Another Mondays at the Hoy Rant (Waffles This Is For You)

[Begin rant]

Goddammit people! I'm serious about this. This recockulous donkeycalling has got to stop. I mean, where did you fuggin people learn to play poker anyways? Not from my blog, you didn't. I've detailed here many times -- way, way too many times -- how I've been eliminated from a blogger tournament because I raised (or even re-raised) allin preflop, got called by some clown not only holding just two overcards, but holding two overcards that are not AK but which do have at least one Ace or King included, making them very much subject to domination by the exact kinds of hands that are going to be reraising them allin in the first place anyways. I don't know how many times I can say on my blog that calling allins preflop with easily-dominated hands (assuming no short stacks, tilting players, etc.) is bad tournament poker. It just is. It's a fact and there's nothing you or I or anyone out there can do to change that. If you go through life calling preflop allins with Aces that are not AK, with KQ and KJ, etc., you're not going to be a successful no-limit holdem tournament player over time, at least not while you're making a practice of making calls like this.

If you couldn't tell, it happened again to me last night in Mondays at the Hoy. I had done well, made a few great poker plays, fooled some people but good and had amassed a decent stack. I had just lost a decent sized pot, bringing my stack down to maybe 2/3 of average with 11 players remaining out of the 18 players who started the latest MATH tournament at 10pm ET on pokerstars. Blinds are 50-100, and I'm sitting on a little over 1800 chips, when I look down to find pocket Jacks in the small blind. I'm even happier when I see Wes the Big Pirate raise it up 4x from the cutoff in front of me:



This is great. Now the pot is already about a third the size of my current stack, and with an aggro guy like Wes raising it up from steal position, and me holding pocket Jacks in the blinds, this situation is just custom made for me to add nicely to my stack. Given all the overcards to my Jacks, I clearly want to take this pot down now while I'm sure I'm ahead, rather than watch an Ace fall on the flop and then be forced to fold to a continuation bet from aggroboy. So I move it allin, hoping and expecting a fold from the guy who is highly likely not to have anything allin-callable when he open-raises 4x from the cutoff position:



Wes immediately goes into the tank. He is clearly agonizing over this call, which makes it more obvious than ever that I am ahead. It is obvious he does not want to call, but as his time runs down near the end, he makes the crying call and just decides to take his chances with....









Ace-Queen. Sooooooted. Once again, another blogger making an allin call before the flop with a hand that he absolutely, positively must believe he is behind with at this point in the hand. Naturally, the flop contained a Queen, and IGH in 11th place instead of moving on with a large stack into the final table:



Of course. Now I'm going to say something here, and it's going to be very direct. Normally I try to avoid slamming on specific individuals on either of my blogs, because I'm not that kind of guy, but in this case I am most definitely not directing my comments specifically at Wes. Readers here will note that I have complained about this exact sort of donkeycalling (and the concurrent overcard spiking on the flop, turn or river to reward the donkeycalling, which -- let's be honest -- is the real problem here) on several occasions in the past, and with several different bloggers I like. Wes was just the latest in a long line last night, and I want to be clear here that I am not commenting in the least bit on Wes's overall play or his poker playing abilities. Wes has made countless blogger final tables, he won the Party 40k as I myself did earlier this year, etc. So the guy obviously knows how to play nlh, and play it very, very well. I'm not trying to dispute that in any way. However, this play last night was utterly hideotic (yes I just made that word up, and yes it is a combination of hideous and idiotic. Enjoy.).

For the umpteenth time, but with a bit expanded of a discussion, I want to review this play that ended up eliminating me from Mondays at the Hoy last night. Or rather, that ended up letting pokerstars eliminate me from Mondays at the Hoy. Again. So Wes puts in a standard raise from the cutoff with AQs. This is clearly a good play. He's a known aggro guy preflop, especially from steal position, and he's put in his standard stealy-looking raise with a hand that is actually fairly good. I like the play, it's clearly the right move. But then I move in on him from the small blind, and Wes is put to the test.

Notice first my stack size. As I mentioned earlier, I was sitting on about 2/3 of the average stack size at the time, so I was short, but not very. I was nowhere near the desperate stage where I'm likely to push with anything. My M is well over 10 still at this point in the tournament, and in an online blogger event like this, nearing the final table, an M over 10 is actually quite fluffy. So I am not close to desperate here, and there's no reason to believe I'm pushing with nothing. So when I reraise a preflop raiser allin, let's try to put me on a range of hands here.

I've covered this several times here in the recent past, as I seem to be falling victim to these donkeycalls much more often than my fair share, but here goes. If you have sat and played with me any amount of time -- which Wes certainly has -- and you're paying any attention at all, then determining my range of hands here is actually fairly easy. I might be likely to reraise with 2/3 the average stack here with any pocket pair, or perhaps with AK. Possibly AQ, but not likely. If you've paid attention to my play, you know that there is no way I am pushing here with AJ or any worse Ace. NO Way. It is clearly either a pocket pair or AK. Period.

