Fueling to the Cash, and MATH Recap
For starters, I cannot believe I missed this one yesterday, but I would be remiss if I did not mention our brother Fuel55's incredible run to the cash in the $2500 Main Event of the BC Poker Championship over the weekend. Fuel has got an awesome and detailed writeup of the event over on his blog, but let me just start off by saying Wow! Congratulations to the crazy man himself for what I assume is his biggest ever cash, live or online. As my longtime readers know, there is absolutely nothing I like more than biggest-ever poker scores by bloggers, and this one definitely fits the bill as it remains one of the best performances in a Main Event of a "real" tournament that I know of for any blogger. We had Ryan winning the first event (not the main event, but still) of the LA Poker Open, including something like $126,000 or something, a couple of years ago, and of course there was Jordan's recent domination in the Poker News Cup down under, where he finished in 6th place and took home $47,900 for his efforts, and now Fuel in the BC Poker Championship's main event. It's huge news for Fuel and huge news for the poker bloggers in general as far as I am concerned. Way to go Fuel55. There is nothing the poker blogging world needed than padding Fuel's bankroll a little more so he can play 1-2 with us on full tilt with even less abandon and more recklessness than he already does, so yet another big positive for all of us as a group from this momentous finish out of Fuel55.
On to other less important things, 54 runners showed up for "MATH -- The Rebuy" on Mondya night, franlky much more than I expected for a $10 rebuy tournament, to my happy surprise. The thing played out a whole lot like most other rebuy tournaments I have been in, which included some incredible lucksackery at my starting table, unfortunately focused on the same two players again and again and again rather than spread around the table more evenly. Otherwise in the end there were 130 rebuys, and 43 addons out of the 47 remaining players after the first break to make a total prize pool of $2270, easily the biggest MATH prize pool ever, with a first prize of $862 and change, plus of course the BBTwo Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions seat. Wow! What is this, the Big Game? Seriously though, some of the players in this week's MATH insisted on complaining about this being the "tightest rebuy in history" or some such silliness, but in reality the players showed up with their virtual pocketbooks in tow, ending up with between 2 and 3 rebuys per person, just like every other rebuy tournament I've ever played in, other than the $1 variety like the donkament which for obvious reasons often ends up with more like 5 to 7 rebuys per person by the time the dust has cleared.
So, it is clear from the facts that there were just as many rebuys in this as in any other normal rebuy tournament, which is a great thing and which I think shows that people took things seriously and enjoyed the format overall. I'm happy about that, and personally I love the rebuy format and I take it as a nice positive overall that this was easily the biggest Hoy prize pool in history, something I definitely did not expect when I came up with this idea a few weeks back. As I mentioned, the only personal complaint I have about the play this week was that, unlike your normal random rebuy tournament where the bad beats and the lucksucks tend to be spread out among several players at the table, in my starting table's case, where I sat for the entire first hour, it was just two players getting all the pocket Aces (and having them hold up), sucking out sets against other players' pocket Aces, and just generally getting all the starting cards and all the good luck throughout the entire hour. This meant that when Monkey Hour ended and we started hour 2, we had two prohibitively huge stacks and a bunch of shorties, and I know for sure that the other 7 people at my table did not have nearly the fun that these two and hopefully most of you had, because nobody had more than twice the starting stack after an hour other than the two lucksacks. But, such is life in a rebuy tournament, and I've certainly had the chance to be the rebuy lucksack before in my life. Unfortunately that was a $1 rebuy and this was a much bigger prize pool with much more at stake, but what can I do about that. As usual for the blonkaments, I basically sat around and watched some people get lucky again and again and again while I got in ahead a few times and lost, went in racing a few times and lost, and barely kept my ahead above water before bowing out early in hour 2 by running into someone else's pocket Kings. One of these days I swear I'm going to get some cards in a blonkament, at which point you are all dead meat. Even when I try to suck out on people, it just never happens for me. Too sad.
Anyways, the tournament ended at 1:54am, only 30-40 minutes later than the usual Hoy ending time, so I was also happy about that and about not completely ruining some people's nights who live on the east coast. In the end, it was the third BBTwo ToC seat awarded to a player I had mentioned in my previous post predicting the ToC winners, I am proud to say, and it's someone who I personally believe was the best player left at the final table, which to me is always a good thing even though it rarely happens for me personally. Here are all your cashers:
1. cmitch $862.60
2. surflexus $499.40
3. blinders $340.50
4. scottmc $249.70
5. LJ $181.60
6. Fuel55 $136.20
After a very frustrating Monkey Hour for me and then a bustout early in hour 2, I did not stay up to watch the final table so I can't comment on who played well or got lucky later in the tournament. But congratulations out to cmitch for winning I believe his second MATH of the year, the biggest one of the year this time around, including that fatty $862 in cash plus the coveted Tournament of Champions seat. As I mentioned, personally I think mitch is the best pure poker player of those who made the final table, so while I can't say if he got lucky or just got skilled on the night, I am always pleased to see a great player like him take one of these tournaments down, and he is definitely someone who has the chance to win the 26-person freeroll coming up for the 18k prize package to the Aussie Millions in January.
