MATH Recap,and Hot Hand #11 (Continued)

What a night it was at our second Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt last night, which saw a record 52 runners come out and play for the $26 buyins for a fatty $1248 prize pool on the night to be shared among the top 6 finishers in the event. Yours truly managed to donk out early once again, thanks to a highly questionable call by another donkey blogger of my preflop raise, coupled with a flop that not only hit my hand very well, but miraculously hit the donkey's hand even better, creating the perfect storm of rediculousness which I then was all too happy to make worse by making a horrible allin play on the flop. I need to try hard to focus more in these blogger events, as lately my time and energies have been much more focused on winning another bracelet race, playing the 30k, satelliting in to these races, the 30k, the winner's choice tournaments, the weekly 1K tournament, and even now and then one of full tilt's tri-weekly WSOP ME qualifiers. Clearly, that lack of focus on the blogger events -- which I will always continue to play despite how poorly I am playing in them at any given time, because deep down I like the camaraderie of our ghey little group more than anything else in the world of online poker -- is really starting to show, as I continue to treat all the other players at my table like I would treat the players left at the final table of one of the big tournaments I am used to playing in and focusing on. So, for example, in last week's Mookie, when that guy called my preflop raise heads-up, I simply flat refused to put him on a hand like 54s. Only a certain type of player is ever going to make a move like that, and that's not at all the type of player I have been spending about 95% of my time playing against over the past several months on full tilt.

Similarly, last night in the Hoy, when I raised preflop very early in the event with my AJs and the flop came JT5, I just wasn't in a mindset to put the donkey blogger who played back at me on the flop on a hand like JTo. He called my preflop raise into a heads-up pot with that hand! The realization is really starting to sink in finally that if I expect to do well in these blogger tournaments, I need to adjust my play from the kind of play I am used to seeing in the larger events. Bloggers do call preflop raises heads-up with 5-high ("but it was sOOOOOooooted!" Ha!). They do it all the time. Bloggers do call preflop raises heads-up with easily and often dominatable hands like JTo (a hand which I in fact was dominating last night before the flop came down). Many bloggers' play is such that they would even defend these moves after the fact. These fuckers actually think this is the way to play the game.

To be clear, I'm not writing this to sound like the pompous shitbag that I clearly am. And I certainly don't mean to absolve myself from the truly donkorific move of getting it allin on that flop with measly TPTK like I did last night very early in the Hoy to end up the second player eliminated from the event. I take full responsibility for both donkouts in these last two BBT tournaments. But at least I know exactly why I made the moves, and against a different level of competition, I would have won both pots and lived to tell about it. I am saying all this because I want my mind to go through the exercise of typing it and thinking it all out. I want to read it over four or five times with my own eyes once I publish this badboy in the morning. That's the only way I'm going to get out of this funk I've been in lately with the blogger events. As you all know, I've been on an incredible hot streak lately in my mtt game overall, but that has been largely focused on those bigger-buyin events that I mentioned earlier. And yet in the blogger tournaments, I've largely played like complete and utter donkey. And this dichotomy, and my failure to adjust to it, is why. After months of focusing on mostly $100 and $200 buyin events, and satelliting in to those events against many of the same players I am usually up against in the bigger-buyin tournaments, here I am trying to play against bloggers as if they are all Johnny fuckin Chan and Daniel Negreanu. It's time to stop doing that, Mr. Hoy. And I'm happy at least to know that my next opportunity is right around the corner, at the next Mookie tournament on Wednesday night. I will be there, and you should be too. Last week the Mook had 78 runners, and I am sure we can break 80 this week as the blogger fields continue to rise for the Battle of the Blogger Tournament events.

Speaking of which, don't forget that this Sunday night is the latest Big Game hosted by none other than blogger tournament guru (I can't believe I'm even saying that) Miami Don. The Big Game carries a $75 buyin, and it is also a part of the BBT so there is plenty of reason for you to play it this weekend, not the least of which is the fatty prize pool that this baby is sure to present for the top finishers. Now I know for many of you the $75 buyin is a bit on the steep side. I used to be like that too. But then I found this nightly 9:45pm ET token frenzy on full tilt, and there is just no longer any excuse not to at least make a serious go at playing in the Big Game and hopefully the $1000 first prize in that event. For a mere $14 buyin, the top 18% or so of the field in this nightly mtt wins themselves a $75 token, just like that. It usually takes less than two hours to get to the finish line in this nightly Token Frenzy, and the play as I've written about previously is nothing spectacular by a long shot.

