Archive for the ‘Other’ Category

Good Evening Smallball Poker lovers !

It has been a very long time, due to some different problems and some busy, annoying circumstances, but smallball-poker.com is back in the online house, larger and better than ever !! We stopped last time back in November with the review of my Most Famous Poker Player top- list and a prediction about the WSOP Main Event 2010 final table. I was very close as my favourite John RACENER became second after losing heads-up to Jonathan DUHAMEL. Congratz to him ! I know that I made the promise to present you my new list, namely the top-50 best songs of the 21th century according to me. But I had to postpone the final fifty as my list isn’t finished yet due to some late newcomers. However I’ll start with the first five (nrs 50-45) in the following post next week… .

This week I’ll show you some crazy and special hands that I’ve played this month, yes poker never dies ! , mainly in the Belgian Golden Division Poker League @ PokerStars. That’s a competition with a daily tournament with around 200 entrants where you can deserve points for the monthly leaderboard. The higher you finish each day, the more points you get for that month. Well I’m proud to say that I was the winner for January !! Good for a extra prize of $100, 10.000 FPP and a heads-up ticket againt a Belgium Pro (hmm who ? ) to win a  215$ ticket for the Sunday Million @ PokerStars. So I made a great start  and I believe that I’m going to win a big fish this year. There are also cash prizes for the best 5 players at the end of 2011, with a cool $2000 for number one. For now I’m going to show you three hands from last month’s action that were kind of odd and weird.

In the first hand I have AQ off in the small blind with only 10 big blinds left and a steaming mood after some earlier bad beats. So I put it all in the middle after donkey number one raised and number two shipped it . They were playing like idiots that day so I was hoping to be against a middle pair and a weaker ace, or get lucky otherwise. Here’s what happened…

So it wasn’t a very good move after all  with only 5% chance of winning , but you know everything’s possible in poker. That was probably my most beautiful suckout ever until now. I even had only 2% on the flop, I laughed so hard afterwards with my running straight.  I can be lucky too.  The next hand is probably my best call of the past month. Not that it was so special but it just signed that I’ve improved my game because I never would have called that a year ago. I know not a great call before the flop with my deuces, but I had position and a good read on the raiser.

So after we checked the flop, a beautiful deuce appears on the turn and suddenly the small blind bets and the initial raiser calls. I decided to call too and just see the river cheaply, not knowing exactly where I was. After the ten of diamonds on the river, the small blind immediately shipped his stack in and I was glad the raiser folded. So now I had a decision. I only could think of a flopped flush as better hand, or maybe pocket fives, but I decided I could beat more in his range so I made a nice call. The last hand is certainly my best check of the last month when I woke up with pocket Nines on the button. I decided to join the limpfest in stead of pushing it all because I had position and my stack wasn’t that small enough. Here’s what happened after we all checked the flop (Yes, I should have bet there) …

That sexy Nine of diamonds on the turn gave me definitely the nuts at that point and when they again all checked to me I decided to make a suspicious half-pot-stealing bet and I got one caller. I know at that point that he’s drawing for sure so I hated the Eight of hearts on the river. He checked to me and so I did, after a pose. I was glad to see my feeling was good when he turned over his straight.

I’m hoping that this month will bring me the same luck and results as last month, I have to defend my first place after all ! I’ll see you next time for some more poker and some great music.

Cheers,

J.M.