The Mookie, Lost, and an Interesting Suckout Hand

To begin today, I want to offer big congratulations to Miami Don for crushing the Mookie last night. This was the first Mookie I've played in in a few weeks, and I played well, busting several players in the earlygoing as I got a few cards, hit a few flops, and bluffed the shit out of Schaubs on several occasions ;). I got lucky once on a 30-something percent shot when a too-large reraise from me actually gave me too-good-to-fold pot odds to get the rest of my chips in preflop with AQs against what I figured was Schaubs's lower pocket pair, but what actually turned out to be pocket Kings. The Ace on the flop helped keep me in the game and build me a nice stack early, saving me from what was truly an unusually poor sizing of my raises. It's nice when the cards aren't working against you all the time, like I usually feel like they are. Anyways I forgot what eventually got me knocked out of the Mookie, but like I've said before, if I can't remember it then that usually means it was nothing recockulous, most often something like I pushed to pair into pocket Aces, or 9s into Tens, something like that (Edit: Just read Mookie's live blog, turns out I pushed 4s into 8s preflop on a short stack, go me). That Mookie tournament is always a great time, I have got to say, although being on Lost day still makes it very hard for me to play in it. Last night I was only able because the Hammer Wife went to sleep really early after a long day with the Hammer Girls, so I just watched Lost on delay on the DVR while playing out my time in both the Mookie and the Dookie.

And speaking of the Dookie, you bloggers are seriously the worst razz players on the earth. Not to sound like slb or anything, but this is now two or three consecutive blogger razz tournaments where I have been eliminated because of a donkey who was so far off about his and my hands that the clown is even raising me on 5th and 6th street when I am significantly ahead and only one of a few possible cards for him combined with only one of a few possible cards on consecutive streets for me can give him the victory. I love when that happens. Almost as much as the donkponent seems to love when he hits his fucking 3-outer-combined-with-my-3-outer to knock me out. Unreal. Last night in the Dook I'm on an 7-low draw on 5th street and some guy with 89K showing on his board raises me on 5th (I love it). It's almost like he maybe thought we were playing stud high or something. Then on 6th I hit a brick and he picks up a 7, and he still bets enough to get me allin even though he's still behind. Again I'm wondering if the guy even knew what game we were playing. Naturally, the river pairs me up, and comes low for him so he ends up winning. I had to be a 70% or better favorite on 5th when I bet at him and he raised back at me, and I don't know the numbers of 6th but I'm guessing I was probably still a 60-something percent favorite at that point as well. Wtf. You guys suck at razz, so eat it.

Anyways, congrats again to Don for a job well done last night, which he describes on his blog as "Decent cards, good timing, a couple of suckouts against shorties, and one crucial hand." Now there's a man's description of a victory right there. Admits he got decent cards and owns up to the couple of suckouts which are always present in any significant mtt score. Like me this past Monday night in the MATH when I wrote about how my slow-played KK narrowly escaped disaster against Columbo's slow-played Aces when a King happened to hit the flop. To me there is just no point to denying that you got a little lucky at points and/or got good cards on your way to a nice mtt score. I would never lie and say I had good cards in an mtt if I didn't actually have good cards, but you wouldn't find me lying in the opposite direction either. What's the insult in admitting that you got some good cards for a change in an mtt? Do people think that takes away from your accomplishment? Maybe someone who is insecure about their own mtt prowess might think that, but surely I don't. Getting good cards is just part of what often goes into producing an mtt victory, be it the MATH, the Mookie or the friggin nightly 26k on full tilt. Anyways, in response to some recent goings-on among the blogger tournaments, I guess all I'm trying to say is that to say that someone was a card rack in a tournament is not an insult about their play in any way, shape or form. For the most part, if someone was a card rack they probably still could have fucked it up by playing badly, and if they won with good cards, it generally means they played well with their good cards. In a lot of ways, a number of good hands and good flops more requires you to play good poker than if you got nothing but shit dealt to you for two hours like we have all been treated to far more often than we would like. Denying that you were a card rack when you won an mtt when you clearly were and everyone was there to see it, however, that's kinda weak and silly in my book (and incidentally I am not talking about Don last night in the Mookie at all, that was just the springboard to this discussion). Don't be insecure about getting good cards to help you win an mtt. Almost every mtt I've ever won has included some good cards. And I wouldn't deny it. Because it doesn't take away one whit from the fact that you have to play well to win any mtt of any significant size. And that's my thoughts on that.

