Double Trouble with Prim and Harrier - Poker, Sports, Cooking, Gardening, Mixed Drinks and more

Those low draws... they are the "meat" of the game in many ways, due to their scooping potential, but Sklansky himself pointed out that many people have trouble getting away from them in time. In the exit hand above, I was pretty much out of available moves, so I believe the early shove makes sense.

This one, though? Another bad run out, but maybe I just should have gotten away from it. I'm pretty sure it was misplayed this way, at least:

PokerStars, $20 + $2 - 7 Stud H/L Limit - 500/1,000 (200 ante) - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

Seat 5: 20,353 (20 bb)
Seat 6: 22,908 (23 bb)
Seat 1: 4,570 (5 bb)
Seat 2: 26,477 (26 bb)
Seat 3 (Hero): 11,062 (11 bb)

Third Street: (1,000) Hero is in Seat 3
5♠ 4♣ 3♠ Hero bring-in 300____Hero calls 700
Xx Xx Q♣ UTG folds
Xx Xx K♠ MP raises to 1,000
Xx Xx J♦ CO folds
Xx Xx 9♦ BTN folds

Fourth Street: (3,000) (2 players)
Xx Xx K♠ 4♠ MP checks
5♠ 4♣ 3♠ 8♣ Hero checks

Fifth Street: (3,000) (2 players)
Xx Xx K♠ 4♠ T♥ MP bets 2,000
5♠ 4♣ 3♠ 8♣ J♣ Hero calls 2,000

Sixth Street: (7,000) (2 players)
Xx Xx K♠ 4♠ T♥ K♦ MP bets 2,000
5♠ 4♣ 3♠ 8♣ J♣ T♠ Hero calls 2,000

Seventh Street: (11,000) (2 players)
Xx Xx K♠ 4♠ T♥ K♦ Xx MP checks
5♠ 4♣ 3♠ 8♣ J♣ T♠ T♦ Hero checks

Total pot: 11,000

Showdown:
Seat 6 shows T♣ J♥ K♠ 4♠ T♥ K♦ 6♠ (HI: two pair, Kings and Tens)
Seat 3 (Hero) shows 5♠ 4♣ 3♠ 8♣ J♣ T♠ T♦ (HI: a pair of Tens)
Seat 6 wins 11,000

Other times, it seems like your opponents are getting those low draws when they don't even plan it. This would have been an important pot to scoop at this stage, and I totally had them...

PokerStars, $20 + $2 - 7 Stud H/L Limit - 400/800 (160 ante) - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

Seat 5: 9,713 (12 bb)
Seat 6: 22,318 (28 bb)
Seat 1: 12,880 (16 bb)
Seat 2: 26,837 (34 bb)
Seat 3 (Hero): 13,622 (17 bb)

Third Street: (800) Hero is in Seat 3
3♥ 3♠ 3♦ Hero bring-in 240____Hero raises to 1,600____Hero calls 800
Xx Xx 8♥ UTG folds
Xx Xx K♥ MP folds
Xx Xx J♣ CO raises to 800____CO 3-bets to 2,400
Xx Xx 8♣ BTN folds

Fourth Street: (5,600) (2 players)
Xx Xx J♣ 7♥ CO bets 800____CO raises to 2,400____CO calls 800
3♥ 3♠ 3♦ 8♠ Hero raises to 1,600____Hero raises to 3,200

Fifth Street: (12,000) (2 players)
3♥ 3♠ 3♦ 8♠ J♦ Hero bets 1,600____Hero raises to 4,800____Hero calls 1,600
Xx Xx J♣ 7♥ 2♦ CO raises to 3,200____CO raises to 6,400

Sixth Street: (24,800) (2 players)
Xx Xx J♣ 7♥ 2♦ 2♣ CO bets 720 (all-in)
3♥ 3♠ 3♦ 8♠ J♦ 4♣ Hero calls 720

Seventh Street: (26,240) (2 players, 1 all-in)
A♣ 5♥ J♣ 7♥ 2♦ 2♣ 4♥ - Seat 1
3♥ 3♠ 3♦ 8♠ J♦ 4♣ 5♦ - Seat 3 (Hero)

Total pot: 26,240

Showdown:
Seat 1 shows A♣ 5♥ J♣ 7♥ 2♦ 2♣ 4♥ (HI: a pair of Twos; LO: 7-5-4-2-A)
Seat 3 (Hero) shows 3♥ 3♠ 3♦ 8♠ J♦ 4♣ 5♦ (HI: three of a kind, Threes)
Seat 1 wins 13,120
Seat 3 (Hero) wins 13,120

I haven't played Stud Hi-Lo in a long time, so it's not surprising if I make some mistakes. Whether it will ever be a good candidate for the MTT grind will remain the subject of speculation.

