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

I’m not rolled by any means for the big one, but I’m pretty confident that I’ve an edge, even though it’s small. I’ve no problem dealing with the variance, I’m in a good mood and I feel sharp. I did a lot of work the last couple of weeks and I think my game is on the highest level ever. As a consequence of that I’m generally very happy with my game and I feel very confident.

Now take a look at this awesome structure. It’s way better than 99% of all live structures and having early antes + 6max makes this tournament sooooo fkn awesome.

So I’ll be playing

#22: NLHE  $2,620 6max early ante 2-Day

#23: NLHE $520 6max super turbo

#24: NLHE $256 K.O.

ME: NLHE $535

-tobi

So why am I doing so badly and what is going wrong? Well, first thing, I run awfully bad. Terrible is probably the best word to describe it. I’m down more than 4,5k in EV and I seem to run in all possible setups. Honestly I am a little bit surprised that I’m down so much in EV because every time I shove, whether it is AK or 48s, I seem to run about 90% into a dominating hand. On every bubble the short stack seems to win all of his 20/80 hands and most of the time they even get walks when they have 1 big blinds ha-ha.

The other side of the story is that I’m not killing the €100 games. Honestly, at best I’m probably around 1-2%ish when I do play 12 tables or more. I thought I could achieve a ROI of 4-5% with 12 tables but that is very likely not doable for me. It’s always sad when you have to admit to yourself that you are not as good as you thought, but hey, I made lot of progress last weeks with me and I have absolutely no problem going back to Stars and grind just for the rakeback (what is still more than 15k/month). I’m happy that this down had almost no impact on my game, nor on my feelings. I also played a lot and did never stop because I had the feeling of feeling uncomfortable.

The picture below shows how profitable my last couples of days were. I know that all of you guys want to see my EV graph and all that stuff but I’m not going to post it before the end of this month. Just be a little bit more patient : – )

Given the fact that I’m just doing well I’m going back to Stars as soon I have played a total of 1,2k €100 SNGs on GD. The reason for that is pretty simple; I want to give myself a chance to win at least a couple of €100s back with the double leader board. I give myself a timeframe of 3 days, till Wednesday to have played the last SNGs and then I’ll be multitabling on Stars again. I’m aiming 200k VPPs this month, 50k are already made and 150k in less than 12 days is somewhat tough but I do not plan to leave the house anyway so I give myself a decent chance to get there. I’m down 1k at the moment, but I expect me to be up 7-9k at the end of this month.

I know that a couple of days ago I wrote that it is a tough decision to stick to another plan because of my will to change my attitude and behavior, but this time I really have no choice. I cannot choose between good and good, this time I have to take the good and just drop my idea of killing €100 SNGs and having a enough high ROI to get that much bonus€ from leader boards that I can easily pass on milestones. Of course this is another kickback, but only in difficult times peoples are able to change. Last half year I changed a lot and learned a lot about myself and I was able to enhance my personality more than the previous three years together. No pain, no gain. I’m making small steps back, but big steps forward and this is the reason why I’m not worried at all. We’re all on a road and we never reach the goal (unless we’re dead obv.) thus there will be always a new step back and a new chance to make big steps in the correct direction.

Well, I guess that’s enough philosophic, let’s talk about February. I have some rough plans in my head, grinding hardcore till 20^th and than enjoying playing FTOPs 2day 2,5k$, FTOPs $500 6max turbo and of course FTOPS ME. If I’m at 400k VPPs till than I will stop grinding and focus on theory for cash game. Haven’t played cash in a while but I’m so excited about this and all I want to do is playing around all day long with stove and making lots of equity calcs : – )

Bin ein wenig unglücklich auf dem 250K GTD auf Ipoker gebusted mit AK vs AQ für einen Riesenpot. Aber gut, das gehört halt dazu, dafür hab ich mit ~60 left KJ vs JJ für Riesenpot ausgesuckt.

Im $75er 6max hat mir am Ende ein wenig die Substanz mit den Flip gewinnen gefehlt :), obwohl ich mit QJs vs QJ u. AA schlagen konnte als der Shorty mit 6-7BB pusht, ich im SB repushe u. BB snappt.

Und es hat bis zum letzten Turnier des Tages gedauert bis ich den ersten Sieg einfahren konnte. Der FT lief recht einfach, hab zwar einmal TT vs A9s verloren aber ich war von Anfang bis zum Ende an immer Chipleader. 6max Donkaments sind unglaublich soft, man kann so richtig sein Bigstack einsetzen.

Ansonsten laufen die FTOPS schrecklich, entweder buste ich innerhalb 30 Minuten oder ich grind mein Arsch stundenlang ab mit immer 10-30BB und buste dann irgendwie total langweilig :(

Bin ziemlich glücklich über mein Spiel im Moment. Keine schrecklichen Fehler, im allgemeinen sehr konzentriert und fokusiert. Momentan bin ich richtig heiß, hab auch wieder Spaß an der Theorie. Und gut runnen tue ich sowieso, fehlt nur noch ein 6stelliger Cash :)

Bzg. Video müssen sich die wenigen Leser noch ein wenig gedulden, hatte bisher noch nicht die Zeit oder als ich sie hatte war ich zu faul =)

Okay war der Juli mit weit mehr als 30k$ dann schon, desshalb gönne ich mir ein Monat mit sehr wenig Volumen . Mittlerweile hab ich auch eine Art Plan.

Donnerstag, 6. August Abend

Freitag, 7. August Abend

Samstag, 8. August Abend+Nacht

Sonntag, 9. August Abend+Nacht

Dienstag, 11. August Abend+Nacht

Freitag, 14. August Abend

Sonntag, 16. August Abend+Nacht

wird MTTs gegrindet. SNGs wollt ich eigentlich gar nicht spielen. Ich find das Ganze ist sowieso viel sinnvoller, ich bin so was von unproduktiv im Sommer. Außerdem schwitze ich die Ganze Zeit und mein Tilt-Faktor ist 500x höher als im Winter. Ihr könnt mir glauben ich freu mich richtig wenns wieder schön dunkel und kalt wird.

Nach Macau werd ich gar nicht fahren, es würd mich zwar schon reizen aber es macht halt wenig Sinn underrolled große Events zu grinden (APPT + APT). Dafür gehts dann Ende September für 4-5 Tage irgendwo in die Berge zum Wandern mit meiner Freundin.

Was Live-MTTs betrifft, würde ich gerne das 1k€ in Campione (Schweiz/Ita) Mitte September spielen und die Austrian Classics gefolgt von der Poker EM Ende September bzw. Anfang Oktober.

Ahja, das versprochene Final Table Video vom 100k GTD stelle ich noch vor Donnerstag Abend online!