Back and Better Than Ever

Wow, what a great time a week away can be. And I mean totally away. Unplugged completely. No web surfing. No blogs. No internet at all in fact. It turns out there was a cyber cafe kinda place in town where my family was, but I never ended up hanging out there. Needless to say I have tons of blog reading to catch up on in the coming week as I try to figure out what the hell happened while I was away. It turns out, the poker world doesn't automatically stop when I'm not around.

Speaking of which, as a quick reminder tonight is once again the latest Mondays at the Hoy tournament at 10pmET on pokerstars:



I will be back and better than ever in the event tonight, as I look to make my triumphant return to online poker in general, and to the MATH tournament in particular, in blazing fashion by destroying the field and taking down hopefully a hefty first prize. If you read this blog, then you're playing in my weekly tournament, right?

Anyways, one of the first things I did upon my return this weekend was check out Smokkee's blog, to find out if he ever made the WSOP Main Event or not. With no posts since he left for Vegas (without his ME seat) on Thursday, I will assume he did not. That sucks. I thought for sure our man would be representing at the Main Event.

Speaking of which, my brother mentioned to me this afternoon over Hammer Wife's special hamburgers for dinner that Phil Hellmuth went out very early. I love it. He also mentioned that Doyle busted early allin preflop with 9s against someone else's 10s. That I don't love. How the F does Doyle of all people get himself allin preflop with just a pair of 9s? That is just not like him. I'll have to read up more about what's happened in the first three days of the Main Event tonight.

Oh yeah, let's talk for a minute about my buddy drraz. I see that the man again cashed in the Hoy tournament last Monday, again in my absence. What the FUCK?! As I've posted here before, the guy knows how to play. But there is no doubt that he isn't that good. There is just no excuse for all of us allowing him to consistently win like this. I think that is 5 top-3 finishes in seven attempts at the Mondays at the Hoy tournament for him. Again I ask: What The Fuck?! I may have to bounty this guy's ass again this week to help incent everyone not to play like pussies when this clown is around.

And the best part is, I talked to drraz today and he complained bitterly about his current status on pokerstars. For those of you who don't know, drraz got a little too "creative" with his trash talk a couple of weeks back in a private tournament that I managed to guess the password of. Drraz was just observing me in the event, and he decided just for fun to get so crazy rude with the guys I was playing with (those of you who play the Hoy tourney on Monday nights at 10pm will know exactly what I mean about this guy), that he got not one but two complaints registered against him for his inappropriate commentary. Long story short, about 12 hours and 25 or 30 bukkake comments later, drraz had his chat priveleges revoked by the brass at pokerstars. After a few choice emails exchanged, drraz now knows he will not be permitted to chat at all for one month, which is about two more weeks from now. As a result, even while the guy keeps winning and cashing in at the Hoy, one of the most prodigious garbage spewers of our time is unable to say anything. Anything. He wants to chat, desperately. He wants to tell us all how much he dominates us. He wants to tell us how little chance we have of ever rising up to his level. But he can't, and it's killing him. Drraz of all people, it is just killing him.

As such, drraz asked me to pass on a message to everyone here in the blog, and I am happy to oblige the guy who has won I think more than triple the amount of the second-biggest lifetime money winner in Mondays at the Hoy. Drraz wants everyone to know that he enjoys our money, he plans to continue taking it, and that, and I quote, "direct deposit is available for a small charge". I love it. And I love even more that we can taunt his ass on pokerstars, repeatedly, and he can't say a damn thing about it. So chime in and embarrass this clown in the chat Monday night in the Hoy tournament. Get your digs in now while you have the chance.

In other poker news, I wanted to pass on another online poker move that I am a big fan of. I saw this first a few weeks ago on full tilt in a game I was playing with drraz, and I think it was a really great way to F someone you really don't like on one of the online sites. There was a guy playing at drraz's table, and he was mouthing off like a real dickwad. Then, out of the blue, an observer jumps on to the table, and before you know it the observer has posted, right in the chat at the tournament table, every single note he has on this particular dickwad player. For everyone else at the table to see. And let's just say, they weren't what you'd call flattering notes on his play. And they were spot on. This note-posting move effectively ruined the dickwad's chances in this tournament, at least his chances of playing his game. It was a pretty debilitating thing to do, and, like the reverse hoy, it's completely legal according to all of the sites' rules and regulations, at least as far as the sites I play at. So that's something for you out there to keep in mind if you ever meet a real fuckbag at an online poker site, and want to do something grand and assholic to him without facing the drraz fate of one month of no chat priveleges. I like that guy's style. I like it so much that drraz and I are trying to get him to play in Mondays at the Hoy this week. Anyone with that kind of attitude is worthy of a seat in our game, at least as far as I'm concerned.

