Playin Tight in the Mookie, and on to Riverchasers

Well I followed through with my stated plan for the Mookie on Wednesday night, playing like a true tightydonk from the beginning, and man did it hurt. I remember every single time I folded into an unopened pot preflop from the button in the first hour of the tournament, wincing every time I recall it because it is just so diametrically opposed to the way I play the game. But I was committed to playing tightydonk, and I stuck with it. Mostly. I did raise with a few hammers in the first hour, more on that in a minute. But other than the hammer, as I mentioned I folded instead of open-raising from middle position with hands like KJo and A8o, I folded ATs from early position (all moves I would not normally make in tournament play) and I repeatedly declined to steal the blinds on places like the button and the cutoff where I would just plain never fail to do that in a regular tournament, especialy against a bunch o' blonkeys. And it was really phucking annoying playing this way, let me tell you. But you know what else?

It works. That's it, plain and simple. Tightydonk early works in the blonkaments. That's just the way it is. I did this exact same thing about a month in to the first BBT, after literally reaching the points -- not the money but just the points -- in just 1 of my first 13 BBT tournaments. Is that sick or what? Bottom half of the field in 12 out of 13 events. But that's how I was playing at the time, trying to force things and just generally overplaying early in these things, which as I was saying yesterday and several times in the past is simply not the way to make it deep in the blonkaments. So about a month in to BBT1 I remember posting about my problems and deciding to just play uber tight no matter what, and see what happens. Starting from that very moment, I ended up going on a two-month tear that saw me win two Riverchasers tournaments, take 2nd in a Hoy and win the Big Game on my way to an out-of-nowhere 4th place finish overall on the points list. And I'm telling you, it all started when I declared I was going to stop stealing blinds early, stop bluffing and taking aggressive stabs at orphan pots in the earlygoing of these things.

Last night, I did basically the same thing, and lo and behold I also made the points for the first time in 3 BBTwo blonkaments so far. It's funny how that works. I busted I think in 22nd place out of 112 entrants in the Mookie (yeah that's right, I said 112 entrants in the Mookie!), and frankly I had played pretty dam well up to the point where it all fell apart in the span of just a few hands. From I think 3rd place out of 23 players left, I went for a flop steal with a bet of around 5000 chips (about 25% of my stack at the time) and Astin pushed allin to which I had to fold. This knocked me down to the middle of the pack, and it was surely not my greatest move. The flop had had a King and a Ten in it, which generally is enough to persuade me not to take a bluffy stab at a pot, but in this case I was hoping Astin had raised preflop with an Ace and hopefully had not hit this particular flop. Either I was wrong, or Astin really made a great play at me, it really doesn't matter. Then a few hands later I raised preflop from middle position with KQo, and one of the Wonkas -- I think it was the evil one but I really have no clue the difference between them as you know -- pushed in for just a few chips more from the blinds. I made the obvious pot odds call, he flipped up A9s and his 60-40 or so hand held up. This put me about 2/3 of the way down the leaderboard. Within the next five minutes or so, I got it allin with some not-great hand, I don't remember what, and someone called me down preflop, it might even have been Questionably Evil Wonka I'm not sure, and they had some kind of solid Ace again which I did not. All I remember specifically was that I flopped the lead from again a 60-40 underdog hand before the flop, but then the gheyass Ace on the river did me in and IGH in 22nd place overall.

I had a great time playing in this event, the first time I can say that in the week's BBTwo events, which of course mainly was a result of me playing so well and lasting well into the night in the tournament. I was sick as a dawg too but managed to keep my cool and reign it in well enough to endure far into this thing and give myself a real chance to win the latest Aussie Millions ToC seat. One other thing that was really effing cool about this tournament was getting to suck out a ridiculous beatdown hand against Jordan early in the tournament, the truly one and only time in the event that I slipped back to my aggrodonk tendecies. I mentioned above that I played a few hammers early on as my only non-tightydonk hands, and in one case I reraised Jordan's late-position raise when I held the hammer. Jordan responded by pushing allin, and I had one of those truly awfuckit moments where I just typed into the chat "Enjoy" before calling -- yes, calling -- his allin reraise with 72. He flipped up AQ, and I turned a deuce to win the pot and put Jordan a hair away from out, to which he soon succumbed. Jordan took it like a man like I have so, so many times in the past, but I cannot tell you how exciting it is to get a suckout win year against another guy who's blog I love to read. Even though I play about 300 tournaments a year, I somehow only end up with maybe five, maybe six suckout wins for each year I play, so for one of those 5 or 6 to come at the hands of another blogger, it's just about all I can ask for. Other than it having been this guy, of course.

