To get yourself going today just do the following: relax, look at the picture below, focus on the four small point right in the middle and stay looking at them for about 30 to 45 seconds. Then just slowly move your view to some wall and watch the wall - r u fking kidding me? That shit really works!

Now that I made you wondering look at this: it is said that there are nine dolphins in this picture and nothing else! Up to now I can't see any of these "dolphins" no matter how hard I try - guess I am too old and horny.

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There is an article at the hendon mob's website about the 888's poker nations cup where Katja got mentioned:

When Katia played her heat for the German team she made some good plays. The Steffi Graff look-alike laughed and joked throughout and at one point Padraig shouted ‘A German with personality – you should frame her.’ Michael Keiner, Germany’s team captain, just looked up and smiled.

I am not sure if all of you follwed the link reader 'DaPfeif' gave us in a comment reccently. In case you did'nt here the interesting quote:

There is one player - Davood Mehrmand - who is probably the most hated person in poker, who is continually abusing players and dealers alike and forever commenting on play and possible scenarios during a hand and for some reason is never penalised because he refrains from using the F-bomb!
Many players have received penalties from losing their rag at a table with this guy and yet nothing is ever done about it. At the Festa Al Lago IV at the Bellagio in October, a very good friend of mine, Harry Demetriou, was given a 40-minute penalty due to Mehrmand's intolerable provocation and anyone who knows Harry would agree you couldn't hope to meet a nicer, more laid back and easy going guy than him. Personally, I'm proud to say I have never got a penalty but I came pretty close at the Five Diamond Classic in December where I actually told Mehrmand if he didn't stop his abuse, that I would gladly get a penalty but there was a good chance he would get hospitalised!. I promise you I never lose my temper or abuse anyone at the table, but this infuriating, provocative, idiot could make the Pope take a swing at him. It is about time this unwanted and unwelcome element was taken out of the game permanently.

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Last weekend saw some friends and me playing real-money chinese poker for the first time. We had figured out all the rules and a royalty system during the week and played saterday afternoon after some billiards. The local luckbox made all of us wet again, in billiards without really winning anything but laughing on us as we lost the games ourselves and in chinese by hitting great hands - he would have been about even for the day if not a royal flush was coming in the last hand of the afternoon and he scooped many points from each of us! Afterwards Katja joined us and we had some diner togehter before driving to the 200€ NLHE tournament. 21 players this time, I made a last-longer-sidebet again with the luckbox, winning it again! (quality>luck my friend ;) - We had changed the system, so I got 10€ for every spot difference between us for a total of 60€. During the 20/40 cash game we played props, the real props like described by Daniel Negrenau. It took us some time to figure it out but after a while it went smoothless. Both the luckbox and I were a little disappointed as the system brought not that much sideacction as we had hoped for - I guess you have to play it at those megastakes like DN, out stakes have been 100x lower. Way to go for us Sebastian!

We've been asked by our dear friend Casey Castle to publish this open letter to the poker community on our humble blog and we gladly do it! Casey himself is the new 'chairholder' for the Ethics & Integrity committee within the WPA and trust us, there could be nobody any better for this job than Casey!

March 23, 2006

To all poker players,

I will be announcing the launch of the World Poker Association (WPA) on March 27, 2006. The aim of the WPA is to create a globally recognized governing body for tournament poker.

Over the past five years we have been witness to and a part of the growing popularity of tournament poker. My goal is for the WPA to establish uniform tournament standards, a code of ethics, and address player rights & benefits for professional players; and to thrust the sport of tournament poker into a new professional era, similar to what the PGA was able to do for golf.

The WPA is a non-profit organization that is not, nor will it ever be, affiliated with any specific tour or entity within the industry. Our goal is to unite all tournament poker entities (from the casual tournament player to the professional to the casinos to poker tours) to establish standardized rules, codes of ethics and conduct and an international ranking system for players.

