Sorry for not posting a blog sooner but Ive been busy.

Im in London at the moment to play the NPL, a new televised tournament series, with a main event of 2,500 GBP, so about 5k USD.

At the smaller tournaments leading up to the main event (all of them also televised btw) the turnout has not been great and there has never been more than 3 tables. Oh well, its still fun to play and Im not motivated anyway.

Played 3 tournaments so far and not a final table yet.

Despite the whole NPL thing not being a great succes so far, Im still having a blast in London. I´ve met a lot of people I only knew from playing online, seems like everybody is in town because there are so many different tournaments going on.

There is the NPL, the Dutch Open, the Scandinavian Open (a televised cashgame with 2 “amateurs” who won their buyin in online satellites), some womens tournament finished a few days ago I think.

So far all I´ve done is playing the NPL tournaments, playing online, going out for food with a mix of cool people ranging from players, dutch celebreties and officials from online poker rooms, playing a little chinese poker with Roland deWolfe, Ziigmund and Luigi, who obviously won the most in the shortest time, but there were no big winners anyway. I broke even.

Online poker is going well for me, just finished a good session where I won about 330k, 160k of it in Limit Holdem. It could and should have been about 100k more with a little better luck and better play in the end, but Im very pleased with the result, especially since I am really enyoing Limit Holdem again.

Its good to have a 2nd game for times when you dont feel like playing Omaha or there just aren´t games running.

The few people playing the 1k-2k holdem game are David B., Hoss_TBF, AlRaysia, EDEE and myself, Im having fun playing it again and am winning about 400k in the game this month, but I have been running very good and wont be able to keep up this win rate for long Im afraid.

So far Ive been avoiding HU play except for 1 session against David where I took a small profit after just outcarding him basically. Maybe I´ll challange Hoss_TBF again, but the last time I did at the 500-1k game it didnt end well for me. We´ll see.

The Omaha games are great at the moment with lots of really passive players who cannot seem to find an answer to Davids or my aggressive style, so it is very easy to just gring them down.

Winning most of my money playing HU, took about 100 of Phil Ivey today.

I plan to play tomorrow night again after yet another quick exit from the NPL tournament, but I´ll probably get stuck on playing chinese.

Later,

Niki

Just lost about 150k at PLO, played horrible and was badly on tilt. No idea why, happy not to lose more.

Luckily I could win about 100k in 1k-2k LimitHoldem vs. Hoss_TBF and AlRaysia so the day isn´t too bad.

Very short update this is, need to do some analyzing to find out why I was tilting so bad.

later

Niki

Just finished a little session and for the first time in a long time I finished a poker game in anger.

I´m well aware that in poker winning and losing goes hand in hand, and that I cannot expect to be the biggest winner every day, but what happened in this session just makes me want to throw my notebook out the window.

First of all, I dropped nearly 10 buyins in less than 1 hour, simply by losing every single pot simultaniously on 4 tables. While usually there is some sort of tilting involved in such a big loss in such a short time, I´m just sure I played great.

I had a big losing day about 2 weeks ago with me dropping 800k, after which I experienced the sunny side of variance big time for the next couple of days, and I really hope that the same will happen this time.

But even if this isn´t followed by a big upswing like last time, it´s not in my place to be dissappointed, since I cannot really complain about having bad luck recently.

Without wanting to come of sounding arrogant, I feel like I play way better than most players on the big games online, but I´ve also been running really lucky this past month.

The sick part really is, that after all this complaining, I think I am still up for the day, or pretty much even. It´s hard to say since I do not use PokerTracker and am lending and collecting money every day, so its hard to keep track.

Even if I´m losing a little today, I am having a great month and leading the “Leaderboard” at HighstakesDB

The other thing that really got me pissed was the amount of shortstackers around today. It usually doesn´t bother me at all, but today it was just ridiculous.

At certain times I would sit with 4 shortstacks, 3 of them sitting out, and the other one joining them after winning just a couple grand, not even playing to double up.

I truly belief that you are better of keeping your emotions totally out of poker, today I just cannot help it.

Grrrrr, I am off banging my head against the wall.

later

hey allerseits,

nach langem wiedermal ein Eintrag von mir - nicht viel spannendes passiert die letzten wochen - hab mich  in die EPT Barcelona eingekauft, mich weiterhin online bei  Turnieren versucht  und 30-60 gegrindet - im Concord gabs Mad Action beim 5-10 und beim 40er Rebuy sah ich es - sehr zur Freude der Finalisten -  als meine Aufgabe an für einen guten Preispool zu sorgen ;-)

 Das Grillfestl war leiwand, habe  beim JENGA gepwnt und jede Menge alter Bekannter aus der Magicszene wiedergesehen, Coronas und Hühnerspiesse waren auch genug da und hatte ein gute Zeit! Life is good…

Was gibts sonst neues?

