WWdN NOT

Last night I played in my usual partypoker 40k guaranteed tournament, and while I was playing that tourney that started at 10:20pm ET, some bloggers on the girlie chat thing convinced me to join in Darval's WWdN NOT! tournament at 11:30pm ET. Since I am East Coast time, that is not exactly a great time for me to play on a weekly basis. But, I was still in the party 40k and had no expectations of that ending soon (more on that in the next post), so I figured if I was going to be up anyways, why not try out my new "moderated aggression" style that worked so well for me in the Mookie tournament from Wednesday. Why not indeed.

Here was my starting table:



There was Jordan, Waffles, host Darval, myself and Bone Daddy, a guy who's blog I just checked out for the first time while I'm writing this post, so it was once again a veritable who's who of the poker blogging community. As per usual, I saw no cards early, such that I wavered between 1300 and 1900 chips or so during the first 30 or 40 minutes, playing few pots but pushing aggressively in those that I did play, more or less regardless of what I was holding. As it was a 12-person tournament, I fairly quickly made the "final table" even though I had yet to win a single hand for which I had stayed around to see the flop (hence why no screenshots for the early part of the tournament):



I entered final table play in 7th place out of 9 players, with less than one-third the stack of the then-leader, Waffles. If you're wondering, SoxLover and DuggleBogey are the culprits guilty of handing all those chips to Waffles so early in the tournament, which is clearly a mistake for a guy with Waffles' aggressive game in a blogger tournament. With such a chip advantage at the final table, I knew I would have to be aggressive quick or else the two big stacks were gonna crush us all. Unfortunately, that didn't work out for me as I had to fold one preflop raise to an allin reraise where I had just two high cards, and then I had to fold another pot on the flop when a scary board came down to make my pocket 6s look pretty much worthless, leaving me just about 10 minutes into the final table with just 450 chips remaining, the short stack at the table and looking like I was about to pack it in. That was when I made the decision that changed my tournament life in the WWdN Not.

If I was gonna go down, I was gonna go down Hoyazoing.

And I'm not kidding around, I must have Hoyazo'd 20 or 30 times in the remaining tournament. I was going to just push all but one chip in again and again and again, talking trash the whole way with just 1 chip on the felt, until I was done. Period.

First hand after The Decision:



Everyone folds in front of me, I win 75 chips. Next hand:



More folds, and I win another 75. The very next hand:



And you see, this is what happens when you play really aggressive. They let me Hoyazo them out of one pot. Then they let me hoy (this will probably be the new term instead of "Hoyazo", I can't stand writing my actual name every time I use the word) them out of another pot. This time, Surf has to figure for sure that I have nothing, he has the stack, and he's had enough, so he calls. And we see a flop:



Slam! And what's the very best part of hoying someone on pokerstars? The trash you get to talk to them the whole rest of the hand until you call a bet for your last chip:



So just like that, in three hands I'm back up to 1270 chips. Still not a big stack, but at least not in total desperation like I had been just a few hands before.

A few hands later we lost the first member of the final table, with Duggle playing the Hammer the way it's meant to be played:



Just a few hands later, I decided I had to hoy again with A7o and a bunch of folds around to me:



But I went and got called by the guy immediately to my left, and I knew I had a problem:



But no sooner did it register that I had just wasted all my hoying and I was about to me summarily dismissed, that this flop came:



which eventually ended with this board:



and I had nearly doubled again, and moved one step closer to the money in this event (top 3 spots, 12 players total). This was a luckout, and I'll take it with the way I've been running. As I say time and time again on the blog, I have so many suckouts stored up and coming to me that it's not even the beginnings of funny, and every time I ever make any hand on anyone, it's happened against me in that exact same way at least five times as much. So there.

And speaking of suckouts, several hands later saw Waffles take out Gary on this little river number when the guys got allin on the flop:



and we were down to four, with three spots paying. The Bubble. And all through the last 10 or 15 minutes, Waffles had begun taunting me, threatening to eliminate me on the Bubble, nearly guaranteeing it even. Which was a weak move on his part since I was already in last place of the remaining players, and still just over a quarter of the chip leader's stack. Waffles my boy, learn it well: The poker gods do not like weak trash talk.

