Turning the wheel ...

The online challenge got the better of me. I managed to clear another $10 of the bonus after my blog post, but that was it. Obviously an extra $10 is always a help, but more would have been nicer.
Cash games at Crown have also turned around for me ... and turned in the wrong direction. The highlight of last night saw a hand where I raised to $11 UTG, was called by UTG+1 & the hijack. Flop was 245 all diamonds. I bet $20 with AdAc & was called by UTG+1. Turn saw the Qc & I bet $35 & my opponent moved all-in for an additional $90 or thereabouts. Of course there are a lot of hands that I have crushed that he might make the same move with, but there are also a lot of hands I am in trouble against. However with the Ad in my hand I have outs against anything but the straight flush (3d6d) ... so I made the call. The river was a repeat (non-diamond) queen, which helped my hand as I would now beat a flopped two pair (45 or similar) ... but of course my opponent had 63 of hearts for the flopped straight ... because calling a raise with 63 SOOOOTED is such a profitable play ...
Of course the same player made a wonderful claim in a later hand. With a board of J9257 (two diamonds on the flop, but no flush possible by the river) he decided to call my bets on every street ... and when I showed JJ for top set on the river he said 'well that beats three nines'. Really? I quized him about this and he said 'I thought you had three jacks' ... its amazing what some people will do, or what they think you will believe. So with a flush draw out there & only one possible hand that could beat it (until the river when T8 & 86 get there), he decides that just flat calling with the second nuts is the best way to play the hand ... not even raising on the flop or turn when I might stack off with top pair or an overpair. Obviously good to put the guy who cracked my aces in his place, but it was one of the few highlights in an otherwise ordinary session.
When will variance be my friend??

The online challenge

I recently scored a bonus on Full Tilt Poker & am in the process of 'earning' it. Of course the challenge remaining is to complete the entire bonus. As it stands I have roughly $70 left to earn of the bonus, with 6c earnt per FTP. This means that I need to earn roughly another 1150 FTPs to complete the bonus. The difficult part about it is that I now have 13 hours left to complete the bonus! At present I'm playing primarily 25/50c limit holdem, playing anywhere from 4-8 tables at a time. Hopefully I'll be able to get the entire bonus & give the bankroll a decent boost. At present I have around $300 on Full Tilt & am hoping to double this before moving up to 50c/$1 games.
Lets see how it goes ...

That other game ... chess ... some history & my favourite players

I've been playing some chess on the Internet Chess Club of late (as I tend to do from time to time) & played a game that sparked my interest in chess analysis again.

The game was the Fritz-Ulvestad variation of the Two Knights Defense (this is the complicated way of saying both my opponent & I made moves so that the pieces on the board looked like the diagram): This is a rather famous position from a 1965 correspondence game between Yakov Estrin & Hans Berliner, where Berliner won a spectacular game (and ultimately the World Correspondence Championship).

Of course I attempted to follow the Estrin-Berliner game, but played a different (and worse) move on move 9 & soon after completely forgot about the clock (not the smartest of things to do in a 1-minute game) & lost on time. This got me thinking about the variation & its many wild complications ... and of course dreams of playing a game like this in a tournament one day (though of course my recent form would suggest that this is a long way from reality). The variation is fascinating on many levels & I would not be able to do it justice in this blog, however if you are interested in it, this page has a number of links to articles about the variation (in particular have a look at the Tim Harding articles).

This got me thinking about some of my favourite chess players & some of their best games (which also double as some of my favourite games). In order to keep this post to a manageable length, I've decided to run with a brief description about the player in question, with links to some of their better games.

Jonny Hector

My favourite player without a doubt. Jonny is a Grandmaster from Sweden who has been a regular in top level events there, as well as other events around Europe. Although he sometimes has shockers, he loves attacking chess & many brilliancies can be found in his games.

Some of his best games:

Hector v Jacob Carstensen

Watch for the uber-sadistic zugzwang finish!

Hector v Joel Akesson

A less-than-conventional opening that turns into a stunning attack!

Emanuel Berg v Hector

Another unusual opening turns into an amazing sacrificial attack leading to a king hunt!

Rashid Nezhmetdinov

Rashid, or Nezh, was an International Master from the Soviet Union (born in modern-day Kazakhstan) who was well known inside the Soviet Union (not so much outside) for his tactical style & ability to find combinations in a range of positions. His reputation outside the USSR did not grow until late in his career & after his death in the 1970s.

Some of his best games:

Lev Polugaevsky v Nezhmetdinov

Nezh's most famous game with an amazing queen sacrifice leading to a king hunt & eventual mating attack.

Nezhmetdinov v Enrico Paoli
Another fascinating attack that sees two pieces sacrificed for the attack, which ultimately proves decisive.

Nezhmetdinov v Leonid Shamkovich

A piece sacrifice in a seemingly standard opening position launches a devestating attack on the king.

Nezhmetdinov v Oleg Chernikov

A positional queen sacrifice in the middlegame, followed by an exchange sacrifice, before a combination leading to a winning ending!

This queen sacrifice is in some ways similar to another very famous queen sacrifice played in the game Vassily Ivanchuk v Alexei Shirov where Shirov sacrifices his queen in the middlegame for two pieces. This is another of my favourite games, played by two of my favourite modern Super Grandmasters.

