Playing Great Poker

I've been on a really hot streak recently in my poker play. Not that I've exactly won a ton of cashish from it all, but I've been playing really well, and if not for some extremely poorly-timed suckouts, I would in fact have made some really good money. Yesterday's post describes some of my good performances yesterday, and then tonight started off with a 45-person, $11 turbo sng on pokerstars to warm up for the WWdN tournament tonight. The result:



I played great to make the final table in the first 45 sng I've played in probably a good three months or so. But, to be honest, it was somewhat bittersweet because this is how I lost in 6th place:



I know I was only a slight favorite preflop, but #1 it seems like I've been losing all of my coinflips recently, regardless of whether I'm the slight favorite or the slight dog (more on that later), and #2 if you look at the way I lost it, it was infuriating. These runnerrunnerrunnerrunner situations can eatit as far as I'm concerned. Too many of them have taken away too many pots from me too many times just lately.

Then came WWdN. As I've been running so well in my game lately, I came into this tourney feeling very confident, and I played that way right from the getgo. As per usual I stole blinds and pots throughout the tournament like it was my job. I got some good cards, but nothing spectacular, although I did manage to get pocket Aces somewhere near the end of the second hour of the tournament, which when I doubled with them managed to vault me into first place among the remaining 20 players in the tournament:



I used my large stack to my advantage much over the next 30 minutes or so, and with 14 players left, I still had a nice-sized chip lead:



And that was when the bottom fell out. I got dizznicked by pokerstars (why have so many of us regular players been saying that so much lately?) on two consecutive hands. First, I am dealt 44 in the SB. There's only one limper in the pot when it gets back around to me. I raise it up a couple thou, and CJ calls me with A9o. Not a great call there, but I guess he thought I was probably stealing again since I had been a master thief throughout the tournament. So I'm a slight favorite to amass a truly large chip lead, until an Ace comes on the flop, and I'm done. Still with plenty of chips though, since CJ hadn't had much left at the time of my first annoying loss. "Luckily", I got my chance at redemption on the very next hand, when I'm dealt 55 on the button, and again there is just one player in the pot when it gets back to me, and he had limped in at that. Having played for some time with Luck080 already in the tournament, my read of that bet was that he did not have a pocket pair, so I moved in again on him. He called with A-10o (another questionable move, but I can understand why that move was made). And AGAIN I lost my small lead on the flop, this time when not one but top two pairs flopped for my opponent. And just like that, in two hands I went from a large chip leader to 2nd to last place of the 12 remaining players. Honestly, I don't even remember what hand I actually went out on, but it was shortly after these two beats, and I recall I had two paint cards suited, and my opponent had two paint cards unsuited, but I did not have an Ace, and the Ace hit on the flop (AGAIN!) to make top pair for him and send me home in 12th place overall. It was a horrendous way to end a really great run in the WWdN for me tonight. I don't even want to think about it anymore. I recognize that both hands were just slight favorites, but the math says that it was less than 20% for me to lose both of those hands back to back like I did. Either one of them wins, and I'm almost a shoein for the final table at this thing. Gross.

I should also mention that I played about 55 minutes of awesome poker in the latest $5 turbo MTT on pokerstars tonight at 10:39pm. This is the event that I have cashed in 9 out of my last 10 attempts, and I was well on my way to another cash, with only another 100, 150 eliminations left, and with me well in the top 100 remaining players. Then this bullcripe happened:



I mean, what do you even say to that? Yes I know everyone has Aces cracked from time to time. But to dupe some fidiot into moving in on me preflop with that embarrassing Q-10s, and then to lose to a flucking flopped flush, that is just recockulous, redonkulous and all the other made up words I use to describe fishdonks and the donkfishity plays they make to beat me.

Late in the night, I also played $.01/.02 pot limit Omaha with a bunch of bloggers, including Dr. Pauly, BiggestRon, Heffmike who won the WWdN tonight, and Wil Wheaton, and had a blast while I managed to lose about 500 pennies over maybe an hour and a half of play, all of which occurred near the end when Pauly rivered a nut flush to my smaller flush. Pauly was the luckbox most of that cash game last night in fact, if I don't say so myself, while CJ railbirded and watched Pauly take on CJ's lucky suckouting persona. In all it was another fun night of poker, where I played some of my best game but didn't quite get the results I deserved for it, thanks to some pokerstars special suckouts and outdraws.