Oh, and Prim and I also played our HORSE race. Prim was brutally card dead, I did get some early pots but lost a lot of it later, and eventually, Prim's exit occurred slightly earlier than mine, when she was pushing a Razz hand where the runout didn't go her way. Razz is a bad game anyway.

Yes, my HORSE was lame yesterday! :f_biggrin::f_ugly: I could once win a pot with AA in Holdem and then with 7-A in Razz. That was it. I think I survived a bit more than 1 hour I guess? Not sure. Just played the HORSE race yesterday, by the way. Just was not really motivated to play MTTs or SnGs or Spins. The reason for this was that I had a hard tennis practice behind me, it´s outdoor season, the weather is beautiful already and I just wanted to spend a bit more time outdoor and with gardening. Another reason is a quite frustrating session last week with two bubbles.

Those who follow my Cash Game blog may know that I have a long card-dead phase and downswing behind me. Not only the unlucky hands are clustering, but also the frustration! After five weeks of not winning a penny, frustration cumulates and that´s why I prefer to play small sessions while keeping the focus on other things in life - like gardening, or like re-starting careful (!) running!

Well yes, I have decided to give easy running another chance. I got a bit bored with swimming and resistance training. I´m exhausted from so much tennis, my nervous system is kind of overstimulated with work, all those tennis competitions and poker. I need something to relax. I found running shoes with very good buffering - on 50 % SALE by the way! I intend to do a mix between walking and careful running, those shoes are made for easy freetime runners, not for competions or so. Well, all I wanna do is just move my body while enjoying nature, thinking about nothing.

First 10 mile run today... my legs still feel like lead. I noticed on the first few miles already that it didn't go quite as easily as in the past few days, but I pushed through. Eventually, it got easier again, but my knees started to hurt on the last couple of miles, forcing me to slow down a little.

Still, completing those 10 miles was an important step on the journey. I actually went to the same path where I was casually walking with Prim last Friday - except we went there by car that time. I didn't run across the "Easter path" itself, however, as it's supposed to be a relaxing experience and I didn't want to disturb any visitors.

In general, I'm still very happy with my progress. Running feels like something to look forward to, not a chore to get over with.

We are also finally starting to get somewhere:

[x] pie charts
[x] 3d with shadows
[x] at 45 degree angle
How did you know I was lurking?

Originally posted by nsavov
[x] pie charts
[x] 3d with shadows
[x] at 45 degree angle
How did you know I was lurking?
-60 degree angle, according to the values in LibreOffice.

I just left the standard values anyway. I had no intention of even using a 3D graph, until I tried it and thought that at least for a simple chart like this with only two data points, it looks better.

I knew the winning streak in the Five Card Draw SNGs had to end eventually, but I had hoped it would have done so in a less frustrating way.

It started like this: Stars was slow. It was probably caused by them forcing a security logout after 30 minutes of inactivity on my part - I was just waiting for my SNG to fill up, really. After logging back in and eventually joining that SNG and my Badugi MTT. I noticed most of my actions were delayed quite a bit. Still playable, but it tilted me a little, and I imagined it could irritate some of the other players too.

Of course, I had two games running, so I couldn't just restart the Pokerstars client that easily. When players on both tables seemed like they were about to be stuck in a hand, I still went for it, and guess what was back...

Oh no... I even rebooted my PC, hoping it would make any difference, but the popup still remained. I kept the tables open with the faint sliver of hope that they would eventually be playable again and went to open Steam to keep me occupied instead... only to realize that the tables were indeed working again at that point!

Unfortunately, the 5CD SNG is a Turbo, so I couldn't recover from the big losses during the forced sitout. Badugi was less of an issue, and I had a bad start there anyway.

