Frenzy, Freeroll, Big Game and FTOPS
Well, my personal hot streak continued well yesterday as I did just what I had planned: three-tabling the BBT Freeroll, the 9:50pm ET nightly rebuy $10 rebuy satellite to FTOPS Event #1, and the 9:45pm ET nightly token frenzy all on full tilt. So far I've already won two $75 tier II tokens from the frenzy this week alone, which for me is the first time I can recall winning twice in a week in this particular satellite, and the tier II token is a very good thing to have right now. Why, you ask? Well I have been remiss in mentioning it here, but this weekend at its regular time on Sunday night at 9:30pm ET is Miami Don's latest Big Game. This proved to be a real barnburner every week during the BBT schedule because of the $75 buyin and the large prizepools that such a buyin creates. I have two second-place finishes out of maybe 4 or 5 Big Games that I have played in, which has made this event nicely profitable for me so as always I look forward to getting together with the group in the battle for the big buyins this Sunday night at 9:30pm ET on full tilt. And my roll at tilt won't even feel it when I register for the Big Game, because I managed to make the money yet again, my third token frenzy win in four tries this week. Unheard of for me, but a good indicator of how solid my tournament game has been of late. I think the most fun part about the frenzy on Thursday night was that at one point, down to 23 or 24 players remaining (the top 19 finishers would win tier II tokens), I was seated at an 8-person table with Otis, Trip and Bayne all there with me. So out of an 8 person table, four of them were "one of us", which just felt funny with the BBT Freeroll going on just a window away on my laptop screen. I think everyone but Trip went on to win tier II tokens, so hopefully all of us will put those tokens to good use on Sunday night at the upcoming Big Game. Good times.
While three-tabling my way to my third token frenzy win of the week and running the BBT Reroll, I also sat down to that rebuy satellite to FTOPS Event #1 ($216 nlh) that I mentioned here yesterday. After playing it twice this week, I quickly pegged it as a completely crushable tournament because it normally awards the $216 seats to the top 3 finishers by the time all the rebuys and addons are accounted for, and yet there are not usually even 20 people left alive once the 30-minute rebuy ends. 3 out of 17 or 18 players, most of whom are donkeys and many of whom have smaller stacks than me already? Bring it. Chad figured this out at the same time as I did, turning his KOD skills on to a victory in this tournament on Wednesday night while I busted on the bubble, but on Thursday night I was on on on and I would not be denied:
Booyah! Chad, I'm coming to get ya, next Wednesday night as the FTOPS starts with Event #1 at 9pm ET, again a $200 + $16 buyin no-limit holdem tournament to kick things off.
Now Full Tilt, why won't you run some regular FTOPS #2 HORSE mtt satellites in the evenings like you do for literally Events #1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 14? Why would you not be doing that, right now?
OK, so on to the BBT Reroll. As far as I could tell there were no no-shows this time as all 56 players sat down to take a shot at winning some free cash courtesy of full tilt and the BBT tournament series that we ran for three months from April through June (Edit: Apparently I am wrong and there were several no-shows. Good, more free money for the rest of us.). The action was fast early on, with Lucko winning his way into the freeroll just by showing up on the last day of the BBT and then gigliing out last night just a few minutes in to the tournament. Otherwise, no major surprises. Waffles managed to last more than 1 hand this time around, in fact playing well and catching enough breaks to land him out in 6th place overall for a nice cash for the guy who had busted out first from the original Freeroll that was voided. Not sure who gave Waffles chips last night, but thanks whoever that was, from my heart. I played well, but I never saw a premium starting hand -- JJ was the best I had one time on the night as I recall, but I perservered and tried my best to make something out of nothing, and to get paid on the couple of occasions where I hit a cheap flop big. In the end I busted in 18th place out of 56 runners when on a short stack my A9 failed to best Goat's TT on a confusing QQQ99 board, and Goat went on to power his way to a final table finish as well. I am happy with how I played, though I would not have minded avoiding the big stack with pocket Tens on my aggro-push there. Next time.
Numbbono went on to take down the BBT Freeroll and its $600 first prize, followed by Jordan in second and sellthekids in third place, all of whom won nice cash payouts for their efforts last night, and indirectly throughout the entire BBT challenge.
Astin ended the night in fourth place, and I know I've said this before but it is really becoming ridiculous so I'm going to mention it again. Astin is the luckiest motherfucker I have ever seen at a poker table. Seriously. And I've been playing poker for 20 years. I've honestly never seen anything like this guy. I mean, this goes back long before the BBT even. I've been referring to Astin here and in the blonkament chats as the "pocket Aces machine" for a long time, certainly several months before the BBT was even conceived of. I bet it's at least 7 or 8 months that I've been publicly commenting on Astin's penchant for receiving good cards, good boards, etc., and even that didn't start until I had observed Astin's good fortune for probably a good two or three months at that. We're probably going on more or less an entire year of Astin getting way, way, laughably way more than his fair share of good cards.