Tiger Hillarp Persson

Tiger is another Swedish Grandmaster who plays in a very creative attacking style. He has become a regular in the Swedish Olympiad team & like Hector plays many tournaments around Europe.

Some of his best game:

Vladimir Petkov v Persson

An innocuous opening soon turns wild & Persson sacrifices his queen, then a rook for a mating attack!

Peter Heine Nielsen v Persson

A wild game with many pieces flying all over the board, which ultimately leads to a winning attack for Persson.

Ultimately I'll continue to play chess & hope to one day play a game of that quality. The closest I have been would have to be a game I played at the Australian Open against Tony Weller, which won the brilliancy prize for the round. Some of my other best games would include a win against Andrew Allen from the Parkroyal Invitational, or for a straightforward attack that worked perfectly, my game against Kevin Tan from last year's Oceania Zonal.

Cash game run good

I have finally turned one of those corners that you always want to turn ... the run good one! The last few cash sessions I have played at Crown have seen most of my 80-20s hold up & I've even managed to win my fair share of my races. I've also played well & won a decent number of other pots to walk away with more than I started with on my last few visits. Maybe its because I've been playing a bit of online poker lately (largely inspired by a bonus offered from Full Tilt Poker), perhaps its the more frequent forum posting & watching of videos at Deuces Cracked, or maybe its just that time when the stars align and you actually run at or slightly above expectation.
Tournaments of course have continued to be standard fare, with Thursday's tournament coming to an early conclusion in a hand where I raised there was a limper (at 50/100 blinds with a 3k starting stack) before I raised to 350 in middle position. The lady to my immediate left who had played very few hands then re-raised to 700 before the big stack to her left called (he had doubled up on the second hand when he hit a gutshot after calling a small flop bet, only to have the guy with the overpair move all-in & he had around 7000 to start the hand). It folded back around to me & I moved all-in for another 2400 ... and the lady to my left immediately moved all-in as well (1700 more, so I had her covered by 700)! The big stack then thought it & eventually called. We turned over our hands & I was rather happy to see my KK up against QQ (lady) & AJo (big stack). As it turns out I was well in front, with the equities being 58% (KK) v 17% (QQ) v 25% (AJ). Of course that meant nothing as there was an ace in the window & I headed to the cash tables. Of course I think the overcall with AJo is horrible, as it is in awful shape against the shoving ranges of both myself & the lady who had both been playing super-snug. Assuming a range of TT+ & AQ+ (which is probably a bit generous), the AJ has only 16% equity. If it changed to QQ+ & AK (more realistic for myself), AJ slides to 14%. Of course it means little when your opponent gets there & you have to do the walk of shame ...
The ANZPT Melbourne schedule & structures have now been released & its good to see another 8 game event in the schedule, along with the regular dose of NLHE events. Bring on October!

The Aristidou Factor!

Today's Sunday tournament finished in my now standard non-cash after running QQ into AA (and of course still losing in spite of flopping a set of queens, because another ace managed to appear on the river) and then losing my remaining stack when I took 88 up against TT. However the highlight for me was provided by Peter Aristidou. Midway through level 3 or 4 he wandered over to my table to say hi ... asked me if I'd won any hands yet (I was slightly below starting stack) & when I said I'd only won one, he said he had a good feeling about this one & that I would make it two! There was a raise and a call in front of me & I looked down to see AQo! I had the 'Aristidou factor' on my side, so I 3-bet & everyone folded & I took down a decent sized pot pre-flop! Peter later came over to see me after losing a big pot (this was just after I lost the QQ v AA hand) & we briefly lamented our plights. Shortly afterwards I busted & decided to join the rail to watch Peter in action for a while. He was joking around in spite of his short stack & folded for an orbit or two without finding a suitable spot to put his chips in. He eventually found one & was called by both blinds & they saw a flop of AJ6. The SB then shoved all-in, prompting a fold from the BB. Peter turned over his KJ0, to be up against his opponent's KQo! In spite of the domination, Peter manages to find the jack he needs to take the lead! Of course the BB said he folded 33 ... and what arrives on the turn ... a 3! Not only does he spike a 3-outer against a dominating hand, but the guy with king-high decides to semi-bluff the flop, forcing the hand that would have knocked Peter out, to fold ... what a charmed life Mr Aristidou leads! That triple-up (plus change) got him back to starting stack & he was never headed from there, eventually taking the tournament down (though I think there was some sort of deal made when it was three handed).
The session I played on the $2/3 table following the tournament bustout was successful, but was my now-standard slow grind, with no huge hands of note that I was involved in (though there was a crazy 5-way all-in at one point, with the big stack claiming three victims before chopping the main & one side pot with a short stack).
I'm hoping to eventually get Peter on the podcast ... though I'm not sure he's keen to divulge his run good secrets!

Episode 8 now Online

Episode 8 of the Donkcast is now online:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=T11GHXVD

The episode features coverage of the recently completed Victorian Championships, a brief look at the upcoming Sydney Championships, as well as an interview with Tim Duckworth of Tilted Behaviour (amongst other things).

Don't forget about feedback, either here or email thedonkcast@hotmail.com