Harrier's Blog - Mixed Games & Mixed Drinks

Looks like traffic has picked up quite a bit in the 5CD SNGs. I played a little in the evening, and was able to get three of them going. One of them filled up within four minutes, which is insane for those games. There were many of the same regs around, which is why the lobbies filled up so quickly after the previous SNG got started - but that has never been a problem, right?

Not a great day results-wise, but I played well enough to get in a good position to ship both of my first two SNGs (the third one lost to a very unlucky cooler where good drawn trips ran into a full house that was hit after drawing three). The first game, which finished 2nd, was lost after getting my heads-up opponent all-in with nothing but a flush draw for them, the second one was given away by me on the bubble after a big, unsuccessful hero call. All in all, there definitely seems to be some potential again if I run a little better and get rid of a few more mistakes. And this potential is what matters, not so much the short-term results.

I suspected that my performance in these SNGs took such a dive in the last few months because of a combination of my tough work schedule and the loss of the Russian player pool. Well, if the rest of the player pool now got used to the absence of the Russian players, and I got used to my new schedule, maybe it's time to pick these games back up again, I've taken a long enough break. Besides, I appear to be break-even at best in Courchevel (currently at 3.76% ROI after 58 games), and 8-Game SNGs have pretty much no traffic at all. What else is there to play, if you don't have time for MTTs?

Even if things pick up again, which I hope, it will take a long time until those losses are recouped, and even longer until we are back on pace like before. Patience will be key.

Encouraging news!

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Encouraging news!

Indeed. And it got even more encouraging this evening, when I played two SNGs and shipped them both.:f_drink: The last 5CD SNG was shipped on April 20th (didn't play a lot since then, of course).

Both games had me seriously short-stacked and card dead at one point, but patience paid off, and those 2 BB desperation double-ups turned into 1st place finishes. Luck was on my side when it mattered this time.

In my first SNG, I even missed a lot of the start because I had something to discuss at home while people were still regging. When I came back, I noticed the table was only 4-handed already, but I managed to do better than just folding into the money.

It helps out, but there is more to do. Most likely not tomorrow, though.

Finally weekend - and even an extended one, with a federal holiday on Monday. It's not the same across the entire country, but in my state, I knew since childhood that I can look forward to several extended weekends within a short time in May to June, with Ascension Day, Pentecost and the Feast of Corpus Christi all being official holidays.

I doubt many people over here nowadays even know what is supposed to be celebrated on those days, especially since Ascension Day overlaps with the secular and much more mainstream Father's Days, but they'll gladly take their days off work or school. To tell you the truth, despite being a quite religious person myself, I had to look up the meaning of the Feast of Corpus Christi too, as well as the English term for that holiday, which is a little more self-explanatory. (The German term is Fronleichnam - 'Fron' historically referred to the forced labor of peasants for their lords under feudalism, later sometimes being used as a term for hard and unwanted work in general, while 'Leichnam' is just a word for a dead body.)

Five Card Draw SNGs have made some tremendous progress recently. Traffic is about as "good" (i.e. at least somewhat playable) as I remember it being in winter, before the Russian ban, and four out of the last eight SNGs finished 1st, with two other ones cashing. However, I still need to catch up a lot in order to be where I used to be before the big downswing that started in March. If it continues like this, it won't take long, but my luck is bound to run out eventually, of course.

I'll be cautiously optimistic. I plan to play some more today, but Saturdays are usually my weaker days at the tables. I'm just glad that I'm seeing some potential again. I guess the break from this format came in handy.

Also, let's have a new drink. Summer is here, and I've been looking around for some smoothie recipes.

A proper blender, which can also crush ice and all that, is on my shopping list, but I'm having a tough time finding a good one. In the meantime, I'm using my old retro blender, which has no blades, but at least can swirl stuff around quite nicely.

I'll be making orange smoothies, and my recipe calls for some orange concentrate. You know, the stuff that commercial producers sometimes make their juice with, unless it's directly pressed.

I had a hard time finding some, but here it is. You're normally supposed to simply dilute it with water to make plain juice, but I had other plans...

