An Apology, and Two Big Wins Last Night

Now I've done it. I went and won a qualifier for the FTOPS Main Event last night, and now there's gonna be trouble. Why, you ask? Because as you may know, the FTOPS Main Event is next Sunday, February 18, and it's at 6pm ET. 6pm. A hallowed hour in the Hammer household. As I've mentioned before, 6pm is prime dinner, bath and bedtime for the Hammer Girls, and now I've gone and qualified for a tournament that I just have to play in at that very time. WTF do I do now? Well I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me start from the beginning with last night's play.

First off, even before I get to last night's play, let me explain a little more about the full tilt situation that I wrote about yesterday. A nice man named "ftpdoug" left two nice comments at the end of yesterday's post sometime overnight last night, where he basically explained what happened with the outage on Sunday. Doug's comments jibe as well with the money that was in fact sitting in my full tilt account when I got home yesterday, which is good news. Let me start from the beginning, as since I used this medium to rant like a crazed lunatic yesterday, I think it is only fair and decent that I say my peace here today as well.

First off, Doug says in his comment that when I won my weekly HORSE satellite last Thursday, it did not in fact say anything about being a 30k guaranteed tournament. Now, I can't go back and verify that now (I wish I could). I do seem to remember seeing that "30k", but I suppose Doug may be correct that I am mis-remembering what I've seen from winning those nightly 8:45pm ET satellites to the nightly 30k guaranteed tournament 4 or 5 more times last week (including again last night btw, when I entered the money positions in first place overall, despite donking early and often out of the actual 30k once it finally ran last night at 11pm ET). Doug also says the HORSE guarantee was only 20k last Sunday as well, which I'm sure is easily verifiable (I didn't play). So I'm going to take Doug's word for it on this, in which case I suppose I owe full tilt a public apology for claiming they changed the amount of the guarantee only after I won my satellite. My bad, and I mean that. It's not the first time I've ever said something incorrect on the blog, and I assure you it won't be the last. But like I said, if I used this medium to rant yesterday, then today I am using it to make things right on that point and apologize to you all and especially to full tilt for my error.

Secondly, Doug also says they were down for more than 4 hours on Sunday night, not the 1 or 2 hours that I had mentioned. I never meant to suggest that I knew how long the site was down for -- as I said in the post yesterday I gave up and hit the sack at around 1:15am, just maybe 75 minutes after the outage began -- but to the extent that in my fit of rage I said I knew it was only an hour, I again need to apologize here. And, assuming as true the fact that the site was down for 4-5 hours, that certainly goes a long way towards the argument that full tilt would not shut things down on purpose, giving up all their rake and tournament fees for that long a period of time, just to get out of paying some of their guarantees. Even on the night of the biggest overlays I've ever seen on full tilt. While, as I wrote yesterday, I have my doubts whether full tilt makes 80k an hour in rake and fees, I do believe they make more than 80k in 5 hours of rake and fees, so if the site was in fact down for 5 hours on Sunday night then I will have to back off from my previous statements that this was done on purpose. I will say it is highly coincidental that the outages occurred on the biggest overlay night I've ever seen on full tilt, but I'm not going to say they shut the site down for 5 hours just to get out of paying off on those overlaid guarantees.

Now, many of you are probably wondering why I'm being so nice today, after going off like a madman yesterday. Well, if you read Doug's comments, you will see the major point here, which is that full tilt did in fact make a mistake in their original payout to the players in this tournament, and they did send me the wrong email claiming that all players (even the busted ones) would be refunded their buyin and that's it. What in fact happened (you can read Doug's comment to yesterday's post for the full list of payouts) was basically just what my post yesterday said should happen, that the site did follow its own stated tournament payout policy for voided tournaments due to technical difficulties, and I was paid $416.71 for my 11th place out of 48 remaining players. So this is the extra $200 I knew I was owed from that tournament, and, along with a couple of apology emails and now the comments from "ftpdoug", I have to say that full tilt ended up handling this matter with extreme grace and tact. Much more tact than I showed in my recocku-rant yesterday, that is for sure.

