Hello my name is dirkb. Yakshemash !

Because I have been asked several times recently which books beginners should buy to get into poker, I am making this post so I can then link to it. Tired of typing the same thing over and over again.

There are literally hundreds of books on poker today, and although I cannot claim to have read all of them, I have at least looked at most of them but only find a few worth recommending :

- Middle Limit Holdem and How good is your Limit Hold'em : These are two excellent books on (you guessed it) how to play Limit, using mostly example hands. The first book is from 2002 so a lot of its content is outdated in that the play it recommends is too weak/tight and as such more suited to the far less aggressive style of a few years ago, but nonetheless you should buy and read both since the first one will give you an idea of basic concepts and the second one has actual strategic content besides ABC poker.

- Harrington on Hold'em. An excellent three-book-series on how to play Tournament NL Hold'em. Harrington was the first to formulate several now commonly known concept such as the number 'M'. If you don't know what 'M' is, buy these books. If you do, you should probably buy them anyway - or at least number 3 since it's pretty entertaining and contains lots of Ivey-esque example hands.

- Phil Gordons Little Green Book- It isn't the most complete strategy guide out there, but he does manage to point out lots of things that are important both for tournament play and cash games in not too much space, with some insight into how he personally plays. I would say the first books I mentioned above are necessities but this is a good buy if you are serious about filling your unused braincells with poker. I just saw there's a little Blue Book now too heh. No idea how good it is, but I did just order it.

- One of a Kind is a book on Stuey Ungar, arguably the best poker player ever. It actually has little to do with poker but it is a good read anyway.

Ok, that's it. No, really. I didn't just forget SuperSystem or SS2 or any of the Sklanskys (although the recent one on No-Limit Hold'em is pretty good, I just think Phil Gordons book is better) or (hahaha) Caros Book of Tells or any other 'classics'. I just don't think they're that useful. Of course it can hardly hurt to read any of them, and there's a bunch of poker 'literature' that's not actually strategy advice that I personally find entertaining, like the above One of a Kind or Jim McManus' Positively Fifth Street.

This hand happened in level 3 of the €600 event last weekend in Wiesbaden, and I think here's where I might have messed up my tourney.
The blinds are 100/200, there are three limpers before me and I decide to limp 77. The small blind is an older arab-looking player who played pretty poorly in the first two levels but I am beginning to think he was either trying to create a very favorable image (if so, it worked) or was still asleep or something. Either way, he has for the last thirty minutes or so played semi-loose, aggressive poker. He raises to 600, two other players call, as do I.
The flop comes JJ4 rainbow and he bets out 600 into the 2600 pot, and the two limpers fold. The bet seems pretty weak so I don't want to give up just yet and raise to 1500. He thinks for a while and then calls, so at this point I have to put him on a pair rather than AQ/AK. The turn card is a meaningless 5 and he checks to me. He had ~11k going into the hand and I had ~10k, of which I have 8k left in front of me. The pot at this point is gigantic - 5600 - so I decide to put him to the test and fire 4000 at the pot, making him decide whether or not he wants to put his tournament life on the line with only a pocket pair against what are obviously trips, and after some deliberation, he folds...


Wait a minute, that's not actually how it went - in reality, I decided I couldn't tell whether he's the kind of player that would fold a winner so I checked it down and lost to pocket tens.

Should I have bet ?

By the way, the guy went on to win the tournament.

So, one of the hands I played still leaves me a bit puzzled.
It is a nine-handed 10/10 PLO game, looser than you can possibly imagine. There are preflop all-ins with J752 or A632. I limp Ts 7d 7s 6h in the button, and see a sixhanded flop of Th 7h 2c.
Carlos, a loose player fresh off a €10k tournament win, bets out the full €60, and a semi-loose (well, extraordinarily loose but at this table only semi-loose) player right in front of me raises the pot limit to €240. Carlos only has about €70 left after his €60 bet, I have €670 at the beginning of the hand, and SLP has ~2k.
Obviously, given this table, I can't put anyone on having a hand that beats me, especially since I am holding one of the Tens. My best guess was that Carlos had 22 or two pair, and that the loose player had a good draw like J98, maybe with hearts, too. Seems like all three of call, push, or fold would have been ok. I chose to push, and at least result-oriented it was a disaster : Carlos had TT leaving me only one out at the main pot of €450, and SLP had 8h9h making him a favorite for both the main pot and the €1060 side pot. He does make a flush on the turn, and wins the hand.
I am now wondering what the best line for this hand is - I'm now thinking call, and push any turn that is not a heart, J, 9, 8 or 6 ? Seems safe to then fold to a push when one of those cards does come on the turn, or at least fold to heart, J, 6. The pot at this point would be €670 and I'd have €430 left, which is far too much to justify a call against a made straight or flush on the turn.
There are two active players behind me as well and by calling I may well get them to put in €240 drawing very slim. In this example, if someone has the Ace high or King high flush draw, I am not hurting my own chances of winning this hand at all by just calling and increasing my equity by a ton. Of course I might be allowing a hand like KK to catch their set on the turn this way, or JJ83 to hit their gutshot but if they're putting in €240 on a few-outer that should be fine by me...
Against reasonable opposition I could of course just fold, too, since at best they have a draw and at worst they have me drawing almost dead...

