WPBT Returns, Chasing Rivers and Razzing With Jesus

Last night was a fun night of poker for a change. Well, scratch that. Satelliting my way into the 30k 6-max nlh tournament on full tilt for the 9th time this month last night, and entering the top 15 seat-paying spots in that satellite in first place overall, that was fun. Entering the third hour of the 30k in 9th place out of 90 remaining players, staying up playing poker until the wee hours of the morning just like the old days, that was fun. But at 2:06am ET, down to 47 players remaining with the top 42 players getting paid in the 30k, open-raising KTs from the small blind into a big-blind special holding pocket Jacks and failing to connect with the board was not all that fun. Two hands later, pushing my short stack allin preflop with pocket Jacks and running into pocket Kings was not nearly as fun either. And bubbling out of that thing in 46th place out of 340-some players, was most definitely not fun. But I'm not killing myself over my play there. Anyone who plays these 6-max tournaments knows how much they are basically steal-fests. I stole and stole and stole my way to near the bubble, so I'm not gonna beat myself up over doing exactly that same thing but getting burned near the end there. And the Jacks vs. Kings thing, it's just terrible, horrendous luck, but to be honest, I hit a major suckout about an hour earlier when I was allin and drawing to just two outs on the river, so what comes around goes around I guess. To be honest, this was the best run I've had in a nlh tournament in probably a few weeks, so overall it was a positive thing I suppose.

Actually, another thing was really disgustingly un-fun last night as well, come to think of it. Last night I played in Al's Riverchasers tournament. I sat at the same table for the entire two hours or so I was in, sitting with fellow bloggers and WPBT progenitors Byron and Columbo for nearly the entire time -- that is, until Columbo eliminated Byron by hitting a draw of some kind on the river as I recall. At first this was fun, as I started off hot when I eliminated riggstad, the guy who Al calls "the boss man" in this tournament, on like the third hand of the tournament, when my limped-in K5o nailed the flop of K54. I bet out on the flop, riggstad raised me, and I instantly put him on a decent King. With top two pairs and a limped-in pot, I wasn't putting him on anything ahead of me, but as I've seen the play in this thing before I figured this guy will stick with me if he has anything good, so I just went ahead and pushed right there. He called with KQ, and for once my dominating favorite held up early in this tourney, making me the early chipleader out of I think 65 players overall.

Another fun thing about Riverchasers yesterday was that I managed to get pocket Aces dealt to me not once, not twice, not three times but four times in just a couple of hours. Yet even this still managed to end up not being fun for me, as I lost with the first pocket Aces early on when 4 to a high straight landed on the turn and I was forced to fold to a clear made straight. The second time saw three high soooted cards hit the flop, and I was forced to check all the way to the river before taking down a tiny pot with my Aces. Then I lost the third pocket Aces about 90 minutes in when a clown with 77 ended up rivering a despicable inside straight. Two hands later, down to just two tables left in the event, I found pocket Aces again, with some fool already raising 3x UTG, so I pushed my shortish stack at this point, knowing I would get a call. I did, from another clown holding another pocket 7s. As I typed "wonder how I'm going to lose this time?" into the chat, no sooner had I hit "enter" and sent that message that the flop came 972, and IGH. Disgusting. Anybody else out there ever lose with pocket Aces three times in the same tournament? I doubt it. If that had ever happened to anyone, me thinks it would be me. But that fucking sucked. Though I have to say I thoroughly enjoy playing in this tournament overall, and I thank Big Al for hosting as always and look forward to playing it again soon.

Near the beginning of the Riverchasers tournament, Columbo and I decided in the chat to play in the 9:45pm ET razz mtt on full tilt, as the system announcement said Chris "Jesus" Ferguson would be playing in this $5 event, and that really was a lot of fun. Me and a lot of other guys like me joined up based more or less solely in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Jesus himself, and when I sat down to my starting table, there was Jesus, sitting two seats to my right. And, for those of you who've never played a big tournament with a big pro at your table, let me tell you -- the chat and commentary directed at the guy was insane. I don't know these pros do it, honestly. I mean, Jesus must have had his observer chat turned off, because there were no less than a hundred fuckdonks at that table, making all kinds of nice and not-so-nice commentary, accusations, jokes, etc. toward him. Jesus, as is his way, was very quiet overall at the table, and frankly he played some horrible razz. I think in the end he busted out in 211th place out of like 350 players, and he only won one pot in the entire hour-plus I sat with him. I played great early, winning a few pots from the former WSOP main event champion known to be one of the headiest poker pros in the world today, but in the end I succumbed to the hatefulness that is razz, busting in 100th place when my 7-low on 4th street failed to improve and I lost to a 9 low drawn at by an uberdonkey. Ahhh razz. You fucking whore.

OK well before I run, ths biggest announcement I have today actually relates to a private tournament going down on Sunday over at full tilt:



That's right, the WPBT tour is back in da house for 2007, with the first event starting things up at 9pm ET on Sunday January 28. This will be the first event of several scheduled for the year, and assuming the fucking U.S. government allows us to keep playing together online, the WPBT is, to me, the single best opportunity for the poker bloggers of the world to make a splash and show their skills. Yes the weekly blogger tournaments are always fun, but the WPBT will rotate many different poker variants, and it always brings out the best players among the poker blogging crew. So, if you have a poker blog -- new or old -- and you're looking to test your poker mettle against the best and brightest that the poker blogging world has to offer, or you're a new poker blogger trying to get some recognition through your great skillz (or suckout powers), then be there this Sunday on full tilt for the first event of the new 2007 WPBT season.

Edit: Miami Don has got another great post up today with odds on the favorite bloggers in the 2007 POY race. Go check it out and make your predictions for the series, the first event of which is on this coming Sunday night.

See you then!