Instead, I got about 95 ml each of milk and water...

...55 ml of that orange concentrate...

...some leftover crushed ice - which for some reason is also pretty hard to get in the stores now...

...and also about 1.5 tablespoons of sugar and half a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Luckily, my retro blender was able to handle this mixture without making a big mess - or at least no bigger mess than my kitchen already was in the first place.

The finished mixture was enough to fill two 300 ml glasses.

I thought it was all right, and as you can see, the texture was nice and foamy - though some lumps of crushed ice of course still remained in one of the glasses. I assume a proper blender would give me an even nicer texture.

And because I had squeezed some oranges for fresh juice for breakfast today, I thought I'd save some slices to take a nice photo, serving this drink again in taller glasses.

Originally posted by Harrier88
I doubt many people over here nowadays even know what is supposed to be celebrated on those days, especially since Ascension Day overlaps with the secular and much more mainstream Father's Days, but they'll gladly take their days off work or school. To tell you the truth, despite being a quite religious person myself, I had to look up the meaning of the Feast of Corpus Christi too, as well as the English term for that holiday, which is a little more self-explanatory. (The German term is Fronleichnam - 'Fron' historically referred to the forced labor of peasants for their lords under feudalism, later sometimes being used as a term for hard and unwanted work in general, while 'Leichnam' is just a word for a dead body.)

It seems somehow fitting that Ascension day would also be Father's day.
On checking, it seems that for me, Father's day is June 19, but it isn't a holiday

June is the only month out of the 12 that there is no federal holiday for me — not that it matters at all, since I'm retired

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
On checking, it seems that for me, Father's day is June 19, but it isn't a holiday

Neither is Father's Day here - but since it managed to hijack a real holiday, it might as well be.

At least it allows dads all across the nation some time to do their dad things - or family things, as it's common to do family trips on that day.

Tough luck when it mattered in the 5CD SNGs this time... one lost on the bubble with trips vs lower trips that hit a full house, another one had trips run into a drawn flush after getting the chips in predraw. At least the third one finished on 2nd place.

More importantly, though, I also made a 2nd place in Badugi tonight. I didn't too well with the bounties, and only collected a single one on the final table, which was worth about $8. Final returns including that bounty were $48.34. Not bad at all, and enough to bring my total bankroll over $2.7K again, after almost falling below the $2.6K mark just about a week ago.

I haven't played either of those games ages.

Nice results

Played a $7.50 8-Game today again. It went well - final result was a 5th place finish for $31.04.

One weird lowball hand and my heartbreaking exit hand can both be found in the Hand of the Day thread, but there were many other potential candidates for that one. And while the exit hand was very disappointing as this tournament had a good shot at going all the way to 1st place, I must admit that I also got very lucky in other instances earlier on.

Badugi lost to a cooler, and Five Card Draw didn't go very well at all this time. Only one 2nd place out of four games played. I think I'm starting to bluffcatch too often, I should probably play it more like I play Badugi, with a greater focus on value hands. The difference is that Badugi focuses more on implied odds, while most 5CD hands are more about way ahead/way behind situations.

Really not my best performance today, but the good 8-Game finish at least made it a profitable day.

As a bonus to those two lowball hands linked above, here's what happens when two players somehow end up in a pot with the same crappy hand:

PokerStars, $6.69 + $0.81 - Hold'em Limit (8-Game) - 200/400 - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 14,178 (35 bb)
CO: 1,950 (5 bb)
BU: 2,400 (6 bb)
SB: 10,726 (27 bb)
BB (Hero): 10,439 (26 bb)

Pre-Flop: (600) Hero is BB with 3♣ 7♥
3 players fold, SB calls 200, Hero checks

Flop: (800) A♣ T♥ 4♥ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (800) J♥ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: (800) 6♥ (2 players)
SB bets 800, Hero calls 800

Total pot: 2,400

Showdown:
SB shows 7♠ 3♥ (a flush, Jack high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 50%, Flop: 48%, Turn: 41%, River: 0%)

BB (Hero) shows 3♣ 7♥ (a flush, Jack high - higher flush)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 50%, Flop: 52%, Turn: 59%, River: 100%)

BB (Hero) wins 2,400

Bad day at the tables... the only positive thing to report is a 2nd place in a 5CD SNG, but three other ones lost, two of them on the bubble. Badugi bricked and so did the $1.10 8-Game which I regged very late.

