Hey guys. It's been a while since I've posted. I know I must sound like a stuck record, but I go through phases of posting a lot and phases of not posting so much. I think a lot of it has to do with momentum aswell. Sometimes something get's in my way and my whole rhythm get's messed up.
Anyway I'm feeling fairly healthy as of now. No major injuries, no sickness, eating fairly well and trying to work out on a regular basis. I've done the majority of my travelling for the summer with Vegas, Ibiza and Gräfenhainichen (a place near Berlin for the Melt! festivities).
Next up is Prague on the 4th of August. I will be playing the Unibet Open there from the 5th-8th and checking out Prague a bit. After that I may either travel to Italy for a couple of days to go to a water park called Caneva World that I've been wanting to go to with friends for a couple years now. In late August I'll be flying to London for two weeks to visit friends and family and then I'm pretty much back to studying for Uni exams.
All this travelling is surely fun, but it's tough to get into a rhythm of doing stuff on a regular basis.
I try my best, but at times it can get frustrating. The thing is, I probably even have a good work ethic, but I try to do too many things at once and often end up not getting things done.
Anyways that'll be all for now. All the best.

Daniell

...just so you know. We got here on Saturday evening. I'm staying with my friend Philipp who qualified through 888 for the main event. Our room is pretty balling. Here are some pictures (we have three flat screens 19", 40" and 32").
hallway

bathroom

phil

main room lcds

phil + bed

waiting list from the venetian in the room


So far we haven't done a whole lot. We've been to some restaurants around the Palazzo. We tried to go out yesterday, because it was independence day, but somehow we couldn't make anything happen. So we just ended up walking around the strip a little bit.
Tonight we are going to 888's vip party and then will probably hit up some places with some other poker players from 888 I could imagine.
So far I've been playing some 10/20 and 5/10 cash games, I don't have any plans of playing tournaments. I feel like they're a lot of regs in the cash games, but they lack a deeper understanding of the game and they play very deep so you can still have a reasonable edge on them even when you're playing in a game full of cash game regs, but you can hardly compare hourlies to online. A decent 1/2 reg makes more an hour than a 5/10 reg live. 25% rakeback in the Venetian is pretty neat though.
This year I actually wired money to the casino to play. It's kinda neat, because you don't have to carry around cash and it only took three days from Europe which is sweet aswell. The fees weren't too bad, but I always feel like I'm getting charged hidden costs somewhere. I think the banks don't give you the proper exchange rates. The Venetian claimed that they didn't charge me for my wire.
Anyways I'll update you guys if anything eventful happens.

Daniell

Hi guys. It's been a while since I last blogged. I still have to update you on my trip to Ibiza.
I just wanted to make a brief update on my new purchase of a 27" Dell. It's really sweet, because I can put six tables on one screen easily wihtout having to resize, it's great and the colours are very nice.
I've also ordered a new SSD Hard Drive, OCZ Vertex Turbo 120gb. That should drastically increase working on the PC and also help some with games, though the only game I really play on the PC is Starcraft II.

Busted about an hour ago. Blinds were 1500/3000 with a 400 ante. We are 7 handed and I had just recently doubled up when I reshoved A9o over a hi-jack open with a reasonable stealing frequency and he called me w/qjo when I had 9bb total. So now I have 55k in chips. Mp1 folds and mp2 opens for 8k, I believe he had about 100k behind. it's folded to me in the SB and I have red jacks. I have this physical tell on him for when he's strong that I think is fairly acurate and he was exhibiting it mildly, I wasn't quite sure. But JJ is pretty much towards the top of my range for restealing here so regardless of my tell there is no way I'm not jamming here for less than 20bb shorthanded.
I rejam and it's folded back round to him. This is where his act begins. First he asks for a count. Which is reasonable. The dealer tells him how much I have. Then he requests the amount he raised be taken out of my stack so he can see the difference, still fine. Now he starts stacking chips to see how much of his stack it would be to call. Then the speech begins. He starts going on about how I rejammed over him several times yesterday, implying that I'm overbetting and that it's only fun so long it works. I only rejammed over his open once yesterday for 20bb when he opened to 3.5x from the CO.
He's clearly implying marginality of his holding so far, so I think I'm atleast coinflipping v AQ or crushing v 77-TT. He now proceeds to ask me where I am from and if I speak German, even though we've already spoken German with each other and I had been speaking German with the table. Someone says I'm from Great Britain so he starts speaking to me in English until somebody tells him that I'm fluent in German. I'm not reacting to his talk and am trying to practice being well composed.
By this time I'm fairly sure that atleast 2 minutes have passed. He finally anounces call I flip over my jacks and he literally slams down queens like he made some hero call. Obviously I was on minor tilt and told him that he could've called quicker with a hand as strong as queens. He doesn't seem to think his call was standard and said I could have had AK...
The flop comes down Q high and I fail to make running quads and am out in 23rd place. I shake his hand despite his blatant nitroll and that of one other player and promptly exit the casino. In his defence I don't think he was aware that what he does is considered bad sportsmanship, but it doesn't change the fact that it was.
All in all I wasn't really tilted just slightly agitated by the situation, although I did play for 12 hours without cashing.

