Gibraltar was very nice. Got there on early Thursday afternoon last week. Quickly put my stuff into the hotel. The hotel was an absolute shithole. How can you put an applicant into this hotel bwin? It didn’t even have a real window just some glass flaps which you could either open or close. It is difficult to explain. I should have taken a pic. I had to iron two of my shirts so I thought I get this straight out of the way. So I got the key for their ironing room which was another 100% disgust. With the iron not being able to create water damp it was almost impossible to get the crinkles out of the shirts. I needed the same amount of time for two shirts as I normally need to iron my whole fucking wardrobe, my girlfriends and the wardrobe of our neighbours together.
Yeah I try to earn an extra penny wherever I can. You should see me in my ironing outfit. Completely naked but wearing a far too short apron. Business is running better since I lost weight.
After that mess I had a nice slow walk through the city enjoying some 27° C in the sun. I then found the newly built Gala Casino and obviously couldn’t resist. It being 4:00 in the afternoon meant that there was no Poker on yet. So I multitabled their auto roulette tables and won myself £80 till about 7:30pm. Keeping in mind that I only small balled it with £1 bets only on the evens. In between I got a few more pints in. Gibraltar is so good for me. I bought two packs of Marlboro lights for £1.50 each and the best thing is you can smoke fucking everywhere! Paradise! So I was smoking and drinking all the time while grinding the roulette in the casino.
At 20:30 there was a £20 + £10 Bounty + £5 Rake freezeout which I played and managed to go bust in the first hand with 99 vs QQ. I’m such a massive fish. Don’t even know if there are sufficient big enough ponds left in the world to accommodate my massive fishiness. Got back to the roulette and won another £5 with small balling the roulette machine.
Went back down in the Poker room later to playe the .5/1 NL cash game. There were a few more Germans at the table and I got to talk to them. All 3 of them worked at one of the companies I was supposed to have an Interview with next day. One of them guys owned me so hard in two hands that I just felt raped. Classically outplayed by a superior player. I definitely have to admit that. First hand I call his raise in the small blind with 97ss. Flop is 9KK and I check call his potsize bet hoping to get some more info on the turn. Surely he is never betting a K there. Turn is an A and he leads for the same amount as he did on the flop. This made my alarm bells ring and I thought this is a super weak second barrel. I couldn’t really figure a hand he would second barrel there with so weak but I thought I can definitely make him fold TT or JJ and AT, AJ, AQ. What I did was shoving my stack over his bet and he snaps me with pocket AA for the second nuts. Yuck. That was a complete misread. I played really well before that hand but couldn’t really get my aggression in at the right spots. Another hand I had against a Spanish player. I raised PF with 67o and got called from the small blind. The final board read something like K5T28 no flushdraws but I still decided to triple barrel this hand and couldn’t make villain fold QQ. He was close though and needed about 5 mins to make the call. I think my river bet was a bit small to be honest. A bit bigger and I would have made him fold I think.
Then the second hand against the German. I open raise KTs from early mid. The german and another one calls. Flop 5-2-Q two diamonds. I check and it’s checked around. Turn J. I check, German bets, other player folds, I call not knowing where I really am but thinking that I am in good shape with lots of outs. River is 8 diamonds. I pretend some deliberation as if I was thinking about check-raising a flush and then checked to the German. He now put a super small value bet of about 1/3 of the pot in. And I was not expecting a bet at all as I can not figure a hand that would bet the river. From what I know he would not have checked the Q on the flop. Even if has the Q he probably checks the river behind. He never bets the J on the river. He was unlikely to have a weird two pair like J5,J2,J8. He could have checked a flush draw on the flop and bet it on the turn but I thought that this would be a strange line for him as well so I thought a flush is possible but unlikely. Only hand that makes sense is 9T. I thought there was only this hand that bets the river and everything else is a bluff. I think about making the call with K high as I didn’t want to raise in case he really has 9T but making the hero only costs me £15 and I have a fair chance of winning that pot. I decided that there is no other K there that has me beat as AK 3-bets PF, KJ checks behind, KQ bets flop and possibly checks river behind. But I figured that there were too many random aces out there that have me beat and could be bluffing there. AT, A9, A7,A6. I folded in disgust and got shown 67 for 7 high. I then played a bit tilty and played about 5 flopped OESD very aggressively but could never get there and ran in top pair or two pair each time. Left with a £ 180 loss and the terrible feeling of another disappointing session. I think I have to step away from the live games for a while as I seem to do a few fundamental mistakes at the moment. I am not Tom Dwan and should therefore not try to win every pot.
Yesterday’s game at 147’s Poker basement was a bit of a disappointment as well. I played some perfect poker for about the first 25mins and then started to blow up slowly and ended up calling AI with JT on a 578 rainbow board when I 3-bet pre from the button and Tony donked into me on the flop and I was 1000% sure he had air there. I thought I either hit one of ten outs or I’ll go to bed. Well he had AJ and I therefore only 7 outs. Didn’t hit. Went home.
Online is going break even at the moment but that’s ok. Won’t complain as I feel I am playing well. The times I get my money in behind or call of too light are getting fewer and fewer but the times when I seem to pick up bluffs well with second or third pair kind of hands seem to stay the same. I am definitely improving my game at the moment at a good pace. I might have to book a losing Poker year this year but I feel if I keep trying I will keep learning and am on a good way. If I compare how I am playing Poker at the moment with the way I played it a year ago it seems like I made lightyears of progress. But this might be an illusion that I keep projecting to myself. We’ll see.
The job Interviews went very well in Gibraltar and I am hoping to get some positive news today. Sickest thing about the Interview at PokerStrategy was that I had my first Interview with them in the morning and it went on longer than expected 2 h instead of a scheduled 1h. Good sign?
After my second Interview at bwin the PokerStrategy people said that they wanted to see me again. Good sign? So I got back there and the guy that held the second PokerStrategy Interview with me was the Head of Finance and it was the German guy that owned me twice at the Casino the night before. Ups. Bad Sign? In the second Interview I wasn’t as good anymore as in the first one but after 6 hours of interviewing someone might have some understanding for that. I was super impressed by the company and really do want this job. I am going to be sooooo disappointed if I can’t get it.
If I get positive news today. I will get hammered.
If I get negative news today. I will get even more hammered.
If I get no news at all. Well, then I go to bed at 8pm.
Truthans
Stats:
Weight lost: 17.3 kg (2.72 stone)
Weight to lose: 7.7kg (1.21 stone)
Poker
Stars: - $ 84
PKR: + $ 265
Live cash: - £ 51.5
Live tourney: - £ 122
