Good morning 2011

Happy new year everyone!

That was a pretty long break from blogging and to be fair I still don't really feel up to it but well it's a new year and new energy. I suppose my recent increase of facebook status spam activity has taken away some of my urge to spread my mental diarrhea on this blog.

I don't really want to update too much about the last few months since after my wedding nothing too interesting happened. I still work and live in Gibraltar, I still play a lot of live cash games and I still get severely drunk on weekends.

So, what are the plans for 2011? Well, since my weight was down to 89kg in June 2009 I have re-gained 15kg and after the Christmas period was now back up to 104 kg. This is only 6kg away from the heaviest I ever was. Obviously that means that 2011 is another dieting year. I definitely see myself jo-joeing it up for the next few years weight wise. The aim is to lose 19 kg in about 6 months and get down to 85kg.
Diet started this week and I lost 1.5 kg so far.

Pokerwise I will continue to re-build a proper roll and have to stop spending all winnings on stupid things like 500 gramms of silver or forex trading. Meh, I guess it's not that stupid. On the other hand it's good to spend the money before I can blow it up at the Roulette table or some of the other very attracting coin sucking machines. (new fancy Stargate slot machine here in the Casino)

Online I will concentrate on bigger tourneys between up to the $216 ones on Stars and FTP. Mainly because we will start a Sunday MTT group in our offices where a few people get together and play MTTs on the projector. Last time was quite eye-opening since we managed to play several hands super well in a group on which we each individually would probably have failed. So the aim for 2011 is a 5 figure cash and I am positive that it will happen.

Additionally I need a holiday! One that I don't spend in Germany with my family but in a place with a pool where nobody knows me. It looks like I am going to Rome with the wife in a few months.

Gonna move into a new apartment again in about 2 weeks time. We found one that is closer to the Casino (30 seconds walk instead of 50 seconds), has a second bedroom and is cheaper. Only thing we have to give up is our lovely view. Moving down from the 14th to the 4th floor. Oh well.

Well, all the best for 2011 to you guys. I hope I'll blog more regularly here again.

Truthans

Poker, Dolphins, Miss World and National Day

First to the pokers. After my return I got active in the tournaments and cash games here again. In the tournaments I have been doing quite well, taking two down and cashing in another two of about 7 tournaments I played so far. Unfortunately I had swapped quite a bit of my action in order to reduce variance but so far none of the people I had action of made me any return, so I haven't made as much cash from the tourneys as I should have.

In the cash games I am currently having mixed results. Trying to tighten up my game a bit and avoid spew, which is going ok, but I can't get a lot going recently. I am about break even for cash games since my return which is a little disappointing but I think that's just a phase that I am currently going through as I don't seem to do a lot of mistakes currently. I started counting/guessing how long I haven't flopped a set anymore and the counter must be between 26 - 30 pairs now. So I am guessing that I should be flopping sets all over the shop anytime now. Please.

Next week there is the Gibraltar Poker Masters again. This time it's a 300 GBP - 10.000 GBP guaranteed event with two starting days. 20k starting chips, 30 minute clock and expected to be ridic soft like almost all tourney in this area here. I am obviously not rolled for 300 GBP tourney again yet so I am willing to sell 50% of my action at face value. You can get 10% of the winnings for already 30 GBP. First price is expected to be around the 6k - 8k mark with the numbers they are expecting. Let me know if you are interested.

Next topic from the headline is the cool dolphin tour that I finally managed to do with my wife and wanted to show you a few pictures. So if ever anyone of you guys comes and visits me, we definitely have to go for that tour.






Next thing from the last weeks was that I was out for a few beers with friends and colleagues and we ended up on the casino balcony and to our surprise Kaiane Aldorino - Miss World 2009 was also there. So I got a picture:




Furthermore there was Gibraltar National Day last week which is pretty much the biggest day of the year for a Gibraltarian. Everyone is on their feet drinking and dancing from the early morn to late a night. I had my first Sambucca at about 11:30 and was pretty damn shitfaced shortly after. Was a very good day out I have to admit.









Good old friend from Durham is coming over next week for an interview at PokerStrategy.com. I hope he can bink the job. Anyway, I am looking forward to a few beers and some poker with an old pal.

