I busted from the Main Event as 47^th for 19k. Day4 started pretty brutal. I’ve never felt so sleepy in my whole life I think. Okay that’s obviously exaggerated but it comes close. Sunday evening I eat dinner with Pokerccini and his friend and then we went out for a beer. So far so good. We decided that it’s best to go home early to be in good shape for tomorrow. Well, they had their hotel near the casino, mine was somewhere in the hills, at least 25 minutes away from the casino. On my way home I met Andy who I had at the table Sunday and we started chatting about various poker stuff. Somehow we decided to drink something, talk a little bit more about the game ect. Later a friend of him joined us and we’re discussing strategy, drinking couple of beers and having fun. I think at 12pm I decided to stop drinking and I switched to coke, but refused to go home because I thought it would be no problem for me to get up tomorrow. At 1am the bar closed and the guys wanted to go to the strip club, the last place in town where you can get alcohol. They somehow convinced me to come with them, at least for one beer. Well I did come with them and I wish I never did lol. To cut a long story short, I lost my sunglasses in the night club, went home, realized I lost them and had to go all the way back to get them. That’s more than one hour of night wandering trough San Remo. I have no fucking idea how late it was when I finally lie down in my bed but I do remember the fucking frogs in the hotel garden because they made such unbelievable loud noises. Of course I couldn’t sleep because I was loaded with caffeine. Honestly, caffeine tilts the hell out of me. I cannot drink coffee because my heart starts beating something like 400 beats per minute and coke has 99% of the time no effect on me. The only time it does I really want to sleep. Then of course I start pushing myself and that make things so much worse. It’s a vicious cycle, or I fall into sleep within the first couple of minutes I go to bed or I need literally hours to fall into sleep. I do remember the sunrise and my clock showing me it’s something like 6am till I finally fall into sleep. Obviously the tournament started at (!) 12am. Luckily I managed to get up somehow, took a cold shower and sprinted to the casino where the play was about to start. I better stayed in the hotel room as I busted out after 75 minutes right before the break. I had a total of three key hands that day and the first one I sucked out with 54s vs AA. I have no fucking idea what crossed my mind but I did 3bet Alan Baekkes openraise and a cc from a guy with 5-7bb. I mean I saw that this guy is damn short and I realized that this is every single time AA but I had a complete blackout for exactly this hand and I did 3bet and of course I sucked out for about 130k pot :o). In addition I obtained an awesome monkey image and immediately after that hand the French guy against who I lost with KK vs AA pf-ai for 200bb pot in Day2 decided to 3bet/snap for 60bb effectively with AQ. I was pretty happy with AK but we split for a massive 1,5-1,6 million pot. Shortly after that I flat QTo OTB vs his open and the BB comes along. BB is Swedish but seemed not really good. However, flop is 987 rainbow everybody checks to me and I lead for 2/3ish pot. The Swedish guy c/r with J8o, French guy folds and I ship it in despite the fact that I know I should have 0% FE. The problem is my hand plays way to good against his range. I was kinda surprised that he did not snapcall and he had to do the math before calling but whatever. I couldn’t improve and busted out.

I was grinding a little after San Remo, mainly because I had to and not because I wanted to. The fact that I run breakeven for another 500 SNGs/MTTs against an army of looney toons isn’t exactly the best thing for my grinding morals. At least I had fun. Bebo came almost every day to me and we grinded together. I think I never laugh so much while grinding. He’s down about 250 buyins in EV in 6max and 9max SNGs and he kept losing every fucking flip and 60/40 a-i. Italians are generally way more emotional than German or Austrian are but now image an Italian with some minor tilt issues losing every fucking pot. That’s fun big time :D. Of course I’m down as well millions in EV but whatever, that’s poker. At Sundays “The team” (PQ Poker team; Pao, Bebo and me) grinded Sunday Majors without any success. But again, fun was king and I was able to coach my students : ). Pao made a very deep run in the $322 Sunday FTOPs and busted out with about 90 left in a coinflip for the chip lead. Bebo made a deep run in the $640 ME but refused to suck out with AQs vs KK with about 200 left :/. Talking about “The Team”, we’re planning to rent an office for grinding. If that’s happening that’s probably the best investment I’ve ever made in my poker career. Not only is this going to be lots of fun but it’s also very hard to impossible (at least for me) to tilt with someone besides me. Also I don’t waste time doing stupid not necessary stuff, I just play poker : ). Not to mention the motivation boost and the pleasant side effect to be in a room with two other people who think similarly.

