All you have to do is quit your job.

"It's the easiest thing in the world, to become a professional poker player. All you have to do is quit your job."
(Tommy Angelo)

Yes. I quit my job. But not to become a professional poker player. Sorry. After seven years at my first company I needed a change. New perspectives. New challenges. New ideas. And I think I got lucky. I found an interesting new job. The downside: it's not in Berlin. Sigh. I have to leave this town. Believe me. That's hard. The good part: I'm moving to Cologne. I like the city. My family lives there.

So. now I've got seven weeks off. My new job starts in August. A lot of time to play poker. I hope so! But there's an awful lot of thing to do: searching for a new appartment, organizing the move, job center, etc. We'll see.

Another little change. As you can see I put the "poker" in the title now in parenthesis. That's because I want to change the topic of this blog a little bit. I still want to talk about poker. But there are so many things that fascinate me: Whisky, Cigars, Music, Comics, Photography. So I'm going to mix it up a little bit.

I didn't have much time to play poker. Just one tournament and a little cash games:
Party: +$2.01
Stars: +$2.48


(Street Art in Berlin, Photo by Palikari, 06/2007)

Acronyms

QFT, RTFM, BRB, PPP, TPTK ...

Did you ever wonder what all those acronyms stand for. Here is a little help: UrbanDictionary.

Btw. This way I found out what PPP means:
PPP - Palikari's Poker Palace
PPP - Public Porn Portal
PPP - Pussy Pounding Pleasure
PPP - Point to Point Protocol
PPP - pretty poor planning
and so on ...

Lazy Day

Nothing much. Played one tournament. But got busted on the bubble. Some hands at the NL2 tables. But today I was just too tired to play. Don't know why.

Stars: -$1.33

Well. The WSOP started. But I'm not playing ;)

One thing at a time

Yesterday I watched the poker documentary on arte and played SnGs at the same time. Bad idea.

Stars: -$2.12

Independent Chip Model

Here is a site with an article about the independent chip model (ICM) and an online calculator. Hope it helps!

(The icm model helps to determine if you should play a hand on the bubble.)

Goal #4 - Work on my tilting problem

"To win at poker, you have to be very good at losing."
(Tommy Angelo)

I tilt. And I tilt a lot. I tilt easy. And I tilt badly.

All poker players tilt. I believe even Doyle Brunson or Phil Ivey tilt. It's a human reaction. You see something unfair. And tilt. Maybe after years of playing poker you tilt less. But I do believe. Even after eons of poker. There is a situation where you tilt. So. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

But I need to work on my tilting problem. Because that's what it is: a problem. I lost more money on my tilting sessions than I want to remember. It's like a second rake.

When do I tilt?

The funny thing is. I usualy tilt after I played my A game for a long time. Or after winning a tournament. My ego gets pumped up. It's huge. I return to the tables and expect to control them. I expect to win every single time. But that's not poker. AA vs 22. There's still a ~20% chance that my opponent wins. That is one out of five. Better than throwing a dice. So. I'm back at the tables. I feel unbreakable. And than it happens. I loose a race. I get rivered. I try to run over a table. A bad beat. And suddenly I'm on tilt. I know I'm on tilt but. Raaaaaahhhhhh. Hulk will smash. I can't stop. You know what I'm talking about, eh?!

I still don't have a plan, how to work on my tilt problem. I just play shorter sessions. I analyse all sessions after I played them. Especially if I lost.

And hopefuly. Some day. I will tilt less.

P.S. Here is a nice article by Tommy Angelo. At the end he talks about tilting.

Poker on TV

Arte shows the documentary "That's poker!" tomorrow night at 22:10. Sorry. German and French only.

Change of plan?

Right know I'm rethinking my strategy. As you know I play .05/.1 limit at party. But the rake at this limit is incredible 10% with no rakeback. My idea is to use the money I cashed out at PKR and drop it into my party account. That way i could play .1/.2 where the rake is 5%. Makes sense, huh? Well. Let me think about it.

Tomorrow I leave again for a business trip and won't be able to play poker until the weekend. So. I got plenty time to think. :P

Btw. I would like to join another pokersite.
Criteria:
- many players/tables
- PokerOffice support
- rakeback
Any suggestions?

A thought about PokerOffice:
If I ever have to pay the anual fee, I think I would drop PO and try PT&PAHUD. Especially since PT seems more flexible and supports Absolute, Ultimate etc.

The Stars are bright

Today is a bank holiday in germany (Pentecost?!) and my girlfriend went to visit a friend. A perfect day to stay at home, smoke a cigar (Flor de Selva Robusto) and have a good whisky (Oban). And of course: poker.

So I joined the big family at Stars and played a little recreational NL2. Great games & Loose donks (like me). I love you all! Within 20 hands i doubled up.

Then a friend dropped by. The weather was great. We walked to a cafe. And I think we had 5 pieces of apple cake each. Lol. So much for loosing weight.

After coming back I played some more. First a 9pl $1.2 SnG. On my second hand I gambled. I knew that the preflop raiser had at least an overpair (or AK). But I had Two pair on the flop. So I went all in. He called and hit his set on the turn: busted. Nevermind. I went back to the NL2 tables. Within 10 hands I doubled up again. Man. Why do I play limit? It's so much harder. I can't believe it. Well. Maybe I'm up for the competition. Lol.

Stars: +$4.64

Adieu PKR

Just played the PKR $100 tourney. Oh. Me so bad. I don't know. MTTs are not made for me. I finished itm. 30 places got paid and I finished 219/30. Thanks to the bubble boy.

In 30 minutes starts the forum tourney. I think this will be my last game on PKR for a while.

Well. The tournament didn't go to well. I had some good cards. But I played them bad. In the end Nemo kicked me with his AA vs my snowmen.

After the tournament I cashed out at PKR. My reasons are:
- too few fixed limit tables
- SnG blind structure
- slow gameplay

I enjoyed the PW24 tournaments. But in the end I played them only to chat with the other forum members. And to be honest. I think I was the only one chatting. Maybe the others put me on ignore. I don't know.

PKR: -$4.96