And here is the updated MATH moneyboard for 2007, including the results of this week's tournament:
1. cmitch $1703
2. Columbo $1526
3. Bayne_s $1400
4. Hoyazo $1162
5. RaisingCayne $1110
6. Surflexus $1107
7. Daddy $999
8. Kajagugu $806
9. Fuel55 $802
10. Astin $793
11. Pirate Wes $792
12. VinNay $775
13. Tripjax $759
14. Iggy $745
15. Gary Cox $734
16. Blinders $720
17. NewinNov $677
18. Lucko21 $665
19. LJ $652
20. Waffles $650
21. IslandBum1 $642
22. XxMagiciaNxX $630
22. JJ $630
24. Jamyhawk $576
25. Buddydank $553
26. Numbbono $549
27. swimmom95 $545
28. Chad $537
29. ScottMc $532
30. Emptyman $513
31. Byron $510
32. Julius Goat $507
33. bartonf $492
33. mtnrider81 $492
35. PokerBrian322 $490
36. riggstad $487
37. wormmsu $475
38. scots_chris $474
39. Mike_Maloney $456
40. RecessRampage $434
41. Otis $429
42. twoblackaces $426
43. Miami Don $402
44. Zeem $389
45. Joe Speaker $384
46. jeciimd $382
46. Jordan $382
48. leftylu $374
49. cardgrrl $371
49. lightning36 $371
51. ChapelncHill $353
52. OMGitsPokerFool $324
53. buckhoya $312
53. oossuuu754 $312
55. Wigginx $288
56. Fishy McDonk $277
57. actyper $276
58. Irongirl $252
58. Manik79 $252
60. Wippy1313 $248
61. Easycure $244
62. Garthmeister $216
62. wwonka69 $216
64. Omega_man_99 $210
65. katiemother $209
66. Pushmonkey72 $208
67. Thepokergrind $198
68. Mookie $191
69. StatikKling $180
70. 23Skidoo $176
71. Santa Clauss $170
72. jimdniacc $166
73. Iakaris $162
73. Smokkee $162
75. cemfredmd $156
76. lester000 $147
77. Heffmike $145
78. Julkeus $144
79. brdweb $143
80. DDionysus $137
81. Patchmaster $135
82. InstantTragedy $129
83. NinaW $120
84. UnTiltable $118
85. Fluxer $110
86. -o-LuckTruck-o- $103
87. hoops15mt $95
88. Gracie $94
88. Scurvydog $94
90. Shag0103 $84
91. mattazuma $82
92. crazdgamer $82
93. PhinCity $80
94. Presidentdave $79
95. maf212 $78
96. evy35 $72
97. Alceste $71
97. dbirider $71
99. kevin-with-AK $66
100. Rake Feeder $53
So what a huge week for the 2007 Hoy moneyboard! We're still squarely at 100 total players cashing in the MATH during all of 2007, as for only the second time this year, every player who cashed is a previous casher in the event this year. That said, cmitch comes out of nowhere to power into the moneyboard lead, surpassing columbo who had taken over the lead for the first time from Bayne, who was back to his luckboxy ways in the Hoy this week, after columbo had just a one-week reign atop the moneyboard. Meanwhile, surf also jumps into 6th, and fuel, on a huge roll this week already, also climbs back into the top 10 in 9th place overall. Congratulations again to all of this week's cashers, and I will see you all next Monday night for the next Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt.
Speaking of the next MATH tournament, I've been kicking around some ideas but I'm interested in hearing what you all think about the format for the next couple of weeks. Like I said I have a few fun ideas of my own, but although ultimately I will make the final decision, I am always interested in what you guys, the people who play in these events to make them the great fun things that they are, would like to see. So what's the word, guys? Do you just want to go back to the regular, standard nlh format? Does anyone want to change the game up outright, play something like stud, razz, HORSE or something similar to that? Or should we stick with holdem but just switch up the structure a little bit like I have been so far during the past month? I am very interested in hearing everyone's thoughts, as there are only two more MATH tournaments that are part of the BBTwo, and I plan to do something out of the ordinary for both of them. You know, just to be in control of everything, you know how I am.