I wasn't in the best playing condition, honestly. You'd think that I'd be well rested after three days off, but actually, today was relatively stressful - mostly because I spent some additional hours trying to hunt down a good blender to buy...

Seriously, I've been looking around for a few days already, and I've been getting pretty sick of having dozens of browser tabs open looking for an affordable one that works as well as I want. Plenty of recommendations on several test websites, but then I always find some worrying stuff in Amazon reviews or something similar. What makes this especially frustrating is that you never know which of those dealbreaking flaws that people bring up are actually the fault of the product, and which ones are either bad luck in getting a faulty item, or plain and simply the fault of the user.

The main features I was looking for were the ability to make smoothies and similar drinks and to crush ice. Especially the latter point is one where many blenders seem to come up short, as I saw in a few videos about the devices which made it on my shortlist. In the end, I found one which I hope will work fine for my purposes. I paid around €70-75 for it. It doesn't hold a lot of volume, but that shouldn't be a big problem - in the worst case, I'll just have to blend twice or more when I'm serving multiple people.

Naturally, pics will follow as soon as this bad boy arrives, as well as mixed drinks and other treats that I intend to make with it. Most importantly, though, I'm really glad that I can finally put the blender hunt behind me now. Let's just hope that it won't start all over again in case this device won't meet my expectations.

Another week of late work shifts starts tomorrow. I'll try to late reg Badugi MTTs after getting home, to see if I'm still doing all right in them in that situation. If I do, I could significantly increase my volume by adding them every other week.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Another week of late work shifts starts tomorrow. I'll try to late reg Badugi MTTs after getting home, to see if I'm still doing all right in them in that situation. If I do, I could significantly increase my volume by adding them every other week.

Well, I'm sure glad I did... I shipped the Badugi tonight!

$90.58 were my returns - considerably more than what I made at work that day.

Heads-up was tough. My opponent was quite skilled, and despite getting several good setups, he kept dodging my value check-raises to stay in the game and turn the tables several times. This is not an easy thing to do at all for the average Badugi player.

One important hand to put me into a winning position was the one shown below, where I dared to do a pretty big bluff at the end, which is something I don't usually do. Against this player, though, I felt like this is something I need to throw in, especially after observing how willing he was to fold to my value raises.

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - Badugi Pot Limit - 1,800/3,600 - 2 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

SB (Hero): 125,548 (35 bb)
BB: 126,452 (35 bb)

Deal: (5,400) Hero is SB with 8♥ 5♦ A♣ 3♣
Hero raises to 7,200, BB calls 3,600

Draw One: (14,400) 8♥ 5♦ A♣ 4♦ (2 players)
BB draws 1, SB (Hero) draws 3c
BB checks, Hero checks

Draw Two: (14,400) 8♥ A♣ 4♦ 3♥ (2 players)
BB draws 1, SB (Hero) draws 5d
BB bets 14,400, Hero calls 14,400

Draw Three: (43,200) A♣ 4♦ 3♥ Q♦ (2 players)
BB stands pat, SB (Hero) draws 8h
BB bets 18,000, Hero raises to 43,200, BB folds

Total pot: 79,200
SB (Hero) wins 79,200

He definitely also had his moments where he outplayed me by exploiting my own tendencies, though. All in all, a very tough battle, and it could have gone either way.

Check out the chip graph to see all the back and forth between us. Also note that my heads-up opponent was the one with the biggest stack throughout most of the game, and you can see how far behind mine was in comparison. Guess what, I was actually in 2nd place for a good amount of time - his lead towards the field was really that big, so I had some work to do to get him within distance.

