Hello my name is dirkb. Yakshemash !

I started October by playing a good bit on Party with varying success; then came Friday 13th and I had to look elsewhere.
I've had several recommendations (Thanks!), but so far have been too lazy to make an account anywhere so I've played a few multis and SNGs on stars and Party (I think I won about $300 or so doing that) and played SHNL on Ultimate Bet the majority of the time. UB has been really swingy for me. Even playing 1/2 NL (don't have a bankroll there and party won't let me cash out for some reason), I've had several 'up 500 then down 400 then finally back up to even' sessions. This rarely happened on Party, even at 2/4 and 3/6 NL.
I can't be too pleased with my results on UB - as of right now, I'm up about $1k, but that includes $350 rakeback (from raketherake.com btw, mention me if you sign up there !! :) Considering I've played a good bit there for the second half of this month, at least by my standards, I expected more. I think it's partially because I played poorly for a couple of long stretches, but also because the competition is just much tougher.
I haven't played at the casino at all except for that brief 2 hour session in Dortmund. This is despite the fact that the casino in Bad Harzburg now offers PL Hold'em as well, the casino in Hannover has added a second table, and I was in Stuttgart for a few days and passed up the opportunity to go to either Baden Baden or Wiesbaden. Sigh. I just seem to have too much going on to be bothered making tons of easy money. I promise myself though that when soccer season is taking a winter break from December 1st on, this will change !

Anyway, in summary October was still a decent month financially I guess - was up about $2k on Party and then won another $1k on UB; considering Poker is not only not my job, it isn't even my #1 hobby, I should be happy.

So, after Party kicked out all of its american customers, I need to find another place to play.

First I was hoping that somehow Party would still be ok, but two quick sessions convinced me to rethink that. I lost about $400, but that wasn't really the point - it's just that what had always made party playable was the many idiots on the site, most of whom are banned now.

I then deposited 1k in my UB account and played 1/2 SHNL there for a while. I do remember now how much I like the UB software, I just can't decide whether the games there are good enough or not. I am up about $900 there this week so I guess I will keep playing there until I lose.

I do wonder what is going to happen to Party; I sure hope they don't die !

I guess I am still recovering from last weekend - despite taking the day off yesterday I only played about 3 or 4 hours total this week. I won about $800 I think (I'm so bad at keeping track of this), and the only hand that continued to occupy my mind a little was KK vs AA - it seems like many times you could get away from Kings preflop, but at some point I had made so many near-folds with KK where the opponent ended up showing down Q6o or 77 that I simply resolved to never ever fold KK preflop in online SHNL play under any circumstance. I don't have the hand history, but it played out like this :

4 handed, Villain is in the cutoff seat with $254, I am the button with > $400.
Villain limps, I raise to $14, he limp-reraises very small to $26, I re-re-raise to $56, he re-re-re-reraises to $104.

Now this gives me a great opportunity to get away from the hand with only $50 spent.
**side note : No, there's no such thing as implied odds or pot odds or whatever. I can call, of course, rather than shove, but there's no way I can just fold on a J84 flop. If I call he will have $150 left and the pot will be $212. I'm either committing right here or folding right here**
So yea, anyway, each one of his bets and raises represents AA as strongly as you can represent it, but I choose to stick with the never-fold-KK-pf-under-any-circumstance policy, and of course double him up. Annoyingly, had he had a full stack or even $300, I think I actually would have folded. Bleh.
Wonder if I should rethink this 'policy' or if I would be giving up too many pots to dorks making tricky plays...
Anyway, probably not pokering this weekend either, as there is lots of soccer and such going on.

Well, this weekend has certainly been a bit of a ride. I played lots of 2/4 and 3/6 SHNL (well lots for me anyway - I guess about 3000 or 3500 hands). Lost ~500$ on Friday, won pretty big on saturday (~2100$) then took a big $2500 hit yesterday to make it a $900 losing weekend. I can't even really complain about any bad beats in particular, I just couldn't seem to win a hand. Twice I made a standard raise with AK and one of the blinds made a ridiculously large push which I think gives me an easy call, and both times I lost to AQ, and some of my AAs got cracked by longshots but that's about all I can complain about.. Speaking of which, AA was a $1500 loser over the weekend which I guess I can name as an 'excuse'... Most of them went a little like the following :
Button min-raises to $8, i reraise from the SB to $25, he calls. Flop (pot $54) is Q62 rainbow, I bet $35, he calls. Turn ($124) is a 3, I bet $100, he minraises me to $200 and I have to make a decision for all my chips here on whether he has a hand like AQ that I can actually beat or a flopped set. All of his plays indicate a set as he likely raises the flop with AQ and he is basically committing his stack on the turn which is unusual for AQ here. Also, while there is a lot of bluffing and buying pots going on (I think I make the vast majority of my profit calling bluffs on the river), that usually happens on the river and often only on scare cards or when you check to them on the river. In short, in hindsight I could have escaped from this hand losing $160 rather than $400, and most of my AAs were similar to this one in style - I just don't know whether it is actually GOOD to fold here.
Of course I'm sure I played badly, I have total faith that if you are just good enough you can't lose to mid-stakes online games.
I guess I can take solace in the fact that had I simply folded all my AAs preflop I would have been up $600 for the weekend.

