Runnin' Deep With Iakaris

In contrast to Wednesday night, Thursday night turned out to be one of the more fun nights of poker I've had in some time. I began the evening by returning to the cash tables for a few solidly winning sessions, my first consistent winning day since the debacle that was last weekend, which saw me lose to four different flopped sets with three of my own flopped sets and a TPTK hand as well. I actually decided to move back down to the 1-2 6-max tables, really just to try to get my bearings after I had simply not been playing my game at all since those horrid beats from last weekend, and after a couple days of play at $200 nl, I definitely feel like I'm back, including winning around three buyins over the past two days, mostly all of which came on Thursday. And as nice as the money was to see my full tilt account balance moving higher instead of lower, the return of my confidence at the non-blogger cash tables in general was worth much more than that. Of course at blogger cash games I am pretty much always a solid winner, but outside of blogger cash this past week was not a pretty one for me cash-wise. It happens, I've been there before -- much worse than this week, for that matter -- and I'm sure I'll be there again, but this week definitely saw me meet head-to-head with the assy end of variance, and I look forward to continuing to put that behind me in the coming days on full tilt.

So after a few solid sessions on the cash front on Thursday evening, I decided I was going to take my first stab at this new 50-50 tournament that a number of you bloggers have been hyping up recently. Shortly after I sat down and started to play the 50-50, I got a girly chat from someone that our boy Iakaris was deep in the 19k, down well into the final 100 players or so in his second deep 19k run of the past week. I proceeded to rail Iak not just at the table but in the girly chat, discussing hands and just generally talking poker, all the way to the final table, Iak's first large mtt final table in several months. Eventually Iak ran his JJ into AA preflop and busted out in 5th place out of over 900 players:



Scoring nearly $1100 cash for himself and also a much-needed confidence boost of his own. It's funny, because the last time I talked to Iak the night before I left for Vegas a couple of weeks ago -- the infamous conversation where I told Iak I was feeling great about my game and that I knew I could do some major damage in my shorthanded WSOP tournament the following day if I just played my game and didn't do anything stoopid -- Iak was also telling me how he finally feels like his mtt game is back after months of lack of playing time and just general poker frustration. Since then he has now ran deep in the 19k twice, probably his two best mtt runs in a long time, plus he and I also made great runs in the 50-50 tournament as well last night. So I think at this point we can definitely confirm the rumor: Iak is back in da house, and I for one am happy to see it, it couldn't happen to a better guy. Now we just gotta get this guy back on the mtt success horse, which I bet is coming soon as well, and we'll be in business.

Anyways, once Iak busted in 5th place in the 19k yesterday, he was able to focus much more on the 50-50, which at the time was just getting into the money positions, which paid the top 153 players out of 1028 entrants in this nightly 50k guaranteed prize pool tournament. At the time I was sitting on around 30k in chips, while Iak was down near the bottom of the leaderboard with just over 10k. But that would soon change, as Iak picked up AA, KK, AA and AA all in the span of about 20 minutes, in each case seeing at least one raise -- two of those times including allin reraises -- all ahead of him in the action preflop, basically making it almost impossible for Iak not to double up a few times and the result was a quick rise for his stack into the top 10 of the remaining players -- at the time there were around 60 players left when the deck smacked Iak in the face -- where Iak would stay for much of the rest of the tournament.

I, meanwhile, was experiencing a different phenomenon. It's something we all call card death, and most deep mtt runs I have made in my life have included long bouts of it. Thursday night was no exception. During the entire last three ours of this tournament, I did not see a premium hand or really something that even resembled a premium hand, other than one time I was dealt AK, got a caller of my preflop raise in the biggest stack at the table, and then I was forced to push in a large overbet of the pot on the Ten-high flop after he checked to me, somehow getting a fold from the guy after he let his timer and then his additional time clock count almost all the way down to zero before taking action. It was like all my premium hands got sent straight over to Iak, who was using them masterfully to play his opponents like fiddles over on his table, which I again had up and was watching closely as he and I continued to outlast opponents in this event. But I got no AA, no KK, no QQ, no JJ, and I had to fold TT about 2 1/2 hours in to the tournament when a shorty curiously pushed in only half his short stack from under the gun in a move that just screamed out big overpair or at the very least AK or AQs to me. With no premium hands to play with, every single pot I won in the last three hours of this tournament was a steal, or a resteal. Every single pot, with no exceptions. I had a lot of people railing me and on the girly chat, and we were all laughing pretty hard at the moves I was making. Somehow, I didn't get caught once.

