Im still in.

Very disappointed, lost alot of chips at the end of the day and have below the avarege to start Day3.

I was one of the chipleaders throughout the whole day and just got a little unlucky in the end.

No real big bad beats, but just very unlucky in the way cards fell, opponents putting the wrong read to right play and stuff like that.

Im playing great though (as far as I can tell) and am confident to get back to the top on Day3.

Traded some of my action to other players and most of them are also still in and doing well, so I schould make some money there as well.

At the moment I´ve 67,700 chips, the avarege should be around 95k, there are 56 players left and Im winning a little over 10k euro allready.

good night,

Niki

Busted!

Von Anfang an auf einem schweren Tisch war die EPT der reinste Rollercoaster für mich - schon auf fast 20k im ersten Level verliere ich  unglücklich einen größeren Pot und werde oft gereraised sodass ich wieder auf 10k war, im 150/300ante25 level gelingt mir dann das erste double up nachdem ich utg+1 auf 1000 mit QQ raise, MP 3000 macht ich AI für 11k pushe und er mit AQ zahlt. Kurz darauf wird BrynKenney - guter Onlinespieler auf Stars - zu uns gesetzt und ich mache einen schlechten call für fast alle meine chips und bin wieder am anfang, gehe dann einige male AI und werde nie  gecalled, bin wieder im Averagebereich, bekomme erneut QQ und gewinne einen Coinflip gegen AK sodass ich wieder bei 22k gut über average liege, und schon wieder laufe ich in BrynKenney, nachdem er am flop behindcheckt entscheide ich mich zu bluffen und laufe in seine turned nuts-straight…

Man kann also schon sagen, dass ich outplayed wurde diese 2 keyhands und mir auch bewusst wurde , dass ich möglichweise noch  nicht ready bin ganz vorne bei diesen 10k buyin turnieren mitzumischen…

Nach einigen PreflopAIsteals war ich dann wieder auf 12k bei average von 21k und in der vorletzten hand des Tages 1B raist MP auf 1600 worauf ich erneut mit QQ - die Hand des Tages für mich - für 12k pushe und nach langem überlegen von TT gecallt werde, was ich für einen schlechten call halte - er dachte sich aber wohl dass ich sehr aktiv war die letzten Runden und vielleicht vor dem Ende des 1. Tages ein Doubleup erzwingen will - Anyways…T ist am Flop und aus die EPT…warn auf jeden Fall spannede & lehrreiche 8 Stunden…

Jetzt heissts Daumen drücken für Niki & Cort!

Cu next time

Stefan

I´m not playing today.

Weather isn´t that great.

Only serious option for me, since online poker is not considered, is chinese poker obviously.

Wake up.

Lunch.

Chinese poker with Roland de Wolfe, he rivers huge pot in the last hand of the day to get out of a hole. +10k

Railing my brother and friends, seeing Jonny Chan play for the first time.

Dinner.

Railing and chatting with friends I had not seen for ages. Definitely the best thing about big poker tournaments.

Chinese poker against Seb “Luckbox” Ruthenberg. -10k

One day of my life gone by, nothing won, nothing lost.

Sleep to wake up to fight my way through a tough EPT field.

Waste your time,

Niki

hola - nach langem gibts wieder mal was von mir zu hören.

Sind jetzt schon 2 Tage in Barcelona und nachdem wir der Pokerstarsparty einen Kurzbesuch abgestattet hatten hab ich gestern im Casino gerailbirded und den Pool unsicher gemacht!

Barcelona übertrifft eigentlich alle Erwartungen und gefällt mir wirklich gut, obwohl ich bis jetzt nur die Standgegend kenne. Eine gewisse Sprachbarriere ist aber schon da, da kaum einer der Locals deutsch oder englisch spricht…mit Händen und Füßen lässt sich aber gut kommunizieren!