Guter Freund und Pokerexperte Hannes gibt im Rahmen des CCC ’s Basic Pokerstrategie Seminars einen Pokerkurs - check it out @ www.ccc.co.at !, zahlt sich aus ;-)

Pokertechnisch hab ich fast jeden Tag das 100+R auf Pokerstars gespielt und nachdem letzte Woche mit einem  3. und 7. Platz schon erfolgreich war hab ich  gestern zum ersten - und sicher nicht letzten!  -Mal das Turnier und 35k gewinnen können! SHIPPP IT!

Spannenste Hand war folgende, um Hilfe wird gebeten! ;-)

Noch 14 Spieler - 7handed; Average: 110000, Blinds 2000-4000/400

‘Mig.com’ (103565 chips) raist am Button auf 10.000, ich  (139430) reraise mit AToaus dem SB auf 30.000 woraufhin er lange überlegt und dann Allin raist für 73165 mehr!

call or fold - getting 2:1? - war nicht leicht…

In diesem Sinne - take it easy,

 Jedi

Since my last entry received a huge amount of positive feedback, I plan to continue writing in english. Thanks for the encouraging comments.

Just finished a very short session in which I lost about 50k.

I m still up about 150k for today so I´m obviously not really dissapointed money wise, but eventhough I lost just a little over 1 buyin, it still bothers me alot because I feel like I was outplayed.

I´ve been very confident with my game until a few days ago, when SBRugby returned to the games after his little break.

We´ve had a few HU duels since then with him being the winner most of the time, and I really don´t know if he is getting lucky in our matches or if he is simply outplaying me.

I belief we will have some more confrontations in the future and I will try to put some effort into analyzing if playing him is a smart move on my part.

While I used to not care at all who I was playing I´ve learned that you don´t need to beat everyone to make a good living out of poker, and that no matter how well u think you play, there is always someone better, or at least there will be after the next wave of young scandinavian guys who turn 18 years old.

Went to the cinema, something I have done nearly every day for the last week, and to the local card club ( the concord card casino) afterwards, mainly to get my first meal of the day at around 11pm, and also to play with some real chips again.

Didn´t play long, and managed to not lose in the 5-10 NL game there. I´m saying “not lose”, because I wound up winning just enough to cover drinks, a delicious Wiener Schnitzel and the cab home, which I wound up not having to pay anyway thanks to my brothers inability to win coinflips. Lately it has become rare for me to pay for the food I consume or the cab that we share. Playing the rush!

Beside from that, I spontaniously decided to go to London for the NPL, a new series of televised tournaments, with the main event being a 5k usd event. Hopefully I´ll get some TV time to get me a step closer to a sponsorship deal.

At last a few HH´, pretty random ones since I usually only convert them at pokerhand.org to either look up the odds or so I can prove that I occasionally take some bad beats too.

A few of them are from yesterday, where I proceeded to win a little in the PLO games and about 50k in the .5-1k limit holdem game at stars, which is good since I was down a little in that game and wasn´t sure whether I could justify playing that game just for fun if I´m losing large sums in it. Anyways, here we go:

Probably would have played his hand the same way, not much either of us can do.

Luckily he had a flush draw to go with his overpair here, although I still dislike his play, seems to be one of these “lose alot - win a little” scenarious.

Pretty normal once again, just to show I don´t win every single pot. ;)

Made what I belief is the right call and obviously couldn´t get away on the flop.

I let Gus win one sometimes.

That´s it for now. Later,

Niki

Since some people asked for me to write in my bad english, I´ll try to please them. So this is my first english blog entry. Don´t get used to it since writing in english is actual work for me.

I played ALOT today, even by my standards, I would guess about 9hours, but it could easily have been more.

But first, in case you do not speak german, and don´t know me, here is a little bit on my person.

I´m 19years old, from Vienna, Austria and have been playing poker for about 2,5 years now.

Alot of people believed that my nickname on FTP belonged to Kai Budde, the most succesful Magic Player of all time. Magic is a trading card game I used to play, through which I actually made first contact with the great game of Poker, actually in a Sit and Go with the great Kai Budde himself, on a break of PT San Diego. Most people realized by now that this account is just named after, but not used by Kai. However, some people seem to think I got my Bankroll through playing Magic, which is not the case since I never was a top player there.

In my poker carreer I´ve had my fair share of succes lots of times, only to go broke time and time again due to bad BR management and a lack of discipline regarding game selection or quitting bad sessions.

Anyway, I hope I learned from my mistakes in the past and try to do better this time.

I started out playing SNGs online, soon switched to Limit Holdem and went up until I reached the biggest games, by that time that was the 300-600 at UB. There I also got in touch with PLO, got hooked and thats what Ive been playing since. I still sometimes play Limit Holdem, but mostly for fun, or to steam off, since by constantly clicking the auto- raise button you´re not making a big mistake there.

Until a short while ago, I was actually playing 10-20 and 25-50 mostly, then deposited a little on FTP, took shots on bigger games, got on a roll and have won big since.

I´m now on of the biggest online winners on PLO this year.

That much on my person.

Did I mention that I played alot today?

Was on a roller coaster ride the past 2 days and lost about 350k, which I followed up by a big winning day today. It started of bad again with me getting really unlucky in a couple of big pots, but I found my rhythm and won about 500k in the end.