I surely won't get such good results all that often after regging it so late after work, and I was indeed lucky to have a good start within my very first few hands, but the early first place does show that there is not much need to shy away from these games just because I'm late for them. Even if I fail to get off the ground in the next few ones, I have some buy-ins to burn for them now.

Originally posted by Harrier88

Well, I'm sure glad I did... I shipped the Badugi tonight!

$90.58 were my returns - considerably more than what I made at work that day.

Congratulations!

Another final table tonight, but only with a rather disappointing 6th place finish for $14.70. It was especially disappointing because I had entered FT as the chipleader, and as usual, I took a bunch of risks to get there. They paid off here, but may result in premature bricks the next few times, so it's important to make them count when they do pay off.

The exit hand was surely annoying too, where I identified a player who might have been doing loose exploitative re-raises. I decided to fight back with a K-Badugi, but broke it after he stood pat in front of me - I was in position, so he had the "right of first bluff". Turned out he had a worse K-Badugi and I would have won, which would have put me into a very good position again. I even briefly considered holding on to my Badugi, if nothing else to make my opponent break another high, but possibly better one, but then decided against it. It's one of those things that won't bother me even a day later, but now keep going through my mind a lot, and may do so tomorrow during my quiet moments at work too.

The one Five Card Draw SNG I played finished on the bubble, after some very bad luck where my opponent made a bad predraw call with a baby pair against my AAKxx and hit a super low two pair. I've seen many questionable calls by other people recently too, but my results are still lacking, with my ROI in these games this year now sinking below 20%.

The good news are that my bankroll now cracked the $2.8K mark for the first time ever. I hope to bring it to $3K this year, at which point I should probably do monthly withdrawals again, while also taking a few more shots at higher limits. $27 8-Games may not be something to ignore in the lobby anymore by that point, even though they would still be too expensive for a daily grind. But first we need to get there.

What's also nice is that with two FTs in two games, there really isn't much of a justification for me to avoid post-work Badugi in weeks with late shifts. This means that Badugi MTTs will finally be a regular thing for me again, rather than something to be attempted every other weekend or so.

I don't really plan to post after every session, mostly because in many of them, there's just not a lot to talk about. Tonight, however, there have been some interesting hands... one of them being my Hand of the Day.

That one was surely sick, but this one is remarkable too:

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - Badugi Pot Limit - 200/400 - 8 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 27,398 (68 bb)
UTG+1 (Hero): 8,760 (22 bb)
MP: 13,446 (34 bb)
MP+1: 5,685 (14 bb)
CO: 28,825 (72 bb)
BU: 10,648 (27 bb)
SB: 20,843 (52 bb)
BB: 2,550 (6 bb)

Deal: (600) Hero is UTG+1 with K♣ 2♣ 6♦ 5♥
1 fold, Hero raises to 800, 4 players fold, SB calls 600, BB calls 400

Draw One: (2,400) 2♣ 6♦ 5♥ 4♠ (3 players)
SB draws 1, BB draws 1, UTG+1 (Hero) draws Kc
SB checks, BB bets 800, Hero raises to 2,000, SB calls 2,000, BB calls 950 (all-in)

Draw Two: (8,150) 2♣ 6♦ 5♥ 4♠ (3 players, 1 all-in)
SB draws 1, BB draws 1, UTG+1 (Hero) stands pat
SB checks, Hero bets 5,960 (all-in), SB folds

Draw Three: (14,110) 2♣ 6♦ 5♥ 4♠ (2 players, 2 all-in)
BB draws 1, UTG+1 (Hero) stands pat

Total pot: 8,150

Showdown:
UTG+1 (Hero) shows 2♣ 6♦ 5♥ 4♠ (a Badugi: 6,5,4,2)
BB shows 2♥ 5♦ 4♣ 6♠ (a Badugi: 6,5,4,2)
UTG+1 (Hero) wins 4,325
BB wins 3,825

This one is less spectacular, but demonstrates that I can learn from my exit hand the prior night, where I broke a K-Badugi when I shouldn't have. This time, I followed my instinct and instead got my opponent to break a hand that surely would have beaten me:

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - Badugi Pot Limit - 150/300 - 7 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 1,685 (6 bb)
MP: 3,000 (10 bb)
MP+1: 3,657 (12 bb)
CO: 14,761 (49 bb)
BU: 2,700 (9 bb)
SB: 3,300 (11 bb)
BB (Hero): 6,910 (23 bb)

Deal: (450) Hero is BB with K♥ 7♦ 4♣ 8♠
5 players fold, SB raises to 900, Hero 3-bets to 1,800, SB 4-bets to 3,300 (all-in), Hero calls 1,500

Draw One: (6,600) K♥ 7♦ 4♣ 8♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)
SB stands pat, BB (Hero) stands pat

Draw Two: (6,600) (2 players, 1 all-in)
SB draws 1, BB (Hero) stands pat

Draw Three: (6,600) (2 players, 1 all-in)
SB draws 1, BB (Hero) stands pat

Total pot: 6,600

Showdown:
SB shows 3♠ 5♣ 2♦ 3♦ (a 3-card: 5,3,2)
BB (Hero) shows K♥ 7♦ 4♣ 8♠ (a Badugi: K,8,7,4)
BB (Hero) wins 6,600

There's not too much of a reason to celebrate, though, as I got out later on in a multiway hand where I really shouldn't have tried pushing with a K-Badugi. Really one of those situations where you ask yourself later "well, what did you think would happen??". In my defense, I was getting short, had been very card dead for a long time before that, and was just pretty tired in general after a crazy work day.

Finally, there was a coolerific exit hand in the one 5CD SNG I played tonight, which at least saved me the heads-up battle:

PokerStars, $1.76 + $0.24 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 150/300 (30 ante) - 3 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

BU: 4,248 (14 bb)
SB: 554 (2 bb)
BB (Hero): 4,198 (14 bb)

Deal: (540) Hero is BB with T♠ 4♠ T♣ 4♣ 7♣
BTN calls 300, SB raises to 524 (all-in), Hero calls 224, BTN calls 224

Draw One: (1,662) T♠ 4♠ T♣ 4♣ 4♦ (3 players, 1 all-in)
SB draws 2, BB (Hero) draws 7c, BU draws 3
Hero bets 900, BTN raises to 2,700, Hero raises to 3,644 (all-in), BTN calls 944

Total pot: 8,950

Showdown:
BB (Hero) shows T♠ 4♠ T♣ 4♣ 4♦ (a full house, Fours full of Tens)
BU shows K♣ K♠ 5♣ 5♠ K♦ (a full house, Kings full of Fives)
SB shows J♥ J♣ J♠ 7♦ 2♥ (three of a kind, Jacks)
BU wins 8,950

Some spectacular hands tonight, but not so spectacular results. Just a 2nd place cash in the 5CD SNG and a mincash with a minimal bounty in Badugi, for a very marginal winning day.

Quite a mitt-full of spectacular hands.

Five Card Draw is getting really frustrating... it's hard not to lose track of how many times my predraw trips got outdrawn after getting the chips in. Normally, you'd be ahead about 88% even against a higher pair.

The potential is surely there, I typically do pretty well early on and then eventually lose a decisive pot when the blinds are high, often in a situation like I mentioned above. The results are not coming in, however, and my recent gains are just about gone. This will require some patience, I suppose.

Badugi, on the other hand, is still going strong. Tonight, we made a 4th place with pretty good bounties for $32.74 in total. In those four days of experimental post-work grinding, we made four ITMs, three FTs and one 1st place, for a profit of about $125 during this time. You could hardly ask for anything more, especially considering that I had low expectations going into this.

Football tomorrow. We'll be facing the Ingolstadt Dukes at home, who are the clear favorites. I'm unlikely to get much playing time if at all, but I'll still attend. According to the Facebook page, there won't be a live stream this time, but who knows... maybe there is one to be found somewhere else.