Ansonsten haben wir eine gute Zeit mit den deutschen Jungstars und auch einige ehemalige Magicspieler hab ich gesichtet (Max Bracht, Sebastian Zink, Dario Minieri…) . Viel Chinesepoker wird auch gespielt - meistens ohne mich -  da ich noch immer nicht verstehe was den Reiz daran ausmacht =)

Vom gestrigen Tag sind Cort und Niki gut dabei und unter den Chipleadern von Tag 1A, für mich gehts in einer Stunde los!

ciao

 Stefan

Short update:

doing good in the EPT, finished my day 1 with 51k, average should be around 25k.

had very good table draws, was down to 5k very soon when I failed to win with my AA twice.

I think I played really well today, made 2 small plunders but definetely saved insanse amounts on the 2 AA hands I lost. Or so I like to think, tournament pros would probably consider it normal.

Doubled up to 12k with KK vs JJ, and stole alot of small pots from then on.

Won a 60k pot with K5 on a 455J board when I rereraised Sverre Budgo ( surname prolly a little off), who put me on a bluff or a draw and called with a 4, drawing dead.

eventhough he admits that it was a bad call, I give him credit for making the call, sticking to his read and putting in an avarage stack at that time with just bottom pair.

Anyway, I lost some small pots after that, Im in a good position but with the 1hour levels and really slow dealers here you dont have too much roomfor making plays.

Oh yeah, I made one really good play that Im very very (very) proud of, but its to complicated to share now. maybe at a later time.

Have 2  5%shares in the tournament, and both of them have even more chips then me, so I expect to get at least my 8k back ;).

apologies for the bad language and mistakes, its really late and Ive been up for nearly 24hours.

good night,

niki

That much for online poker: I plan to take a serious break from the big games.

While a lot of luck was involved in my big upswing during the last 2 months, even more luck is involved in my current downswing.

I´m really afraid to play sets at the moment, if I don´t have top set someone else does and even if I should be so lucky to hold the nuts on the flop I usually end up losing to an open ender to go with a pair or **** like that.

Once again I finished a session very angry, which is so untypical for me.

Now I will have to play the EPT today with a 200k loss in the back of my mind, what a motivation.

While I´ve learned from previous mistakes in my carreer and think that I´m able to step away from games I just don´t beat nowadays, it´s going to be very tough to step away from this one, because I belief I´m one of the best in it.

But at the rate I´m blowing through my bankroll at the moment, I don´t want to risk any more money in that game in the near future.

That much for intentions, I´ll probably be sitting there again tomorrow. GRRR.

As I´ve mentioned, I´m playing the EPT Barcelona today, should be fun, it´s gonna be very easy to top my last and only EPT appearance, where I lasted for 2 or 3 levels I belief.

Wish me luck.

My brother and I arrived in Barcelona yesterday, and I enjoyed the trip so far, catching up with some friends, playing a little chinese poker (losing there too,wtf) and visiting the PokerStars Party, I´m playing for PokerStars since I bought in with W$. Got a pretty nice deal buying them and basically get the hotel for free.

Thats it for now, big group breakfast and chilling at the beach is all I´ve planned till 5pm, when the EPT starts(very late imo).

l8r,

Niki

It had to happen eventually.

On a 7-figure downswing, not winning any pots and losing a lot on tilting.

Will maybe go down in limits for a while after my break, I´ve done a bet that I wouldn´t play online poker for a while and it´s not just for money but for the real torture:

playing the lowest limit holdem game on FullTilt until I have made a certain amount of money.

This sounds like pure pain and will motivate me not to play and eventually very likely save me money.

However I´m allowed to play chinese poker online which I´ve done quite a bit lately and am a little up. It can be very entertaining and hopefully will distract me from real poker for a while.

I´ve also thought about taking a spontaneous holiday but there´s not really enough time since I´m flying to Barcelona on the 27th with my brother for the EPT event.

I will be a lot of fun since I´m gonna meet even more people I only know from playing online and tons of cool people I already know will be there as well.

