Donking in the Wheaties, and a Bunch of Hands to Review

First off, if you happened to enjoy my post yesterday on taking notes on different players, then you should really like Lucko's note-taking post yesterday, which takes things maybe even a bit further than mine into some specifics of his strategies around what he makes sure to note of his competitors' actions. It's great to hear from a cash and tournament game specialist like him on the same topic at the same time that I'm posting about it (thanks again to windbreak247 for the idea), and most of the commenters seem to have gotten a lot out of reading both posts in conjunction with one another. As you hopefully can understand, neither Lucko nor I feel that we're in a position to give away too many details of exactly how and what we take note of among our opposition at the virtual poker tables, but I think between the two of us we have provided a pretty solid and hopefully helpful look into why we focus on the things we focus on, and somewhat of a snapshot into the specific types of notes we take. Go check both posts out if you haven't already, and just remember all I ask that is that you don't use any of these strategies to take notes on either Lucko ("donks out of blonkaments even faster than hoy") or myself ("loses to any two overcards and then goes on massive donkey tilt") since that just wouldn't be right to use our own stuff against us.

So very briefly, and this isn't something I'm necessarily proud of given my recent comments on the level of skill involved in these tournaments, but I did final table and cash in both the WWdN and the WWdN2 last night. I was asked in the chat after I made the cash in Wil's second chance tournament (limit O8 btw, who woulda thunk it) if this means that my streak of blonkament frustration has finally come to an end. In a word? No. There is one simple reason why I did so well in the Wheatie after weeks of futility across all the major blogger tournaments:

I got great fucking cards. All night long.

I'm serious. No doubt I played them well and got the most out of my hands. But nonetheless, I was dealt quality starting hands on several occasions, and more than that, I was hitting flops. I mean, smacking 'em up good. I'd see a free flop out of the big blind with Q6o? Q86 on the flop. Call a raise and three raise-callers from the small blind with 8s? A85 rainbow. I think I flopped a set at least twice if not three times during the WWdN, which is about 2 or 3 times more than that's happened all year so far in all the other blonkaments put together. I made some dqb on the river once. And I consistently got it in before the flop against shorter stacks with pocket pairs when I happened to be holding higher pocket pairs. I know I've said this several times before, but it's amazing how easy this game can seem when you're getting cards. And I'm not above admitting it, last night in the Wheatie I hit a ton of flops, and I believe I busted 9 of the 47 players in the event on my way to the final table. Now granted, I busted in 7th or 8th place at the final table when I raised with a medium Ace (sooooted of course) from middle position, got reraised allin, and when I realized that a fold -- clearly the correct move in this spot -- would leave me with just 3000 chips and well in last place, it took me...oh...about 1.2 seconds to determine that I just didn't feel like playing from that position. So I called, took my loss to AK like a man, and got outta there a happy donkey.

As I mentioned, the WWdN2 last night was limit O8, and this one had 17 runners gunning for the top 3 cash spots. Once again, I was dealt a fair amount of good starting hands, and I hit a lot of flops and a lot of boards with just what I needed to get it done. I played very well, and I even have a little admission for all you donkeys who could not stop cutting on my O8 play in last February's FTOPS when I posted after bubbling in the 580-some person event after missing 8 consecutive low hands with A2xx in my starting hand. This time around, I barely ever raised preflop, with A2 or otherwise. And it worked very well. I've just been reading another of the Cloutier-McEvoy books, the one just on Omaha, and they make the point again and again that in Omaha tournaments, almost no hand is worth open-raising with before the flop. There are several arguments for this, but the general thinking is that it's one thing to reraise from late position with a very strong hand in O8, which is often a perfectly wise and profitable move, but to open-raise even with AA23 double suited, or any AAxx or A2xx hand for that matter, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense because you're giving away more information about your hand than whatever gain you're getting from putting in this extra bet so early in the hand in a game like Omaha where basically everything ends up riding on which cards come out on the flop and beyond. So, I barely raised preflop at all in the WWdN2 last night, and the end result was people never really seemed to put me on the nuts when I had them, and I was able to get paid off consistently on what again were very good cards overall on the night. It didn't hurt to nail some big river draws as well, including this one, my personal favorite on the night:





Blammo! DQB baybeeee! This was originally referred to as a one-outer by the victim at the table, but note that in reality I had 10 outs, not one, to make a winning boat (or better) in this hand. Nonetheless, I'll take it, and the DQB makes it look a whole lot better than the 20% shot that it was heading into the river.

Of course I hit my river suckout King in a phucking $5 donkfest and not a 400k guaranteed tournament. My suckout King comes of course in more like a $100 guaranteed than a $400,000 guaranteed. Not even, actually. An $85 guaranteed tournament. Phuckers.