So ya hmm hmmm hmmm, seems like call > fold > push. Good thing I pushed.

Wow.
Is the casino in wiesbaden ever nice. MartenJ and I went down for three days of tournament action (and to explore germany's other casinos), and being used to the casinos up north were stunned by how nice this place is. The casino is in an ancient 'Kurhaus', complete with really high ceilings, chandeliers, and a suit-and-tie requirement ! This meant I had to relearn how to actually tie a tie, thank god for the internet :)
The casino restaurant also bears mention as it was far and away the best food i've ever had in a casino, but was generally one of the better places I've eaten in germany. Not insane or anything, but still really good. Insane, btw, if anyone ever makes it to Wiesbaden, is this place. And for those in the know - I consider restaurant selection my number one area of expertise :)

On to the poker stuff : Fridays tournament was €300 NLHE with 70 participants. Early on I managed to double up busting Michael Keiner, an apparently well known german tournament pro (wish I knew more about poker players heh. I do know he's a nice guy though.) with my Kings against his Tens when I actually pulled a little act which might have contributed to his call. From then on I was on cruise control until the bubble, raising my way to a big stack, winning and losing some all-in situations, when eventually the following funny hand came up : With twelve players left (6 on my table) and 1500/3000 blinds, I raised AKo to 8000. I had a stack of 24k before the raise (below average by this time), the small blind folded what I now know where tens, and the big blind open folded Kings !!! Talk about lucky ! I would have had to call him, of course, and although he only had about 15k it would have crippled me. So anyway, at the final table I never really had a 'big' stack to work with, got into three all-in situations against smaller stacks, and lost all of them. Sigh. I finished in 6th for €1280. Not bad I guess.

On saturday in the €600 Main Event, I busted early - in level 6 after 3 hours with literally no hand and few stealing opportunities and several steals that got picked off. MartenJ however made the final table and finished 9th. Neither of us played in the sunday tournament, but I did manage to win about €3k in the 10/10 PLO game there, which seemed like a very interesting game to play.
Anyway, good times were had and I'm sure I'll be back.

So, after finally playing poker again (see below), I decided to participate in the Christmas Poker Festival in Wiesbaden next weekend. I kinda wish I hadn't now, because the organisation seems very weird :

They have a tournament on Friday (300€ buy-in), one on saturday (600€) which is a two-day tournament, and one on sunday (250€). Obviously, if you make the final table of the saturday event, you will most likely be unable to play in the smaller sunday event. However, the only way you can know for sure that you will have a seat in the sunday tournament is to pre-pay the entry fee, which WILL NOT BE REFUNDED under any circumstances. So you can either take your chance that by the third hour of the second day you will be eliminated, or you can play in both events and blind off for however long you're still in event #1, or you can try to maybe get a seat to the sunday tourney once you bust out of the saturday one.

Well played.

So, the last weekend was another of the awesome Deep Stack tournaments in Schenefeld, and since I did well, seems like I have to put my thoughts on the tournament into words.First it must be mentioned that the whole tournament setup was fantastic. The tournament area was nice enough, they used their best dealers which have come a long way in the last few years and are now certainly among the best in Germany, the tournament fee was only €40 (the buy-in was €500) and you got free non-alcoholic drinks and (an actually good) buffet on sunday for it, too ! They also had a champagne special - a glass of Moet & Chandon was only €5.60, so if you had a lady with you (as it happens, I did) you could afford to keep her happy :)

The tournament was supposed to start at 7pm on saturday, and at 6:15 I was in Hannover, exhausted from a soccer game which started late, with no intention of playing in this tourney and instead planning to meet with soccer pals at the christmas market. I was then instructed by Marco to get my ass over there (etc), and elevated by finally keeping a clean sheet (soccer) decided to make the drive as fast as possible. The fact that apparently my buy-in would not be refunded if i no-showed made that decision a lot easier, too.I arrived at 8:30, halfway through level 2. The structure was great, 45 minute levels, starting stacks of 5000, with the blinds starting at 20/40 and several intermediate levels (such as 140/280 between 100/200 and 200/400). The only thing that could have (should have ?) done better is introducing antes sooner. Antes did not start until 700/1400/100, which IMO is far too late for a deep stack multi. On the other hand, you have to be real pleased to see antes at all in Germany.