Now on to last night's episode of Lost. It was interesting and all, don't get me wrong, and I wouldn't be surprised if those two new characters are still alive and that we haven't seen the last of them -- getting buried alive on a show like this never usually seems to take -- but really what was the point of yesterday's show? You guys know how I feel about this sort of thing after the debacle with the car episode from a few weeks back. This week's show was surely not as horrible as that one -- at least with Nikki and Paolo, the backstory we got to see was all new and didn't seem totally forced like all the silliness with Hugo, Cheech Marin and his mom, the old car in the garage, etc. We already know Hugo's backstory, so for that car episode to just give me more worthless flashbacks with Hugo and then tie it all together with starting a stupid car that has yet to make another appearance on the show, that one was an abomination. Last night's wasn't bad like that. But it wasn't good. It was boring, when it comes right down to it. It reminds me a bit of what happened with the X-Files after a while -- once we the viewers know there is this massive story going on, the Others, what they're trying to do with Jack, Locke's father, what are they all doing on the island in general, etc., to have a show like this which is nothing but background and otherwise doesn't advance the real story of Lost at all, it's always going to be a letdown. I want to know wtf is happening with the Others and the characters we know who are over there with them now (Sayid, Kate, Jack and Locke). I don't care about these two new people, and if they think just throwing in that one scene of Paolo hiding at the Pearl Station and seeing Ben and Juliette having that cryptic conversation is going to sate me, then they don't know their audience. At all. I already know most of you thought it was a pretty worthless episode too, because if you like Lost and I know you do, then last night's show didn't do much for you. Looking forward to something better next week, though the scenes didn't do much for me either as I recall. Although I suppose one could do worse than a catfight between Juliette and Kate. Mmmmmmm.

Lastly, I got berated pretty good about a hand I played about 5 minutes in to last night's $75 bracelet race at 9:30pm ET, and I thought I would get everyone's take on who played it well and who played it poorly. I was UTG and open-raised the big blind from 20 to 60 with JTs. This is one of my favorite moves, raising it up preflop from early position with a high suited connector like QJs, JTs or T9s, one that can make a lot of nut-type of straights as well as decently high flushes and some nice high pair and two-pair hands, and it adds some awesome and much-needed variation when like me you're otherwise only preflop raising with pairs, high Aces and maybe high Kings, etc. So the guy immedately after me, UTG+1, reraises my 60-chip bet to 200. The action folds back around to me, and I make the executive decision to call for another 140 chips here. It's not a greatly +EV call, and surely if he had gone allin I'm folding in a heartbeat, but at the same time if I'm willing to open-raise from EP with JTs because of its tremendous potential then I want to be the kind of guy who will call another 140 chips early in an mtt with it as well.

So the flop comes down J94 rainbow. I check, and my short-stacked opponent moves all in for his last 700 chips into the 430-chip pot. I've got top pair and was hoping he would bet when I checked, so I make the call. He flips over pocket 5s. He proceeds to berate the shit out of me for my play of the hand -- in particular my call of his preflop reraise -- while we both watch a raggy 2 come on the turn but then a dirty fucking 5 fall on the river. So the guy sucks out the ridiculous 2-outer on the river, and berates my play for at least the next 5 or 10 minutes of action in this tournament.

Question: Did I play this hand badly? Did he? What did either of us do wrong in this hand, in your view? Should I have been subject to this anus's long-lasting diatribe in the chat about how horrible I am at holdem here? What do you think about the way this hand was played?