Asleep at the Wheel, and the Hoy Recap

Just a quickie post today (quickie for me, anyways), as I didn't really play a whole lot of poker last night, and didn't have much in the way of results either. Well, let me rephrase that. I final tabled the Hoy before busting out to the eventual winner and now back-to-back champion Fuel55, and I also cashed in the nightly HORSE mtt on full tilt. As those were the only two tournaments I played in yesterday, I suppose the night could be looked at as somewhat of a success. But I don't actually feel so great about either of them, as I really slept my way through the two tournaments.

Literally.

See, here's the thing. Two nights ago, you may recall I final tabled the nightly 30k guaranteed tournament on fulltilt for the first time. I played great and had a real blast fighting my way through to the end after several failed attempts at a deep run in this thing, which I really focused on in January after discovering those two juicy 8-9pm ET turbo satellites into every night's 30k guaranteed event that I've written about here several times of late. So the good part is that I can get (and have gotten) in to the $109 buyin 30k guaranteed tournament on the cheap every time I've played it this month. On the bad side though, the tournament itself does not start until 11pm ET. Now, 11 o clock for me is acceptable if it's a smallish, turbo-style tournament, like the Mookie 2nd Chance for example, where I have confidence that the thing will be over within a couple of hours and there won't be 300 people to wade through in order to reach the end. But, a big "true" multi-table tournament that starts at 11pm ET is not exactly good for me, and here's why. I final tabled it the other night, winning a nice cash in the process that should keep me from needing to make another Walgreen's run for the Gift2Go Visa cards for a good little while here, but to do so required me to stay up until around 4:30am ET. And as if 4:30am isn't bad enough, I have not only a job that I generally go in early to, but I also have two beautiful Hammer Girls who wouldn't know how to sleep much past 6am no matter how late they were up the night before and no matter how sick, tired, or sick and tired they are.

So, skip ahead to last night. Going on literally 1 hour and 40 minutes of sleep, I worked a full day, came home at my normal time and put M, my oldest daughter, to bed after a typically long struggle that involved several books, more than a few piggy backs and a whole lot of negotiation and dealmaking before the lights were finally off and all was quiet on the western front. Then Hammer Wife and I ate some dinner and watched a couple more episodes of our new favorite tv show on DVD, 24. At 10pm ET I logged on for the Hoy as well as the 10:15pm ET HORSE tournament on full tilt, but as soon as the lights were down and Hammer Wife went to bed, my eyes starting feeling droopy. No, not exactly droopy. Let's say "leaden" instead. It probably wasn't 10 or 15 minutes into the Hoy before I caught myself falling asleep for the first time. In fact, in the hour or so I was in the Hoy, I bet I timed out and fell asleep at the computer at least 3 or 4 different times. I would like to formally apologize to all of last night's participants for slowing things down and probably causing a lot of you to type in the normal "zzzzzzzzz" comments to me, which I deserved. But hey you were right -- I actually was sleeping! I needed it. As it is I only usually get 4-5 hours of sleep a night, tops, but even I can't really burn the midnight oil one night after getting just basically an hour and a half of shuteye, and last night was no exception.

Anyways, as I said I ended up waking up enough to call an allin on a K64 board with my pocket Jacks, running into Fuel's pocket 6s for the third (yes that's right, third) time I would run into a flopped set in just under an hour of play in the Hoy last night, and I mercifully headed home in 8th place there. As I mentioned, in the end Fuel rode the chip lead through to the cash, eventually overcoming some suckouts and fighting all the way to victory for his second consecutive Hoy title, something that I believe only my home game guy drraz can claim in addition now to Fuel. I would love to give some more details of Fuel's incredible run last night, but as I was asleep I don't have any details to give, so go check out Fuel's blog where he has a Hoyazo-esque writeup of last night's affairs (minus the screenshots of course, I own the patent on that idea). Congratulations to Fuel for winning the $150 first prize, in addition to NewinNov for 2nd place ($90) and to Goat for third ($60).

So here is the updated money leaderboard, including last night's results, through four MATH tournaments so far in 2007:

1. Fuel55 $350
2. VinNay $310
3. Hoyazo $200
4. Zeem $120
5. Ganton516 $114
6. NewinNov $90
7. PhinCity $80
8. jeciimd $80
9. Manik79 $76
10. Julius Goat $60

Congratulations to everyone on the top ten list so far, and I look forward to seeing you all next week for more donkery, and hopefully to take down Fuel from his perch atop the money list after two straight wins here at the Hoy.

Anyways, I remember waking up in my chair enough to see the first break of the HORSE tournament last night, and as I remember I was in the top 10 of players with I believe 79 people remaining (155 runners began, as I recall) after a huge pot in LHE when I flopped a set on a KQT board and got AK to cap me on every street (what a clown) and another huge pot in O8 where I also flopped top set with KK in my hand on a board that ended up having no low hand available, and where my opponent had AA in his hand and simply could not accept that all my raising meant his two pairs were beat by my hand. So despite being in great position heading into hour 2, I knew I simply didn't have it in me to continue, and so I got up and went to sleep.

Waking up this morning I was surprised to see the window on my screen informing me that I had finished the HORSE tournament in 19th place for 40-some dollars and change! How I managed to blind my way into the cash is truly beyond me, with the Ms getting as low as they do, and the blinds growing as high as they do, nearing the cash in these online tournaments, but somehow it happened. I would think that maybe Hammer Wife played a few hands for me, but she wouldn't know the first thing about Omaha, doesn't know when to Holdem, and only has one Stud in her life and it ain't a card game, and plus she was asleep before me as usual. So, the only rational answer is that I folded my way for at least what had to be another hour into the money positions, which began at 24th place.

What's funniest about this is, when I told Hammer Wife this morning about this story, she replied saying how sad it was that I wasn't awake to win this event, since I had done so well without even playing for the last 90 minutes or whatever. But I explained to her the way this stuff really works. Fold fold folding was I'm sure the only reason I was able to come even close to the money in the HORSE mtt last night. If you play a lot of HORSE tournaments on full tilt, then you know as well as I do that I would have pushed all of my money in on 4th street in razz with four wheel cards in my hand, only to end up with AA2 on my last 3 cards and finishing with a boat, losing heads-up to an assidiot who was in there with an 8-low draw and missed, finishing with a Queen-low that beat my boat. I've been around the block with this tournament enough times to know how this ends up. So kudos to me for discovering the way to cash in the nightly HORSE mtt on full tilt -- get a big lead early, and then turn off the pc and go to sleep. Brilliant. I should write an online poker strategy book with nuggets like this. Gold, Jerry, gold!

OK that's all for today. The good news is I am well-rested now, and looking forward to some pokery goodness tonight as usual. I should be in the WWdN at 8:30pm ET on pokerstars (password is "monkey" as always), and I imagine I'll be back in those 8:15 and 8:45pm ET satellites into the 30k tonight as well, so look for me and hopefully I'll see you at the Wheatie where I'd love to make a major splash and take down my second WWdN and first blogger title of 2007.