I mean, I did nothing but steal and resteal with shit for every single chip I won in the last three hours of a tournament that lasted in the end a little over 5 hours for me. I restole with allin pushes from my big blind against the player to my right who had just limped from his small blind probably 8 times in this thing. By the time we got into the final 25 or 30 players left in the 50-50 tournament, this guy on my right had such a boner for my chips you could fucking feel the tension at the table. He wanted so badly to pick up a monster and then open-limp from his small blind, he could taste it. But I did what I had to do -- what else can you do when you get no starting cards to speak of for like 200 straight minutes, right? I maybe got pocket 5s or pocket 6s once or twice, in all cases facing a large preflop raise before the action even got to me, but otherwise, I was open-raising from middle position with 97s and 74s and K7s all night long, and when I wasn't doing that I was restealing with allin raises with 52o and J4o and K3o against players who had shown weakness preflop ahead of me, but whose stacks were just barely small enough that calling my allin reraise would cripple them if I actually happened to pick up a hand this time. And since I was so utterly frigging card dead for 3 hours, these guys could never be sure if this was the time I actually had a hand. Especially since I kept winning these steals and resteals without a fight and without even seeing a flop -- and I mean, I didn't get caught one time until down to the final two tables -- no one even knew that I was pushing repeatedly with bullshit cards. Again and again and again, total bullshit cards. Every now and then I would look up and Iak would be cracking someone's Aces, or flipping up pocket Kings or whatever over at his table, and meanwhile I would look down and push allin on a resteal with Q7o. It sucked, but at the same time I was somehow crawling my way up the chart, or more accurately, I was just surviving while more and more people kept dropping out as the clock wore past midnight, then 1am and eventually past 2am ET.

Finally, both Iak and I reached the final two tables of the 50-50, after railing and chatting and analyzing hands with each other on the girly chat for a good 4 hours together. I don't recall making it this deep in this large of an mtt with another blogger, and a close friend at that, and I have to say it was something really special that I can only hope I get to experience again sometime soon. Actually, forget Iak I just hope I can experience another run like this myself sometime soon! No seriously, it was a lot of fun as I bet those of you who love to run mtt's can imagine, having someone else there to watch and just be part of the experience of a deep mtt run with together kicked some ass. Ghey as that may sound, I know Iak agrees 100% with the sentiment.

Anyways, with 17 players remaining and me sitting in 12th place (Iak was in 10th at the time), I ran into this hand which I would love to get your thoughts on. Basically, I'm in the big blind for 5000 chips, about 8% of my current stack, and the first few players fold around to the hijack, who is the short stack remaining in the tournament with just over 14k in chips. He open-pushes allin, which to me literally told me precisely nothing about the strength of his hand. Well, to be more accurate, it probably told me that his hand was not in the bottom 10% of possible hands, in that I like to think he would have folded there and waited for a better spot with a hand like 52o. But I'm thinking any kind of reasonable holding that is not in the absolute worst category of hands he could have, and he has to push there. 96o, it's a push. J4o? Push. He's way the short stack left in the event, and it's folded around to him two spots off the button, with huge blinds and antes that themselves already represented about 85% of his stack that was already in the middle when the action got unopened around to him. He was pushing with basically anything here:



As you can see, the rest of the action folded around to me in my big blind, where I held the lowly, shitty hand known as 75o (probably one of the better hands I had seen in the preceding hour as it is, btw). So I'm looking at the pot, and at my hand, and then back at the pot again. I know this guy is pushing in that spot with probably the top 90% of hands that he could have (if not more), and I'm looking at making a call for 9154 chips into a pot of 26,454 chips. So this pot was laying me 2.9-to-1, which I reasoned just from a pot odds perspective meant that I had to call if I thought I was anything better than 2.9-to-1 to win the hand. Again, I'm basically putting him on any random hand, and although I don't know the numbers in detail, those math instincts I've written about before told me that my 75o had to be around a 35% chance to win against a random hand (maybe someone out there knows the actual number and can post it in the comments, not that it matters at this point). At 35%, that is more like 1.8-to-1 odds to win the hand, so I felt like I basically had to call here, that this was actually an easyass call to make even though I had the shit known at 75o in my hand. Risking 9154 chips to win 26,454 chips, I basically felt like that meant that I had to call with any hand that was at least 26% or so to win in a showdown, which basically meant just about any hand out there since I felt certain that the short stack would have pushed with anything in this spot. So I made this call and prayed, fell way behind on the flop and could not recover:



What do you guys think of this call? Is my math and my analysis right there? Would you have made this call here in this spot, down to 17 players left in the 50-50?

Here was another one, which occurred just two hands after the above call. I'm now down to 43k in chips, in 14th of 17 players remaining, and I'm in the cutoff with pocket 5s. Now, presto has not been nearly as kind to me over time as it has been to some people, but believe me when I say this hand looked like quad Aces to me when I saw it because it was that much better than any other starting hand I had seen in well over an hour, so I was looking forward to raising or pushing allin even when the action hopefully got around unopened to me. Instead, though, this happened:



So utg+1 put in a 3x raise preflop here, a guy holding plenty of chips with no need to push anything. So far I'm thinking I can still push allin here and he is likely to lay down what could easily be A9, KQ or even a superior hand like 66 but one that he can't really call a big reraise with unless he's a huge donkey. But then as you can see the guy to my immediate right, sitting on an even larger pile of chips, also called the 15k raise. Now what would you do here? You pushing allin over the top of these two guys? Just smooth calling and hope to nail the flop? Or do you lay this down and hope for a better spot to get your chips in?

