BBT Returns and Another Solid Weekend of Poker

Wow. The BBTwo is here starting in this past Sunday night's Big Game hosted by MiamiDon, and 57 runners came out for the biggest turnout in Big Game history, making for the biggest prize pool of any blogger event ever that I can recall of $3933 and cash prizes that are all basically pretty kickass to win for finishers numbered 1-7. Getting the group together to come and play for a chance in what will soon be the new largest-ever blogger prize pool in the BBTwo Tournament of Champions is what it's all about, and everybody was out and ponying up $75 of hard-earned cash (or easily won token) to get in the game.

Me? I donked. Hard. I made a terrible play by breaking one of my cardinal rules of poker and something that I think everyone needs to constantly fight against -- instead of putting a guy on the hand I thought he had, I opted instead quasi-subconsciously to put him on the hand I wanted him to have. I know, real smart. Things started off good when I picked up pocket Aces and eventually won a nice-sized pot against Mookie whom I felt had a lower pocket pair, also an overpair to the board. Mookie played his hand like a real man, reraising me on the flop to find out once and for all with minimal loss if his hand (he would later tell me in the chat he had QQ, on a raggy flop) was best, and then correctly laying it down when I re-reraised him allin. I told Mookie then and there in the chat that he played the hand well and that he made a laydown with the overpair Queens on the raggy flop that I did not think 90% of bloggers could make. I was impressed with his aggressive reraise on the flop, and with his discipline to lay down the overpair Queens when his reraise for information got answered by an allin rereraise from me.

This very same discipline that Mookie showed eluded me totally about 20 minutes later when I picked up and open-raised with pocket Jacks in middle position and then Mookie kicked it up again a large amount from one of the blinds. His actions seemed like another big pocket pair to me, but since he had just shown Aces and I think Kings as well I simply was not putting him on another monster despite what my instincts said. Mookie was somewhat short stacked -- down below 2000 chips I think -- so when he pushed allin on another totally raggy flop, I had already "decided" that he held AK this time. Even though my gut told me he had a real hand, when he insta-pushed the raggy flop, I was already expecting it and had just decided that he had AK and not another monster. Well, I was wrong, so when I instacalled with my overpair Jacks, he showed me pocket Aces again and I was basically done. And that's the story of my tournament right there at the Big Game -- I won a big pot from Mookie who had the discipline to lay down pocket Queens to heavy action on a raggy flop, and then I lost almost my entire stack when I could not find that same discipline to lay down overpair pocket Jacks and instead chose to decide someone had the exact cards I needed him to have in order to win. Well played by me.

In the end, after staying up to the final table and then falling asleep I guess when down to 7 players remaining, I was absolutely thrilled to wake up in the a.m. and see that good friend jeciimd had taken the whole thing down. Well done my man! Other than the donkorific limit Dookie tournaments where I often think the donk-chasiest player wins, this may be jec's first big blonkament victory, and that and the $1600 first prize or whatever it was now belong to jeciimd, the biggest dollar loser in the entirety of BBT1. That right there is some delicious irony. So just like that, jec is entered into the Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions to be held at the end of the year, one of just 27 (or fewer) spots into the freeroll to top all freerolls and award that 18k Aussie Millions prize package to one lucky winner and a guest of their choice. Jeciimd. Fucking unbelievable man.

So speaking of the BBTwo, your next chance to participate in a large prize pool and to qualify for the next ToC slot comes tonight at 10pm ET in the first BBTwo-enabled Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt:



$26 or a Tier I token to buy in, 10pm ET on full tilt, password as always is "hammer". Come on out and donk it up again, Hoy style. And remember, we still have that tight race at the very top of the 2007 Hoy moneyboard as well, so multiple things will be going on in what is likely to be another large field as jec will try to stake his claim to Player of the Week in Week 1 of the BBTwo with another strong performance tonight to claim the buyin to this Sunday's big-buyin guaranteed tournament on full tilt.

Otherwise I had another big weekend in online poker, as I am finding more and more that the 2-4 6max tables are basically chock full of fonkeys throughout most of the weekend hours, especially in the late evenings but even in the mornings which surprised me a bit. During the weekday nights there is plenty of donkery, don't get me wrong, but for whatever reason over the past couple of months I am just seeing more fidiots than normals at the tables, which has been great for my roll as well as for my confidence at the cash games. I won several buyins net on the weekend, recording 12 out of 17 winning sessions overall and playing great, and only coming up with one big suckout late on Sunday night in what was otherwise a series of me getting in ahead and mostly holding up.

My tournament game was also hopping over the weekend in addition to some good cash results, as I also won another token frenzy over the weekend, now the second time I have won four of these token frenzies in the same week:



In addition to cashing (but not winning a seat in) two more FTOPS satellites -- these both in limit holdem for FTOPS #12 -- I also managed to win my first ever donkament on Friday night! As this was the last unofficial blonkament before heading into BBTwo Land, I was happy to at least know I could go into the new Aussie Millions challenge playing well. Of course the first hour of the donkament is an abject joke, making a mockery of even that refuckulous Monkey Hour in the nightly $3 Rebuy Madness tournament on the old pokerstars (is that site even in operation anymore?), and after skipping the first 15 minutes like usual I endured much of the same shit I always do in the donkament every single time I've played it so far (maybe 10 times overall). Everyone calls me with ATC, and I consistently lose even though I'm ahead when the money goes in. This past Friday I lost four out of four hands allin to start the tournament when I was the favorite every time with all the chips in the middle. I kept a "good" attitude about it and even typed in smileys to everyone every time I would get donked by someone's horrible cards. But eventually the seal broke and a favorite hand of mine held up against I think two other allin hands to triple me up. A short while later the prohibitively huge stack pushed allin on a reraise against my pocket Aces, which amazingly held up again for a huge pot, and I ended the first hour with a significant chip lead already for a good 15 minutes or so.

And quite simply, I just never released my stranglehold on the tournament from there as Monkey Hour mercifully ended and the real tournament began. I might have lost my chip lead for two or three hands at one point during the second hour, but in the end I busted a good 5 or 6 people before the final table to just continue building my stack throughout. As the final table began I had about a 2-to-1 chip lead over second place. When down to 7 players remaining, I had more chips than everyone else at the table put together, a situation which never ended as I held a prohibitive chip lead right on down to starting heads-up play as about a 5-to-1 favorite. I played super cautious at that point when heads-up, and in the end I don't even remember what hand won it for me, but it was something against something, and my something held up to win. Good times, that donkament, and for once I managed not to lose every single hand I played in the first hour, and even though I recorded precisely zero suckouts in my favor in the event, I did manage to get dealt AA three times and KK and QQ twice each during the balance of the tournament. And like I always say, just give me some phucking cards and I'll make it happen. Well AA, AA, AA, KK, KK, QQ and QQ will do it, huh? Like I said I'm just glad to be able to know I'm going in to the BBTwo on the right foot and hopefully giving myself the best chance to win.

OK that's all for today. Tomorrow we can talk about my MATH victory and new spot atop the 2007 MATH moneyboard, as well as some random NFL thoughts I have after Week 7 of play. See you tonight at 10pm ET for Mondays at the Hoy!