Orpek

That is just one of the many words that me and my boy V use to refer to poker in our emails at work. You know, just in case someone is monitoring anything and might be tempted to go Bobby Bracelet on our asses (not a working link, we gotta fool the narcs). Is that stoopid or what? But I have to do it, because I know my work monitors, and I'm hoping that this throws whatever software they use off. Ghey, but it has done the job so far....

So, last night was fun, but most of the fun was not playing poker. Hammer Wife and I managed to get a sitter for the evening, so we got out of dodge around 7pm and went to the movies, first time in ages for us. Hammer Wife had won the negotiation session in the afternoon, so we were off to see The Break-Up, with Vince Vaughan and Jennifer Aniston. I might have pushed harder to see a different film, but in the end there really isn't a single movie out there I'm really wanting to see just now. I'm definitely not an MI:III or Poseidon kinda guy. We didn't have the kids, so Over the Hedge was out of the picture, and I would rather strangle myself than see Al Gore's new "documentary" An Inconvenient Truth. There are so many jokes I could insert here about what the real inconvenient truth is about this guy, but suffice it to say that after reading the reviews, it is obvious I don't want anything to do with that trashish. So The Break-Up it was. And I have to say, for that kind of movie, it actually wasn't bad. The official Hammerplayer rating for The Break-Up is "Watchable", but for that genre of movie, that's actually about as good as it gets for me. Hammer Wife liked the movie just fine, and I enjoyed the time there over all. Although it's no Okie-Vegas like Trip, Gary, Duggle and SteelerJosh are enjoying right now, it was just great to get out of the house, actually see a movie and just relax with my wife. So that part was great.

Of course, I did miss the WWdN for the first time in weeks as a result. It was well worth it, don't get me wrong, but that's my usual Tuesday night poker plan but this night I was relegated to just railing for the end. Fortunately, I got to watch three good guys make the final three and play for the biggest payouts. You know, just good, honest hard working guys. Hoying folk. You know what I mean. It was Wil Wheaton himself, Matt and Guin for all the marbles. And, with Wil still alive (also a rarity, ha!), that meant that next week's naming rights were still up for grabs as well. So that was something special and is actually pretty rare for the final three in the WWdN, with its eclectic mix of poker bloggers and non-blogger players.

Here were the last three players, from when I was able to start screenshooting, in a near dead heat:



The three players battled it out for about 15 hands, when Wil got crushered at the river when Matt's high card hit the board:



sending Wil home with a nice $82 to show for his efforts in the latest installment of his own tournament. From that point, the action moved like a whirlwind as on the very first hand of heads-up, Guin waited for the flop of 7Q5 rainbow to hoy Matt:



Matt calmly took his time to consider the situation. After much thought, he opted to put Guin allin for his last 1 chip:



FWIW, Matt, the best response to a hoyer is to just call and check them to the river. If you think you're going to win the hand, it is much more bitchslappy to make someone sit around with just one chip to your 85,000, rather than to move them allin and put them out of their misery early. Nonetheless, it turned out that Matt had made another brilliant call, one which held on to win it when two harmless Aces came on the turn and the river:



Congratulations to Matt for taking down what I believe is his first-ever WWdN title, and picking up the WWdN naming rights for next weekend in the process.

On all other fronts, last night was a suckout fest for me. As I mentioned, I was lucky enough to get out to the movies last night, so I didn't get back until much later than normal, and as a result most of my usual tournaments were already running by the time I sat down to play. Although I made the best of it and played in the pokerstars $5 turbo MTT at 10:39pm ET and a party millions satellite, I took it in every orifice, from both poker sites, despite my almost never getting in last night with the worst hand in anything. The suckouts started off innocently enough, as I only lost a few chips in the $5 turbo MTT on this hand, but it carried major foreshadowing for the rest of the evening:



I don't know why losing to a flopped flush bugs me so much, but it just feels much, much worse to me than a guy hitting his 3-outer on the river. Then I lost about 30 minutes later in the turbo event with this hand, for a much bigger pot, and in case where I was dominatingly ahead of a fidiot who thinks A4o is worthy of calling an allin raise with:



Ten minutes later, about 30 minutes into my party millions satellite, I got allin on the turn with a solid pocket pair against a guy who had only three outs to beat me on the river. Yada yada yada and you can guess what happened next:



I mean, what do you say to that? I played this guy like a trombone all the way through the hand, and then get him to move in on me, thinking his Ace had to be good. It is hard work getting in this guy's head so bad, and I am rewarded with the Ace on the flipping river? Sheesh.

But back to my $5 turbo MTT on pokerstars. I managed to amass a huge chip stack thanks to one of the many, many donkey moves you see regularly in this event, which very quickly deteriorates into a serious pushmonkey festival. I was in the top 10 of the tourney with around 350 players left (top 135 make the cash), and this despite the two stoopid beats I've shown above near the beginning of the event. I lounged around, getting no cards, and finally the first break came:



I don't know how many of you frequent this large turbo MTT format on stars, but take it from me, even making it to the first break is quite a feat, and it typically means you're going to cash within the first five or 10 minutes of Round 2. You can see from the picture above, the blinds for Round 2 begin at 1000/2000 with a 100-chip ante, to give an example of just how non-conducive the blinds structure is to smart, patient poker. The blinds just go up so redickulously fast that it's impossible to just sit and survive in this thing for more than a few rounds without being eliminated just like that.

Nearing the cash early in the second round, I lost yet another race where I was the slight favorite going in:



But with a few blind-steals, I was able to make it into the money, in 86th out of 134 places remaining when the money spots started paying. This despite receiving no premium hands and winning only one race out of six thus far in the pushfesttournament. And the problem is that, once you're into the money in this $5 turbo, the winner of the event becomes basically 100% based on pure luck. It's all preflop allin races, and the blinds escalate so quickly that people end up moving allin, and even calling allin, with absolute shitcrap hands like this:



And then of course these trash hands end up sucking out on your better hand on the board, and since you're forced to move in preflop almost every single hand, you end up eliminated. So, I wasn't too surprised a few hands later when this preflop favorite of mine in another huge pot against two uberfishy hands:



turned into this:



Blech! And then, to provide the ultimate symmetry, when I'm the one who needs to win a race for just the second time all tournament long:



of course this time it doesn't happen:



and IGH in 58th place out of 1323 players:



good for a snazzy $17 and change payout. What a percentage as compared to the $5 investment in this thing. Imagine, if only this had been a $5000 buyin instead of a $5 buyin. 17 grand would be looking awfully good in my roll right now. Although, anyone who plays this turbo MTT structure on pokerstars for a $5000 buyin should be criminally prosecuted as it is, right?

Annoying night overall at the tables for me, although congratulations again to Matt for taking down the WWdN. See you tonight at the Mookie tournament at 10pm ET on pokerstars (password is vegas1) -- seriously guys, if you're reading my blog, but aren't playing in the Mookie every Wednesday night, then you are a big fat fish, what do you say to that, and may you be hoyed to the point of elimination by my Hammer on a bluff re-re-reraise to put you out on a tournament bubble.


So I was proud of my performance, but it was a performance in spite of the consistent dickings I received at the hands of pokerstars.