As you are aware, the world of tournament poker is in chaos. New tournaments are constantly popping up around the world, each carrying their own set of standards from beginning chip counts to pay-out structures. As a professional player, you above all, are directly impacted by the ever-changing rules and regulations.

There have been several attempts to start a professional poker association in the last few years. None have been successful to date. I have been told by many people in the industry that it will never work because poker players are a self-centered bunch and only look out for their own individual interests. I’ve been told that to organize poker players is an impossible task. So far all of the naysayers have been right. They must chuckle every time they see someone make the attempt. Are you tired of paying for every buyin and allowing others to benefit? Are you tired of inconsistent rules, structures, and payouts? I challenge you to prove them wrong. Join the WPA now. Tell everyone you know to join the WPA now. It is only in numbers that the WPA will have any chance of success. That success will translate into consistent playing conditions and better financial opportunities for all of us.

Join me now to make tournament poker more than a passing trend by creating the stability and integrity found throughout professional sports organizations. I am excited to announce that I have already secured a number of founding members, including Kenna “Cowboy” James, Blair Rodman “Kill Phil” author, Joe Beevers, Barny Boatman, and Juha Helppi, of which you can join, who are a part of this necessary and pivotal organization that will have lasting impact in the world of tournament poker. As a founding member you will be acknowledged on the website.

For more information please email me at or visit the Web site: www.wpapoker.com to join online.

Sincerely,

Jesse Jones
Founder
World Poker Association

Both Katja and I support the WPA and their efforts.

It was a wild week and the upcoming week promises to be just like this again.

During the week I had a 10k upswing in the 30/60 games on pokerstars which always makes one feel good and untouchable. Wednesday I managed to win a 180 player $3+R WSOP-superqualifier which earned me a $650 seat in the weekly direct qualifiers (or 650-W$). As I managed last year to win a seat for the main event in the first one of those I played I think I will play, question is only when as the direct qualifier starts sunday at midnight my time and I have to leave to my job 4 hours later.... I need to find a timeslot to play there comfortably (or better just finish this f***ing job now).

Thursday after arriving home we went to a party, thrown by pokerstrategy's Pius. I actually had to finish a tournament right there and won over 1k in a sidegame, nice party!

Fridays held the unavoidable downswing in the 30/60 for me where I lost it almost all back. In the evening we went out to an arranged 20/40 limit live game which was *lots* of fun, especially since Katja absolutly killed the game and I won also (small). Actually I was able to extract some "special money" from "prefered customers", you know when someone is playing to tight and you start on needling him to get more action? In this case my strategy worked (and I got lucky) so I separeted the money from my other winnings and showed it of to my opponents all the time while still needling them, telling them what I am gonna do with it the next day. And as a person that stands to his words I did exactly that - we ordered a 120minutes home massage from one of the special stakes on saturday and a new graphic card and a new cell phone from the other special stake - THANK YOU guys!

Saturday then saw us getting those nice massages and having lots of fun before Sebastian from cardcore.net invited us to dinner along with his/our friend Jak. We went to a steakhouse on the way to the casino, it was very tasty and we had a nice chat - thank you Sebastian! After arriving to the casino I played some hands "chinese poker" with Sebastian (with wrong rules but did not matter, we had fun) and losing €70 there. Then the €200 tournament started and we agreed on a €100 last-longer sidebet. During the event (we had different tables) I offered a €25 bounty to a otherwise rock-player if he manages to bust him (he was not). Sebastian still busted about halfway thru the tournament so I won the sidebet. On the final table Katja lost 4 times with the better hands in all-in situations and was finally out, right before I lost 2 times the better hand in all-in situations and was out - almost. In the SB I called my last few chips against a raise with 72o, aka "the hammer" and won this one vs. AK. Wow! You know how things go, after this I went on a small rush and finally won the tournement (headsup we made a 50/50 price money split when I had a very slight chiplead). On the other table was a rocking 20/40 game already running so I just changed seats and the fun started continued. As I was to the left of Sebastian we started making side bets right away and did our part to get the game "out-of-the-dirt" by posting live straddles, blind raises and all this kind of stuff effectivly making the game more of a 40/80 than a 20/40 which throws at least a few out of there comfort zone. Both Sebastian and I (and a few other on the table) can not be scared by those stakes so I guess we had an small advantage there. Anyway, we both won about €1500 there (sidebets were about even as they should be) and had tons of fun. Katja was seated on the other end of the table and could not get her good hands holding up, losing in the end (and therefore not having as much fun as we had, lol). I remember cracking her aces with JT at least once and as we don't softplay each other (but not check-raising either) she even started to needle me! Wow poor other players, I dont like that experience for even 2 minutes only and we two are like-married - Katja can be very intimidating! Anyway, a nice/funny/winning day, I can't get enough of those.