Anyways, much as in the original WWdN, my great cards and consistent pounding the board kinda left me shortly after making the cash positions, in the top 3 in the O8 event, as I busted out on this gem of a hand:



As you can see, I flopped not only the nut low draw but also a made nut flush. Then it was just a question of getting my opponent to give me as much of his chips as possible. That involved me checking the flop, betting the turn and then getting it allin on the river, only to see this gorgeous runner-runner bullshiat:



Lovely, huh? Runner-runner 4-A to make a boat for my opponent, and at the same time counterfeit my low draw on those same two runner-runner cards. You have got to love the way O8 goes sometimes. Especially on pokerstars, still the suckoutiest riverbullshitiest site I've ever played at. Ever. Anyways that hand staked o-hole-ne to about a 13-10 chip lead heading into heads-up play, but I was outta there at that point and didn't even stick around to see who won. But it was fun not embarrasing myself in front of the bloggers, for literally the first time in as long as I can remember. I mean, I ended 11th in last week's Riverchasers tournament, but to me that was highly embarrassing as I truly folded and limped my way into the BBT points, literally blushing from shame in front of my computer screen as I open-folded on the button repeatedly, I declined to open-raise with A9 in the cutoff+1, etc. Weak weak weak play is not something I'm proud of anyone else to see coming from me. But last night in both WWdN tournaments I played strong and the cards cooperated in a big way. Don't expect that to repeat anytime soon, I almost never get cards like that, and even in my big tournament wins I am usually seeing less than 10% of flops and winning far more based on bully tactics and bluffs than on the strength of my actual cards.

The even better news from last night as far as I'm concerned was in my cash game play. I have been winning with much consistency at the 1-2 6-max nlh tables, so much so that I'm even considering moving up levels and seeing what 2-4 is all about. I haven't moved up yet because what I'm not doing at 1-2 is winning 2 buyins a night or anything. What I am doing, though, is winning consistently in the vast majority of my sessions. Probably an average of around half a buyin over a 90-minute session. I don't know what that equates to in big bets per hour, but let's just say that all of my 6-max play in the 30k and the related satellites has left me feeling very comfortable with 6-max nlh generally, and I typically have a very good feel for when my starting cards are likely to be best. And combine that with good hand-reading and player-reading ability at the tables, and I am basically almost always coming out ahead in these sessions. It's been great, and there was no doubt whatsoever that even just a month or maybe two ago, I was a cash game donkey. I'm definitely not anymore. My strength is definitely in 6-max cash as opposed to ring games, and I seem to really excel in situations where everyone tries to steal the blinds every opportunity they get with a pot-sized raise like occurs at every table I sit at in 6-max $200 nl. That kind of thing isn't happening nearly so much at a full ring, and I have to say a good portion of my winnings are occuring in those situations where I call someone's steal-raise with a fairly good hand from my big blind, flop something good, and then let them make one or even two big bets at me before I scare them away. It's been very profitable lately, and has helped to easily absorb my lack of significant tournament victories over the past week or so, other than my normal satellite wins that have themselves not led to any significant cashes. I did win my way in to the nightly avatar race for the second time last night, and let me tell you, at $216 a pop, you might be tempted to think the quality of play in these things is good. Wrongo buster, wrongo. Check out my bustout hand from last night as a great example (and I tell you, this is par for the course with the players in this thing, despite the attendance list also including some of the biggest-name guys around in the online mtt space):

I'm just under the starting stack about 40 minutes in to the event, and a guy I've only seen raise one pot so far before the flop puts in a good-sized (3.5x) raise from early position. I've got two Queens, so figuring him for a decent-sized pair I move it all in:



What does this guy do? He calls for 2/3 of his existing stack, when he only had 210 in there to begin with and could have easily folded, with Ace-fucking-Six:



That is just laughable. Normally this is where I would suggest that this guy ought to get a blog right away with the way he played this hand. But shit, even the blonkeys out there don't make this call with A6. You clowns like to save this type of move for AT or AJ or AQ. A6, that is just plain old dumb stuff. Unbelievable. This is a perfect example for Smokkee's note of "soooted donk" that he mentioned in the comments to Lucko's notes post yesterday. And this:



is another shining example of full tilt's fucking random number generator rewarding a soooted donk for his oh-so-fine play. On the river of course. I've been thinking, I really should get one of those t-shirts that say "F*cking River!" on them. That's becoming my mantra lately. Who sells that shit anyways? I've definitely seen it advertised on somebody's blog or somewhere that I read on the Internets. So anyways that was me busting out of the avatar race last night less than an hour into the event. But don't kid yourselves -- the play in this thing is mediocre at best, and as long as you can avoid the big names -- the THAY3R's, the PearlJammed's, the Hoyazo's, you should be just fine. Heh heh.