So there it is. Full tilt is back in my good graces, my great graces actually, after making a mistake, owning up to it, apologizing and making good on fixing the error. So the good news is, I won't have to go find out where the kahnawanake tribe (or whatever it's called) is located and go bomb their servers this week like I honestly thought I might yesterday. And I want to say a sincere thank you, and again an apology for any inaccuracies that might have been included in yesterday's post -- all unintentional of course -- to full tilt for handling this matter correctly and promptly. Full tilt really is the best online poker site out there, as I'm sure most of you know, and I'm not just saying that because they fixed this situation quickly and correctly yesterday. That's why I play there every single night. I have money at pokerstars but I can hardly find a tournament I even want to play there anymore these days, not with all the winner's choice, horse, FTOPS and big guaranteed tournaments going off all the time every night over on full tilt. They're the best, and the customer service has come through for me here. So thank you full tilt, especially because your quick resolution of my issue here led me to be willing to play at your site again last night where I scored another big win.

So yeah, the very first thing I did when I got home last night was check my full tilt cashier account, and I very quickly noticed that I had clearly been paid a lot more than just the $216 refunded buyin from the HORSE tournament. I hadn't gotten a reply to my latest email from yesterday morning yet, but with the proper amount of money credited to my account, I knew things were right. And with that, as I mentioned, I played my usual 30k satellite at 8:45pm ET, which I thoroughly dominated and ran the table in first place from around 20 players left down to the 12 who won our seats to the nightly 30k. Then, at 9:30 I played my third-ever rebuy tournament on full tilt (remember this weekend when I won my seat to the FTOPS rebuy tournament on Thursday, February 15 in my second-ever full tilt rebuy event). The rebuy I played was the nightly (I think) 9:30pm ET satellite to the FTOPS Main Event, which is a great tournament that carries a $14 buyin (plus rebuys, of course, and one add-on), usually attracting around 35 players it seems (this thing is brand new on the nightly schedule, but so far that's been where it's at). In the end, I did my usual double-buyin before the first hand, and I ended up buying in one other time as well when I dropped slightly below the 1000 chip starting stack about 10 minutes before the end of rebuy hour. I was playing at my shitey pc while the Hammer Wife was on the good computer, so lucky for you all I don't have any screenshots of the first couple hours of this thing.

I also don't have any screenshots of the first couple hours of the Hoy last night, which went off with its usual 20 players vying for its usual $200 first prize. Fuel55 was on a quest to become the first ever three-peater at the weekly Monday night Hoy tournament, and the other 19 of us were on a mission to stop him from doing just that. Well, it seems that pokerstars had gotten wind of my little tiff with my other girlfriend full tilt, and as such pokerstars seized its opportunity to win me back by dishing up a few choice rivers to me in big pots early, including one bigass suckout as I recall, and before I knew it I was at the final table of both the Hoy as well as the FTOPS ME satellite.

The first one out of the Hoy final table was, unfortunately, Fuel himself, ending his run at the threepeat, but putting in a very solid performance with the three straight final tables, and I'm sure he'll be back to defend what was once his 2007 money lead for this tournament (but not anymore, heh heh heh...). Next out was Astin when I believe someone flopped trips on his high pair, and then went Wes on what I recall was a pretty brutal pokerstars-special suckout. Next, I managed to eliminate fairly new blogger and all-around good read Julius Goat in 6th place on what I recall was a good play by me, but to be honest I don't remember any of the details and I don't have any screenshots because I was still on the old pc at the time.

The first screenshots I do have came shortly after this point, as here is Columbo taking out Skidoo on yet another flopped trips against TPTK:



And then there were four, with the top 3 getting paid as per usual in the MATH tournaments.