Next up will be a 850$ event in Ibiza in early June, it's more of a fun trip to be honest, but it's a Betfair hosted event so the structure will be very reasonable. I was dissapointed with the structures of the CAPT, even the main event wasn't too great, but definetly playable. I think if I play another CAPT event, the next will be Baden and I'm only playing 1k+ events. That was my original plan, but I've played around 4 events live this year with a buy-in lower than that, which also had a lot to do with friends of mine playing a lot of the lower buy-in events and the gain in experience.
I played some 500NL whilst waiting for a seat in a 1000NL game in Casino Austria, but it's just such a small game (for live) and such a grind. I actually didn't play my best, because it felt like I was playing 50NL online.
At one point I got on a 1000NL table and we were 5 handed. A bunch of people were on the list, but nobody came to claim there seat. The table was pretty good, but nobody wanted to play 5-handed :S except for me and one more guy. He asked if I wanted to play HU and I accepted, because I thought it was a pretty good spot for me. Only problem was that I didn't have a bunch of cash on me, because it was a bank holiday and the banks were closed. In addition to this my friends were all not in the Casino at this time so nobody could spot me some cash. Either way I really wasn't gonna play lower and I thought I might aswell just take a shot with the 1200 in front of me and see if I can hit some cards to avoid downswonging. He even wanted to play 10/20, but I wouldn't have been short with the cash on me so I had to decline sadly. Some may be wondering why I didn't withdraw money from the Casino. Well first of all in Austria ATMs only give you 400€/day :/ and withdrawing from the Casino per credit card comes with a service charge of 3,5%. So if I had withdrawn say 3000€ they would have charged me 105€. It's potentially still a good spot even then, but it feels like burning money paying 105€ to withdraw 3k.
Anywho we played a bit and I ended up losing 600€, my opponent was a good sports man and it was fun to play with him. I'm actually not sure how much casino rake cuts into my profits in this instance and what the rake cap is, because live rake is crazy high. I should probably do some research on the matter for future reference. Had I thought about it earlier I would've probably asked the floor man if we could've paid a time rake instead of a rake per pot since we we're generating action and waiting for the table to fill up.
Anywho I need to go and get some stuff done for Uni. Talk to you soon.

Daniell

Hey guys. Made it to day two of the CAPT main event. There were only 99 entrants and 24 are left. Bubble is at 10 players. I had about 30bb at the end of the day.
I was down to about 10bb at one point when I doubled up with A9s v KTo and then managed to steal some chips till I had 30bb. I'll be updating later tonight.