Cooler of the Day:

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - Badugi Pot Limit - 400/800 - 7 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 562 (1 bb)
MP: 22,836 (29 bb)
MP+1: 11,735 (15 bb)
CO: 3,020 (4 bb)
BU: 63,869 (80 bb)
SB: 19,180 (24 bb)
BB (Hero): 50,589 (63 bb)

Deal: (1,200) Hero is BB with 6♣ 2♣ 3♦ 6♠
2 players fold, MP+1 calls 800, CO calls 800, 1 fold, SB calls 400, Hero checks

Draw One: (3,200) 2♣ 3♦ 6♠ 5♦ (4 players)
SB draws 2, BB (Hero) draws 6c, MP+1 draws 1, CO draws 1
SB checks, Hero checks, MP+1 bets 2,400, 2 players fold, Hero calls 2,400

Draw Two: (8,000) 2♣ 3♦ 6♠ 4♥ (2 players)
BB (Hero) draws 5d, MP+1 stands pat
Hero checks, MP+1 bets 8,000, Hero raises to 16,000, MP+1 calls 535 (all-in)

Draw Three: (32,535) 2♣ 3♦ 6♠ 4♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)
BB (Hero) stands pat, MP+1 stands pat

Total pot: 25,070

Showdown:
BB (Hero) shows 2♣ 3♦ 6♠ 4♥ (a Badugi: 6,4,3,2)
MP+1 shows 3♠ 2♦ 6♥ A♣ (a Badugi: 6,3,2,A)
MP+1 wins 25,070

Hold of the Day:

PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - Badugi Pot Limit - 900/1,800 - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG (Hero): 37,386 (21 bb)
MP: 26,916 (15 bb)
CO: 160,469 (89 bb)
BU: 29,480 (16 bb)
SB: 57,411 (32 bb)
BB: 33,338 (19 bb)

Deal: (2,700) Hero is UTG with 6♣ J♥ 5♦ 3♠
Hero raises to 3,600, 1 fold, CO 3-bets to 13,500, 3 players fold, Hero 4-bets to 37,386 (all-in), CO calls 23,886

Draw One: (77,472) 6♣ J♥ 5♦ 3♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)
UTG (Hero) stands pat, CO stands pat

Draw Two: (77,472) (2 players, 1 all-in)
UTG (Hero) stands pat, CO stands pat

Draw Three: (77,472) (2 players, 1 all-in)
UTG (Hero) stands pat, CO stands pat

Total pot: 77,472

Showdown:
UTG (Hero) shows 6♣ J♥ 5♦ 3♠ (a Badugi: J,6,5,3)
CO shows J♠ 7♥ A♣ 8♦ (a Badugi: J,8,7,A)
UTG (Hero) wins 77,472

Originally posted by Harrier88
The potential is surely there, I typically do pretty well early on and then eventually lose a decisive pot when the blinds are high, often in a situation like I mentioned above. The results are not coming in, however, and my recent gains are just about gone. This will require some patience, I suppose.

I notice this pattern as well.
I don't notice how often those high-blind hands go my way though, so it must even out in the long run.

Tough luck for the Dragons. It was a surprisingly close game against the big favorites, but we failed to make the decisive touchdown that could have tied the game (with a two point conversion), despite a 1st & Goal situation right at the end. This time, our offense deserved the most credit. Truth be told, though, I believe our opponents were the better team today, so the win is not undeserved, despite some controversial refereeing at times.

I've noticed that I tend to do pretty well with predictions on how those matches will go after watching the first few plays, and also tend to do all right with pre-match predictions. Makes me wonder if I could be good at sports betting after all if I put in the effort, but forget about it - apart from the tax-heavy betting market that is available in Germany, where many of the most advantageous sites are banned, I simply don't care all that much about following professional sports at all.

No poker tonight, it's important to get some off-time every now and then. And speaking of which, I will finally have a day tomorrow where I don't need to go anywhere. There will most likely be some poker, but I should treat myself to some plain old rest too, I believe.

Interesting comment about predicting the outcome from the first few places.
Mrs Vorpal grew up on a farm, and could tell by the way horses behaved in the "parade to the post" at the start of a horse race which ones were feeling frisky.
In the one time we went to the races, she picked several winners. It paid for our dinner, but that's about it.

Not something one wants to make a career of.