I also took a screenshot at this exact same time of my current FTOPS ME sat, which features me at the final table out of 38 original runners:



7th place out of 7 anyone? With only the top 2 winning main event seats, I was more than a longshot here, sitting at nearly a fifth of the leading stack, and only slightly more than a third of the chip count of even 5th place among the players left at the final table. I knew I would have to make some moves and do so fast if I were to have any chance in this thing, but since I also knew I didn't have to win the event but could get my seat by coming in 2nd place as well, I didn't have to be quite so crazy right away. So I made preflop moves with AK, with 44 and with TT, each time chipping up a bit by stealing the blinds, and in one case by restealing a steal-raise as well from my immediate right to help get me out of the cellar in this thing.

Meanwhile, here is me taking my first lead in the Hoy, still on the bubble with four players left:



and just two hands later, Columbo eliminated a shortstacked Donnie here:



when Donnie simply picked the wrong time to push it before the flop, and the bubble had burst, with Columbo, myself and Chad securing the money payouts from last night's Hoy tournament.

Around this time was my biggest and most fun hand of the night in the FTOPS ME satellite. With me still in 6th of 7 players remaining at the final table, I got a little crazy and reraised allin against a guy I figured for stealing when I was holding the monster of all monster starting hands (for a blogger, anyways):



Unfortunately, he called me and flipped up AK, showing me just how wrong my read had been. Even more unfortunately, he nailed top pair on the flop. But fortunately, I hit the flop pretty good myself with my hammer:



Hah hah! (said like Nelson, naturally) This guy of course had some choice words for me for the next several minutes in the chat, but I tried to be very gracious with him as I know what it's like to be knocked out of a big final table by some clown playing the hammer. And this set me up with a nice big stack for the run at the two main event seats up for grabs.

About 5 minutes after that hammer hand in the satellite, I made a big call on Columbo here:



and I moved to heads-up play against tournament specialist Chad with a 18-12 chip lead, barely meaningful at this point in the event. I wanted to win but it's not like I can ever feel comfortable or confident against a guy like Chad who has had as much tournament success as he has. So I knew the guy would try to be wiley, and I wanted to do the same, which mostly consisted of me slowplaying almost every hand, in the hopes of picking up a monster I could also slowplay and hopefully trap Chad for all his chips. Chad, on the other hand, surprised me more than anything else by folding a lot of hands preflop in heads-up play, a move which I try to almost never do since it is rare when either player has a real playable hand either before or after the flop when heads-up. Anyways, I briefly lost the lead to Chad, thought it might be over, but then I was able to take a small lead back with a couple consecutive flop bets and raises, and then eventually this hand happened where I flopped 2nd pair decent kicker in a hand where Chad had not played preflop as if he held an Ace, so I went for the min-reraise here:



putting Chad allin, which he called and showed this:



Needing only to dodge a 3 or two running cards to net me my second Hoy title of 2007. Chad's draw did not hit:



and I took down the Hoy for my second win of the year!



So congratulations again to our three cashers -- Columbo for $80 for 3rd place, Chad for $120 for 2nd place and myself for the victory and the $200 first prize. And here is the updated Hoy money leaderboard for 2007, including last night's stunning results:

1. Hoyazo $400
2. Fuel55 $350
3. VinNay $310
4. Chad $120
4. Zeem $120
6. Ganton516 $114
7. NewinNov $90
8. Columbo $80
8. PhinCity $80
8. jeciimd $80
11. Manik79 $76
12. Julius Goat $60

God I love seeing my name up there, don't you?