Daniell

Played my first CAPT event yesterday. The 500€ freezout, I had a pretty good time after the table loosened up a bit. There was a lot of random trash talking in the good sense. One time I jammed UTG and had my poker face going when a well dressed Swiss man said with a Swiss-German accent that he saw my ear wiggle, I was unable not to smile at the comment and comply to his fist bump XD.
My table consisted mainly of some wealthy businessmen and retirees. The nationalities ranged from USA over Italy and Switzerland to local. People had character and didn't appear to be degenerate which I think is optimal for live poker.
Nobody really got angry at beats and we we're all just having fun, good sportsmanship.
I think I played pretty well for the most part, spots were pretty standard. I usually had a stack size at which my decisions were pretty straight forward. Busted 50/114 when I jammed AKs utg for 14k at 200/600/1200 and ran into KK, but couldn't suckout.
The structure wasn't all too good sadly. It looked good on paper, but the 30 minute blinds killed it.
Today I'll be playing a satellite to the main event on Saturday, Friday is a 1k freezout. I expect the structure to be poor again today, but to be better on Friday and naturally on Saturday. So far it looks like I won't be playing live cash, because I have an exam coming up next week Tuesday and really need to discipline myself now if I wanna get anything done this semestre.

Daniell

It's been a while since my last blog post. Nothing all too eventful happend. I didn't play very many hands at all in April, of which I'm not happy about, but I needed to take some time off due to school and an attempt to up my social time.
This month I haven't played a bunch yet either, but I'm atleast thinking a lot about the game and learning a lot in the process. This week there is the CAPT in Innsbruck where I live. CAPT stands for Casino Austria Poker Tour. Most of you won't know it, but may have heard of CAPT Baden.
Fields are usually very soft and Austria isn't big so it's easy to get to all the events (takes 1 hour to fly from one end to the other). My original plan was to play all the Hold'em events (for a total of 5), but I've already skipped the first two due to online poker and uni. It's not a big deal though, because they had poor structures and they don't count towards the CAPT leaderboard ranking.
When I have some more time I'll work a little bit more on my PLO game so I can play some of these bigger PLO events. The PLO fields allways seem crazy soft.
So I'll be playing the 500€ tomorrow, the 1000€ on Thursday and the 2000€ Main Event on Saturday.
Friends of mine are already playing today and they say there is crazy cash game action. Apparently 1k and 5k is running. To put this in perspective, 1k is very rare in Innsbruck. The games that usually run are 1/2 and 2/4. For the records I'm already pre-tilted that the 5k game will be really soft and I won't be able to play it due to bankroll restrictions :P. As far as live cash games go though, I'll have have to wait and see if I'll play in the 1k games. I probably will some, but may not be grinding it hardcore as it's an ok spot, but it can't beat me playing 3/6 and 5/10 online across 6-8 tables with a lot less rake, nonetheless it's allways good for a change of pace and practice for Vegas in the summer, where I definetly don't mind playing live as much due to the ambiente.
As far as plans for the rest of the month go, I'll be playing online cash for the main part and trying to make sure I don't fall behind in school work. I'll admit that this semestre is one of my weaker ones, I'm sure there is some sort of correlation to the sunny weather, I just can't figure it out yet... .

Daniell

Busted early into the tenth level. I had about 9.5k, blinds were 400/800 with 100 ante. CO shipped for about 10k first in and it was folded to me. I had ATo and CO was a pretty reasonable player so I think I'm in good shape against his range, I estimated about 60-40 favourite. I call and he flips over KTo and wins on a aqkk4r board. I ended up 59/163.
My friend Raz was still in by this point so I decided to play the 220€ Omaha event. I'm by no means an Omaha expert, but I think I understand enough of the game to not be losing in a small buy-in Omaha event. I did fairly well for the most part. I saw some very bad play. Some of the Hold'em cash game players were just playing to pass time waiting for a seat in the cash games that were currently unvailable due to the two tournaments taking up all the tables. You could tell they didn't care about the money and were making classic beginner mistakes, so I immediately felt more comfortable about my own game.
My strategy was to play tight prefop to facilitate postflop decision making and try and "gamble" with equity to get a big stack. I think most of my decisions were reasonable, I might have been playing a little bit too loose in some spots preflop, but I was able to steal a couple of spots postflop with blockers and got it in with decent equity for the most part.
In retrospect I think my edge might have been bigger than I thought so I might not have had to push my equity so hard in some spots. However the structure was pretty poor with 30 minute blinds and 120bb starting stacks so it was a crapshoot anyway.
On my bust out hand I had overlimped w/AJT2 suited to the ace. We were 4 way to the flop and the board was J45xcc giving me top pair, top kicker, a nutflush draw and a gutshot. It was checked to the first in limper and he fired 1k into 1.2k I think I had about 10k behind and he covered. This was a reasonable stack size at the time, but blinds were rising fast so my 30ish big blinds weren't that much. I decided this was good spot to push equity and he reshoved my pot raise w/JJ67xcxc. The turn and river bricked and it was gg me. By this point my friend had busted 32/163 in the main event, 16 places out of the money so I got some food from the player buffet and headed back to the hotel.
I feel pretty happy with my play in both events and I feel I've gained in experience and also some knowledge in theoretical tournament spots. Tomorrow I should finally get to check out the spa and relax a little. We should probably also get round to doing some shopping and there should be a VIP party from Betfair.
Not sure yet what we're going to do for the rest of the night. The lads seem to want to go and play some live cash and I might chime in, though I'm not sure I can get enough cash out of the atm to play the bigger games tonight, but we'll see, not exactly sure what my daily limits are (if I have any at all on this card). Probably won't play lower than the 10000EEK games which is the eqivalent to 600€.
Here's a picture of our room with my friend Raz on the right and Bb on the left:

Made it into day two. I'm completely nackered, I didn't sleep prior to my journey and once we arrived in Estonia there was no time to sleep so we just grabbed some food and went to the tournament. The only rest I got was in the airport taxi to Munich and in the plane.
Anywho we just got back from the tournament and ordered some room service (it's 4 am). There are 63 people left out of 159, my stack isn't in great shape. I have about 16 big blinds, but the blinds will be raised soon so make that 12. I feel fairly comfortable with my short stack game, but I'll obviously need some cards to advance in the tournament.
The structure is pretty good, the average stack is 45 big blinds after 9 levels, which I find impressive for a small buy in event. I'll try and give some more detailed info after tomorrow or maybe tomorrow before the tournament starts again.

All the best for now,

Daniell

Hey guys, it's been a while since I last updated my blog. I played around 60k hands in March, which is a lot by my standards. I ended up making about 7k in rakeback and did ok in the cash games, but hit a nasty 20 buy-in downswing towards the end of the month. Luckily I had been on a 33 buy-in heater before the downfall came so I was able to compensate for the losses. Anyways I took some time off from poker after that for about a week to study for an exam I had today. It was a welcomed break as I was feeling a little bit discouraged towards the end of March. I've had some time to reflect on my play and I think overall I played ok, but made some unnecessary mistakes. In my defence I 8-tabled most of the month which is something I have never done before, but was necessary to meet my bonuswhoring goals. For the near future I'll switch back to six tabling though so I can work more on my game, which I'll definetly need to do to remain competitive at the 5/10 and 10/20 level. I'm very excited to put in some more volume after some minor tweeks to my game and see how things go. Regardless of all the swongs poker has been a lot of fun and I find it very rewarding thinking about the game from a strategical perspective.

Tomorrow I'm travelling to Estonia to play in a live tournament hosted by Betfair. The original plan was to go to a spa in Austria after my month of grinding and studying with some friends from school that also play poker, but then I read about this tournament through an email and one of the registered hotels happens to be a decent spa-hotel which you can check out here . It's a small buy-in tournament of about 550€ and starts tomorrow evening. Not sure how many people will be playing it, but it looks like there will be around 200 players. I'll try and post some updates on my progress.

On another note I've been trying to gain some basics on investing and the finance world in general. I'm do a course this semester called finance management and they have some pretty interesting literature suggestions. So far I've read "City Boy" by Geraint Anderson, which isn't really a book that teaches you about how to invest, but gives some insight into the world of finance in general. I'm currently reading "The Wall Street Casino" by Bob Kneisley. I also have "Fooled by Randomnes" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, "Market Wizards" by Jack D. Schwager and a German book called "Souverän Investieren mit Indexfonds and Indexzertifikaten und ETFs" by Gerd Kommer which I am looking forward to reading.

Gotta go and pack now, my taxi to the airport is arriving in a couple of hours.

All the best,

Daniell