I´m looking forward to chilling at the beach a little each day, eating delicious see food and playing some chinese poker. Oh, I might actually get something going in the tournament with a little luck and a little more motivation than in London.

My careless approach to tournaments is really stupid once the buyin reaches 8000 euros, lots of money for a few hours of entertainement.

Wish me luck, may my will be strong enough to overcome my addiction to 4card- gambling.

later,

niki

I´m in Zurich right now and just had a massive breakfast including lots of fruit, which was great after a week of eating nothing but fast food, since its very hard to find good restaurants in London.

It´s not that there aren´t any, but you cannot just walk down the street and find a decent one as you can in my area in Vienna. So it´s been mostly sandwiches for me for a whole week.

As expected I busted very soon in the NPL MainEvent, wasn´t playing well and didn´t get any cards.

Can´t really tell any bad beat stories, since I was always behind when the money got in. Got a little unlucky when people made “bad” calls but then kept improving so I couldn´t push them out.

As it turned out, it was good that I got out so fast, since I went home afterwards to have one of my biggest winning days yet, completely destroying a tilting IDreamOfJenna and winning quite a lot of Ziigmund, who was just a little too curious in the end, when he kept telling me that he knew I had a certain hand that beats him but made the calls anyway.

Also won a little of David Benyamin who might be the person running the worst against me. He just never wins a big pot, no matter if in front or behind.

I won a little over 600k that night, and decided to leave London in the morning.

I went to Zurich to meet some friends and family at the Austrian border to celebrate my 20th birthday.

Only one more year until I will return some of the money I won online to the place it probably came from, the Bellagio.

I really hope to be smart enough not to lose too much on my first trip to Vegas, since playing in live cash games is so much harder for me than online.

Due to my bad sleeping schedule, I got up in the middle of the night and played quite a bit, running over the tables in the beginning, basically winning every single pot for about an hour, before getting in a big HU battle with Phil Ivey.

I started out winning, as I usually do against Phil because he doesn´t seem to care too much.

This time, though, he showed why he is world class and started playing great after that, and I really enjoyed our match.

We played some massive pots, each hand usually went to the river since we both don´t like to give up. The average pot size in the match was between 15k and 20k, so we really played very fast.

I think I got a little unlucky in the beginning, having strong 2nd best hands a couple of times, but was definitely outplayed in the end. I could have saved 100kish there if I had quit him sooner, but somehow wasn´t willing to give up.

I eventually quit him after he beat me for about 300k, mainly because I was still up a little for the night and didn´t want to get stuck and then play forever to get even.

I´m very proud of my ability to quit games/sessions nowadays and belief it´s one of the reasons for my recent success.

In the earlier days of my career and basically only quit a game when I couldn´t keep my eyes open or when my account was cleared.

At some point, the day would come up when I would go on tilt and/or find someone to dump my money to in a high HU game, now I really ask myself every now and then during a session whether I´m playing well and whether my opponent is really worse than me.

I´m very confident in my HU game at the moment, so recently I wasn´t the one quitting sessions, but I´m happy I pulled the trigger against Ivey, who I basically have to give props to for playing really well in our long, interesting and very entertaining battle.

I´m sure we´ll match again, I hope he goes back to his “I don´t care for online poker”- mood, otherwise I will really need to step up, play my best and hope.

So I finished this night up about 15k on PLO and another 7k on chinese poker.

While this is not a big win, it´s still a whole lot of money to make on a single day and I´m very happy to book another winning day, showing that I´m beating the games pretty constantly.

Now I´m going to check out Zurich a little since I´ve never been here and I´m staying right in the old part of the city. What I´ve seen from the cab ride, it looks a lot like Vienna with many small streets and nice old buildings.

I´ll probably be tired after that and will wake up once again in the middle of the night.

I guess I have to get a tan in Barcelona then.

later,

Niki

—————-

Just had a walk, nice city, nice area.

Came back to play a little and won 130k in 30 minutes. Back to normal. ;)

good night