Still More FTOPS Talk

OK. Lots to get to today.

First off, I want to say that another blogger put me on life tilt yesterday by a personal attack against me, personally, in their blog. Now, I am the first to acknowledge that many a poker rant has been penned by me on these pages, but you'll notice the key word there: poker rant. If someone has made a piss poor poker play against me, I have often been the first person to rant and rave about discuss the play here -- not the person who made the play, but the play itself. I like to think that I've never personally attacked another blogger here for all of my readers to see. I've never linked someone's blog here just to attack the quality of their writing or the very existence of their blog as sucking. I wouldn't do that, and in my experience, I don't offhand know another one of our ghey little group of bloggers that would do that. Or, I didn't think I knew anyone who would. Until yesterday. And you know what the saddest part of it all is?

I actually thought this person was my friend.

That's right. Before yesterday, though we've never met, we have shared many a chat across the virtual felt, we've given each other words of encouragement in blog comments, and I have on several occasions written right here in the blog about this person's general prowess at the poker table. Something I don't do with many people, mind you. But I guess that was one bad read on my part, one bluff that I just didn't pick off. Oh well. It happens.

What I do want to focus on today though is a few of the comments that were left on this person's blog, to their post that attacks me and my FTOPS Event #6 post from the other day. So here is the first one, referring to me when he says "he":

"He basically bitches that he can't get AA to hold up and that his lows never hit. Isn't there a low in only like 40% of hands?

So his "preflop nuts" only qualify for half the pot 40% of the time. Sounds like variance to me.

I don't know a thing about O8, but I know that he sucks."

Hmmmm. Let's see. So this commenter points out that I bitched that my AA's didn't make winning high hands and that my A2's didn't make low hands in the O8 FTOPS event earlier this week. Is this really not a valid complaint for me to make? I mean, first off, this commenter's statement that there is a low in only 40% of O8 hands is slightly too low to be considered an accurate statement (the real percentage as I understand it is 47% of hands have three low cards to qualify a low in O8). So, in just about half the possible hands, there is a low to be made. And yet, I show on the blog not one, not two, not three, but eight times in just one hour of O8 play where I was dealt an A2 in my starting hand, and failed to make a qualifying low in any of them. Now, I already know that the guy who made this comment doesn't exactly have great poker skills. But can this guy possibly have that much of a complete lack of understanding of math and odds that they don't see the statistical significance of being dealt eight A2's in an hour of O8 play, and not making a qualifying low with any of them? Not even to mention throwing in the three times I was dealt pocket Aces in that same hour, and also failed to win the high hand in any of them? Can he possibly be that out of it? Oh wait....I just now went and checked this commenter's lifetime pokerdb stats. Yeeesh. 'Nuff said.

The other comment to the original blog post attacking me and my blog personally is the following, which, unlike the first comment above, is from a person who has at least had a little bit of success in poker in their lives, as detailed on their blog which I like to read from time to time, and will continue to read despite this silly comment:

"Before I start: I Am Not An Expert O8 Player. I think your [referring to the previous comment above] odds are a little low (too lazy to look them up now), but A2xx is a better multi-way hand - you don't really want to be HU with it. In O8 there are good odds that someone else has an A2, not to mention they could have A2xx with protection for the low etc. etc. not to mention a better chance at the high hand. Playing A2xx like that is a recipe for losing the entire pot, or getting quartered."

For clarity, I added the bold emphasis in the comment above. Actually I will say one thing about the first main point this commenter makes -- in the late stages of any O8 tournament, with escalating blinds, if you're folding a hand with A2 in it because you're afraid you might only be heads-up with it, then you're nuts (although it is true that A2 is a better multiway hand than heads-up). And you're toast in the tournament too, because you don't understand how tournament O8 works then. Period.

Similarly, this commenter also makes the statement that "In O8 there are good odds that someone else has an A2". Does he really think this? Are there really "good odds" in O8 that if one person has A2, someone else also has an A2? Come on. He can't really believe that, can he? Now, change one word in his comment and it becomes accurate. Say instead that "In O8 there are low odds that someone else has an A2". Unfortunately, that one word change makes the statement the complete opposite of what was actually said by the commenter, who again it seems has at best the loosest possible grasp of general O8 concepts and odds.

But back to the emphasized language, where I added the bold into their comment above, in which the commenter says that playing A2xx "like that" is a recipe for losing the entire pot, or getting quartered. "Playing A2xx like that"? Like what? Like, raising it before the flop in the late stages of a limit O8 tournament? Did I go allin preflop with this hand? No. It's a limit tournament. I simply raised. One small bet. In fact, I didn't even reraise it preflop in any single one of the eight hands I showed from my last hour in the tournament where I was dealt A2 in my starting hand and had a short stack to begin with. And in many cases I checked the flop when I didn't nail a low with my A2 right off the bat. But I did raise it up preflop. Do you really think that it is correct not to raise an A2xx hand preflop in the late stages of an O8 tournament, with an M of between 3 and 6 throughout the entire last hour? If you do, all I can say is please play some O8 tournaments with me in the near future. You can name your stakes, and I'll take it. Now, I am all about chiming in in support of one's friends and their blogs with comments on their blog posts -- I do this myself whenever I can for the other bloggers whom I respect -- but why make yourself look downright foolish with a statement like this? Clearly the commenter's very first statement in their comment is more than accurate: You are indeed not an expert O8 player. That much is obvious.