Sunday I drove Katja to the airport where she is playing a 888-sponsored "Woman Poker Open 2006" in England, a televised event with some pro's, some celebrities and some online qualifiers. I am not sure how many woman are playing there (I think it was 36). Anyway, her buyin got covered by 888 as all her costs so it is in fact a $100,000 freeroll. Katja's heat is monday and she got to win it to advance to the next round. Good luck!!!

Friday night also the Poker Nations Cup heat #3 with Katja playing got aired on Channel4. We have not seen it or heard about yet. If I catch it somewhere I post a copy here.

Last weekend saw us playing the tournament series in Casino Schenefeld. I must say that the event was very well done and was a pleasure to participate. Well, unfortunatly not result-wise as neither Katja or I made any money during the three event. We bought every rebuy and add-on and played good and patiently but it was not be. The closest was me getting 12th with 10 spots paid. We avoided a total desaster by winning in the sidegames. I played some 20/40 limit and Katja played the pot-limit holdem games where she won in every session. Good news is, Michael Keiner won the first event (read his report here), ending his dry spell and my buddy Frank got 2nd, so I will get at least a free dinner during this week ;). Second event was won by local player Mr. Nack who got great cards and played them strongly. He was in competition in event #3 also but then somehow lost his game - first folding 77 to a small raise (*very* unlikely for him, would have won a monster with a flopped set there) and then losing KK vs. AQ in a big pot.

The weekend was very draining for me: after standing up thursday at 6 a.m., working a half day and then traveling the other half back to Hamburg we went directly to the casino, played for about 8 hours before arriving back home at about 5 a.m. (friday). I went to sleep but could sleep only for 1.5 hours as the started to remove the fresh fallen snow very loudly. I stood up, did some work, went running thru a wonderfull winter landscape for 90 minutes and then back home, some online playing needed to get done ;) In the afternoon I took a very refreshing 90 minutes nap before we left to get some sashimi food and then playing the second event. We played tournament and cash games to the max again, getting home at about 4:30 a.m. (saturday). I feelt asleep at about 6 a.m. when at 8:30 the doorbell rang and I stood up. Now, every other would go back to bed but for me thats impossible, always was. Once my head-machine gets started it wont let itself get shut down again very quickly. So I played online, did some emails and stuff and hung around. Katja sleept 'till noon and then we had a nice afternoon together before leaving early to the third event. After Katja busted out and taking a seat in the cashgames I followed her when I lost all my chips to a SB steal attempt which got there. It was about midnight and I should have played cash games to make up for the entry fees but I was to tired. So I watched the tourney, sweated Katja (she played incredibly, can't give any details here) and waited until it was time to leave - which got about 4 a.m. again. So sunday monring saw me sleeping like dead for - 3 hours! Nothing happened this time, I just woke up. Ughh. I played a littel online (lost) and then went running thru the snow and coldness (but a very nice day anyway, sunshine, snow, cold, nicest city in the world). The rest of sunday is in a daze. Since then I sleept many hours and feel good again.

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Channel 4 has released the airtimes for the 888's poker nations cup!

