BBTwo Reset

Today's going to be short and sweet (for me) because frankly I am feeling like ass today. I woke up too early in the 5am hour somewhere, and when I took my first swallow it was like someone had shoved a thousand little spikes all down the length of my throat. My whole family has been sick except for me during the past week, so I basically knew this was coming, but damn was I hurting this morning. Luckily Hammer Wife was well enough to take care of the kids a little bit so I was able to go back to sleep, and when I did wake back up shortly after 7am I was feeling a little better. Get a shower and a little hot tea in me for the throat, and here I sit back in the office. suit and tie on, the whole shebang. If you had felt what I felt at 5am today though you would never in a million years have expected to see me at the office. Damn. Reminds me of the time I had strep throat in college -- 106.3 degree fever, literally hallucinating from it, and by far the worst throat pain I've ever felt in my life. I wouldn't wish strep on my worst enemy. This isn't strep I'm sure, but I am not myself today and really just need some rest. Fat chance I'll get that here though.

This does have me thinking about tonight's Mookie tournament though, the third of 27 chances to qualify for the fabulous BBTwo Aussie Millions freeroll, where I will clearly be feeling semi-out of it unless there is a miraculous turnaround in my health during the day. And since something tells me that 10 cigarettes between now and the first cards being slung in the Mook is not going to do any wonders for my throat, I'm guessing that I'll be pretty under-the-weather come Mookie time. And maybe that will help me a bit to execute my "new" old plan for the Mook.

How many times have I advised one of you out there reading this today that the way to win the blonkaments is to take it slow early, wait for the cards to set you up with a monster hand, and then elicit chips from the donkeys? I've probably told a hundred of you out there that exact thing, in conversations, in the girly chat, even here on the blog I'm sure. When I'm running good in these things -- which is usually, but definitely not always -- it's always very clear to me that taking it easy up front is the secret to blonkament success. The guys who push real hard, the people making sweeping bluffs and stealing every blinds they can regardless of their cards, the guys out there representing the nuts in the first hour of these tournaments, they never win. Maybe once in a long, long while, but in the end that is simply not the way for me to maximize my results in these things.

Maybe for some of you out there doubling up early or going home early is a good option in the blonkaments, and that would not surprise me at all. This may be due to your general mentality, as I know a number of guys playing in tonight's Mook I'm sure who in general find it very difficult to produce and maintain the patience required to wait for the right cards in our private tournaments. Even me, after seeing 7 of the 9 people at my table turn up pocket Aces at one point during the first hour, while my best hand so far has been Ten-Four offsuit, sometimes I tend to just get all awfuckit inside and start deciding that, if full tilt isn't gonna give me any pocket Aces, then I'm just going to manufacture my own pocket Aces, and just play my next hand, no matter what it actually is, as if it's pocket Aces. Eff them, right? And that's where I get into trouble, when my mentality breaks down early and I find myself out there pushing into god-knows-what, often with total garbage or at least something eminently beatable.

For others of you, in particular those of you who do not tend to focus on mtt's as much as the rest of us, doubling or busting early may be attractive because it might actually represent your best chance of building the kind of big stack you're going to need to last into the deep levels of the tournament. For example, if I sent my 4-year-old daughter M out into the WSOP Main Event, and she found AK early on and a guy right ahead of her pushed allin, I would advise her to call for sure. Unless I had some specific reason to believe the other guy had Kings or Aces, then a quick 50-50 shot at a double-up is just about the best thing M could hope for, given her limited knowledge of no-limit holdem and her penchant for foul tantrums at the drop of a hat when things don't go her way. Now I don't mean to compare any of the bloggers' poker skill to that of a beautiful and precocious 4-year-old who -- literally -- can't even spell poker, but I think the point still holds true. If you are someone who doesn't play a lot of poker tournaments or someone who has never had a big tournament win or for any reason just don't feel that your tournament chances are great to last more than an hour or so in this thing, then maybe going for the quick double or bust is right for you and might truly maximize your chances of success in the tournament.

But that's not me. I have spent a lot of time, a lot of time, over the past couple of days thinking about how I have once again managed to get myself into a dumbass funk as we start up another big blogger tournament series. I don't know if I get over-excited or nervous or what, but somehow, something, makes me act way too big for my britches basically right from the getgo in these tournaments, which I have done so far in both the Big Game and the MATH this week to start the BBTwo with two no-cashes and two no-points in what amounted to two basically shitty performances. And if you recall it is the exact same thing I did through the entire first month of the 3-month BBT1 series, essentially costing myself a shot at the title. That is lame, and it's not me. I can dominate these blogger tournaments and have done so many times for a long time, and I think I've actually had that talk with myself just in the past 12 hours or so where I really realize my mistaken approach taken in these tournaments so far. I need to take it slower early on, not losing much (or any) chips in any pot where I do not have either a solid made hand or a solid draw at the right pot odds. This should be basic poker stuff to everybody out there, but believe me when I say it is simply not the way I've been playing the BBTwo tournaments so far this week. If you've been at my starting table, then you know exactly what I mean.

I bet that, through just the two Big Game and MATH tournaments this week, I have lost more than 5000 chips on pure bluffs with no good reason to even be bluffing in those spots. I recall losing half my stack about an hour in to the MATH this week to ck31 on a total bluff with a pair on the board when she reraised me allin and I of course had to lay down.
And these are tournaments where I've lasted less than two hours total between the two of them, so it's not like there's much poker to have squeezed all those stoopid failed bluffs into, and it's not like the blinds ever got high enough to justify sliding in thousands of chips on what essentially amount to complete kamikaze missions. Yes I have a lot of confidence in my poker play and my ability to win pots, even when I've got nothing, but that is a far cry from me feeling entitled to every pot out there when no one makes a move at it right away.

That's the way I've been playing the BBTwo tournaments so far this week. But tonight with the Mookie, it stops. Ima play tight as a drum tonight for the first 90 minutes or so, and the rest of the bloggas will have to deal with that and adjust accordingly. No more stupid move-making in the earlygoing just because I think I should win every orphan pot out there. Tonight, when I make a move, I will have the goods. And all you calldonks will pay dearly.

See you tonight at the Mookie, 10pm ET on full tilt, password as always is "vegas1"!!