Pimpage, and the FTOPS

Before I forget, I wanted to get this out there to start spreading the word about a new blogger tournament that is scheduled for tonight on pokerstars. CC, who is a good guy and an even better writer, has his blog up on the pokerworks site, and he and pokerworks are sponsoring what looks like a new weekly private tournament, which will run on pokerstars at 9:30pm ET on Thursdays (but not Thanksgiving Thursday). What's really cool about this event is that pokerworks is sponsoring some sweetass prizes as part of the tournament -- go check out CC's blog for more details. Here's the tournament banner, so please feel free to spread this around to friends and other poker players who might be interested:



I plan to make this event tonight, but I never know for sure these days as the Hammer Baby has been kicking my ass nightly over the past week or so. It's gotten so bad lately that the Hammer Wife and I are about to do something drastic. The baby needs to learn to sleep, and to put herself back to sleep in her crib rather than screaming until she gets woken up, so what we're about to do is actually move our older daugher out of the girls' shared room for a few days. We can put her in the living room, at her grandmother's, she could sleep in our room, etc. We have lots of options there, and she (unlike he younger sister) is a great sleeper so that should not be any problem. Then, for a few days we're going to leave the Hammer baby in the crib in the girls' bedroom, and let her cry it the fuck out. Of course we won't abandon her in there all night, but those of you with kids know what I mean. At this point, the kid has been up 3 or 4 times every night for at least a couple of weeks, and we have got to do something. So it looks like starting in the next couple of days, there's going to be some learning to go back to sleep going on in the Hammer Girls' bedroom. Good. It's about time somebody did something with this beautiful baby girl's recockulous sleep schedule. Or lack thereof. So that all may have some impact on my poker playing in the near future. But hopefully not, no one is going to be in our poker room bedroom, so it should be fine at least on that front.

I have to tell you, these days for whatever reason I am totally focused on the FTOPS. It's not that I think I'm actually going to win anything or anything like that. It's just that, as a non-weekend online player, I absolutely never get to play for the really large guaranteed events. As many of you know, I've won the 40k guaranteed on partypoker while I was still allowed to play there (pussassholes!), and I more recently won the 55k guaranteed Rebuy Madness event on pokerstars. But I never even get to try to make a run in a 100k or 200k or more event. Until now. This FTOPS, with the weekday events all running at 9pm ET, is more or less perfect for me and my poker playing schedule. As I've written about here recently, I have already qualified for the pot-limit holdem 200k guaranteed FTOPS event one week from today, as well as the 75k guaranteed razz event that is a week from tomorrow. Both events are at 9pm ET, so I am looking very much forward to getting out there and playing with the big boys in both.

I am also continuing to try for satellites into the other events that occur during the weekday evenings. The Omaha events and the Main Event of the FTOPS, all of which occur on either the first or second weekend, are not going to work for me, so I'm not even bothering to try with those even though I would love to play in those events. I just don't play on the weekends, at least not until late at night just like I do when I play during the weekdays. So, already being in the events on Thursday and Friday, that leaves the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday events for me to try to play my way in to. The thing is, Monday the 13th is Limit Holdem, an event which I do not generally enjoy and which, frankly, is nowhere near my strongest game. So I'm really not so interested in that badboy, personally. But Tuesday the 14th is the 6-max nlh event with a 200k guarantee, and Wednesday is the HORSE event, with a 150k guarantee as well. Those two I am very interested in mixing it up in.

I got online earlier than usual last night after the Mookie's surprise earlier start, so I was able to play in an $8 satellite to the HORSE tournament, but in the end I much prefer the $26 buyin flavor than the $8 ones. With the $8 buyin, yes it is a cheaper buyin and thus less risk, but you also get a structure like last night's where there are 45 players, but only the top finisher wins a seat. Those are downright shitey odds, even for the best raw HORSE player alive, and last night saw me go out near the final table with nothing to show for it as a result. My buddy jeciimd made the final table, eventually busting out in 4th place and leaving Otis with a prohibitively short stack in 3rd place, again with only the top seat paying an FTOPS HORSE seat, so I doubt Otis got there either in the end. Given that I have the bankroll to easily handle this, I would much prefer the $26 buyin HORSE FTOPS satellite, but as I understand it that runs every night but at like 7pm ET, much earlier than I'll ever be able to log on to play in it. What I might do is just make a pact with myself to sit down at some 5-10 or 8-16 razz on full tilt, and as soon as I've won $200 (if I can win $200, that is), then take that money and buy in directly to the HORSE event. I'm really into playing FTOPS HORSE, so hopefully I'll make something happen with that even though the satellites I like are not really available to be for that particular tournament.

6-max nlh is the satellite that I've played at 11pm ET maybe 4 times now. At that time it's a $26 buyin, and typically you're looking at the top 4 or 5 seats out of 40-50 players who will eventually win themselves an FTOPS 6-max seat for next Monday night's tournament. Last night I had my biggest disappointment yet in the FTOPS satellites, as I entered the final ten players of this 6-max satellite with a huge, huge chip lead of over 16,000 chips, at a time when second place was just over 10k, and the bottom few spots left were only a couple grand or so. Somehow, I managed to bubble out despite this huge stack in the earlygoing near the end. I still can't explain it, other than that I tilted my way out but good. With the huge chip lead that I had, I made a mistake in calling a preflop allin from a shortish stack when I held pocket 9s. He flipped up 6s, and my temporary happiness soured quickly as a 6 came on the turn, taking about 30% of my stack in what I know was a poor, stoopid call from me. I know it, I knew it then, but I was so sure I was ahead (and I was, as a 4-to-1 favorite in fact), I just went and called the bet after duping the guy into moving allin on me preflop without really taking any time to think it over. Once I lost that horrific hand, I slowly unravelled. Or maybe not so slowly. I lost another big preflop confrontation shortly afterwards when my 8s went up against another player's Jacks, and then eventually I ran AJ into AK which of course crippled me further, leaving me to open-push preflop with garbage in position and run into (of course) pocket phucking Aces. It was a historic collapse, but one which I am determined to learn a lesson from that will last. I played the complete opposite of how the big chip leader in a multi-seat satellite needs to play down near bubble time, and I will live with the consequences. Winning a couple hundy at 5-10 and 8-16 razz to end the night on a positive note certainly helped my spirits as I headed to bed, but look for me in the nights to come to take down one of those 6-max satellites into the FTOPS event on Monday.

Last thing -- please stop by Cardsquad and take a look at Part II of my first What's He Holding? column there where we will analyze betting patterns and try to put players on specific poker hands or ranges of hands. And again, please also don't forget to check out CC's tournament tonight on pokerstars if you can. Hopefully I'll see you there.