888.com Poker Nations Cup

Part three of the eight-part team poker series, with Great Britain bidding for glory against five other nations. Taking part in tonight's heat are Tony 'The Lizard' Bloom from Team GB, Thomas 'Thunder' Keller from the USA and Katja Thater, an exciting new female player from Germany

So Katja's heat will get aired next friday at 0:40 on Channel4.

While destroying workplace productivity just one more time last week I found this gem at rec.gambling.poker (via www.recpoker.com). I laughed so hard about the post and first few answers, just gotta share it with you:

New poker approach - not for the stylish players

It is highly unlikely that this approach will ever catch on

1 - Wait for a good hand before entering a pot
2 - When you think you have the best hand - BET or RAISE
3 - When you think you do not have the best hand - CHECK or FOLD
4 - When you are drawing to a good hand (when odds are correct)
     CHECK or CHECK and CALL
5 - Most of the time your opponent is not bluffing -
     they have something or they expect to have a good hand
6 - When you have lost enough money - leave the game
7 - When you have won enough money and want or need to be elsewhere -
     leave the game
8 - If you are new to the game learn to play limit poker before no limit or pot limit
9 - Do not confuse good poker with good tournament poker
10 - Try to pay attention to what is going on at your table and
       figure out why certain players did what they did and learn from it
11 - Have fun; if it is not fun - do something else

Not funny enough yet? Wait, these are the first two answers:

I simply love it.

All of us have some perceptions how life is (or would be) being a poker pro. While Katja and me are only "1,5" pros as I still have a job in the IT-world from Monday-Thursday we are kind of close to it (how close we will see in the near future...). In this blog I posted ranted already alot about the not-so-nice days - now let me share 24 hours of a perfect day in our live with you, not to produce any envy but for motivational reasons ;)

The day in question was last Saturday, March 4th. It started out early for me, waking up about 8:30 a.m., quite early although we have been out the night before. I stole myself quietly out of the bed to leave Katja sleeping and found myself behind the computer and in two 5/10 6max games only minutes later, still half-sleeping. I was due for some sports that day (4 days a week ~10km runs) but needed some more time to wake up. I promised myself that I won't lose more than my buyin of $250 on each table and stop when I doubled on each table before leaving to the cold-outside and take my run. Well, about 6 minutes later I had to press myself to close down partypoker and stick to my own promises, being up $545. I took our dog and did my duty, running around our wonderfull Außenalster.

On my way home I bought fresh bread and breakfast stuff, catched the newspaper and returned home. Katja was finally awake and we chilled over some breakfast about two hours. Katja then drove to the horses, doing her sports and horse-training stuff (that was actually my stuff for long years too but not so much anymore now). When she returned she picked me up and we drove to my daughter Patricia; she is now 16 years old, living with her mother, has a wild party-life and since shortly a fixed boyfriend. Very exciting time for her but someone/something broke her computer and who-you-gonna-call? Daddy. I was able to fix it within an hour and we dropped the dog there as Katja had to fly to Munich Monday early for some poker-related stuff and I had to go to Stuttgart, for my usual boring work. On our way back home we bought some nice food which we planned to cook later. Arriving home we went two wonderfull hours into the bedroom, sleeping and enjoying each other.

Then it was cooking time and we did that together, having a very tasty and wonderfull dinner. Not so much "cusine" but more things we both like very much. It got late while preparing and processing all that food so after finishing we rushed out of the house to get to the local casino, which was hosting it's usual saturday evenings €200+10 no-limit-holdem tournament. We got there in time (which is a success both in making it and not getting arrested for the way I drove) and soon started the tournament with a total of 26 players. I was able to double-up early when I had KJs vs QQ (I raised small preflop, he called only, board was K-rag-rag, I bet, he called, turn rag, bet-call, river T, no straight/no flush on board, I check, he moves in, I call). When watching over to Katja I saw that she had a big stack also already. We met at the "final table" where new seats and the button were drawn. Katja had a huge pot with about 7 players left when she moved in with ATs and got called by KK but flopped a T and rivered an A. She gave something back with AQs vs T4o, river T. I lost almost all my chips in a SB vs. BB battle when I moved in with A9s and got called by AQ. I still got 4th place for 700€ with the few remaining chips when my QQ in the BB lost to SB's 93o. Katja went on to win the thing, no deal this time, for a 1700€ 1st price. Very nice, she is incredible successfull over the last few months since she took on 1/2/3-table events.

