A Failed Sacrifice, and FTOPS Here I Come

Today I start with a sad note, as my attempted sacrifice to the poker gods at the Hoy last night failed miserably. Yesterday on the blog I publicly declared a $10 bounty on my head for whoever manages to eliminate me from last night's Mondays at the Hoy on a suckout. I did this because I have been getting recockubeat out of almost every big non-satellite tournament I've played in over the past couple of weeks. It doesn't matter if it's holdem, omaha or razz, hillo or straight, I am getting sucked out on hardcore to knock me out of these things. And with the FTOPS starting for me tonight, there is no way I want to go into my first FTOPS event on this kind of ridickulous roll of tournament suckout eliminations.

Sadly, last night I went out early when I chose (for some reason) to call Fuel's allin on a King-high flop with the nut flush draw and an Ace overcard. From Fuel's strange overbet push on the flop, I knew he was strong but not crazy strong. Trips isn't pushing there. Two pairs isn't even pushing there. I didn't even think he'd push with AK for TPTK, not at that point in the hand. In Fuel's push overbet, I saw a guy who is fairly sure he is ahead here on the flop -- almost certainly some kind of King for top pair with a decent kicker -- and just does not want me to draw out on him. I figured I would take my 12 outs twice and pull a Smokkee and try to double up early. It was a bad decision, I knew I was about a 45-55 underdog to hit one of my draws, and I ended up busting out first out of the 16 players in the Hoy last night.

The worst part about the whole thing is that I never even gave the poker gods the chance to get their sacrifice, as I called knowing I was behind and thus nobody could suck out on me. Instead, armature took 3rd place honors in his first-ever MATH tournament, and CJ ended in second place without even sucking out nearly as much as his reputation might lead you to believe. And winning the Hoy last night, I think maybe even for the second time, was our boy Guin, yet another Canadian to take the weekly Hoy title. Guin played a great game throughout, pushing aggressively with his strong hands but never making the big mistake to cost him his tournament life, as is his usual style. And anytime you can outlast the suckout king himself in a heads-up battle (this one lasted more than 20 minutes as I recall), you count your blessings and take your pats on the back. So congrats out to Guin, as well as to CJ and armature for their cashes as well last night in Mondays at the Hoy.

OK so back to my story. Why does it matter so much that I never gave myself the chance to make me purely gratuitous $10 sacrifice to the poker gods last night? Well, because now my recent curse of redickulous suckout beats is likely to follow me right into FTOPS time starting today. What's that? You don't believe me? OK well then check out the 25k last night -- this hand occurred probably about 15 minutes after my untimely demise in the Hoy without any sacrifice to the poker gods.

I got my most of my chips in before the flop here with what I was sure was the best hand once my opponent failed to reraise me allin preflop:



On the 567 rainbow flop, he quickly puts me allin for the rest of my chips:



Now, obviously he doesn't have a straight here, given that he raised a limper and then called a large reraise from me preflop. And take one look at what happened to Blinders in the 500k guaranteed FTOPS event the other day and you'll see why I would have more or less insisted on getting it allin on this flop myself anyways, so I was thrilled of course when he put me allin, so I could call knowing I was significantly ahead and I was surely about to double up here. We flip our cards with all the chips on the table:



What an idiot! Raising a limper from EP and then calling a large reraise with just A9o preflop in the very early stages of a no-limit holdem tournament? Well at least this one is gonna cost him. The King that fell on the turn was just gravy for me, as I now had trips but was already way ahead of my assponent; the turn King just took away his 3 Aces as outs, leaving him just the four 8s as winners with one card to come. Over a 12-to-1 favorite for me. But never underestimate the power of pissed off poker gods:



What a fucking assy player. It's hard to believe that such an assclown gets to continue on in the 25k while IGH early, left to ponder what could have been. Should have been. This has been happening to me time and time again, in almost every large tournament I've played online that is not a satellite to the FTOPS. I've made some final tables even, and plenty of mtt cashes of late in all different kinds of games, but regardless of that, they all end the same. Me in way ahead, almost always on the river, and almost always I somehow end up home shortly after that, wondering whatever the phuck just happened to me.

Dammit! Now the worst part is, I'm left with this feeling like the poker gods are obviously still angry with me. Probably moreso than they were yesterday even because now I claimed to be offering up a sacrifice last night in the Hoy, but then refused to let myself stick around long enough to even let anyone claim it. What the fuck was I thinking? So now I have FTOPS Event #4, the 6-max no-limit holdem tournament, starting tonight at 9pm ET. I am truly excited for it, but to be brutally honest, I am going into it believing with probably a 98% certainty that I will get busted early, probably the very first time I dupe some jagoff into getting allin with me when he is dead to only 2 or 3 outs. I went through a similar streak to this immediately prior to my WSOP event this past summer in Las Vegas, only to find the suckout streak continue right into that event as then reigning world champion Joe Hachem sucked out a runner-runner flush on me to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

This same thing is clearly on track to happen to knock me out of the 6-max FTOPS event tonight. And probably again and again this week in the FTOPS events I'll be in from tonight through and including Friday night's razz tournament. I hate like hell going into these events with that redickulous thought on my head, but let's be honest here: It is going to happen again. We've all seen these streaks before, and they don't just end one day when you suddenly start playing in a tournament that you're really into for the first time in a long while. Rather, they wear you out, and tonight is exactly the kind of event where the poker gods will look to extract further their pound of flesh from me with the bad beats. 6-max is just such a more aggro game than a regular ring tournament, I am bound to dupe somebody early, and that's the mofo who is going to eliminate me in the earlygoing tonight.

How's that for heading into a big event with the right mindset?

At least I already know how it's going to end tonight. I'll give some thought during the day to things I might be able to do tonight to reverse the curse when it comes to these suckouts. Maybe a $10 transfer to the first player I see tonight who takes a big pot off me with a suckout or something. There's always another one around the corner with these suckout artists.

OK so look for me tonight in FTOPS Event #4 starting at 9pm ET on fulltilt. I will definitely be there. But if you want to see me in action, you better get there early. Show up at 9:30 and you'll most likely have already missed the filthy fucking fireworks show that is Hoy being donked out of the FTOPS. Fortunately there will be several more runnings this week, but even if you do miss the action live tonight, you can certainly check in here tomorrow to see exactly how the poker gods did it to me this time. Fuck!