So here is my proposal. No matter what else I also have going on at the time, I am committing to playing in that 9:45pm ET Token Frenzy every night for the balance of this week. I suggest that we bloggers, as a group, take this nightly token frenzy tournament by storm for the rest of this week, and get as many of us bloggers as possible into Sunday night's Big Game. There is no reason why a good 10 or 20 or more of us cannot win our Big Game buyins via the next few Token Frenzy tournaments this week, given the buyin and the level of play in these things overall. I am really hoping to see a bunch of familiar names and familiar ghey little avatars in this thing tonight and over the next few nights. Again, I know $75 is way steep for a great many of the bloggers out there (especially you donkeys who call preflop raises heads-up with 54s and JTo, surprise surprise). But $14 is much more manageable, no? Especially for a nearly 1-in-5 shot of winning your way in to the biggest-buyin of all the BBT events and also one of the most fun, the game that's so big that it can only be played once a month in the Big Game.

OK so back to the MATH on Monday night. Long story short, I managed to stay up until the final four players at around 12:45am ET, and as the game got closer to the end I saw more and more high quality play, which always brings a smile to my face. I also saw more suckouts and brutal setups and bad beats than I've seen in quite some time last night overall, and a lot of allin preflop racing that could have taken most of the top 6 cashers in the tournament out of the event before the cash spots. But such is the life of the mtt player -- you have to win some races with pockets, and you have to win some races with two overs, if you expect to make it deep in these things -- and last night was no exception to that general rule. After the top three players decided on a 3-way chop for the second straight week in this thing, in the end, this is how the final leaderboard shook out:



That's right, folks. Miami Don won it again. This makes two straight Mookie's and now the next consecutive MATH all won by Miami Don, the guy who is a cash game specialist and who, frankly has had more negative things to say about the donkament monkey-pushing aspects of mtt's than just about anyone I know. It's an amazing feat that is just about unrivaled in the brief history of the Mookie and the Hoy tournaments, so everyone should go stop by the Don's blog and tell him what a star he is. And you know what else this means, right? That's right, it's going to be time to put a muggafugging bounty on this guy's head for the next couple of BBT events. No way I'm letting someone with three big blogger tournaments in two weeks without doing something to up the incentive to knock the donk Don out in the next couple. Showoffery like this has got to be stopped, and I'm hell bent on doing just that. Seriously, though, congratulations to Miami Don for yet another huge win in the biggest-ever Hoy field just five days after going back-to-back by winning the biggest-ever Mookie field on full tilt. Unbelievable. And congratulations to our six cashers, including my brother-in-law Lester000 for 6th place and just under $75 and change for his second Hoy cash in a month, 5th place and a few pennies short of $100 to NewinNov for his second Hoy cash of 2007 as well, 4th place and its $137 payout to lightning36, as well as the three-way chop for $312 apiece to each of new blogger oossuuu754 in 3rd place, cmitch in 2nd place and Miami Don taking it down again for first. Uber impressive job by Don there, really amazing as far as I'm concerned.

And speaking of uber, is there anyone out there who has not yet read Iggy's latest uberpost? So help me god if that little midget isn't back and better than ever in his old home at Guinness and Poker. If you haven't read Iggy's latest, go do yourself a favor, set aside a good hour or two to really absorb everything, follow some of the links -- you know, reading an uber in style, the way it is meant to be read -- and you will not be disappointed. If I may say so myself, this particular post has got to be one of the blogfather's all-time best. Oh, and when you go there, keep in mind what a fucking idiot Jen Tilly is for that check on the river. "I thought you had pocket Kings?" Huh? Cheesus Christ somebody please sign that donkey up for some blogger tournaments right away, she will fit right in.

OK anyways so here is the updated 2007 Hoy money leaderboard after this week's tournament:

1. Hoyazo $580
2. Fuel55 $458
3. Bayne_s $410
4. Zeem $330
5. Miami Don $312
5. cmitch $312
5. oossuuu754 $312
8. VinNay $310
9. Wigginx $288
10. IslandBum1 $282
10. ScottMc $282
10. Pirate Wes $282
13. Manik79 $252
14. Byron $234
15. Omega_man_99 $210
16. Columbo $204
17. NewinNov $190
18. Waffles $180
18. bartonfa $180
20. Santa Clauss $170
21. Iakaris $162
21. Smokkee $162
23. l.e.s.ter000 $147
24. lightning36 $137
25. Chad $120
26. Ganton516 $114
27. Shag0103 $84
28. PhinCity $80
28. jeciimd $80
30. Easycure $67
31. Julius Goat $60