Anyway, I had about 4600 left when I took my seat, and was seated at a reasonable table, including martenJ and Michael Keiner, later on Thomas Michalski from Dresden, and (Ferry) Vafa, Peyman and Eskimo (10/20 PL regulars in Schenefeld), as well as some guys I didn't know. I managed to double up to 8300 through one of the less experienced players by betting my kings on every street of the 86266 board against his nines. Other than that, I did not play many hands on day 1, my raises often drew folds. Late in the day I raised AKs to 340 after Peyman limped 80, martenJ coldcalled, and Eskimo made it 1k in the button. It was folded to me, and I just folded along (martenJ folded his TT as well). Eskimo is not exactly a loose cannon when it comes to three-betting, so I felt (and still think) that calling here (and hitting a pair) would be a recipe for disaster unless i managed a flush or straight or some other miracle. R.I.O. anyone !? :)

I ended day 1 with 7600 chips (average was just over 8k), and day 2 would start with 200/400 blinds at the same tables. I had intended to be 'ready to gamble' since I didn't particularly wanted to hang around with no chips, have to spend another night in a hotel, and then not make it. As it turns out, I was all-in for all my chips twice within the first hour, but i could hardly help those. First, I raised AsQc to 1400 in EP and was called by only Michael Keiner in the small blind. He had KK and decided to slowplay and the checkraise me on the Qs9s5s flop, which I could hardly get away from, so I doubled up to just over 15k. An orbit or so later, Thomas Michalski limped 400 utg and was followed by another player, so I made a reasonably big raise to 1800 with AA. Eskimo in the SB and Michalski both called, and we saw a flop of Ts 4d 3d. Eskimo checked, Thomas bet out 2000 into the 5k pot, I raised to 7k, Eskimo folded, and Thomas moved me all-in (he had about 30k). I obviously couldn't fold, he showed QdTd for top pair and flush draw (15 outs), the turn was the Ad, but a river 4 gave me a full house so I became the chip leader with 30k chips. I was fairly quiet for the next hour or two, only playing one significant pot in which I basically bluff-induced 10k chips with KQ on the Q628A board from Thomas who had rebuilt his stack again.

When we were down to 20 players I was moved to a table with what I (and the rest of the crowd) considered the two toughest/best players left in the tournament, Thang Nguyen and Dr. Jalali, both of whom have been very succesful in large tournaments. I don't know if that is what caused it, but I feel like from this point on, the quality of my play suffered. I was entirely card-dead for most the time, but I didn't do enough stealing when the situation was right - I did do some stealing, but TWICE, I folded in the SB when it was folded to me, the blinds were 500/1000 and the big blind had about 8-10k left with me at ~35k. Obviously I had 83o type hands each time, but it just underlines that I felt my play was a little weaker than it should ideally be. Anyway, I did bust Peyman when I found KK in the button and he had a small stack with 66 in the BB, along with slightly improving my stack along the way. Down to ten players with five on each table with 1000/2000 blinds and 200 ante, I raised KTo from 2nd position to 7k and was reraised all-in to 8.6k by the SB who held A6o. Dr Jalali called the raise with Q9s and I called as well. We checked down the board of 367KQ, and I think I might have ended up costing myself the tournament here by following 'etiquette' and checking down rather than making a 6k value bet on the river.

Anyway, I took a stack of 68k to the final table, which was still almost 2x average, and finally played well again, at least for a while. I took down blinds and antes (which by this time totalled 7500) with hands like 77, QTs and A9o, busted Michelle when I had KK (again!) in the SB and she tried to steal from the button, then was called all-in on raises twice, first busting Eskimo with K9s vs A6o and then taking out the guy to my left with QJs vs his AK.Soooo, by the time we were five handed, I had a stack of ~120k when the total chip count was only 315k. The remaining players were Thomas Michalski, Thang, Dr Jalali, myself, and a player I didn't know, in that order. The unknown guy had come to the final table with almost no chips, but somehow managed to turn that into a 60k stack by winning a few lucky showdowns. After a while, I played the following hand with him : I had A6o in the SB and it was folded to me. At 1.5k/3k/300, I raised to 10k and he called. The flop came Ad As 5d, I checked, and he bet 5k into the 23k pot. This bet surprised me, I was expecting him to either make a real bet allowing me to check-raise allin or check behind, which would have fine with me as well. Anyway, I didn't think calling would get me anywhere closer to accomplishing my goal of extracting as many of his chips as possible since he would probably be done with the hand; so I check-raised him all-in. I'm not sure if this was a bad play or not - I figured he might actually be more likely to call me with a 5 than if I made a small raise to 20k. Anyway, he quickly called, and turned over A5 for the nuts..
Duh.
That was certainly a cooler.
I was down to under 60k and when Jalali busted Thang in 4th place, the chip counts were roughly as follows : Me with 55k, unknown with 110k and Dr. Jalali had the remaining 150k. Within two hands, I was out. Dr Jalali had raised the button to 15k when the blinds were 2k/4k with 400 ante, so I decided to push QJs from the SB, but the BB woke up with AKo and called, and even worse Jalali had JJ and moved all-in, and when the board came 6QK32 I was out and Jalali was crippled. Certainly an anticlimactic finish to a really cool and well run tournament, but considering that I felt my play could have been improved in lots of spots, I guess I can't complain about 3rd place worth 4420 Euros !

So long and thanks...