Disaster strikes… again

11. October 2004 | Category: 50outs

I must have murdered 17 children and some well-loved house pets on my 30 second way to the casino, as I got pushed around like I did that. But first things first: after the first day we took it very easy, Katja had to play late as 7pm, so we slept long, went some shopping, played one-or two hours cashgame, won both times about 2,000eur and had a nice an relaxing day. As Katja started to play her qualifier I made some some Partypoker business with WSOP-bracelet winner Ivo Doney. I started to play cash game again, 100-200 stud only. Katja busted out very late again and was “not to happy”. To calm things down a bit I decided to quit playing and take a 2,000eur win and went to bed at around 1am. My last good and easy night this would be, fortunatly I did not know that then.

Friday morning went well again, with me going into the casino at 9am where a heavy 200-400 stud/holdem game was running. The were to very live ones, two experienced PLO players and about 3 good stud players, nobody except maybe one (Erich Kollman) would qualify as a very good limit holdem player in my opinion (with NLH being a total different thing). I needed to wait for about an hour to get a seat, knowing that the table will break in about 3 hours as the next qualifier started at 3pm that friday. After just three hands Katja arrived to watch me play and prepare herself for the qualifier (get really awake that means for her, drinking coffee, smoking, running around and chat with friends). The problem came when I catched no hands at all except one which I lost. I was down about 6,000eur after about two hours by not really being part of the game due to very bad starting hands. I tried to press it one or two times by playing scare cards but always bumped into heavy resistance and got to let it go. Finally I played a hand of rubbish (23-4 with 2 spades) against an complete (open king) and a raise (open ace), catched a five on 4th street and decided to give it a try. I played the hand, catched some more spades and had a small flush draw and the open ended on the river. The action was quit big, with two more players betting and raising on every street, me calling in between (I figured minimum two aces dead and one six was out with 4 seen spades, giving me 10 outs to a only hopefully winning hand). Anyway I got my six on the river, killed kings-up and aces-up and dragged a nice pot. A few minutes later the game broke, me still loosing 1,800eur. Katja went on to play the qualifier, but again no chance. Her only hope left was the shoot-out next day, where only 8 players of the remaining 200 qualified for the super-final.
At about 4pm I sat down in a new 100-200 stud game where Katja joined me after she busted out. It went up and down but nothing special, I was even ahead one time 2,000eur and thought “well, I made up for the morning, let me make a score again now and we could go to bed”. This thought must have sealed my fate… Katja left, tired and exhausted with a little flue. For the next 11 hours straight I catched no cards (count: 0 pocket pairs, 0 split pairs, 0 three flush cards, 0 three straight cards and 0 three face cards). I played maybe 20 hands in that time, seeing 5 showdowns, loosing 2 of them. The worst a big pot (about 6,000eur) where I had a straight on 6th. Paul Testud played like crazy (ok, I believe some will say he played like tired and ill compared to other times but he sure gave action) with what I believe was aces up and Gregor from Germany had K3-3 and catched a 3 on 4th, so the pot was big. On the river Gregor catched one of his “dead” cards for a small full, which was good. After painfull 11 hours the game broke, I lost 5,900eur. However dissapointing the result was, I was very happy with my game and my patience. I figure dry spells like that come from time and you just have to go thru them as good as possible. I already had a 2 years long bad run (where I also played bad then) so I know what I am talking about.

It was already about 6am (Saturday) and I took a stop at one of the remaining Omaha pot-limit tables. I lost about 1,000eur there but witnessed really bad players playing pots for up to 20,000eur with real rubbish hands. One of them won all the money, the table broke and I went to bad. Fuck. But nice compared to what follows.

I slept well and woke up when Katja left for her final shout-out. 30 minutes later I came over and saw her disgusted about 1) first hand rolled up 5’s – lost, 2) second hand 5 card straight with a royal flush gut shot, Erich Kollmann winning with a baby flush and 3) Two pair aces in hand #4, also lost. She had nearly no chips left when I came and moved in with JJ-A, loosing to two pair. Who knows Katja knows that she neads some minutes after things like that, which I gave her gladly. We joined a PLO game, had some ups and downs and changed over to 200-400 half/half again. At 5pm the super-final started, so I had to leave that game and about 4,000eur I had already lost there.

The final constisted of 80 players, everybody already in the money. I had something every hand, pairs, draws, overcards and I played them very aggressivly trying to get a early chip lead. Unfortunatly that did not worked out and I left in a disappoing 77th place. Katja went to sleep thinking that I will play at least 2 hours into the tournament, which I also failed. After only 5 minutes of re-adjusting I grabbed the only open seat in the 200-400 again, lost 2 big pots in two hands and paused my play to see Katja and get some mental help from here. That turned out to be difficult as I woke her up, informed her about my failure and got hard words from here for my early exit, my looses, my failure to wait for her and my igoration of the need of a longer pause between tournament and live play. She was right in every point, as usual. After about an 15 minutes later (wow, that girl is quick) we both returned to the game and sweated it out together. At some point I gave her the seat as I was still running bad. She got 66, raised with position, got called in one spot, flop came 5-6-7 rainbow, other guy bets, she raised, he called, turn brought the 9, he played, she called, river is A, he bets, she calls, he played 6-8, got his straight and our money. Two more hands we played strong, QQ-A which improved to aces up but lost to river 28-879K-8 and AA-K with lost to a small flush. All other hands could not been taken to the showdown. We lost big that day. I am still thinking about what to learn from my mistakes here.