Go check out Astin's latest post here, because I don't know how someone cannot be amazed at this. If it was the first time, this would be amazing. But this is like the tenth post I've read like this of Astin's. The guy gets AA, KK and AK like 25 total times every time he sits down with the blonkeys. Even in a frigging freeroll. Can my 73o's and J4o's really compete with that kind of consistency over an entire tournament?
So here's what's been getting at me. As someone with a solid mathematical foundation, I have a hard time accepting that a player I sit with regularly could really be getting this many good cards over this long a period of time. That's why every time I see or hear about it happening, I beg Astin to post it. I want to see it. I don't know if I want to believe or don't want to believe it could be true, but I do want to know. I love seeing this stuff. I especially love when Astin shows me more power cards than I have seen over the past three months put together, and then he says something like "THEN came the first break" or something like that. I cannot believe it. So I ask you:
Are there "lucky" players out there, over the long term?
Labels: BBT Freeroll, Big Game, FTOPS, FTOPS Satellites, Luck, Token Frenzy
posted by Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo @ 8:53 AM
17 Comments:
FYI Hoy, I counted at least three or four dead stacks at my tables. Iggy and Mattazuma I remember. Well, Mattazuma managed to show up right when his last 65 chips were put into the pot, but you know what I mean.
Maybe he's a Sigma Six, one of 6 people in the world with extreme amounts of luck, based on distribution charts of probability and the world population. Statistically speaking, most people will have even luck over the long hall, but as with any sample size, there will be outliers. Based on some math that I know nothing about, outliers who reach sigma six (six standard deviations from the norm) would be so rare and so far from the norm that they would either have great luck their entire lives or shitty luck. Based on some more math I know nothing about, based on world population, there are 12 such people who should be sigma six in luck. Half of them will always have horrible luck. The other 6 would always get lucky.
Astin = Sigma Six
I should really run PT to keep better track of this.
I'll be the first to admit it's absolutely nuts. I also lack any explanation, although I like Jordan's just fine. :)
I keep waiting for it to swing around and kick my ass with the worst run of cards imagineable, but so far I've been, umm... lucky.
Hoy... didn't you know that online is rigged? They know that if you got cards like Astin, you'd be talked about in the same sentence as Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, etc. So, to neutralize that, you get your 83o's and 94o's. It's a FullTilt conspiracy. Sooner you realize that, sooner you will be at peace with the whole madness.
Typical astin hand... He open raises with J8h at the Cutoff or hijack to $200 into my BB. I have pocket 77 so I just call. Board is 88baby... I figure no way he has an 8 when he checks and post size bet my underpair.. Call. He fires on the turn. Im too stupid to realize FTP is rewarding him once again and commit all my chips.
He proceeded to then run up his stack by doing that a couple more times.
Geesh..
Astin works for the RNG department of Full Tilt. Bottomline.
On a side note, I'm wondering what you think of the hand I went out on in the frenzy last night. Not sure if you saw it, though you were at the table at the time, but regardless here are the basics.
BB just hit me and small blind left my stack behind at 1500 with blinds at 300/600. In mid position HUGE stack Otis raises enough to put both I and BB all-in. Again he is a huge stack at this point and raising his fair share to put the small stacks to the test. I have A8o and a tough situation. I hate calling into a raise with that hand, but I'm running out of options. We are down to 26 at that point with 19 getting tokens. I felt like otis was putting pressure on us no matter what his cards were and I needed to double up to even get close to making a token. If I fold there I am at or near last in chips. I still feel I made the right decision, but it is hard when you get right there and then let it go away with A8.
Too much reflection for a little token satellite, but just wondering what you thought. If you have the time, reply please. If not, maybe some others can chime in, but since you were at the table I thought you might have a good angle on it.
There is no such thing as "luck" in poker. Only "lucky" players. Astin shoves a horseshoe up his ass prior to every blonkament. I would do the same, but I find it uncomfortable.
Trip, I would probably have called there if I'm you. I would know I'm going to lose, but I would probably have called, for all the reasons you mentioned. You were short enough that the equity you have with a hand like A8 against a guy with a wide raising range thanks to his big stack is probably worth taking a chance to either bust or win enough chips right there to make the token.
I am completely disgusted by what a lucksac Astin is!
Maybe on Sunday or Monday night we can sit in HORSE sit n go satellites until they fill? I really want to play HORSE as well. The structure looks to be playable now unlike the $200 HORSE on Sundays........
When I opened the BBT lobby the first thing I saw was Astin with about 28K and the next player at 8K and I knew the RNG had been tampered with.
I have a three people at my home game that will play any two cards in any position and usually flop two pair or better. And they will not fold to a pre-flop raise no matter what size it is.
How do you play against "lucky" players?
Chad, hit me up on the girly chat, I saw those $35 FTOPS HORSE sngs and I'm up for kicking some donkass any time you're ready.
"and then he says something like "THEN came the first break" or something like that."
i just spit my water out and laughed for two minutes straight.
congrats on ftops seat!
ps why don't you come play at nicelook????
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
couldnt post the pic correctly, but Bayne got quad 9s in the $75 token frenzy last night.
Post a Comment
<< Home