Once the tournament was over they started a 500€ minimum buyin pot-limit holdem game on that table were we both took a seat. Katja was smooth sailing to a 1300€ win while I got stuck by 1800€ over 4 hours until I finally catched a lucky one: limping with 77 I was up vs. SB and BB, the ultra-tight "Vafa" in the SB and the ultra-loose "Hassan" in the BB. Flop came 236 with two hearts. SB checked, BB made a pot sized and I shoved my whole stack of 480 into the pot. SB raised his rest, omg, I was 100% beat there. BB called. Turn wonderfull 7 and river 3 which gave me the top boat which was good for a 1600€ main pot. BB showed 34 of spades for trips and SB threy away disgusted, not showing his hand - he was supposed to show first as he had the last action but dodged it and Hassan was very quick to show his rivered trips. I call this 'angle shooting' already (from the SB) but wont go into arguments with my dear customers... I picked up some more small pots and finished with a nice 300€ win shortly after - not much for this game but after being stuck almost 2k together with Katja's win and our tournament wins we left the Casino at about 3 o'clock with a very nice score. While leaving we picked up two guys from www.pokerstrategy.de, waiting for a cab. One of them, JJacky, a coach as I understand it, played for some time to my left in the potlimit game. He got unlucky a few times and lost about 1k. We dropped them in the city and talked a bit about pot-limit, the regular players in that specific game and how to approach it. I gave away the maximum advice I am willing to offer any opponnent there which reads "be carefull in that game and be aware of the huge swings this game holds in store for anybody" along with "there have been a lot of takers over the years - only a few survived".

What I meant is that this game is definitily much harder to beat than it looks from the outside when you just see the sometimes crazy action. Most of the guys (and Katja) have a very good idea what they are doing and you got to have good live poker skills and reading abilities to survive there. Not for nothing comes that almost all regulars in that game have success in worldwide tournaments including WSOP-bracelets and cash games - they are experienced, don't fear big bets/big moves/big money, are used to the swings and have a good feeling for "weaknesses" may it be in the actual holding/hand or just money-wise because someone's overplaying his bankroll.

Anyway, we stopped at McDonalds for a 3:30 a.m. burger, dropped the guys and went home. While cooling down there another $500 went into my partypoker-account "steaming down" myself. Finally at about 5:30 am we went into the bedroom...

The day was just-so-good not only because we were winning; in fact we have good days also when losing (but not when playing bad). The whole mood was just so perfect, Katja and I existed in such a harmony and understanding, the food was good, the table chat was nice, the cards came our way and no bad news reached us the whole day, ahhh, just perfect. Because days like this are a seldom gem we try to recognice'em and honor them. While our living standards are quite high already and we have a *very* good life already I would estimate that we have such good days only about 50/365. Somethings always there, you know the deal, trouble with kids or pets, business problems, tax, payments, invoices, wrong invoices, playing good and losing, busting near the money or with a 93% hand, not reaching your personal performance goal, feeling old/ugly/ill/bad, having arguments, not being at home, spending time with people you don't like and all this stuff takes away something from us day-in-day-out.

My advice here: value and honor your good times. Stop thinking "more/faster/better" at least sometimes for a few hours (very guilty myself here) and just take the good things you get.

Wow, I might get philosopical - once I can't hold or read cards anymore :-)

Back to more/faster/better: This weekend is the three-day three-event tournament in Casino Schenefeld and I hear it's already sold out to the fact that anybody not paying his entry fee in advance might get thrown out of the list! I figure that this will get a big weekend in terms of tournament and sideaction. See us there!