Let me repeat this point, because to me it is of utmost importance. If you have played a lot with me like most of the bloggers have, then you should know with a fair amount of certainty that I am not pushing here with AJ or worse. Period. Every time some donkeycaller donkeycalls me preflop and then donkeysucks me out of a tournament, I find myself writing here about their expectation on the hand, and I always seem to get the same response. It's time that I address that response here. First, the expectation point one more time. If you know how I play, then you know the odds of me having a pocket pair in this situation are probably, say, 90%. And the odds of me holding AK is maybe 10%. If you want to throw in a few percentage points for AQ, feel free. I would be very unlikely to make this move with AQ, but if you want to say I might, I'm not going to spend any time arguing it because the odds of that have got to be very low. And there is zero chance of me making this move with AJ, AT, or any Ax, KQ, KJ, etc. Zero chance, guys. I don't play that way, and I never play that way in any blogger event. So, the odds are about 90% that Wes is a 49% dog, and 10% that Wes is a 20% dog. Why the phuck would Wes ever call under those circumstances, with me nowhere near desperate, and with Wes's stack only a couple hundred higher than mine at this point in the tournament? If you know what you're doing, you know that you are at BEST a 49% underdog in this hand! Why are you calling with that? Is your self control in these blogger events really that poor?

This is the key point I'm trying to hit on here. Every time someone donkeycalls me out of one of these tournaments, I rant about it here, and they all say the same thing. "I've watched Hoy play", they say, "and this guy raises with anything." They all claim that they thought I might just be pushing soooted connectors, or just pure bluffing based on position, or just pure bluffing for no good reason at all, just to pick up some chips. "I've seen Hoy make this move many times before with nothing," they say.

Bullshit!! Please don't use me to justify your donkeycalls anymore, because that's just what it is. A justification. You're playing in a blogger tournament, and you want to act like a donkey and make a donkeycall, so you just did it, and got rewarded by futhermucking pokerstars, what else is new. I have a lot of respect for Mattazuma, who did this exact thing to me in last week's Hoy, I ranted about it, and he took responsibility for his play on his blog like a fucking man. Check it out for yourself. He admits it was a donkeyplay, he admits he didn't think much about it, and he admits that if he was really thinking about it properly, he would not have made the call of my allin preflop raise with just his KJo (my god I still can't believe that fucking call). All of which are true, btw.

To all you donkeys out there who like to justify your donkery by saying things like "Hoy could have been raising there with anything" -- you have the biggest problem of all, guys. Because I do not play that way. You're making that up. I'd love to see the last time I pushed allin preflop with nothing, when I was doing fine in chips and nearing a blogger final table. Show me please. Until then, accept this: If you play a lot with me, and you think I would allin reraise a guy who's already raised it up preflop, when I've got a hand worse than AQ, then you are not observing my play sufficiently. And that is a very dangerous thing. If you think this, then you are not paying sufficient attention to what's going on around you, and you will get burned by that over time, regardless of how pokerstars chooses to reward your donkery in any given instance.

Playing very good poker requires, among other things, a real precision of memory and extreme attention to how your opponents like to play the game of poker. If you want to play at a high level, you need to know how the guy three seats to your right likes to lead with AK when he does not make anything on the flop. You need to know that when the guy two seats to your left smooth calls on the flop, he usually has a monster hand. If you are not paying attention to this stuff at all, or -- worse yet -- if you are relying on incorrect assumptions as to how your opponents play certain hands -- then you are doomed to fail in tournament poker, and you will have no one to blame but yourself.

So one more time, because it bears repeating: If you believe I would reraise a preflop raiser when I am holding AJ or worse, then you definitely need to raise your level of attention to what's going on around the table when you're playing. Period. I suppose that Wes's motivation last night might be more based on the fact that he made his hand look like a steal attempt preflop, and since I am in fact known to reraise a blind stealer with nothing from the blinds on occasion, he might have thought his AQs was ahead here. I still say even with that justification it is a poor call given my likely hand range, but that probably had a lot to do with Wes's decision in particular last night, and if that is the case, then I will change my opinion of that particular call from "hideotic" to just "really bad". But in general, these guys who claim I could have had anything with my allin reraise, so they'll just call me with KJ or KQ or QTo and hope they win it, those are pure donkey moves. Plain and simple. You are playing like fucking donkeys!!!

And one more time -- if you want to donk it up, in a blogger tournament or otherwise, be my guest of course. But please, I beg you, don't use me as the justification for your donkeyplay. Be a man. Take responsibility for and ownership of your donkey play. Smokkee will admit when he's made a donkeycall. Mattazuma obviously as well, he knows where he's at in his game, and I respect that. Lord knows I take responsibility for my own bad play, and I rarely if ever try to blame someone else when I've made a donkeyplay, as evidenced all over this blog.

If you get only one thing out of this blog post, let it be this: Please, for everloving god, please stop calling preflop allins from non-short stacks with just two lousy, easily-dominated overcards. It's bad tournament poker, against me, or against anyone else I can literally think of among the entire blogging community. Think about this -- when was the last time you saw an awesome poker player like a Blood or DoubleAs or Iggy or CJ call a preflop allin with a nice stack against another nice stack when he was holding AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, etc.? Anybody ever remember me making a call like this? Think about it, guys.

[End rant.]