Truthans

Just married... (Part 1)

It's about time to get back in the swing of blogging now. I was quite busy catching up with things here in Gibraltar in the first 2 weeks after the holiday. Yes, I am a married man now and although this must be one the most shocking news for all women out there: I am off the market. Sorry ladies.

The 2 weeks in Germany were amazing and I am going to try and give you a few details of our great experience. After landing safely in Germany on Friday 13th and then spending the weekend meeting old friends we had to start for the eve-of-the-wedding party which was scheduled for Wednesday 18.08. in my little home village.

The rain falls in Germany had basically forced us to find an alternative to our idea of putting 4 big beer tents on the field next to our house. So we had to move somewhere with solid underground. Fortunately we were able to go into the community building of our villages "Schützenverein" which was just great. I had hired a DJ, bought alcohol, bought Bratwurst and steak and our families prepared a mountain of salads.

It is a German tradition to throw old porcelain in front of the door of the future couple and for the guests that normally means a lot of fun as they know that the couple have to clean up the mess the next day. Another thing they love is to throw shitloads of metal crown caps as they are really nasty to get rid of as soon as a few people stepped on them. The cleaning the next day took ages and produced 600kg of rubbish.





The party in the evening had about 150 guests and many old friends were seen. I had bought 400 bottles of beer (0.5l). Those were gone by midnight and I had to rely on my friendly neighbor who luckily had another 100 bottles which turned out to be enough fortunately.

A lot of drinking, chatting, embarrassing games, dancing and displays of the carnival group of my mother in law were involved in the party. I very much appreciated that there were no fights or any other unpleasant surprises. Except maybe this guy falling over the massive bbq grill at 4 am.

for now I am not gonna write much more about the party but give you some pictures. Next blog entry will be more general stuff and poker stuff and then I continue with the details of my wedding, whether you like it or not. :)










It's Gibraltar national day tomorrow so I better get my red and white clothes ready. I don't want to stick out in the masses.

Freerolling

PokerStrategy.com had a great promotion this week where you had to deposit at least 20 Euros on 24h Poker and rake 10 Euros to qualify for a €10.000 guaranteed tournament. The freeroll was only announced 2 days ago and the qualification period is already over. Fortunately I managed to qualify in time and will now be playing the €10.000 freeroll on Sunday with an expected starter field of less than 200 people!

That's some good value I would say. Hopefully I can ship something for a change.

Other than that the wedding is coming dangerously close and a typical "I think I forgot something" feeling is slowly arising. As my girlfriend and our families have put a lot of effort in the organisation I guess that everything will turn out to run nice and smooth.

Gala Casino Gibraltar have started offering PLO 100 games on Monday nights which sounds like fun. I guess I am going to check them out once I am back from Germany.

Talking about Germany, our flights are actually leaving on Friday 13th next so please cross your fingers that we will touch ground safely. :-/

Alrighty then.

Truthans

Disappointment

Oh well what can I say. Busto. 124 players turned up and it looked to become an exciting tournament with a confirmed 1st price of 22.500 Euros. I stayed tight and patient for the first few levels and kept myself between 10 - 11k not really getting any hands except aces once. Until the fourth level I had not played a turn card yet.

It then went all pretty quickly first opening JJ in late MP getting 5 callers and a KQ9 board. Lots of action and I fold. I then lose 55 against AT on J7J, 3, A board when I called the c-bet of the guy and we checked the rest down.

Then comes the key hand. I complete the sb with KQcc with 2 limpers in the pot. On a JcTx8c flop I check raise all in to an overbet of one of the limpers. He doesn't think very long and pretty much snaps me with J7 without clubs. I got almost 70% against his hand but I manage to miss my gazillion outs and am pretty crippled from here on. Last chips go in in a BvB when I flop second pair + OESD and BD Flush draw, get snapped by TPNK again and miss again.

It was a good experience anyway and the tourney is very good value and seems to be full of beginners overplaying their hands. Hilarious stuff could be seen. A lady to my left limped UTG then called a button raise of a friend of mine. On a 855 board she check-calls a potsize bet. On the 9 turn she check calls the all-in of my colleague. She shows AT with no draws and the 77 of her opponent hold also on the river. That was a bit of a wow moment for me.

