Mondays at the Hoy (MATH), and Hoyazo = Donkey Redux

First things first. Once again tonight is our weekly online home game on pokerstars. Come one and come all, if you dare:


What: Mondays at the Hoy. NLH Tournament
When: Mondays, 10pm ET
Where: Pokerstars, "Private" tab.
Buy-In: $20
Password: hammer


Second things second. I'm happy to finally put this up on the blog:

I have registered to play in the PokerStars
World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration
code: 7330476

There is a much longer story to this than I would have ever thought. Long story short, Hammer Wife has consistently let her opinion be known that it is just downright unseemly to be playing poker on Fathers Day afternoon, instead of just spending the time with one's family. My points are several. #1, I would love to spend and will of course be spending the entire day (from 5:45am or so on, when the older Hammer Girl generally gets up and starts screaming "Mommaaaay! Daddaaaay! until we pick her up) until 4pm ET with my family. So, to suggest that playing in the World Online Poker Bloggers Championship in the late afternoon is somehow the equal of choosing poker over my family on Fathers Day (or any day, for that matter) seems really silly to me. #2, it's not like I'll be heading out to the track, gettin' juiced, smokin' cigars and just hangin' out with the boys, having Daddy's Time or anything like that. Rather, I will just be sitting in my room on the computer, the door open I imagine most of the time, and I have already offered to help put the older Hammer Girl to sleep when that happens (usually around 7pm ET -- as if I'll even still be in this freeroll donkfest three hours into the event!) and just to sit out of the tournament during that time. The girls and Hammer Wife are more than welcome to come in, talk to me, etc. Now I'm not trying to equate that with me spending "quality time" having a picnic or going to the zoo with my wife and kids. But, don't try to equate it with me heading out to Vegas for a weekend of hookers and blow, either. I'll be right there, I'll be talking to whoever wants to hang with Daddy, and again we're only talking about a couple of hours while the kids are awake in any event. And lastly, although not leastly to me, this is Fathers Day. Shouldn't I be entitled to do what I want on this of all days? I mean look, again I'm not trying to say I should be entitled to do whatever I want, but whatever within reason? I think so. On Mothers Day, I more than encouraged my wife to go out, get a spa treatment, or do whatever she wanted. I even went out and bought her a gift certificate to a spa, and gave her a few certificates good for IOUs where she could go out for any reason and I would take care of the kids. So on Fathers Day, what seems crazier to me is someone telling me I can't do something like this. It's Fathers Day for crying out loud!

So tell me, I would be really interested in hearing everyone's opinions on this. Am I right or wrong on this? Am I being unreasonable here? Is the Hammer Wife right? So anyways I'm going to register for this tournament, and try to avenge my late-first-hour suckout loss from last year when I first created this blog just to be able to play in this event, and then we'll see how much I actually get to play, which will depend of course on how much I'm needed to help around the house. Which I've already indicated I'm more than happy to do. Let me know your thoughts on this.

In other news, I am currently in a poker funk. You all knew it was coming, I knew it was coming, everyone knew my red-hot streak from May and early June was not going to last forever. I was never the hubris type to think it could never end. I knew it would end, and it has. I've been getting cripe cards lately, in cripe situations, and I've been playing like a donkey to boot. Much of my donkness comes from frustration of constantly having to fold preflop to reraises or even re-reraises, or having to fold largeish pots when I miss the flop and get bet at strongly, etc. Some of it though I will just have to take pure credit for myself. As far as I can tell, everyone goes through these phases when they just find themselves making certain moves at the tables, that they know they didn't used to make, and which are killing them. Then it just becomes a question of recognition of these opportunities, and acting (or not acting) appropriately on them in the future. It's almost mind over matter at this point. I think I've demonstrated to everyone, most of all to myself, that I know how to play this game, in particular the large MTTs. I see myself donking around at the virtual tables lately, and it's almost like I'm watching someone else do it, like I'm not really the one in control, clicking the buttons, bluffing away with absolutely nothing early in a tournament. I watch myself the way I played this weekend, and I can't even believe I'm the same guy who won over 12 grand last month with a couple of huge tournament scores. But it's me, it's really me.