I quickly went back into pure hoying mode. First, I hoyed my tournament nemesis, Waffles:



He folded like a little girl to my second pair medium kicker, and I won 150 chips. Three hands later, I hoy-raised Duggle preflop after he tried to steal my big blind with a mere 2x raise from the SB. I knew I had to punish him just for making that pussy bet:



Actually I mis-hoyed there, left 101 instead of 1, but the point got across, and Duggle meekly folded his weakass steal attempt, netting me another 550 or so badly-needed chips. Then, a few hands later, after slow-playing top 2 pair on the flop and seeing a turn card that Waffles might think helped him, I hoy-raised again:



After receiving a healthy dose of trash talk from me in the chat, Waffles pussed out again (and wisely so):



and I was finally out of the cellar, just a hair above Surf, but still well behind the two chip leaders. But I was hoying, and I was climbing, and I could sense that I had Waffles on tilt. He may not have known it, but I could feel the tension building with him. There was definite tiltage in there just wanting to come out. All the hoying was definitely taking its toll on the poor guy, and I smelled blood.

And speaking of Mother Fucking Tilt, check out what happened just a few hands later. Many of you will recall my post from yesterday, how I went out in the Mookie tournament shortly after Drewspop sucked out recockulously on me with his AJ against my AQ, allin preflop. It is still haunting me a couple of days later, although part of that may be because of what happened with Surf on the WWdN Not bubble yesterday.

I'm dealt AQs again in the SB. Surf raises 3x from first betting position, and I decide I'm taking my large hand 4-handed and doing another hoy with it. Again I screwed up the math a little bit (hey it was past midnight and the beers were a flowin!), but you get the point. Incidentially I recall being basically 50/50 indifferent on whether or not I wanted a call. I figured it was unlikely that my AQs was beat, but of course any hand that calls mine could be one of the 5 or 6 hands that I'd really be afraid of:



Much to my chagrin, Surf calls and is allin. But then he flips this:



It's like deja vu all over again. I'm in a big spot near a blogger tournament bubble, and I've gotten a fellow blogger and good friend allin with his AJ versus my AQ. Only this time won't end up with him sucking out on the turn like it did yesterday, right? Right?!



Flop is friendly. So far so good. But a dank feeling begins fluttering in my stomach. Wtf? Then the turn card is a 3♣, another rag. But that feeling in the pit of my bowels just won't go away. In fact, it seems to be working up to a crescendo as the river card comes out:



MOTHER FUCKING FUCKERS POKERSTARS DICKWADS ASSHOLES WHAT THE FLYING FUCK FUCKHEADS FUCKING POKERSTARS!!! How the hell does a guy lose with AQ to AJ preflop in the bubble of a tournament two nights in a row like that? OK, so I poured sulfuric acid on my computer and I threw a shotput directly through the front door of my apartment, and then I came back to the FUCKING table to lose my last 900+ chips. Holy hell was I steaming. How could I not be?! And all that hoying, wasted, all for naught. How could the poker gods reward my hoyage like this? Well, fuck this, I'm going to hoy literally everything from here on out. Fold or hoy, fold or hoy. First it was Surf:



to which he folded. Then I hoyed both Duggle and Waffles:



to which Duggle folded, but Waffles ended up taking me all the way to the end:



with nothing more than K7s and no hit on the board! Waffles called my hoy bet preflop with just K7s and no pressure whatsoever. I tell you, that was Waffles tilt right before our very eyes folks, hope you enjoyed it live, or at least are enjoying reading about it and seeing the shots here. So just like that, courtesy of the newest tiltboy, I was back over 3000 chips, despite the earlier fuckery thanks to pokerstars.