Don't worry, though - I got my revenge in a 5CD MTT instead:

I hit a bad card dead stretch at the FT, from which I recovered, but I did not manage to catch up from the chip deficit in the heads-up phase. I gave it a good fight, though. The green line in the chip graph below represents my opponent.

Badugi, meanwhile, had to settle for another small cash that didn't quite cover the buy-in, finishing 8th without bounties. The 5CD returns were just barely enough, however, to put me back in the black for MTTs this year.

Snow Fun!

My opponent just lost several decently sized pots in a row to me before trying this move. I smelled a bruised ego, and plenty of BS.

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 300/600 (150 ante) - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 4,890 (8 bb)
MP: 2,230 (4 bb)
CO: 6,568 (11 bb)
BU (Hero): 21,613 (36 bb)
SB: 6,005 (10 bb)
BB: 9,994 (17 bb)

Deal: (1,800) Hero is BTN with K♦ A♥ 5♦ A♠ 6♣
3 players fold, Hero raises to 1,200, 1 fold, BB 3-bets to 3,900, Hero calls 2,700

Draw One: (9,000) K♦ A♥ A♠ 4♦ 4♠ (2 players)
BB stands pat, BU (Hero) draws 5d 6c
BB bets 5,944 (all-in), Hero calls 5,944

Total pot: 20,888

Showdown:
BB shows 8♥ K♥ 7♦ 4♣ 8♠ (a pair of Eights)
BU (Hero) shows K♦ A♥ A♠ 4♦ 4♠ (two pair, Aces and Fours)
BU (Hero) wins 20,888

Myself, I probably don't snow nearly as much as I should, but I once gave it a try at the FT, when the card dead stretch was starting to become a problem, but before waiting long enough to make it look like a desperation move:

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 900/1,800 (450 ante) - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 22,844 (13 bb)
CO (Hero): 38,032 (21 bb)
BU: 55,641 (31 bb)
SB: 46,104 (26 bb)
BB: 20,379 (11 bb)

Deal: (4,950) Hero is CO with 5♦ 2♦ 8♣ 4♠ 3♥
1 fold, Hero raises to 3,600, BTN calls 3,600, 2 players fold

Draw One: (12,150) 5♦ 2♦ 8♣ 4♠ 3♥ (2 players)
CO (Hero) stands pat, BU draws 2
Hero bets 7,200, BU folds

Total pot: 12,150
CO (Hero) wins 12,150

It went well that time, but it remained my only snow in that game, and rather inconsequential. Maybe I should have added a few more at the later stages. I'm just glad I dared to do it at all tonight.

Originally posted by Harrier88
It went well that time, but it remained my only snow in that game, and rather inconsequential. Maybe I should have added a few more at the later stages. I'm just glad I dared to do it at all tonight.
I have very specific hands I snow with.
One is 7,5,4,3,2 which is of course the nuts in lowball.
I also snow with 5 cards in the range 9 to A with no pair, and no flush draw. Only if the situation is favourable though.

ZERO WASTE!

Wow, we collected about 11 or 12 freeroll-tickets on 888?! Crazy. As written in my Cash Game blog we´re picking up FOUR cards more often, as on 888 there´s traffic in PLO. On Partypoker, getting a PLO table is like winning the jackpot. Either the tables are all full or there´s almost no traffic on PLO. So, as we´re playing more CG on 888 now, we get all those tickets and today, we qualified for the rakeback system (whatever that means). So, we got some freeroll tickets because we play CG and we got the "Winner Spinner" tickets of course. Yesterday, we played one of those an won 6 cent. Well, 6 cents are 6 cents! Three big blinds in PLO2!

Today, we played a freeroll we actually didn´t really wanna play, but wasting tickets is a No-No! So, we had to use up a ticket for the 500 $ Chiptrack or what that was, you can win tournament tickets there (meh!). We were not really keen on that one and when the left-overs of statistic-hell struck us (AA<K9s) we were not too disappointed. We had used up that ticket, so: ZERO WASTE!

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I have very specific hands I snow with.
One is 7,5,4,3,2 which is of course the nuts in lowball.
I also snow with 5 cards in the range 9 to A with no pair, and no flush draw. Only if the situation is favourable though.

Like the hand I posted above, 75432 would also be an open-ender, so it has some playability. But at least as far as I am concerned, straight and flush draws are mostly steals, or possibly calls for implied value, which, however, usually only works in the early stages of tournaments (or deep cash games, I guess).

