Oskar Silow

Love people with humor

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Long time no see Casino! Time would tell if it would be a happy reunion. I was the first one there, 15 minutes before kick-off and when entering the poker room I was met by total darkness. Wtf? Had I made a mistake of the day of the tournament? Soon after dealers and other player started to drop in, but not too many were there for the omaha tourney. About 30 minutes late we managed to get 9 players and started a sit n go. I didn’t mind since I was eager to play some live poker, but wasn’t really up for an all nighter.

The structure of the tournaments at the casino is really nice nowdays and everybody got a 20k stack and a 2nd chance to rebuy or add-on.

My first big hand I get semi-comitted preflop after calling a 3-bet for 2500 with 8764ds. A guy behind 4-bets to 11500 and get a call from a very loose callingstation. I recon that I can triple up by investing 9k more and putting them both on high cards I like my chances. In a sit n go tournament with two prizes it’s important to build a stack and chop off the legs of your opponents so you can start leaning on them til they fall over. I call and like the flop T96. I’m guessing they have redraws, but wanna put my money in while I’m ahead. I go all in and they both snap call. My opponents have AA83 and KKQ5 so I’m in very good shape. I avoid the suck out and triple up

Three player have left the tournament before the next big confrontation. I manage to win a nice one against the big value at the table. I limp call a raise with KQJ8s and 4 players see a flop of AQT with a flush draw (not mine). The donk c-bets and I’m happy to see a blank turn 7. The donk checks and since the pot has grown big I decide to bet. The donk has 55k left and the pot is 47k so I bet 42k. To my surprise the donk insta-shoves and my guess was that I was up against a set or two-pair probably with a flushdraw. I was therefore very surprised when he flipped KKQ4 with no flushdraw and was only drawing to a split. “I gotta go anyways” he said and left quietly. A really bad play and I win a nice pot and knock out the donk in 6th place.

I limp call a raise from the small blind against the norweigan guy in the big blind with 4 players left, holding KT83s. The flop is 762 with a flushdraw. I’m holding K-high flushdraw and a gut shot and I’m in good shape against most of his hands. Really just don’t wanna see AA + nut flushdraw. I think about betting but decide to go for a check raise. He c-bets and I check raise to about 27k. He has about 47k left and I got about 140 in total. The norweigan guy thinks for a long time and then finally shoves. I call insta and he shows KKKT with no spades. I’m confused and he says happily“I knew you had nothing and I actually thought you wouldn’t call”. LOL?? With more than 80k in the pot and 20k more for me I call with 100% of the hands I raise with. Especially since I’m sort of at the bottom of my range. He’s lucky to be in a coinflip and obv his “trips” hold up. Nice that some people got no clue

Still got 80k and there is 340k in play total. My mind is def set on winning. The norweigan guy knocks out another guy in 4th and it’s bubble time. We decide to make a bubble prize to speed up the process. Normally something I wouldn’t agree on against these two, but having the short stack with about 90k vs their 130k and 120k and considering the fact that omaha is a very high variance game I accepted.

I pick up a nice pot against the norweigan guy when he miss his draws. Unfortunately he doesn’t bluff the river cause then it would have been even nicer A few hands later I pick up AAT8s on the button and raise. The norweigan guy quickly re-pots to about 15k. I have about 100k and it’s an easy choice to pot again considering I get almost 50k in. The norweigan guy again very quickly moves all in and I call. I expect to see AAxx considering the speed of his all in, so I’m a little bit surprised that he has KK85ds. About 200k in the pot and a very important hand for the tournament. “I thought you had AA, but I had nice kickers he says”. Even so he only had 35-65% pre. Should you put it in then? My hand is good on the flop 976, but the norweigan guy picked up a flushdraw. Of course he spikes the turn and I have to jump on my bike and head home. Having won $70 is a small comfort since I was in good shape to win and hade the norweigan guy knocked down twice. But as my good friend always says: “You shall not despair, a win is a win”. That is btw one of the 10 Commandments of Poker.

Now I’m off to a week of no poker and no blogging,. When I come back I’ll tell you the rest of the Commandments

Today the latest issue of FirstPoker came out. In the magazine you will find two (!) articles by yours truly Hurry out and buy it!!

Ok, not quite yet, but still something that a lot of poker players don’t think about att all.  “I make enough”, “Who knows if there will be any money left for our pension anyways” and “I’m only gonna play for a few more years” are all common statments you hear when asking a p0ker player if they are saving up for their retirement. The truth is when the day comes and we fold our last hand, we won’t be living large anymore. No more rake back, no more bonuses, or super-donk -donations, only the guaranteed goverment pension.

If one is smart enough to put away some money for ones retirement one should not choose to save in the traditional funds that the personal bankers usually suggest. Why? Because we can’t make the tax deductions necessary to make these advantageous.

How should one save then? Doesn’t really matter, the important thing is that you do. A few hundred dollar per month spread among a few different options will in the end be just as fun as slowrolling the nuts vs Phil Hellmuth.

Pic from here

This must be the place where all poker players  go to un-tilt?