After losing a pretty big pot when Waffles flopped 2 pairs, I miscalculated another attempted hoy at Duggle, and he folded:



Then I turned right back around and hoyed Waffles again, knowing he was vulnerable in his tilted state, and he also quick-folded:



Then, feeling a bit more brazen, I hoyed the entire table from first betting position preflop, with A9s, figuring to me to be a very solid hand for a 4-handed table:



Duggle made the highly questionable move of calling my first position hoy with just KJs, and here was the board:



But see, this is what a move like the hoy does to people. It mocks. It confuses. It makes people make bad decisions. And then it tilts. Duggle was so tilted, that a few hands later, he pushed in for the rest of his chips on this flop, with nothing but an inside straight draw and some undercards. Problem was, Surf had flopped a flush:



And just like that, we were off the bubble. I had made the money in just my second WWdN ever. One day after cashing in the Mookie tournament as well. But I didn't want to stop there -- Sir Waffles was still in the fray, and after watching Duggle fall to the tilting powers of the hoy, in my view Waffles was already well on his way as well.

A few hands later, I hoy-raised Surf with my A9p preflop, and he quickly folded. Again you will note I keep being off by 150 chips, because I forget to count the money that's already in front on the table in blinds or calls:



I think just sitting and watching this last hoy really was the final straw for Waffles. He had decided that he wasn't giving in to another hoy from me again tonight. So on the next hand, when Waffles raised to 600 preflop, and I hoy-reraised him allin (again with the 200 chip error for the called bet already on the table):



Waffles went ahead and called it with this:



and for once I did not lose to the Hammer, making a boat on the turn in fact:



and I was in a solid second place. And Waffles was stewing in his own juices. Maybe ten hands later, Waffles pushed on the flop with top pair (8s) and a Ten kicker, a fairly easy winner typically in three-handed play. But this time Surf had other ideas:



And Waffles went home in third place, where take it from me he was happy to be. All the hoying had left him in a daze and I imagine him having collapsed his head right onto the keyboard and just passing out.

So I was heads-up with Surf, the guy who won this tournament last week, and the Mookie two of the past three weeks, in addition to a number of other top-100 MTT finishes in the past few weeks. This guy had been on fire, and he had a nearly 3-to-1 chip lead on me as we began heads-up, so it was hard to be optimistic. I just wanted to keep doing what I had been doing that got me here. Waiting for good hands, and hoying every chance I got.

About 4 or 5 hands into our heads-up play, somehow I got Surf allin on this flop:



I either don't remember or just flat can't explain how or why that happened, and as I recall there wasn't even a hoy involved (a rarity for me last night). I guess when he checked it to me, I just had a read that he didn't have an Ace, so I pushed, and for some reason (I'm sure it was all the hoying getting even to the normally level-headed Surflexus), he called it with just Jack-high. I'll take it, and my first chip lead of the day (by about 250 chips).

Surf and I traded stealing a few pots, and then I won 3600 chips on this hand when I hit a small piece of the flop and Surf did not:



3 or 4 hands later, I look down to find QJo. Not a strong hand overall by a long shot, but 2 face cards, and something that certainly figures to be better than one's heads-up opponent's random starting cards. Long story short, I reverse hoyed Surf, making a bet preflop that would leave him with just one chip, he raised it up, and of course I had to call, figuring I would be behind, probably to an Ace or a high King. But either way, by waiting to make this move until I had not one but two high cards, I figured even if I was up against Ax or Kx (both perfectly reasonable hands to move in with IMO from a shorter stack heads-up), I would still not be too far behind with at least one likely overcard. We flipped 'em over:



OK so I'm a dog, but not a huge dog, and I have 3 jacks, 3 queens, and a number of straight possibilities as outs with 5 cards to come. Not over by a longshot.

Only, it was over:



And Hoyazo wins, and walks off with the $60 first prize!



Quick notes: In the next few days I am planning detail my latest run in the party 40k guaranteed, which also occured last night and had me up until past the end of the WWdN Not tournament even. No time to post it all now, but soon....

ps: This post is put up early in the morning on Friday, especially for Chris. Chris, I can't have you getting home late on a Friday because you missed your train again!