In case you don't understand exactly what I'm talking about, let me give you a stellar example of my recent play from Sunday night's Bracelet Race on ftp. Lots of bloggers were in this one, including cracknaces, Weak Player, probably Smokkee though I don't specifically recall seeing him now that I think about it, and Change100, writer of what has long been one of my favorite blogs to read. Change was seated at my first table in the Bracelet Race, and I am so glad that she got to see this play, live and in the flesh (sort of).

So it's early on in the tournament, probably about 30 minutes into the first round. There are a total I believe of 242 entrants, with the top 2 receiving WSOP $1500 event seats, and the next 9 players receiving cash payouts ranging from several hundred down to like $50 for 11th place. I got nothing in the earlygoing, and only managed to steal three or four pots with nada. I was down to just over 1100 chips from our starting stacks of 1500, thanks to a few reraises preflop to which I had to fold my only semi-strong cards, because I wasn't dealt an actual good hand in the entire tourney despite watching three players turn over pocket Aces in the first 36 hands I saw. That's when I look up to find 72o on the button.

Now if you've played with me at all, you will know that I just about always play the Hammer, and just about always for a raise preflop. In this case, on the button, I was definitely planning to play unless there was a ton of action ahead of me that clearly indicated a big hand. In this case, there was not. Instead, it was folded around to the cutoff, who then put in a standard 4x preflop raise from what is definitely a stealy-looking position. Blinds were 15/30 at the time, so he raised immediately in front of me to 120. Here, I knew the guy was in steal position and put in a stealy-looking raise. So I made a significant reraise, a move that I make no apologies for, and which to be honest works about 90%+ of the time when I use it situationally like in this case:



He of course reraised me when it got back around to him, and nobody else was left in the pot:



and by that point I felt pot-committed so I called for my last 300-some chips. And, of course, lost:



Now let me tell you the piece of the puzzle that I left out, the part that makes me an uberdonk. You may notice in the shots above that I already had a note in place for pistolpete, the guy to whom I did the Hammer reraise move here. What's more, I specifically read it right before putting in my preflop reraise with the Hammer in this hand that ended up eliminating me from the Bracelet Race before it even got fun. Here's what my note said, which was based on specific information that I personally observed while playing with this guy:



"s1" and "s2" refer to the positions to the right of the button (the cutoff) and 1 seat to the right of the cutoff. So, here I am desperately trying to tell myself what I've already figured out previously about this player. It's just like when Bill and Ted came back in time to the Circle K to warn themselves about what they'd already lived through in the future ("Bill, strange things are afoot at the Circle K"). I was trying very hard to give myself the benefit in the future of what I already knew to be true at some point in the recent past. But, just like with Bill and Ted, I failed to heed my own damn advice. What, did I not trust the source? Couldn't authenticate it? Why would I ignore my own fucking advice? But that's the donkey in me lately, right there, pure as the driven snow. A guy raised it up 4x from the cutoff. Whereas normally I might put a guy on a steal here, and reraise with almost any two cards, in this case I've already left myself a note that this particular player typically does not try to steal pots, and that when he raises from a stealy-looking position, he has tended to actually have a hand in the past. I noticed this clearly enough and significantly enough in the past to warrant my actually making a note on it, which means I saw it, and then confirmed it a second time at least, before making the note. So my non-donkey self told my donkeyself not to try to re-steal from this guy if he steal-raises from late position. Then he steal-raised from late position, I looked at my note, and promptly told myself (I consciously remember this) that this time he is stealing anyways, so I put in the large reraise, easily pot-committing me at that point regardless of what he had in his hand, and consequently I ended up in the pot with 72o for all my chips. Now let's put aside here what a donkass call he made, calling my allin reraise with just A5s. He is a clown (and believe you me, that's been added as well to my note on him, and he unsurprisingly went out about 12 spots after I did in the tournament on Sunday night). But I'm the bigger clown. Much bigger. Without that note on that particular opponent's play, my Hammer reraise is questionable, and probably not a move that most of you would ever make. But, it is a move that I make all the time. And I personally find it to be justifiable in this situation. Not that I'm saying this is the clearly preferable play or anything -- I am well aware that this is a highly aggressive move -- but I have a highly aggressive game and this kind of play frankly has become commonplace for me nowadays. But making this move when I specifically knew this guy was likely to have a big hand....Can anyone even offer an explanation for this?

See you tonight at Mondays at the Hoy!