I think the big losers today have to be Ziigmund and ZRC, with SBRugby and me being the big winners. A bit hard to tell cause there are so many new accounts playing I might not even remember. 20k of my winnings come from Limit holdem, where I misclicked twice to hit gutshots and won nearly every hand in the 20 minutes I played.

Had a few interesting hands I converted at pokerhand.org

• One of the reasons ZRC might be down today
• One of the reasons sbrugby might be up today
• Not very interesting, nice flop against Ziigmund
• He played good, but wasn´t to unlucky either. Perfect coinflip on the turn
• Ugly hand, considering he called with just a gutshot on the flop

I´m very excited to go to Barcelona in a few weeks, itching to play with real plastic cards again :)

If u are an english reader, please comment this blog entry so that I can see if there really is that much international interest in my current rush…erm, I mean, success.

Thanks for reading,

Niki

Grillfestl war lustig, und beim Chinese Poker habe ich auch bare gespielt.

War schon 13 Punkte á 1€ down. ;)

Gestern und heute aber auch wieder einiges gespielt und muss sagen, so schön wie zur Zeit waren die Partien noch nie. Lauter neue Spieler (oder neue Accounts…), einige davon scheinen allerdings auch neu zu dieser schönen Roullette…ähm…Pokervariante zu sein, die ich so liebe, dem Omaha.

Dafür sind einige starke Spieler wieder zurück, nämlich David Benyamine und SBRugby.

Gestern recht gut gewonnen, heute einen verrückten Tag gehabt. 100k up, runter bis auf 500k down, zum Zeitpunkt dieses Blog Eintrags 200k down, worüber ich ganz zufrieden bin.

Etwas grausam ist zur Zeit die Anzahl an Shortstackern, die sofort aufstehen nachdem sie ein halbes Buyin gewinnen. Naja, im Endeffekt verdient man auch an denen recht gut, denn die TopSpieler wollen natürlcih mit großer Auflage spielen.

Heute im Kino gewesen in “10 Minutes Older - The Trumpet”, war etwas enttäuscht, hatte mir mehr von dem Regie- Lineup erwartet, aber er ist trotzdem ganz interessant.

Later,

Niki

…ist heute abend angesagt. Hoffentlich spielt das Wetter mit.

Gefeiert wird der 25. Geburtstag zweier Freunde aus Magic- Zeiten, die auch den Übergang zu Poker gefunden haben und sich damit ihr Taschengeld verdienen.

Wird jedenfalls sicher lustig, nur muss ich aufpassen dass ich nicht anschliessend noch an den Computer gehe. Das könnte böse Folgen haben.

Bin leider etwas zu unfähig um ein Bild in die Gallerie zu stellen, deshalb der Link zu meiner Uhr, die zu 98% wie diese hier aussieht:

Davon abgesehen recht gut gewonnen heute. Auch mal wieder bei Stars, und zwar gegen “SavageGamble”, der eigentlich HighStakes LimitHoldem Spieler ist. Das merkt man auch an seiner Spielweise finde ich, zB. gibt er nur ungern Hände auf und raist oft nur das Minimum. Anfangs hatte ich meine Schwierigkeiten aber habe mich dann rechtschnell zurechtgefunden und eine gute Counter- Strategie gefunden.

Im HU geht es nur darum wer sich schneller auf den Gegner einstellt und weiß wann er sein Spiel ein wenig umstellen muss, das ist mir recht gut gelungen denke ich.

Bisschen Eigenlob hat noch nie geschadet. gg.

Bei FullTilt liefs auch gut, hier muss ich das Lob allerdings weglassen, habe einfach in der kurzen Zeit in der ich gespielt habe alles getroffen was es zu treffen gab, das einzig wirklich “verdiente” Geld gewann ich gegen “Perkyshmerky”, der definitiv bei NL Holdem bleiben sollte.

Dann noch mit W$ in die EPT Barcelona eingekauft und dank geschicktem Handeln ebenjener W$ einen Gewinn in Form von 6 Gratis- Nächten im 5*-Hotel gemacht, indem wohl einige Spieler inklusive Luckbox Seb Ruthenberg absteigen werden. Chinese Poker anyone? :)

Freue mich schon riesig darauf wiedermal ein größeres Turnier zu spielen, spiele da nicht mit weil ich mir großartige Chancen ausrechne sondern weil ich Turniere einfach spannend und interessant finde. Vom Value her kann man sie mit Cash Game sowieso nicht vergleichen (vorallem nicht zur Zeit), aber lustiger sind sie allemal.

Nach der EPT noch einen kleinen Urlaub und weiter gehts nach London zur WSOP.

Den ganzen Turnierzirkus sollte man mitmachen solange man jung ist, in ein paar Jahren geht er mir wahrscheinlich auf die Nerven. Ausserdem wäre so ein kleiner Erfolg sicher auch recht wichtig wenn es darum geht einen Sponsor zu finden.

Naja, konnte wieder nur Positives berichten, fast schon langweilig.

Peace,

Niki