Even better than the tourney, the cash game seemed to be. I had some time watching the NL1k Euro game and it was truly outrageous. Average age at the table was definitely something between 50 - 60 years. There was a lady that would make up for a good betting game "Which parts of her body are still original". Most funny were her lips that just looked like car tyres and screamed "too much botox". Needless to say that she was wearing lots of expensive looking bling bling.

Other funny thing were 3 men that looked exactly the same, probably the perfect example for the Marbella mid-life-crisis rich boy. All 3 with grey, longish hair that was geled to the back with a cute little quiff at the end. All 3 wore pink shirts, with the sleeves pulled back a bit and wearing a huge watch on the arm. For me that was pure comedy. Only shame about the cash games there seems to be that rarely anybody buys in deep. 3 tables of NL1k and 1 table NL500 was running.

I took some 200 euros and short stacked the NL500 euro game for a while but was card dead and only shoved a random ace once, so basically blinded away some euros. The game was definitely softer than the typical game in Gibraltar.

So all in all I am disappointed with the results of this Friday as I was determined to achieve a good result. On the other side I have confirmation that the games here probably belong to the softest games you currently maybe able to find in Europe. So I'll definitely be back in September for the next Marbella Classic.

I think that was my last bit of Poker until the end of August but I will come back strong and fresh in September and will start grinding it out again.

Truthans

Getting ready + Hartmut

I am getting picked up for the 700 Euro tourney in Marbella in one hour and am pretty excited. I guess this eagerness for an upcoming tourney will often result in even bigger disappointment but I just hope that my run good batteries are fully loaded. I just need to remind myself of a few things:

- don't get fancy play syndrome
- 95% of players in the field do not have the capability to do sophisticated bluffs
- When the fish overbets/shoves it's never a bluff
- Limp calling AJ+ is a standard play in a casino
- Some ranges can be wider than you think
- Stop fucking spewing
- No point in hero-calling retards
- Be aware of my opponents stack size

Ok, let's see how the supposed to be full-of-maniacs-tourney goes. One time!


Other than that I was on the Feria (fun fair) in Spain yesterday with a group of friends which was a very good laugh. Some of the games actually seemed to be +EV. ;-) I really liked the rifle shooting for shots. Whenever you hit the aim you got a shot and we had a very good sniperish guy in our group who actually managed to hit something around the 95% of all shots.

But the coolest thing was that I won a goldfish. Today the girlfriend bought one of those bowls and stones and a plant and now our new pet is making us feel like parents.

May I introduce you to our new family member, Hartmut:

A different rythm

So I haven't played Poker for a while now and instead I found the motivation to do some sports again. So I joined the gym around the corner and started to work out. Currently I seem to be going to the gym 5 times a week and am finally motivated enough again to watch my eating habits a bit more.

So I guess there is a fair chance that with an ongoing strong will I should be able to lose weight again before I get married.

Other than that I feel more awake currently since not playing Poker currently which is quite logical as I am not playing to 4 am three times a week when I got work the next day. I am currently thinking that I may return to regular playing on the felt after my wedding in August.

Until then I will only try to play some special events if they occur, like this weekend in Marbella. I have been lucky enough to find two backers that are willing to stake me for the 700 Euro tourney and I hope I can pay back the trust with a good result.

Other than that Gibraltar had a somewhat funny incident that happened two day ago. Some idiot thought it was a good idea to walk unmasked into a Swarovski store on the main street with a handgun and ask for money. He actually took three hostages as well. You can image how big of a event that actually was in a small place like Gib.

What did the guy think? That he then would just cross the boarder with his bag full of not too valuable glass crystals and maybe 2k in cash? Trying such a robbery on the main street at lunch time in a tourist place like Gib? Unmasked? I thought seriously wtf?

But this morning the Gibraltar chronicle told us the story behind this mastermind of armed robbery. Here a little excerpt:

The gunman who tried to rob a Main Street jeweller's on Tuesday made a shocking statement in court yesterday: he claimed spies had implanted a microchip inside his head.

Speaking through an interpreter, Alejandro Rodrigo Parres Navarro told the judge that he was in the seventh year of a program run by an unnamed "intelligence service" and that staging the robbery was his only way out.

"My only solution was to provoke an incident, or suicide," he told the court, having first requested permission to speak. "I'm going through a very bad time."

Parres was arrested after a major armed police operation on Tuesday, during which Casemates and the northern end of Main Street were sealed off.

Beautiful, isn't it? That, of course, explains everything.