OK so that's my story for today. Don't forget tonight is the latest Riverchasers tournament, which is sure to be chock full of fuggadonks just like the Mookie last night at $10 a pop and as the fourth and final BBTwo tournament of the week. Even though these large donk-filled events are complete and utter crapshoots to win outright and get the latest ToC seat -- and btw congratulations to the blogfather for somehow taking down the Mook last night in the end -- I feel like I have to play the Riverchasers after winning 3.99 RC tournaments already this year. If I'm ever going to donkeysuck enough to actually take one of the large-field BBTwo-enabled tournaments down, the Riverchasers is probably it given my past performance in this thing. But it's gonna be big, and the play is gonna fuckin blow. Make no mistake about those two things. And with every one of these tournaments, I just thank my lucky stars that we don't have to sit and watch people folding to the points every single week. This top 25% thing for points is definitely working much better IMO.

I'm going to start a new Pick 5 feature where I'm going to try to pick a group of five players the day of every BBTwo tournament from amongst whom the eventual winner of that night's tournament will be. So for this week, here is my Pick 5 for tonight's Riverchasers tournament:

1. Me. I'm not playing so great just lately, but I seem to have turned it around in the Mookie this week, and will surely be playing even tighter tonight, so once again if I am betting or raising in a pot early on in the RC, you best get out of my way if you enjoy survival.

2. Waffles. Although Waffles' general poker profitability is certainly in question, you gotta admit he has been playing well in the last few blonkeyments. He has proven to be streaky in these things, and the last time he went on a nice roll like this, he ended up winning I think the Mookie out of the blue, so I think he has a shot tonight in the RC if the cards go his way a little bit.

3. Lucko. Although obviously these things are largely luckfests given the size and level of donkness among the fields with the BBTwo in effect, Lucko is without a doubt one of the two or three most formidable cash or tournament players among our group when he is on. And he appears to be on lately, with two 24k final tables in the last week, and he's been playing well in the last few blonkaments as well in his quest to win that Aussie Millions package. Odds are high that Lucko takes down at least one of these things and finds his way into the Tournament of Champions, so maybe tonight is the night for ol' Kevin.

4. Astin. Despite his clear luckbox tendencies, in my opinion Astin has been playing well so far in the BBTwo tournaments as a whole, maybe effing up the first one but otherwise he seems to be pretty on in his tournament game as well, culminating so far in a 2nd place finish to Iggy in this week's Mookie tournament. Given that he gets dealt pocket Aces like it's his job and that he loves to flop sets and river flushes in multiway pots and the like, you can never count Astin out and I need to include him in tonight's Pick 5 for the Riverchasers.

5. And lastly, Columbo. To be honest I never used to think much about Columbo's poker play, but in the past year it is obvious that he is really coming into his own at least in terms of the blonkaments. Not only is he right up at the top of the 2007 MATH moneyboard in terms of total money won from the tournament during this year, but lately Columbo always seems to be near the top of the leaderboard in the weekly blonkaments as well. This includes this week's Mookie where he was either in the lead or in second place for much of the middle portion of the tournament before busting somewhere around #20 as I recall, but my point is that once again Columbo made a serious run and alomst got himself into position to push deep into the final table.

I'm betting tonight's Riverchasers winner comes from someone in those five players. Anyone else agree / disagree?

So I definitely plan to play in the Riverchasers tonight, and so should you fo sho. 9pmET on full tilt, password is the very original "riverchasers". See you then!