I hated calling in this hand. Just seems he almost never has anything other than 66, 44 or 75, but I apparently still have 27% equity against this range. Once I exclude 75o but keep in 75s (because he limps UTGwhich is more likely with 75s than 75o) it is reduced to 20%, and I even tend to find 66 or 44 more likely than 75 just because it is a more likely limping hand. Since EFro has bracelets and I don't I will believe him for now, but I still felt rather bad about the call. Oh, as for results - I called and he had 75s and the turn was a 6 and i won. :)

dirkb-> http://www.pokerhand.org/?546176
dirkb-> call/fold ?
huadgger> call
CRossiter> call
huadgger> getting like 3-1
dirkb-> hoping he only has straight ? :/
huadgger> if he turns over his hand and its 57 you have to call
dirkb-> yea obv
dirkb-> not if its 44 66 thou´
huadgger> or 57cc
huadgger> the odds of him having one of those hands
huadgger> vs a straight
huadgger> or 55
huadgger> or a draw
huadgger> means you obv have to call
huadgger> getting 3:1
dirkb-> and its a marginal call anyway vs 75
huadgger> isnt
dirkb-> not quite 3-1
huadgger> youre better than 2:1 to win
dirkb-> calling 350
huadgger> vs 57
CRossiter> if his range is 66 44 75 you have 27% equity
dirkb-> couldnt imagine him having anything other than those :/
dirkb-> guess A5cc should be in there
huadgger> 77
huadgger> 88
huadgger> 99
huadgger> tt
huadgger> jj
huadgger> qq
huadgger> kk
huadgger> aa
CRossiter> you think people do that with all those hands? :(
dirkb-> ok we'll give him 5% garbage hands like that
dirkb-> 56cc and A5cc i can imagine
dirkb-> but would be odd to minraise my betout
dirkb-> with those hands
huadgger> would be more odd
huadgger> to minraise the bet with a set
huadgger> on that board
dirkb-> i dunno he has 2 to act behind him
huadgger> so why would you let them see a cheap turn with infi drawing hands
huadgger> youd raise an actual amt to not give them odds
CRossiter> ppl are dumb
dirkb-> i mean i wouldnt
CRossiter> especially w/sets
huadgger> so people are dumb
huadgger> but there is only a 3 hand range he can have?
huadgger> this makes sense.
huadgger> i wouldnt even include 44 or 66 in the range
dirkb-> obv he CAN have more
dirkb-> just think 90% he has those 3
huadgger> 55 and 77 both more likely

First, online poker has been easy cruising just like last week. I only won about $1k this weekend but I only played for 4 hours. I have some hands where I consider my play very questionable, which I will put up later today.

Marco and I went to Dortmund on saturday to play in a Magic Highlander tournament on sunday and to check out the casino Dortmund-Hohensyburg on saturday. It was a rather impressive place - they have a separate poker room, 6 tables, great food, regular MTTs with ~100 players and a buy-in of € 100.
The cash games they spread are 5/10 Hold'em/Stud and 10-40 Spread Limit Hold'em Omaha. When we got there at 8:30, there was one 'big' game running 3 of the smaller stakes tables, but they told us that a second big table would likely open up soon. It didn't though, so they put an extra seat on the existing one for me while Marco played 5/10. The game was reasonably tough, with only 1 or 2 weak (loose) arab/turkish type of guys and the rest all quite obviously regulars. I don't really dig the structure with blinds of 5 and 10 and bets of 40 on every street, as it rewards very tight hand selection, especially in Omaha since it is so hard to get away from hands there, and I don't want to play overly tight in live gaming. Oh well. We only played for a few hours, Marco won € 230 and I lost € 45, so financially it was a very uneventful evening.