Badugi at least earned a $2 bounty tonight, but I should slap myself for not paying more attention on the bubble. After ceaseless folding on my part, I decided to finally push my good 3-card hand, running into a high pat Badugi and losing the flip. Meanwhile, a bigger stack got out on the other table, therefore finishing ahead of me and taking the ITM while I'm settled with the bubble finish.

The night before that, I kind of "sleepwalked" to an FT, once again constantly waking up to the time bank sound. $7.38 including bounties was one of the better finishes so far, but Badugi is still going shockingly badly this year.

Five Card Draw continues to carry it, with plenty of SNG cashes (sadly only one 1st place) and another good finish in tonight's MTT:

Something Different Today...

I was playing a Drawmaha MTT, as part of the ongoing "March Madness" series on SwC. This may have been my first paid-entry MTT on that site, where funds are usually tight for me, but thanks to recent successes in OFC, I decided that I can afford the 250 µBTC buy-in.

For those who are unfamiliar, Drawmaha is a split pot game that combines Five Card Draw and 5-Card Omaha, with one drawing round on the flop. At showdown, there is a pot for the best 5CD hand and one for the best 5-Card Omaha hand.

Ideally, you are looking for hands like this, which have good 5CD equity and still hit something useful on the board:

The downside is that hands like quads, especially low ones, may have difficulty hitting anything for the Omaha pot, making it likely that they will only be good for half the total pot, despite their almost unbeatable 5CD equity.

Didn't even go too badly here, I improved to a flush draw on the flop and hit on the river - but so did my opponent, with a better flush, so we are still splitting.

This was an interesting situation, where two flushes clashed in the 5CD part, but the weaker one got its revenge in the Omaha part, forcing another split.

As for the game, I had a really good start, but then stagnated and eventually lost a big pot that set me back a lot. My mistake may have been that I switched from being too cautious about playing for scoops only to being too reckless about drawing to one part of the pot.

I showed signs of a comeback when my stack got really short, and eventually went all-in with a pat flush that even had some potential on the flop, with a top two pair on a monotone board.

However, it ended up becoming my exit hand, when my opponent drew one to improve to a full house, with two diamonds for the Omaha flush. You actually get to draw twice when you discard only one card - it will be dealt face up and you can either accept it or discard it again, getting another face down draw.

We were relatively close to ITM at this point, and late reg was still going for less than a minute, so it was tempting to rebuy... but I decided against it, the intial buy-in was already enough of an investment with my limited bankroll at this room.

Drawmaha is great, especially as a tournament game, I wish the more "mainstream" rooms like Pokerstars would pick it up too, together with Badeucy, which I also like a lot.

I believe there is a 12-Game MTT in the same price range on Sunday. I would like to play, but I think I should save my funds. OFC is swingy enough.

At least the Drawmaha exit allowed me some time for some regular Five Card Draw without the 'maha' on Pokerstars. While my SNG bricked, my MTT went deep again:

Too bad about losing the heads-up battle, where I even started with a close to even stack compared to my opponent. Unfortunately, he hit the two pairs when they mattered, though I also showed some noteworthy "survival skills" when my stack was short.

Other times, my opponent just seemed to have a very good read. Check out this call - I suppose I should have kept the pair when I saw that my opponent drew four. Sometimes it can pay to wait a little before you make your decision.

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 2,000/4,000 (1,000 ante) - 2 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

SB (Hero): 64,305 (16 bb)
BB: 142,695 (36 bb)

Deal: (8,000) Hero is SB with A♥ 4♥ 8♥ 6♥ 6♠
Hero raises to 8,000, BB calls 4,000

Draw One: (18,000) A♥ 4♥ 8♥ 6♥ 5♣ (2 players)
BB draws 4, SB (Hero) draws 6s
BB checks, Hero bets 9,000, BB calls 9,000

Total pot: 36,000

Showdown:
SB (Hero) shows A♥ 4♥ 8♥ 6♥ 5♣ (high card, Ace)
BB shows A♠ 5♥ 3♥ T♦ Q♦ (high card, Ace - higher kicker)
BB wins 36,000

So far, this year's Five Card Draw results have been quite encouraging, both in SNGs and MTTs. If this keeps up, maybe I can explore some additional options, but I will try not to read too much into my short term successes. Things can change quite quickly in this game, and it is possible that I have been on a bit of a heater in some of the past weeks.