Anyways, back to the satellite. So as the Hoy ended, I was sitting in 1st place of 5 players remaining at the satellite final table, having just eliminated the short stack with my ATs preflop against his QTo that he had pushed with. Then I won another huge pot here, when I pushed allin with AJs (notice I pushed allin, not called allin with this awesome hand. And it was sOOOted after all) and hit an awesome river card to bail me out of what had been a race situation preflop:



This gave me my first significant chip lead of the tournament, and suddenly I began to think I might actually win this thing after all. Only needing to make the top 2 spots to win my FTOPS main event seat, and in first place with 5 players left including one very short stack, I had to like my chances if I could just stay calm. But aggressive, as I knew I would need to steal a lot in order to maintain control over the other stacks at the table here. So I did just that, aggressively stealing when in good position to do so, and 25 minutes later we hit the third break, with me having opened up a sizable lead over the rest of the table:



Shortly into hour 4 of this satellite, the two short stacks went at it preflop, one player with TT and the other with QJo, with the Tens holding up for the victory and bringing the total players left down to 4, with 2 of us winning the main event seats. I continued to bet very aggressively, but trying hard only to do so in smart, strategic spots where other players had already shown weakness. So I bet and won on flops when I held nothing but 6-high, when I sensed the other players in the hand were not willing to risk their shot at the main event with whatever they held. I won several pots in this way, betting aggressively against perceived weakness, and was barely ever caught. The few times I got reraised and I had shit, I folded, using my big stack as a crutch to make sure I still was positioned where I needed to be, and never raising so much on a steal that my stack would be severely crippled if I had to lay down to a reraise.

Eventually I called the new table short stack's allin with my A5o, and was ahead preflop to QJs, which held up for me as I left the table with just three players left, with two seats up for grabs (and about $250 going to 3rd place as well, so not a total loss for anyone at this point):



I did fall briefly down from my perch atop the chip leaderboard shortly after we got 3-handed, after getting reraised twice in a row on steal-bets from me, taking me down to this point which definitely had me bummed for a brief while:



But with persistent and continued betting into aggression, I managed to rebuild my chip lead. I'm talking about plays like this:



after three checks on the flop and one on the turn, and plays like this:



after it checked around on the flop as well. And of course let's not forget this, from UTG no less:



Man did the hammer save me last night, on more than one occasion. So with moves like this, being willing to risk my FTOPS main event seat chances on a well-timed aggressive move at the pot after a clear showing of weakness from the rest of the players at the table, I was able to rebuild my stack up to over twice the 2nd place stack, and nearly 6 times the third place stack, getting myself back into excellent position to take one of the two main event seats to be awarded in this thing.

And, because of all these aggressive moves I was taking, and I'm sure all the hammers I showed at this final table -- three of them at least -- didn't hurt here either, when I finally picked up an actual hand and did my standard UTG preflop raise here:



I got some action from what was clearly another strong hand, and of course I called this allin bet from the table's short stack:



and BOOOOoooooom!



I was in!! In the end, I won the entire satellite:



and now I am officially registered for the main event of the FTOPS next Sunday the 18th at 6pm ET.



And now this takes me back to where I started today's post. How the fuck do I get the Hammer Wife to let me play in the Main Event at 6pm on a Sunday night? As I've written about here many times, the Hammer Wife and I have an understanding. I play online poker only ever after the kids are asleep. Ever. And I barely ever play live, maybe 4 or 5 times a year at most, so that's not really an issue, as I'm basically never missing any family time to play poker. Basically never. But now this. On a Sunday night at 6pm. What do I do? Now, Hammer Wife is generally a very reasonable person, and to her credit I have to say she has certainly gotten to be a lot more understanding about my poker play as I have continued to win money from this addiction habit hobby of mine over the past couple of years. But our system works. I never try to play during the day or during any possible family time, and she doesn't kick my ass so much about my poker play anymore. But, of course, this FTOPS Main Event will be by far the largest poker tournament I've ever played in, with I believe a $1.5 million guaranteed first prize, and all the big pros playing in it. So I have to play it. I have to, don't I? So what do I do to get Hammer Wife on board?

Ten bucks to your pokerstars account to whoever comes up with the suggestion or idea that works with Hammer Wife for this. And nobody gets paid if Hammer Wife reads this post and approaches me about this on her own, which is always possible as on occasion I will look over and catch her reading hammerplayer, which is always a surprise to me. But I have simply got to find a way to be able to play in this thing. Somebody please help!