So there we are, up now to 31 different players cashing in the weekly Monday night MATH tournament so far this year. Thanks in large part to the 3-way chops over the past two weeks at the top of the leaderboard, the top four players on the leaderboard remain unchanged from last week, and you know what that means, right? Yup -- more pompousassossity from me today in my post. Yes I'm still in the lead folks. Yes I'm still more than 25% higher than even the second place ATC donkey guy on the leaderboard. Yes none of you can possibly catch me, ever. Blahblahblah yaddayaddayadda, you know, the usual Tuesday morning blather for me here. Hey, with how shitty I'm playing in these blogger tournaments lately, I have to take my credit wherever I can, right? So thank you to everyone who came out to play and who made the 52-person MATH the biggest field ever for this tournament and who made for some really nice payouts for the six cashers in the event, as well as adding another $104 of juice to the BBT prize pool, all of which will be coming back to you, the bloggers, as BBT cash payouts and to fund the BBT Tournament of Champions freeroll coming up in early June.

OK, on to the continuation of Hot Hand #11.

Thank you to all of the commenters from yesterday, the general consensus of which seems to be that I probably should have bet on the flop. In general, you commenters are being a bit rigid IMO with that advice, but the one very intelligent comment that did come up again and again was that since this is 6-max nlh, and 6-max tends to be much more LAGgy than the other forms of ring nlh out there, I probably could have gotten away with a preflop raise here and still had a decent chance of getting a call, if not a resteal attempt, from the big blind when I open-limped from the small blind with my well-hidden pocket Kings. The main points I made yesterday as to why I went with the limp are that #1 this was my only premium starting hand of the tournament so far, so I felt a stronger than usual need to make sure I made more than just the blinds with this hand, and #2 you absolutely must mix up your play somewhat with both good starting hands and bad if you expect to consistently win in these large-field online mtts. I fully accept the idea that I might have been able to raise preflop without losing the big blind since this is 6-max, but obviously I have more of a chance of making a big hand here if I check than if I bet, so that was my thinking. As I said yesterday, I would often raise here with a big hand, but I like to check it sometimes as well just to keep everybody honest.

Anyways, here is what happened next in the hand. If you recall, I checked the T76 two-suited flop with my pocket Kings that included one of that suit as well, and my opponent checked behind. Then the turn card was the King♠, giving me top set on the board in a way that my opponent could not possibly put me on that hand given my check preflop and my check on the flop as well. At this point I decided to go with the advice that a few of the later commenters yesterday suggested, and bet half the pot, or a bet of 100 chips into the then 200-chip pot:



I agree with most of the commenters that there is little value at this point to me to continue checking the hand with now top set. I'm hoping that he's hit a little piece of the board -- hopefully a King, but maybe even a Ten of some kind would do, or possibly a draw -- or that maybe he'll put me on a steal and try to rereaise me right here on the turn or maybe make a move at me on the river. My hand is so strong at this point that I'm not worried about chasing the guy out of the pot, so my 100-chip bet accomplishes three things: #1 I can win the chips in the pot right now if my opponent has nothing, #2 it helps get some money into the pot if my opponent chooses to call me with anything he likes in his hand, and #3 and most importantly, I bet half the pot and not the full pot because with how strong my hand just got on the flop, I don't actually want to chase him out here. If anything, I want to give the impression that I'm actually kinda weak, maybe I'm downright stealing in fact, so I bet it small. After the check preflop and the check again on the flop from me, this halfpot bet looks perfect to me like the actions of a guy who's weak and just wants to try to steal a small pot here without taking barely any risk of losing significant chips here in the process. I love the halfpot bet here for all these reasons, and I don't really see the need for a full-pot bet here on the turn, when even a halfpot bet is giving my opponent clearly poor odds to draw to any possible flush, and truly terrible odds to draw to an inside straight, with just the one card to come. So I'm betting enough to make any draws bad plays for my opponent to make, and yet little enough to appear like I am weak when I am in fact hugely strong here.

And my opponent's response?



Yep. He reraises me the size of the pot, to 400 chips total, making it 300 for me to call, and bringing the total pot size to 700 chips.

Now what do you want to do here? The guy has basically walked right into my trap and raised me where it's almost impossible that I am behind. Even if he lucked into flopping a set or something, the King on the turn has now given me a massive lead with just one card to come. Is he just going for the pure bluff-resteal here? Or does he have something playable and thinks he is actually best? Given all these possibilities, what is my best move now? Do you smooth call him and try to get him to commit some more chips on the river before pushing him out of this pot? Or do you go for the big reraise right here and try to blow him out right now? Or, is the dreaded minraise an option to consider here, just to see what his reaction is? Does anyone think I should just call (or fold) here, worrying that I am behind based on the current action in the hand? What's your move?

Let me know your thoughts everyone in the comments, and I will be back tomorrow with the conclusion to the hand.