One other quick thought for the day -- stb recently posted about something that I think is interesting. He suggests that making all of these blonkaments into double-stack tournaments might actually be increasing the lucksack factor in these things, and that maybe we should consider switching some of these things back to regular 1500-chip stacks. Now that is sort of a contrarian point in my opinion, as the conventional wisdom is definitely that larger starting stacks allows for some more play, and some later-street play especially in the earlygoing, all of which should theoretically increase the chance for the skilled players out there to end up on top. With the 1500 chip stacks and the same blinds structure, the issue I find tends to be that it can be difficult to recover from one bad setup, one bad beat or just one poorly-played hand, whereas with 3000 chips to start, you can easily lose a bunch of chips early and still have more than enough to get back into contention within the next hour or two.
But then stb argues that this exact possibility could be what is causing so much lucksackery in the first place, and I think he makes an interesting point. Because the players know they can afford to slop around in the earlygoing when the blinds are low, even betting or raising on the flop or turn without much of a hand or just on a longshot draw or something, the double stacks actually encourages people to play just like that, thereby leading to more dumbo suckouts and just generally shitty play across the board. On some level it is difficult to argue with this point, as stb says he himself plays this way on occasion, and I would be remiss if I did not weigh in to say that I most definitely tend to play a little looser very early in the double-stack tournaments than I ever would in a 1500-chip event. I guess my point is that, overall, I think I like that we have the ability to play a bit more hands and see some more flops and turns early. I like the freedom to sling some chips early and try to make some moves and do some stuff to some people and see where the board takes me. But again I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on this issue: single stack or double stack?
Labels: Blogger Tournament Scores, Double Stacks, MATH Recap
posted by Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo @ 6:56 PM
21 Comments:
This was KOD's idea. $11 Blogger MTT's 1500 chips, $26 MTTs 3000 chips, $75 MTTs 5000 chips. This way chip counts are relative to the buy-in and the size of the fields.
I think that during the BBTwo all events should be NLHE. There is plenty of time after the competition ends to make the MATH any other form of poker but since we are giving away a major prize to a major NLHE tournament we should stick to NLHE.
I've been loving the different structures. And I love playing other games.
As Don said, gotta stick with NLHE, if only for the TOC. If we played Razz and somehow the best Razz player won (haha right) they would still win a NLHE seat.
As for the stack sizes, I like KOD's idea but really don't think it matters much. It does allow for extra play at the beginning, but with a poor risk/reward ratio so most are playing tighter. It may shift the dynamic of where the dead money goes, but it still seems to me that nothing really moves until M's get down to 10-12 anyways. Whether that's level 4 or 12 is trivial.
How many blonkeys do you know that will fold their AK to a reraise for 3000 but not 1500? If all-in is an option, most can't wait to get all their chips in FIRST.
Limit HE -- stack sizes matter so much more. I vote soon after BBTwo.
Do a rebuy again soon, please. Very disappointed to have missed this one.
I love the change up, love learning new games at this point. Don's point of consistency toward a major prize is a good one, but beyond that sky's the limit and I think a WSOB (World Series of Bloggers) with lots of mixed games, varying stack sizes and buyin amounts would be stellar. Sometime next year.
And yes, I realize I just described the WBPT.
Double-stacks are great, but it's been a while since we've had single stack, so that would be just fine too.
I think I got my point across wrong in that post. It was meant to be a combination of people playing loose and getting lucky, which causes other to berate their play. Though I haven't looked at the date, I believe it to cause the game to last longer.
Is the starting stack a huge difference? No, I won't say it is, but it just seems to hit the luckboxes better.
I agree with Don. Keep the BBTwo events NLH and then branch out later on with some HORSE.
Although as awesome as Fuel's cash was, still pales to Ryan's LAPC win for $120K and his WSOP main event cash of $30K...
Thanx for the love man.
Loved the rebuy and the title was mine if not for a 3-outer on the river for a $115K pot.
Don't change to short stacks. Bigger stacks favor the better players, period. Smaller stacks mean less play, and less time before it is a lucsac push-fest.
So it is now lucksacary to get a big pair and double through with it in an MTT. Give me a break. I played over 210 hands in the MATH. That means on average you will get every big pair once. You don't need to be lucky to get dealt a big pair in an MTT, only still in it. So I slowplay a flopped set with QQ for a double up, and trap bottom pair with AA for another double up, and I am a lucsac? I would not say that I had a huge run of cards last night by any measure.
