with millions of clicks. While I have no expectations of similar success internationally, I'm going to at least try to make my entries worthwhile.

I like to play live a lot and I just finished a tour of about 20 live tournaments in two months. I went really deep in the EPT Barcelona main, busting 15th out of 811 players QQ
I was very much planning to go to EPT Greece next week, but I've toured so much recently that I'm kind of burnt out from live poker and can't be arsed to go. I think I'm going to concentrate on online grinding for the remainder of the year apart from the Prague poker festival early in December, where they have a WPT, an EPT and a GSOP all within 10 days. I hope I'll have cool hand histories and sick live results brags to post when I get back from there.

Online I've had a bit of a rough stretch recently, but I am in hopes that the worst would be over now that I got my second biggest online score ever last Sunday.

If anyone has any questions, you can find my well here: http://www.cardrunners.com/cr_forums/showthread.php?151601-Into-the-Well-ChuckBass I was told it'll be active for another couple of days, so feel free to shoot me tough guestions while you still can!

GL at the tables, everyone.