I thought this was a pretty tough decision, and I know that some of my girly chat railers did not agree with my eventual move, which was to lay it down. As I mentioned, against just one 3x raiser, I could be the favorite in a showdown, but only a slight favorite at that, and I might have the chance of getting him to lay down even with my paltry 43k in chips which represented over a third of the first raiser's stack at this point. But once the second guy also overcalled the raise, a guy who not only had around 4 times my stack at the start of this hand but also who had such a hard-on for my chips after I restole from him 8 times over the previous hour or two, I didn't see how I could call here. It was only going to be another 28k raise from me, and I felt the odds were significantly high that one or both of these guys would call, and I could even very easily be dominated by a pair higher than my 5s. Given that we were so close to the final table, and the payouts were starting to rise by a hundy or so for every couple of players out, I thought and still think that the laydown was my only choice here. What do you think? Yes Fuel, we know you would have raised allin, that much is obvious, but I would love to hear from the rest of you your views on this hand and the one above where I called with the 75o based purely on pot odds.

Anyways, it wasn't probably 3 hands later that Iak allin reraised a guy at his table with his A5o, got called by KTo, and then saw a flop of AK6 to basically give his opponent just 5 outs or else Iak was going to get another key double-up and give his night some additional fuel to make a run for the final table. But a fuglyass river card ruined that:



sending Iak to the rail, out in 16th place out of 1028 players for another $300-some payout on top of the nearly $1100 he'd already won at Thursday's 19k final table.

At this point, still around 41k in chips and now in 13th place out of 14 players remaining, I find 66 utg. Over the next two hands I'm going to put in another 8700 in blinds and antes, well over 20% of my remaining stack, and this pocket 6s is the new best hand I've seen in over an hour. I felt I had to make a move, and could afford to take a race against two overs with all the big stacks at the table since I was so short and needed to make something happen quick one way or the other if I wanted to survive to make my own final table run on the night. So I pushed in for my last 41K in chips:



I knew I was in trouble when the player to my immediate left moved allin over the top of me instantaneously. I was actually pleasantly surprised when everyone else folded and he flipped up just your standard run-of-the-mill unsuited big slick, as I had feared he was on a higher pocket pair. So I was actually slightly ahead here, with a chance to get back into contention with a much-needed double-up with the best hot-and-cold starting hand I'd seen in a long time, at least 2 or 3 hours without a doubt since I had to lay down my last pocket Tens. Alas, it was not meant to be:



and IGH in 14th place out of 1028 runners in my first ever 50-50 tournament on full tilt:



The win paid nearly $500 in cash, so that is nothing to sneeze at, especially when you've lost several buyins at 2-4 nl over the past week so every little bit feels good when you're building your confidence back up as I have been trying to do these last few days. More than that, I have to say that I agree fully with the commentary I've heard from a number of other bloggers about the overall structure of this tournament. First off, you start off with 2k in chips, not the usual 1500 like in the other donkeyfests like the 26k and most standard blonkaments as well. The extra 500 in chips really helps to give you some extra cushion, #1 to be able to make some moves and still survive if they don't work out early, and #2 and more importantly, to be patient and wait for the good hands or a really good spot to make your moves. More than that, the blinds increase every 12 minutes I believe in this tournament, which is 2 minutes longer than full tilt's standard turbo-esque tournament structure. Two minutes might not seem like much, but over the 5 1/2 hours it took to run this deep for Iak and I in this thing, that extra 2 minutes every 10 minutes makes a big huge fucking difference. That basically means that by this time, we were a full hour behind where the normal full tilt tournament structure would be. So that's the only reason I still had those 40k in chips left when I finally busted -- because without this extra blind rounds time, I would have likely been forced to push allin that much sooner. And when you like to delude yourself into thinking you are a "skill guy" like I do, giving me more time before push-and-pray monkeytime is all good. So after one try, I am definitely a big fan of the structure of this tournament, and I highly recommend it to anyone with the time and the inclination to play a large mtt like this. Frankly, even the 9:30pm ET start time is better than most of the other large, regular mtts I get to play in, and with only around 1000 entrants or so most nights (so far), the field is nowhere near as large as some of the larger minefield in things like the 26k and other fields that only this donkey could routinely play his way through. There are also satellites in the early evening for this event, so if the $50 buyin is a bit on the pricey side for you, there are plenty of cheaper options to get in between the hours of 7 and 7:45pm ET every night.

Maybe I'll see you there this weekend at some point, as I expect to play this thing again if and when I can. Maybe tonight, along with the donkament which is also scheduled to go off at its regular time at 9pm ET this evening as well. If you haven't tried out Kat's brilliant $1 rebuy tournament yet on full tilt (password is "donkarama"), then you are a donkey and maybe now is the time to put a stop to that once and for all. You will definitely not find cheaper poker therapy anywhere on the Internets or otherwise, so come on by and play the donkament at 9 while you get ready to rail a bunch of your friends in the 50-50 tonight on full tilt!