Poker :: NL 100 frenzy

This is usual looks of my poker play for June 2007, sometimes adding two more tables. Just dinged the bankroll for NL200, moving up there next session. First I plan just two table / max three table it to gather notes on the players, later on if things go well will switch to usual 4-6 table format.

Poker :: into the donkaments we go

If for some reason you are in need of horror and think that all current horror movies are more funny than scary, you can get few hours of pure terror just for exactly the same price - $20 to $50 bucks (depending on what your fav cinema is charging). Just register into PStars freezout or $8-10 rebuy for that matter, get some snacks and get ready to rumble.

Last weekend I got tired of cash and wanted to play good ol' tourney, so I went ahead to $30 in the morning with 450 entrants. Most of those people have chronic flopophobia - after first hour it is like they have only two buttons - "FOLD" and "ALLIN". Calling is for weak presumably ;) If you have any pocket pair and there is a raiser - "ALLIN", if you have an ace and a paint - "ALLIN". Also, if you are in the blinds and LP raises - doesnt matter what you have, "ALLIN"! Fold on all other cases. Small exception to this rule - if you have AA - miniraise :)

The tourney itself went good, but soooo scary...

Example1. Starting chips 3000. I have built quite a big stack mostly picking uncontested pots without showdown on the turn or the river, double up with AA and after first hour I have ~14k. In EP I get AKo, standard raise it to 1200. A guy LP who was pushing several times already openpushes allin for 8k. Call, he shows 88, and I lost the race.

Example2. Same level, me back on 11k chips, a guy on my right who was playing like a fool just loses big pot. Im in BB and get dealt ATo. Just after seeing these cards I told my friend who was watching that I will have to call SB push if it is folded around since he will push for sure and will have J5o or smth like that at the very best case. And ofcourse... Everyone folded, SB thought for a while and pushed for 5k. Call, he shows 84o. Flop brings and 8 but I flop a gutshot draw with my T and get there on the river. Poooof! But scary...

Example3. Same guy from 1 example raises button, gets reraise allin from big stack and calls off rest 80% of the stack allin with 22... pocket pairs for the win! Too bad deuces got nulified by two pair on board, gg :)

Example4. MP pretty agressive player raises 2.5BB, I reraise to 6BB from the button with AQo and MP instarepushes allin (we have even stacks). I folded and he showed 46o.

Example5. Later in the tourney with 3 tables left. Guy LP raises the button, gets reraised from BB, calls. Flop A92 all diamonds. BB openpushes the rest (1/2 pot). Button thinks loooong and calls with J9 no diamond. BB shows JQ no diamond. Turn Q, river blank and BB doubles up. Button starts rambling what an amazing read he has made and how flat out unlucky he got.

Example5 followup. I'm on 65k, Example 5 button hero has 75k. Blinds 800/1600, average stack ~45k, 25 players left. I raise MP AKo, gets folded around. Next hand im UTG+1 and raise again, to 4500, AKdiamonds this time. Get the hero calling from BB. Flop T93 two diamonds. Hero checks, I bet 6.000, hero checkraises to 20.000, I figured he has some medium pocket or might be tilting from last hand, so decided this is the key hand for the tournament and pushed. He instacalled with JTo no diamond... Turn... no A, no K, no diamond. River... no A, no K, no diamond... And I'm out, hero jumps to chipleader with 130k with second place just over 90k.

Summary. Its so amazing what hands do these people call / push allins with. Good luck to you all and please bring more of those tournament winnings to the cash tables ;) I will play more of those $30 freezouts and $10 rebuys for sure when the time permits, if only those tourneys didnt take so horribly long...

PS. The way I busted out of $8 rebuy with 800ppl+ later - 135 get ITM, 137 players left, I have just below average stack. Table chipleader (with not too many chips though, we had poor table at that moment:) raises two hands in a row, everyone sheepishly fold around. On the third hand he raises again, I find 77, and reraise allin. Without hesitation he calls off more than half of his stack and shows T8o. I mean... No words :) AAT on the flop and Im out. Everyone feels obliged to say "gg" in the chat box and questioned later why did I push when it was only 2 left till the money and there was plenty of shortstacks...

Cash. Cash games go good though, made it to GoldStarVIP for this month, and still am on 18BB/100 hands rush. At 85% of the target for transition to NL$200.

Sports :: Jukola2007

This year Jukola relays took place ~450km north of Helsinki, near the town of Lapua. The story behind the relays name is quite weird, it is something about seven brothers going to the forest one by one to search for lost sisters, and none of them returned, but then the last and youngest brother Jukola finally found them all, returned home, and they lived happily ever after. Hence on Saturday 3pm Venla relays take place, for women teams - these are the sisters from the fairy tale, and on 11pm starts the Jukola relays, where 7 "brothers" head out to the forest.
We arrived to Lapua on Thursday to have some training, which was really interesting and tough. I could hardly make it under 12:00 min/km, so perpective of running last 15km leg in the relays looked quite scary.

