A Better Day

Today was a *slightly* better day at the tables. I took a bit of a hiatus from pokerstars, and played again in the Full Tilt 16k guarantee. Mrs. Hammerplayer and I were watching the Sopranos On Demand in preparation for the new season coming up next month, and it was going to run past the 10pm start to the ftp 16k tourney, but literally at the last minute she got a call from an old friend and I was saved. I logged in and took my seat immediately, feeling very lucky to have made the tourney due to some very fortunate unforeseen events, and determined to ride that luck into the first round of the 16k. Unfortunately, I went out on hand #2 when my Kings were cracked by some digg's Ax suited. There ya go.

Then I quickly switched over to the Party 40k guarantee tourney at 10:20 (since I wasn't doing anything then even despite starting the ftp 16k at 10pm sharp). I bought in with 9 minutes to go with already 1100 players, and it closed at just over 2100. [Hoyazo thinks: Funny how they always seem to just make those guaranteed minimums, isn't it?]. I played well, and fought my way up to the first break in about 50th percentile with around 790 players remaining. I only managed to double up at the VERY end of the first round, as my cards were not strong, and I could not get action when I wanted it. I did get bad beat two different times in the first round, which really prevented me from being much higher in the standings. Round 2 started off with my 10s falling to someone else's jacks late in the first round -- thankfully he was short stacked so I didn't lose too much of my chips. But what was I supposed to do? I held 10-10 in the BB, it's folded to the SB, a repeatedly PROVEN stealer, who raises to 5x the BB. What else could I do but push against a short stack? Seriously. Then later a guy flopped trips and took about 2/3 of my remaining stack when I flopped top and bottom pair. I simply could not put him on a strong hand, after having already noted him TWICE for overplaying top pair and for overplaying his bluffs and not knowing when to accept defeat. It was just one of those things. Then my tournament ended for the night when I took 22 allin as a short stack with an M of 4.5, and got beat by AQ (of course). Let It Be Known: Hoyazo wins fewer races than Bodie Miller in this year's Olympics. Out in 605th place, yet it was my best showing in a large tournament on party since winning my seat a few weeks ago into the million dollar tournament this Saturday the 18th at 4:30pm ET, and I know I played very well, so I actually felt not bad about my overall performance there.

Then things got good. My buddy R, the party ministep hound, was bugging me on the IM to do a ministep 2, which we both had free tokens for from winning a ministep 1 tournament. So we joined in, and long story short, it got down to me and R in the final 3, with only the final 2 advancing to get a ministep 3 token. I tried hard to get him to give me his chips when I slow played a good hand on the flop, but he didn't buy it and I only took him for a minimal gain. We each reraised the other once or twice preflop with particularly strong hands or strong reads on the other, and we jostled between 1st, 2nd and 3rd throughout the 3-handed portion of our contest. In the end, the third guy, at the time short stacked, moved allin with KJs, and I called with my A8o, it held up, and it was down to just me and R. Although we both were into the next round automatically now, and nothing tangible was at stake between R and I, the egos kicked in and immediately we talked some smack to each other. On the very first hand, I was dealt AKo, a very strong hand heads-up obviously. I then typed to him in the chat "Hey, we both made it in, right? So who wins between us doesn't matter?" knowing full well that we BOTH cared quite a bit who would take the title, just for personal bragging rights purposes. He responds "Yes, that's right," also knowing full well that HE cares immensely, but hoping to get me to do something stoopid so he could call with what he figured was the best hand. So I typed "ok then well why bother, I want to sleep" and I pushed in. He quick called, flipped over KJo, and was viciously angry when he saw my big slick. "Never conch a concher" is what I typed to him as the victory was mine. It felt great to get back into the winner's circle in a party sng, which have not been kind to me of late, and to beat R head to head was especially fine.

Topping off the evening, my buddy V, the pokerstars hound, convinced me on the IM to get on to pokerstars for a quickie 18-person turbo $6 buyin tournament. I got beat down on early when I had to lay down QJ after my 360 chip raise was reraised allin on a flop of J97 with two clubs, leaving me in last place almost from the beginning. He showed KK. I fought back a bit later to get some much-needed chips, but in the end I went down as the short stack in the tournament, out in 13th place when my A6 failed to hold up against JJ. V went on to win the tournament for a healthy $36 profit, so good for him. If V had a blog there would have been a link there, but he's not quite that cool (yet).

Annoyed at my showing in the 18-person sng, I quickly moved into a $25 turbo 1-table tournament on ps, which I made to heads-up in about 35 minutes. I started with a 2-to-1 shortfall in chips, but quickly took the lead by Doing My Headsup Thing, which means always being able to read my opponent for what he has, and always betting him out whenever I have a better hand or know he doesn't have one he's willing to go with. Eventually I took two stoopid beats in the span of 3 or 4 hands, and I was out in second, for a nice $40 profit. Counting the $55 party ministep 3 entry I won, I made a good $30 or $40 on the night, so I can't complain about that. Not the way things have been going recently anyways.