I’ve already made my May plans and I’m pretty satisfied with them. I plan to play about 500 6max 100s SNGs on PQ. Then I’ll play definitely the 1k and the 2k CAPT Innsbruck Open what is basically my home game. At the end of the month I’ll be again in Saint Vincent to play the 1,5k. I’m really looking forward to this as there will be again Pao and Bebo. However, my main focus of attention will be studying. I never learned anything about live tells and I have no specific knowledge about how people act and so on. That’s really something I want to understand and I think it will be quite useful as I’m playing so much live now. The monthly schedule sounds kinda lazy but I did this intentionally because with the arrival of cash game I want to grind really hard. Since PGP in March my life is one big party, it feels like having 4 Saturdays a week instead of one. I really enjoy life at the moment but to be honest, I can’t wait for the arrival of cashgame on the .it sites and the hardcore grinding and study sessions. Speaking of cashgame, I really want to skip Vegas if cashgame is introduced within June. And even if it’s not until July, I think I want to stay here, play some Italian tournaments and make lots of theory instead of mono tabling almost 9000km away from home in the desert.

I haven’t heard anything of Homer yet, probably they arrested him because he insisted to buy the Buckingham Palace :D

So far, tobi

Haven’t played too many before dinner break, but when I did than I 3bet about 80% of the time. Table was awfully tough: seat 1 HoldemDBoss, seat 2 italian satty qualifier who wasn’t terrible but in this competition definitely the soft spot, seat 3 me, seat 4 tight French ps qualifier, seat 5 BKice, seat 6 Barry Greenstein, seat 7 english high stakes cash player, seat 8 italian GD pro, seat 9 italian random pro, seat10 old good Swedish guy. I know BKice from 2+2 but never met him or anything but I can tell you he’s nightmarish player, you really don’t want him on your left side.

After the dinner break I activated god-mode, my image finally pays off and I double up the first hand. My KK hold vs AQs for 80bb eff. and I fly over 50k. Couple of minutes later BKice busted out w/ QQ vs AA AI-PF. As soon as he left I started raising all kind of crap and people did not play back. Slowly I was chipping up. Little later I got it in AI-PF JJ vs AA in BVB and I sucked out for 60bb eff and I fly to 110k : ). I also busted HoldemDBoss (stars pro and one of the best Italian 9max SNG player) w/ AT on T88 (up to 165k) when I minraised his cbet and he shipped J9 and I hold. All in all I played pretty decent but I’m not really happy with my overall performance. Haven’t misplayed anything but lost focus couple of times and failed to pick up important things. Hopefully I’ll improve my performance tomorrow.

Live chipudates can be found here. Livereporting is on Pokernews.it, Pokernews.com and like 1 milion blogs.

14.04  -22.04 EPT San Remo
09.05 – 16.05 CAPT Innsbruck Open
27.05 – 30.05 Poker Grand Prix Saint Vincent
05.06 – 16.06 WSOP
24.06 – 27.06 Poker Grand Prix Saint Vincent
11.07 – 18.07 CAPT Velden
22.07 – 25.07 Poker Grand Prix Saint Vincent

Very happy with this schedule and already excited : )

At the moment I’m in the biggest downswing of my entire career, something in the very high five figure direction with cash outs and living expenses. I was weak last year and basically burned a lot of money, but I already accepted that. There is no need to bother about things what already happened and are not changeable anymore. The good thing is that I picked up courage with the start of the New Year, the bad thing is that I’m just not running well and I’m already down 12k in EV.

I played a little bit of heads-up cashgame lately and things are not going my way. I’ve also tried to go back and grind SNGs, just 24 tabling on lower stakes to maintain a high ROI but I’m not able to do that. I just want to puke when these annoying things start. Not to mention that it’s hard to focus on something what you hate to do…

I wanted to play EPT Berlin and very likely EPT Snowfest (in Austria) and EPT San Remo. I did some calcs and I’ll be skipping these events 99%. I’m also skipping the 2,5k FTOPs what really pisses me off but I already dropped the idea of playing 5/10 when cashgames arrive and my bankroll for 2/4-3/6 will be in serious danger if I don’t start winning soon and still play the FTOPs. The main goal is still Vegas, so skipping these tournaments for my original plan seems to be the only correct decision. Even if I don’t feel like gambling and I’m not going as long as I wanted to go it’s good to have something what you can aim for.

However, that’s about the 99% of the time, but at the end I probably end up running godlike and these 1% will happen so I’ll be playing all the tournaments mentioned above. I’m happy that the down doesn’t affect me and my life at all. There are more important things in life and I still got time to make my millions :).

Not sure when I’m blogging again, I guess mid-to-end February sounds good.

Take care guys,

-tobias