Yaaaaawn... time for morning training session...

The competition area was pretty empty all the time until the competition day, when it suddenly filled up to the full 20 000 of people in half a day. On Saturday afternoon we went to watch Venla relays. Since there were no strong lithuanian teams, we tried to pick some team to root for, and that happened to be finish club MS Parma that had starting number 26 (this number is based on last year result), so had good chances to be amongst the leaders. Our choice was completely biased and based on watching which of the teams looked best when doing the warmup ;)

Weeee, MS Parma, go go go =)

Watching the Venla was really interesting and great fun, comentary was great, two big screens showed the action out in the forests, and it was really good to see that orienteering is becoming really spectator-friendly sport. Our favs and definetily best looking team MS Parma performed well too, taking down 5th place out of ~860 starting teams.

TV screens

After the Venla we had few hours before our start. Our team got the starting number 1022 which basically means we are very bad. I had to start early in the morning, so tried to get some sleep and failed since comentator was screaming all night long, people were moving around and sharing their stories from the race, other people were preparing for their start and strolling around the tents etc etc, so I decided better to go to watch the men race a little.

Men start... Buffallo race :)

Finish area overview

At 5am I got woken up by a teammate who said I should be getting up. I didnt want to go anywhere since it was very cold outside and mass start was supposed to take place at 8:45. Then he said our 5th leg is already well into the course which meant we're ahead of all other lithuanian teams, and amongst 400 top teams, and most likely we wont need to wait for a mass start. After realizing that I managed to get up somehow and after couple of hours started the final leg for our team. I started in 306 position. I did 2min mistake on 1st control by stumbling into two nearby controls and trying to figure out where I'm at, then another 3min mistake on 2nd control... Good thing the next few controls were pretty easy and I got into the rythm. After 1:15h I realized I might finish the course in reasonable time and thus our team would be best lithuanian team and that boosted my motivation a little. At 1:50h there were only 6 controls out of 32 left when after jumping over a rock I felt leg cramps so had to slow down a little to not get injured. There was another refreshment point with less than 2km left till the finish that I would usually skip under normal circumstances, but this time I took my time to drink 2 full cups of energy drink just to make sure I hold up that last bit :) After the last spectator control I made another mistake for 2mins on the 3rd last control, nothing too dramatic, and to make the race complete I had will-test at the very end, when I punched the last control 3sec after another dude. Good to say he stood no chance on the run-in and all in all we finished in my best ever (out of two tries:) 281st place. My time 2:11'23'' wasnt too bad for such a long course and unfamiliar terrain. Now taking some time to rest and train a little, and in two week time going to Kapa2007 3day event to Latvia, where I'm going to run Men21Long course.

Fun :: Fly SEB Way

Picture is worth 1024 words, so below should be thousands of lines on the look & feel of the relax weekend ;)

Un-der-pre-ssah!

Uh-ka-cha-ka team

Pinkie team

Tug of war, best event of them all

Camel race, or one of the many silly events I took part in

Drunken guitar playing on the tables

Our megaperformance, me in swedish colour outfit

Sport makes you sexeh :)

Sports :: Off to Jukola

Heading off tomorrow early morning to Finland for my second Jukola relay. We'll have three days before the competition to do some finnish terrain training and beer drinking. The big thing starts Saturday evening. I will run for the third team of another lithuanian club "Takas-3". My team basically consists of veterans (over 50y old) and single runners from other clubs like me without a team. I was assigned to run last - 7th - leg, and being anchorman for any team is a challenge by definition. Bad thing is that my start will be early Sunday morning and I'll have to skip most of the competition and go have some sleep. Also most likely it'll be mass-start - more than 2000 runners from slow teams will head off to the forest, so beginning of the course will be more like rugby match than orienteering. If everyone from my team does brilliant run though we might be just fast enough so I could start in normal way, before mass-start. Okay, bus is leaving in 9 hours, I'll still have to do some shopping, packing and get some sleep :)
Updates on SEB sports party, Jukola and ongoing poker rush next week, when I'm back from Finland.

Fun :: I'm smart. Officially ;)

Dropping in to tell that yesterday after great deal of sweating (again the room was at +30C with no air to breathe) at national exam commission I got my Masters in IT degree :) My thesis was appraised with the top grade (10 points) which made me pretty happy. In two weeks I'm getting actual diploma at StJones church, and that will complete my education which I would've dropped long time ago if not the traditions in the family - anything less than masters is considered 'weak' around here... Now everybody expects me to carry on onto PhD studies, but all I want at the moment is to get a break and to move up to NL$200 :)

Vilnius University