What else....Oh yeah, so I go away for a week, and it turns out that Iak has final tabled about 5 major MTTs in a week. And, as I correctly predicted just a couple of weeks ago, Wes is no longer playing cash games. Wtf?! You guys really go crazy without me to keep you in line for a week. Sheesh.

And on more thing, how could I forget that I played in a live nlh tournament at the Taj Mahal in AC during my week away. There were 138 players entered, and in the end I went out in the upper 20s somewhere, easily my best performance so far in the handful of live casino events I have played in in my life (other than the WPBT live event earlier this month, which I dominated). In the hand I lost, I was sitting with a little over half the average stack, an EP guy raised it up 3x preflop, and I looked down in MP to find TT. Pocket Tens was easily the best hand I had seen all night in about 4 hours of play, and the EP raiser had shown himself clearly to be an aggressive, if not over-aggressive, type of player who I couldn't possibly put on a hand that was ahead of mine. So I reraised him preflop to 9x the BB, hoping to take the blinds and his raise without having to see likely overcards on the flop. Sadly, a man in late position with a large stack reraised my bet allin preflop, and the first guy, the original EP raiser, quickly folded. I took one look at the guy at the end of the table, and I knew he had me dominated with a higher pair. But at that point, I had only 800 chips left and the pot contained around 6500 chips at the time, so I felt I had to call, and I guess just hope he had AK and not what I figured him for. I told my buddy who was watching that I was about to go out, made the call, and he showed me...






Pocket Aces. My old mother fucking nemesis. I have gone out of tournaments more against pocket Aces than any other hand, without a doubt. Of course I failed to improve to one of my two outs in this hand, and I went home very close to the bubble. Running into Aces, again. Fuck!

But the big take-home lesson for me from my first time in AC since my beach trip to the Jersey shore last year this very same week in July was actually something I was very surprised and interested to see. Remember, in July 2005 I had not yet started playing online poker. Other than the 2005 bloggers freeroll on pokerstars, I had never even looked at any online poker site. Now, probably 250,000 online poker hands later, I was back for my first live action against random casino players in a year, since just before I embarked on this whole online poker thing. And you know what? After honing my skills reading other players online, basically learning to excel at gathering information solely from betting patterns, it turns out that, at least for me, it is easy as balls to get reads on random players in a live poker setting. Laughably easy. I mean, I've got the betting patterns thing down pat, but on top of that, I get to watch these guys (through my sunglasses of course -- much like Jordan when he plays live games, I am all about creating an image for the other players to glom on to, and then exploiting that image, in this case that I am a young internet pro who will push with garbage and basically get beat down if the others will simply call my aggressive bets). Anyways, I get to watch not only the betting patterns, but their mannerisms, how they react when they first look at their hole cards, when the flop first comes down, etc. It's almost not fair. I had everyone at my table labeled fairly well within maybe 30 minutes. That guy is tighty-whitey. That guy calls with draws on the flop against poor pot odds. This guy will call a lot of bets and raises preflop, but then quickfold against any showing of aggression on the flop unless the flop slammed into his pocket cards. This chick honestly is as bad and as inexperienced as she looks. It was so easy, it was like taking candy from a baby. And it all led me to my best showing in a live nlh tournament AC in my entire life to date, including my knowing from one look at the guy who eliminated me that I was behind when I went out, but I had to call anyways due to the pot odds and my somewhat short stack. Anyways, that aspect was a really great experience for me. Live poker is almost unfair how clear of reads you can get on people, if you really know what you're doing. And it's clear as day that thousands upon thousands upon thousands of "training" hands online, where you only have betting patterns alone to rely on for your reads, is an extremely beneficial exercise to anyone who takes playing live poker tournaments seriously.

OK that's all, other than to say that I'm glad to be back, and excited for tonight's MATH tournament to get here. I just can't wait to tell an impotent drraz in the chat that he blows goats while I knock his ass out of the tournament now that I'm back in da house and ready to roll. God how I love it when someone else's chat priveleges are suspended instead of mine.