Now, before I leave today I'd like to post my biggest pot in a cash hand of the night, and find out from you cash game donks and otherwise if you think I played this hand well or poorly, and how or why. Because I was very surprised with the way this hand shook out. And you tightydonks who say I should always fold to any pressure with only one pair can be my taint-hounds for the night (that one is for you, big fella, I'm doin' my part!)

So I'm UTG+1 with pocket Aces, and the UTG player has pot-raised it up. I feel like I've got a good handle on him either having a high Ace or a high pocket pair to be raising the pot from UTG like that, so I go ahead and just call with my Aces. I figure (correctly) that no one else is gonna stay in the pot anyways after this early action, so I'll get to heads-up before the flop which is where I want to be anyhow, while at the same time getting a lot of deception in against a guy I am clearly dominating in a big way:



The flop comes 346 with two hearts. I don't have the Ace♥, but I don't see how I can really be concerned here, right? That's just about the raggiest flop possible, and my Aces have got to be good here against a guy who pot-raised it from UTG. When he bets out $13 into the $17 pot, I again elect to go with the smooth call, thinking this guy has an overpair and I can get a bit more from him on the turn if I play my cards just right (pun intended). There's now $42.75 in the pot heading into the turn:



The turn is the 2 of clubs, putting 2346 on the board and making a possible straight with any 5. My opponent leads again at the pot, this time for $37:



Now what am I supposed to do here (again, tightydonks need not reply, we all know what you would do)? Fold my Aces because I fear that he's got a 5 in his hand that he pot-raised with UTG before the flop? Come on. Am I supposed to put him on two pairs here, pot-raising UTG preflop with a hand like 43 or 64? Please. I am aware that he could technically be on a set, but he did pot-raise it preflop from under the gun, which I wouldn't even do with a hand like 66, 44, 33 or 22. Nope, that is still just not as likely as my original read on the guy -- I've still got him on an overpair, which I believe is far and away the most likely holding given the action so far. So I put him to the test:



I'm actually hoping that he calls me here, because I don't see how he can put me on holding a 5 either, since I called his pot-raise from UTG+1 preflop. I have the guy on an overpair, so actually nothing would make me happier than to see him stay in with his QQ or KK or whatever he's got. I'm sure my Aces are good here.

My opponent responds by moving allin for an additional $85 more on top of my big raise. Now at this point I am trying to figure out how I just lost the hand. I mean, I guess it's trips? He really open-raised UTG with a shitty pair like that? That sucks. In the end, it was $85 more to me into a $350 pot, and I decided I had to call it, since I had put the guy on a big pair all along and I figured it was at least 1-in-4.5 likely that he did indeed have something like KK or QQ. Of course I bascally knew I was beat already when he re-reraised me allin, but for those odds I felt I had to make the call.

Who wants to guess what he's holding? Take your guesses, I'll give you some space so you don't ruin the big surprise.

























So there you have it. Open-raising the size of the pot UTG with 75s. Gee, wonder why I couldn't put him on this hand on the miracle 346 flop. Tell me, is this fixed or is this for real? Cheesus christopher. But that's what it takes for me to lose big pots nowadays in the cash games, where even despite this recockuhuge pot on Tuesday night I still ended the day up nearly a full buyin through several tables and several hours of $200nl 6-max play.

I would really love to get everyone's opinions as to how you think I played this hand, where you think I went wrong and what if anything you think I should have done differently. I have had a great run in the cash over the past month but at the same time I recognize that I have a lot of room for improvement, and any and all input is welcome. All I ask is that you try to put yourself in the position of actually being in the hand at the time, instead of just being the guy reading about it the next morning and assuming the worst, etc.

OK that's all for today. Don't forget the last BBT event of the week -- the Mookie -- is tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt, with the password of "vegas1" as always. I don't need to give the usual spiel about how this is always the biggest and the most fun blonkament of the week, because you all know that by now. And you don't need even a Tier I ($26) token to play, as the Mook is always a mere $10 buyin for the pleasure of playing with and getting to learn from some of the best poker players in the world. Ok, I surely did not mean that, but it's fun as hell and you should definitely check it out for that reason alone, not to mention all those awesome cash and other prizes available to the top BBT players of the year as we near the end of the first month of the three-month BBT tournament schedule. And don't forget about Lost tonight either -- it's up to you to figure out how to balance the Mookie and Lost both starting at the exact same time on Wednesday nights -- where we will get to find out the scoop on this chica who fell from the sky out of her helicopter at the end of last week's show, who I swear was sent by Desmond's sexay ex-woman. Can't wait for that, and then I'll see you at the virtual tables sometime after as well.