The End of an Era, and the Nightly 30k Satellites

Quick administrative post today.

My hot streak is officially over. I had an incredible run that lasted about 7 weeks or so, but the past two days have seen a sick number of bad beats and critical setups that have run me out of every tournament I've entered. Whereas for nearly two months I was winning those crucial races in the early and middle parts of tournaments to keep me alive and supply me with much-needed chippage to make the big runs, nowadays it's the total opposite. Last night I got allin preflop with AK early in the WWdN, for example, got called by QQ, and the board never even sniffed a high card. Later in the WWdN Second Chance HORSE event, I made it through half the field before getting allin with 2 pairs on 5th street. My opponent called me down with just one higher pair, and then hit another pair on 6th to take me out. So be it. I had a great run, and I am pleased to know that I made the best of it while the going was hot. Now I'm back to normalcy, and I'll have to figure out how I need to adjust the play I'd gotten used to for a couple of months to re-adjust for my new place in the eyes of the poker fuckbags gods. Yes, I just called them that, publicly. F the poker gods. They forsake me, and I forsake them right back. F 'em.

There is only one area where I am still balls hot in the online poker world, and that is the multi-seat satellites. One thing I've gotten really into lately is the nightly 11pm ET 30k guaranteed tournament on full tilt. I've mentioned this before, but back then I was talking about buying in to this tournament for the hefty $109 fee. But recently I've found a serious moneymaker of a satellite into this, which runs every night at 8:45pm ET on full tilt. Actually, there are two nightly sats into this 30k tournament. The first is every night at 8:15pm ET, which is a turbo $6 buyin event that will typically award seats to around 4 or 5 out of the 80-100 players or so who tend to turn up to play. It's a turbo, and at only $6 to buy in, as you can imagine the donkishness is legendary in this thing, and that has made it very hard for me to win a seat by playing in this particular tournament. Having to survive to the top few spots out of 80-100 people mostly playing like uberdonks is not a winning proposition, even for a satellite specialist like me (lately, anyways).

But the nightly 8:45pm ET satellite to the nightly 30k tournament is a different story entirely. This one is still a turbo, but there are two key differences that make it much more winnable. First, the later satellite is a $14 buyin instead of the $6 buyin from the earlier sat. I know that's only $8 more, but the fact that the $6 sat is so close in time to this one, tends to mean that the cheapo donkey-type of players choose to play the earlier turbo madness satellite, whereas the players who are generally slightly more sophisticated and intelligent in their poker play choose to spend a bit more money for a better chance at playing their way in. And the second difference with the 8:45pm ET 30k satellite is that it tends to attract a much larger crowd as a rule. For example, last night's $6 sat had 84 runners, with the top 4 players winning seats. But last night's $14 sat featured over 150 players (the max is 180, btw, but I've never seen that max quite reached, though it's come close a few times over the past week since I started playing this thing). So, that later satellite does cost $8 more, but for that extra $8, you get to only have to finish in the top 16 out of 150, or top 22 out of 170, etc. to win your seat to that night's 30k guaranteed tournament, as opposed to having to finish in the top 5 out of 100 donkeys in the earlier sat.

All this is to say that I am really liking that 8:45pm ET satellite, and both of these sats present a nice opportunity to play in the $109 buyin event at 11pm ET every night for a very cheap price. And my results in this $14 turbo satellite have been excellent of late, including last night where I won my fourth consecutive seat into the nightly 30k. Of course, if I was making any cashes worth mentioning in the actual 30k, you would know about it right here, but still, this satellite has been a tremendous find for me lately now that I've been logging on a bit earlier than I previously had been in the evenings. Of course, my gym schedule is suffering as a result, but hey when I'm winning this satellite almost every single night, it's hard to feel too bad about it. I figure, I can just use my poker profits from the 30k that I'm satelliting into every night to pay for some liposuction or something to make up for the fact that I'm not gymming as much so I can play the satellites.

I do plan to hit the gym this evening instead of playing the 8-10pm ET online poker schedule. But I will plan to be back by 10pm to play in one of my favorite tournaments of the week, every week, and one of my stated goals for 2007 to win: the Mookie. And knowing me and what's been running well for me of late, I will probably be in at least one satellite tonight as well, either to Saturday night's Winner's Choice tournament and/or the Sunday night HORSE 30k, both also on full tilt, easily the best online poker site out there. And they're not even paying me to say that.