No New Hotness

Yep, that's right folks. No new tales of hotness to regale you with from last night. I don't feel like my hot streak ended -- much the contrary, I played really great last night overall -- but I had nothing of major note (to me) to show for it this morning. I mean, I did play in the WWdN for the second straight week after a several-week absence as the Hammer Wife and I taught and re-taught the Hammer Girls to go to sleep like normal human beings. I final tabled the Wheatie last night, eventually going out in 6th place on a minor suckout where I had one-over-and-one-under my opponent's two cards allin preflop as a short stack, and he spiked his top card to send me home. I played awesome to get to that point in the Wheatie, make no mistake, and I love my two final tables in two appearances since rejoining the WWdN crowd. But I am left with a sour taste in my mouth, partially because of losing when I was ahead to be eliminated, and partially because of my two-time inability to win my first WWdN naming rights from the resident naming target last night, CJ.

First off, let me begin by saying that I basically never, ever get Wil or CJ at my table in the WWdN, despite having played in the thing probably 50 times over the past year and a half or so. So I've had very little opportunity in my WWdN career of even thinking about getting this thing named after me. But around the middle of the tournament last night, CJ showed up at my table, and I figured I was going to be more aggressive with him than I would otherwise prefer to be, in an effort to seize the rare naming rights opportunity when it finally presented itself to me in this thing. I had more chips than CJ, and I viewed this as basically now or never to see my name in lights, officially.

Shortly after I began playing with him, CJ put in what looked like a standard 3x steal-raise from the button, and I looked down to see a pair of 7s in my hand. I thought it over, figured I am almost certainly ahead here, and I wanted those naming rights, so I went ahead and put CJ allin on the reraise, hoping for a call. Praying for a call. I got the call.

KJs. My mothereffing nemesis hand of all time, especially in blogger tournaments. But I loved it. How could I be happier than to be a slight favorite in a hand to win my first WWdN naming rights, and to do it against my greatest enemy of all poker hands, right? Wrong. Jack on the turn, and Mr. Lucky lasts another day.

At the final table, I once again tangled with CJ who by that time had amassed quite a nice stack size. Nonetheless, a few good plays and one elimination by me later, and I had slightly more chips than him, and he had just raised it up again 3x preflop, but this time from early-middle position, indicating to me that he almost surely had a good hand. I, however, was in the small blind with pocket Jacks. I mulled it over, figured I was almost surely ahead again since I do have the 4th best starting hand out of 169 possible hands in holdem, and pushed in just enough to cover CJ's stack (to the dollar -- no reverse hoying here when I need the actual elimination to win my prize). He quick-calls, and this time shows me...



















Pocket Queens. My other fucking nemesis hand! Of course CJ's biatches held up over my Jacks, and I was crippled while CJ's stack grew once more.

So, why the sour taste in my mouth despite my second straight WWdN final table? Well, I got beat from behind to eliminate me a few hands after CJ's second crushing of me, and along the way, I lost with 77 to an allin call with KJ, and then with JJ to QQ, both at the hands of CJ who had the naming rights I was so targeting last night. At least I have one bit of happy news to report, which is that in the end it was my boy jeciimd outlasting CJ to take down his first WWdN, and in fact his first-ever "major" blogger tournament as far as I know, which is something I know he was in to. So congrats to jec, who has the same frustrating streaks as all of us who play regularly online, but is clearly seeing his game improve by the day like so many of us when we start getting involved with the blogging crew in general. Now if we can just get the guy to start up his own blog....

Anyways, I also played in the Winner's Choice $216 buyin tournament last night at 9pm ET, where I also played great. I had well-known internets player JohhnyBax two seats to my right for the first hour of the tournament, and I have to say, I abused the guy. I think I won 6 pots in which he and I both stayed in to see a flop, and I definitely never lost a pot to him the entire first hour until I was moved away. I raised him out of one or two pots with strong hands, and I even bluff-raised him off of one pot when it was seethingly obvious that he had nothing, and I remember being disappointed in how easily I read him when he quick-folded his hand. For a major internet pro, I found his play last night, at least while I was there with him, to be very, very average. Almost 25k-like.

As I said, I played really, really well in the Winner's Choice tournament, getting me up into the top 10 players with 60-something left (154 players started the tournament). Just as I was starting to think I could really nail this thing, I ran my JJ from the big blind into AK from the button for a mountain of chips preflop, and you can guess what happened. I was still alive, though, and due to my great performance leading up to that point, I still had a decent stack size, when two hands later I duped some clown into moving allin on me on the flop with his pocket Jacks on a board of K94 rainbow, when I actually had AK and was in great shape. Until, that is, the third Jack hit the river, and IGH in the upper 40's overall. So, again I played really well in this tournament that is definitely one of the consistently toughest fields I play in, and I look forward to my next opportunity to get this shiat done and get my big poker goal for 2007 out of the way early in the new year.

Tonight I should definitely be in the Mookie on Full Tilt, always probably the most fun blogga tournament I play in every week, and you should definitely join in if you have never before (or even if you have). It's Wednesday nights, 10pm ET, and the password is "vegas1" as always. I'm on fire lately, so I'm setting my sights on another final table and hopefully another run at another of my big poker goals for the year, taking down the only regular blogger tournament that I haven't already used and abused. See you then!