Let's keep it NLHE for the rest of BBT2, but you can try a Monday at the HORSE right after, maybe?
How about next week go back to the 26 buyin but make it a KO tourney with 20 going to prize pool and 4 per KO? That could be a fun change.
And as far as I'm concerned the 1500 starting stack is almost a one shot deal. You have to double up or leave very quickly. I don't mind some players playing loose early in the double stacks. I think it's a much better structure.
Double Stacks. Keep Em. Yes, there is more play early, but isn't that the point? Being able to survive a bad beat or setup early and still have chips to play far outweighs the looser play.
And why would a good player care if play is looser? Or if more flops are seen? Bigger Stacks mean more post flop action, and that's where the the really skilled players can excel.
Though I have not run the numbers, it is my feeling that the generalized tight/weak blogger style of old is dying, and over the past year the blogger style has transitioned to semi-loose aggressive play and heading toward solid tight/aggressive.
PokerTracker shows my game has certainly moved in this direction, and it looks to me like many others are going this way too.
I believe this is due to the bigger stacks, some quality posts by Hoy and others on stealing/re-stealing, and the general acceptance of AceJack sucking. But mostly the bigger stacks - they allow more play, and get players into situations to learn from that don't happen in a 1500 tight/weak game.
An idea for the next 2 weeks -
$24+2 with $5 bounties, or if possible to set up, larger bounties on players who already have a seat in the Blogger TOC.
I like mixing it up, but I think the final BBTwo MATH should go back to a normal $26 double stack.
Agree to stick with NLHE and double-stacks for all reasons given above.
Knockout isn't a bad idea, in fact, I like it. Knockout rebuy 6-handed turbo? :)
Shootout?
Thanks for the link up. Just for clarification, I don't remember cracking anyones aces, and most of my stack from making calls with K4 or A7 vs chad because I had a feeling I was miles ahead.
This was my first MATH in a while, but I really enjoyed the format. I don't know about starting stacks, but I do know that I'd love to see a HORSE event or something similar. I'm all for it.
Do a NLHE Heads-Up tournament next week. We did that for one of the DADI's and I thought it was a blast...I think it was the one Wil Wheaton ended up coming in 2nd.
The heads-up version made for great rail chat cause once most players were knocked out, they were going to a bunch of the other tables and chatting it up with folks still playing.
Gotta admit, winning a HU tournament would be a cool way to win a TOC seat...
Liked the rebuy format.
If the wife had not had computer issues I might have played 1st 45 minutes of monkey hour harder.
My monster hand in monkey hour was 84s all in against LJ (raising light) and Chad (ATC) and followed up by 66 holding up against Chad's A8 on 543 flop.
You busted out making a move with KJo.
It was Blinder's BB, I raised, you made a move knowing range to raise Blinders BB is wide and I called knowing it was Blinders BB and I had a legit hand (but not KK)
I think ANY CHANGE is good. Considering all three tournaments every week are exactly the same, I cannot imagine how people are still excited to play the same crap over and over. Can you imagine PLO double stacks? With the blogger crowd that could quite possibly be the funniest experience of all time and well worth the admission.
BTW, your re buy stats are skewed. There were like 4 of us in for $100 probably. So basically the same people were re buying, and yes, it was the gheyest, tightest, most boring rebuy event in the history of poker!
Fuel's biggest cash.. maybe only cash? haha! Go Fuel!
I loved the rebuy tourney. It was definitely tighter than most rebuys, but that is pretty typical of FTP vs. Stars. FTP rebuys are usually much much tighter than stars.
Chad may be a right, there were several players that came to gamble during the rebuy period, but a lot of others that were playing extremely tight for a rebuy hour.
Glad I could make one of your BBTwo predictions come true. Thanks.
100 chips turbo no rebuy super lucksack NLHE. That's my vote.
;)
Seriously, keep the deepstacks. I think it really allows the aggressive players to outlast (outplay) the tighty-rocks.
KOD's idea makes the most sense to me. lower buy-in tournaments should start with shorter stacks. stick with NLHE for the push monkeys (e.g. me!).
btw, IMO if you made it a $5r instead of $10r, the play mighta be more loose during monkey push hour.
agree w/ smokkee, i think great idea to do $5 rebuy instead of $10.
I agree with Don. actually i said the same thing last week and got told to stick it.
Make it nlhe 24+2 with a Knockout prize. I like the Knockout in this format.
Peace
Wwonka aka Donka
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