OK I guess that's all I have to say about that issue, other than to formally note here in the blog that I was very hurt by the personal attack against my blog, so hopefully that will officially give the person who made this personal attack some real satisfaction in that they got exactly what they wanted from making the post. To tell the truth, I honestly believe they got even more than they wanted by making that post, because it really put me on life tilt. In fact, by the time I got home, I already knew I didn't even want to play poker last night after seeing this "friend"'s statement about me personally. But, having already qualified for FTOPS #7 (nlh with rebuys), I had to go ahead and play it out. I actually started off playing well, and grew my starting stack of 1500 chips to over 2000 within the first few minutes when I put another player on an aggressive steal, let him bet at me twice and then raised him out of the pot on the turn.

I won a few more small pots over the next 10 or 15 minutes, and then to make a long story short, I got allin preflop with my AQ against what turned out to be my opponent's AJ in a true Monkey Hour special. When the flop came down KQT, I was basically relieved. I mean it. I wasn't even angry. I totally didn't even consider rebuying for another $200, and instead just logged off of full tilt for the night. In my haste I forgot that I had already signed up for cc's Thursday Bash, a private pokerstars tournament that I played in for the first time last week and really enjoyed, and before I knew it the screen popped up with me at a starting table of 7 other bloggers, most of whom I also consider friends and who (I think) feel the same about me.

Anyways, on life tilt, I ended up making not my best play early in that event, pushing in with A7 on a board of 345 when I figured my opponent, Fuel55, to be on the kind of play that he's constantly sending around in his emails, where he basically bets and raises with nothing or not much, and I knew I had a double belly buster staight draw, plus two overcards, so I went with it. Not my worst play ever -- I'm thinking I most likely had 14 outs twice (3 Aces, 3 Sevens, 4 Twos and 4 Sixes), making me the favorite in the hand, and if not then I have to figure against most holdings I put Fuel on there, I am at least a 40% dog if not a significant favorite over a hand like KQ that unquestionably is within Fuel's hand range there (a fact which he will deny, but it's still da troof) -- but when he flipped his pocket 6s my outs were cut to just a few, and I donked out early. And again, no anger. Just relief. I really just wanted to get to sleep and try to forget the whole thing from yesterday. I already feel a lot better about that personal attack post against me here this morning, and more than that, I defend to the hilt this person's right to write whatever the funk they want in their blog. I just can't get over this feeling of disappointment, of sadness, that I misjudged someone so badly as this.

Well, I guess it's not the first time I've misread somebody and surely not the last in the world of poker. And, obviously I need to develop some thicker skin if I'm going to put myself out there like this. But how do you "big" bloggers do it? With all the personal attention and all the mean, angry, depressed, disappointed, jealous, lonely, loser people out there who will say mean things about you the more they know about you and the more successful you seem to become (either in your poker playing or in your blogging generally), how do you just let this stuff roll off of you and keep going on? Even from people you thought would never say or do things like that? How do you just keep going on when you know there are people out there who would do this kind of thing, and say bad things about you personally, and make those bad things publicly available in a medium like a blog where anyone else can see them? How do you just keep doing your thing? Clearly, this is something I need to improve at, and I would appreciate any and all comments on the matter.

OK well back to some actual poker content. So I busted very early from yesterday's FTOPS Event #7 Rebuy event, electing not to rebuy after a guy who called my preflop raise with his assdominated AJ hand went on to flop the nuts with KQT and stack me, making it now 4 FTOPS events and no cashes from me. Tonight is Event #8, the pot-limit holdem event, which is the event in which I did record my only FTOPS cash in last November's FTOPS, and it's a game in which I have been very successful overall in my poker career, so I am cautiously optimistic about tonight's tournament and my chances of making a cash that can hopefully cover my expenses in qualifying for the 6 FTOPS events I am in this year (about $400 total, maybe a bit less but not much). As these events wear on, I have to acknowledge that the odds of me being shut out of the FTOPS are growing, and that's not something I am happy about, but reality is reality and that's the way it's been for me so far in this thing. I've got Event #8 PLH tonight, and then of course on Sunday evening at 6pm ET is the FTOPS Main Event, the $535 buyin nlh tournament with a $1.5 million guaranteed prize pool, and at least a 175k prize for first place. Obviously I'm really looking forward to that tournament, as it will be easily the largest prize pool in which I have ever participated online (and second only to my WSOP event from last summer as far as all the live and online poker tournaments I've ever played in), and I may try to get something up here on the blog over the weekend about that event if it tickles my fancy.

One last item: This Sunday night at 9:30pm ET is also the latest Blogger Big Game hosted by Miami Don. As always, it's a $75 buyin nlh tournament at full tilt, and the password for all of the Big Game tournaments is "donkey". Please come out and play in this tournament if you're interested, as it is a great chance for everyone to get together and play, and it's a nice big fat buyin which makes the tournament itself something really fun to play for. And, it's also a great opportunity to get involved in some of those Tier 1 and Tier 2 token sng's on full tilt, in which it's really not that hard (maybe for those commenters to the mean post above it would be, but not for most of you with a decent grasp of poker math and poker odds) to turn $8 into $75 through full tilt's generous 18-person, $8 buyin and then $26 buyin sitngos, where in each case the top 5 finishers out of 18 players move on to the next level. Basically, all you need to do is finish anywhere in the top 5 out of 18 players in one of the $8 buyin sngs, and then take the $26 you win from that sng, and finish anywhere in the top 5 of 18 players in one of the $26 buyin sngs, and you're there. $75 to you, and you're in the Big Game. So come out and play in the biggest-buyin (and probably highest-skill) of the regular blogger nlh tournaments, this Sunday night at 9:30pm ET. You can do this while you watch me on my way to the final table of the FTOPS Main Event, which starts Sunday night at 6pm ET as well, so Sunday will be a big night for a number of your favorite poker bloggers. See you there!