MATH Recap, and Consistent Luckboxery

Once again, work tilt is getting in the way of me getting a proper post up for you guys today. It's just hard coming back from a few days away from the office to find the time to generate the kind of output here that you guys know I am accustomed to doing, all while satisfying my boss and my many clients at the same time. I hate it when the blog loses that fight but sometimes I just don't have any ability to stop that from happening, and today is one of those days.

I did quickly want to update today for the latest Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt, which had exactly 82 runners for the second straight week as the BBTwo is in the hizzy once again this week. I was way too tilted to keep up with the action myself on Monday night, but I can report here the final leaderboard for the top 9 finishers who cashed in this week's MATH tournament:

9th place: $49.20 Fuel55
8th place: $59.04 Astin
7th place: $78.72 leftylu
6th place: $118.08 UnTiltable15
5th place: $157.44 Snailtrax
4th place: $216.48 riggstad
3rd place: $275.52 twoblackaces
2nd place: $383.76 wormmsu
Winner: $629.76 XxMagiciaNxX

*I will update the 2007 MATH moneyboard on Wednesday to reflect this week's results.

As I mentioned, I could not bring myself to stick around to watch the end of the Hoy this week after my own untimely elimination from the event, so I don't have any details on who bubbled, who just squeaked into the money, who played well and who luckboxed at the final table. I also don't know anything about the player "XxMagiciaNxX" who won this week's tournament, including the $630 first prize and more importantly the 5th seat to the BBTwo Tournament of Champions to play for the Aussie Millions freeroll in late December, but I was given his blog link by Lucko in the comments. By my count around half of the cashers this week are not bloggers, which is interesting in its own right, and if anyone I listed above has a blog and I have not linked it, please leave me a comment and I will get that right up there. Otherwise, congratulations to XxMagiaiNxX for winning the 5th seat to the Aussie Millions ToC, and thanks to everyone who came out and played and I look forward to seeing you next week for the next MATH tournament.

My night at the virtual tables really pissed me off, moreso than I probably have been in some time. I was so annoyed about my performance on the night that I'm not even sure I will be playing tonight at all, which is not something you will usually hear me say. For starters, I played the token frenzy at 9:45pm ET, where I got sucked out on not once, not twice, but three times all in the first 40 minutes or so on 75% or better hands when the money went into the middle, with the third suckout finally eliminating me in 40-somethingth place out of 112 or so runners. That one was bad because I kept getting sucked out on despite repeatedly getting my money in ahead, and it kept happening again and again and again. Very frustrating.

At the same time, I also played the nightly mtt satellite into the FTOPS PLO8 event, where I was in second place with 7 players left, and sitting on a significantly larger stack than the third place player at the time, when I called a small raise from the chip leader when I held KKxx. We saw a heads-up flop of 8K8. Bingo!! I bet out the size of the pot because I'm a man, and the guy minraised me. I love minraising donks who use the minraise when they do not have a strong hand. I quickly put the guy allin, and he insta-called me, flipping up?

AAxx. Now here is a guy who doesn't know the first fucking thing about playing Omaha games. Preflop raise with AAxx (no low cards, no suits) isn't a great play, but it's defensible. But the flop minraise with the AA unimproved, and then of course the instacall of my allin reraise on that flop, are utterly indefensible and unbelievable in any way, and of course as the chip leader you can imagine how hugely I was about to be set up to win this satellite when I stacked this ahole.

Turn card? Ace. And IGH just short of the money. What a fucking joke.

Then of course there was my own MATH experience, which involved me failing to play tight early once again despite my promises to do so (sometimes I think I really have got to stop drinking for these tournaments. But then I figure, I've won a ton of blonkaments in my day and I've been pretty much buzzed or more for all of them, so why F with a good thing, right?). But then I got lucky and flopped a set against one of my fellow New York blogging crew, which I managed to double up with against someone who I'm pretty sure had the JackAce on an Ace-high flop. Man I get no respect. But I played very well, if not a little recklessly for a blonkament, and I was doing great about 90 minutes in, somewhere in the teens with 40-some players left, which I pick up pocket 7s in the small blind.

The action folds to me preflop, so I raise it up the size of the pot, and Surf calls from the big blind. Of course I'm ahead here, and of course I had to raise to help protect all the rest of my copious blind stealing tendencies. What's more, the flop comes an almost hard-to-believe 245 rainbow, making my 7s an overpair to the board and making it all but impossible that my pocket pair is not good here. I bet out on the flop, around two-thirds the size of the pot. Surf minraises me. Of course he's just trying to steal the pot from me, as my 7s have got to be good here in a blind vs blind confrontation, with Surf almost surely on a hand like A5 or K4 or something like that. So I min-reraise him back. You know, just to be an anus. Surf thinks for a whlie and just calls. Now I know he knows he's beat. The turn came an offsuit Queen, and I pushed allin for my remaining chips which at that point was less than the current size of the pot. Surf instacalls and flips up?

A3o. Yep, for the flopped fucking straight. In a blind vs blind hand. That is just regoddamdigulous. What is this, pokerstars here? Christ. The guy calls a raise preflop with A3o. Not a great play, but assuming he thinks I'm a stealer, again that play is easily defensible. But then why the fuggity fug fug does the flop have to come with three undercards to my pocket pair, giving me an overpair at the same time it gives him the flopped inside straight? WTF is that? It's downright pokerstarsian, even. And it raises a larger issue: Why do the same people seem to luck out in the blonkaments far, far more than everyone else?

Now I know that you luckdonks out there will try to argue that you appear to be getting luckier than others, but that you are actualy just playing better. Bullshit! I don't have to go and re-list and re-link all the blonkey luckboxes out there here for the umpteenth time, but the fact remains that a small number of players in our group just consistently flop to their hands, pull bullshit rivers out of their ass, and just generally get the good cards and the good boards all night long whenever they need or want it. Surflexus has probably luckboxed against me in a blonkament on at least 7 or 8 occasions over the past year. I know this because I remember them all. Every. Single. Time. That guy has luckboxed me so many times I truly have lost count, and it's not like we're playing in 5000 tournaments a year together such that it's just a large-numbers thing. No, instead what it really is is that Surf gets so fucking lucky when he plays hands against me that I am basically fighting a battle that is all but impossible for me to win. I need to outplay the guy like always, plus I need to overcome probably a 2-to-1 disadvantage in starting cards, plus probably a 10-to-1 disadvantage in the cards that hit the flop, turn and river. How the fuck can anybody be that good, huh?

And my last question of the day: How the phuck are you clear, consistent, redickulous luckboxes not winning more of these blonkaments? I do not understand it. It is my solemn guarantee that if I hit flops like Surf does against me, or got turns and river or starting cards like some of you other donkeys out there, then I would probably win one blonkament a week. At least. It is beyond annoying being the constant butt of suckouts in the tournaments I regularly play in, and invariably it is to the same small handful of people again and again and again, without regard to how badly I have tricked them or just generally outplayed them in the hand up to that point. I know a lot of the other blonkament regulars out there know exactly what and whom I am talking about. So what gives?