Live action has it's advantages - winning! The last weekend saw me playing pot-limit holdem live action again on saturday night, getting great cards and playing good which came to a nice 2500€ win with a peek of over 4k ahead. It was an interesting night with some great hands, big pots and good plays. Much to my enjoyment I was able to bust Sebastian from cardcore.net (yes, that 21yr old 50k+ online winner since August 2005). Sure he was short on cash that night but seeing his face when his "sure winner" went down in flames was just sooo nice (we're kidding each other all the time about busting the other one). The hand went down like this: I was in the SB, picking up Aces. We got 2 callers and Sebastian in late position made it 110€ to go. The button called, I flat called only also as did Achmed, my dear friend (sidenote: Many say -including me- that Achmed is one of the best players around and he proved that just an hour before by winning the small 21 player tournament they spread there every saturday. Thats quite his habbit - coming the far way from Berlin, taking whatever is available and vanish). Anyway, we saw a flop four handed of A56 rainbow. I played some hollywood and checked as did the other three - I was hoping for a raise with Ax from Sebastian. Turn came an offsuit 9 and I checked again. In pot limit the stack size is *very* relevant. I had all other three players covered by far; Sebastian had about 500 left, Achmed had only 300 left and the other remaining player had about 2,500. Now I figured that Sebastian can't have 87 for a straight but both Achmed and Pete could have it. So my check here with top set served two purposes - trap and apply some security as I would very well be able to lay down that hand given the action (and some kind of read) is appropriate. It went down in the best possible way for me - after I checked, Achmed checked, Sebastian moved all-in, Pete folded. The bet had Achmed covered so I just called, Achmed folded. River was a blank. Sebastian made himself straight, looked around and me in the eye and said "small set only" with a proud voice that made clear he was expecting a sure winner here. You know, this kind of voice you could hammer somebody your fist into his face for, "small set only", lol, showing 99. I said very calm "nice hand" and opened my hand. The table exploded in laughing. Sebastian went pale, gave me a puzzled look ("where do I live again?") and after a few seconds stood up to "take a break". Lol.

I also lost a big pot (~4k) with top pair against a flopped set against annother player but still I managed to get out quite ahead which was very nice. Tuesday Katja went to the game and first went 3rd in the 20 player 200€-buyin NLHE tourney and than made a >2k score in the game also. All-in-all the WSOP training program went very well so far - I found my patience, start to feel well in live games again and more than 6k in winnings could not hurt either I guess ;)

This weekend we will be playing a 300€ NLHE tourney with 20 players max friday night which is more or less just the start of a wild side game night and on saturday a smaller tourney with more live action pot limit holdem (maybe half/half with 7stud).

Online? Don't ask. This picture show me playing. Since I went over to party I get roasted all over. I played one session of 10/20-6max, 4 tables and the games were so ridicoulous loose that I had problems to even understand whats going on there. Of course, I lost big-time. In my frustration I went over to stars and played 30/60 with the small money I left there and was lucky enough to make up for my loses there. But what the hell are these guys thinking there? 4-betting with 93o? Re-Raise with 24? Wow. I stepped down to 5/10 6max 2 tables to make the necessary adjustments. Let's see...