OMG!

We're in the Boogie... except we aren't, really. I sattied into the tournament earlier, and then waited a while until it the target tournament was finally starting. I have received one warning about an impending "security logout" due to inactivity in the meantime, where I had to confirm that I was still there. All nice and well so far.

But then, as the tournament was about to start, I get up to take one leak before the game, and as I return and the table opens up, I receive the message that I was just logged out due to inactivity again... which, of course, leads to this thing again after returning:

I would have preferred if they had just kicked me and paid out the $22 in tournament money. Well, let's see if I will be back in time. I don't really want to do anything like rebooting or closing the client, it might make things worse.

EDIT: Just as I was about to finish posting, I was allowed back in. I guess that went well after all, though I missed a few very playable hands. Seriously, though, does anyone know if the timer for the security lockout can be adjusted somewhat? Maybe it needs to be this way due to regulations, but if there is a way to change the timer or disable it altogether, I would love to know.

I can only make the message pop-up 5 minutes at max before logging me out, other options are 2 and 1 minute.
They should not log you out if you are registered in tournaments or at least they should unregister you if they log you out... How the hell do they "protect" you by making you unable to play something you already paid for? Or maybe they log out the good players and that's how they protect the "average" player

Originally posted by nsavov
I can only make the message pop-up 5 minutes at max before logging me out, other options are 2 and 1 minute.
They should not log you out if you are registered in tournaments or at least they should unregister you if they log you out... How the hell do they "protect" you by making you unable to play something you already paid for? Or maybe they log out the good players and that's how they protect the "average" player
I didn't see when exactly it happened because I was in the bathroom, but I believe I was unlucky enough to have the logout occur shortly after the tournament started, but before the first hand was played. At least I think I can remember some kind of sound on the PC when I returned, only to see that I have been logged out. Maybe they really would have unregged me and refunded the buy-in as T$ if it had occurred before the tournament had started.

Either way, while the usefulness of these security logouts is debatable, they seem to be a separate problem from this annoying "You will be able to reset your status soon" message that prevents me from playing after re-joining. I have no idea what causes this, if it's another security feature, if it has something to do with those asinine German regulations, or if it's a different issue entirely, possibly even caused by something on my end.

At least I managed to get back to playing that time, but it seemed to have caused a lot of tilt, at least I ended up playing pretty poorly all evening. The target tournament was bricked too.

On a related subject, is anyone else encountering this message on the forum when they refresh the page or try to make a post? I have been getting it all the time for a few weeks or so now, it's starting to get a little annoying.

Yeah I'm getting the cloudflare check here too. I guess they switched hosts?

The rejoining reset status thing is a probably a German thing.

My freezing problems finally got fixed. Just in time to miss SCOOP

Pokersites being down sometimes is normal. What we can do is add different games to our arsenal and be able to switch sites. Such as: "PLO10 on Unibet" or "$0.22 NLHE tournament on Partypoker". If we rely too much on FL 5CD income from Pokerstars, we can run into dependency trouble, if Stars has errors in its services.

Originally posted by taavi1337
Pokersites being down sometimes is normal.

Stars is not down in my case, though. The site itself is working fine, it just won't let me play for several minutes in those situations. If I'm in a Turbo SNG, it might be enough to outright blind me out in some stages, and otherwise, it can still be a big handicap.

Whatever the reasons are, and whether they make sense in a way or not, it always seems to occur when I get logged out while I am still seated in some games. It once happened when I reset the client myself because it was so slow, once because I had to reboot my PC in the middle of a game due to technical issues, and also last Friday when I got a security logout right after my MTT table opened.

Originally posted by taavi1337
Pokersites being down sometimes is normal. What we can do is add different games to our arsenal and be able to switch sites. Such as: "PLO10 on Unibet" or "$0.22 NLHE tournament on Partypoker". If we rely too much on FL 5CD income from Pokerstars, we can run into dependency trouble, if Stars has errors in its services.

Taavi, for German players things are unfortunately not so easy. We do not have "Unibet", the number of poker rooms for us are restricted.