The Curse Lives

That's right everybody. This is just a brief post today to remind everyone as 2008 comes to a close that my own personal Mookie Curse lives on. Lucky for you all, this particular curse only seems to affect me in any consistent, disgusting way, but it is truly recockulous the way I get beat out of this thing mostly every week. It's unspeakable, that's what it is. This is The-Curse-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, right here in the flesh, and I am living through it.

I would estimate that thanks to the Mookie conflicting with the television scheduling of Lost, I probably missed a grand total of 9 of the 52 Mookie tournaments so far this year, meaning I probably played in 43 of them. Of the 43, I won, of course, exactly zero, giving me 43 bustout hands just during 2007 in the weekly Wednesday night Mookie tournaments. Of those 43, I would estimate that no more than 10 to 12 of them involved me actually getting in when I was behind. Of the other 30 or so bustouts, then, they are probably pretty close to evenly split between suckouts and setups, most of them utterly recockulous in nature. Reviewing my own personal year in Mookie's, these are the ones that stick out the most in my mind. I'm talking about Surf resucking out on me on the river in heads-up with him having just six outs to prevent me from winning my first and only ever Mookie title. I remember the other two Mookie final tables during the BBTwo, one of which saw me run AQ into KK allin preflop against a guy who should have been eliminated a few hands earlier if LJ had not folded to his hammer at amazingly poor pot odds to lay it down, and the other which was also some ghey setup the details of which I cannot recall right now. But it was bad and I was going to win the tournament if not for that hand, whatever it was. I remember thepokergrind or maybe it was pokerenthusiast getting allin against my KK with his JJ and then flopping quads. And there are many many many more stories just like that, all from this same little tournament that now yet another player has won but I have not as of this week.

And my elimination this week fits very very nicely into that same exact vein of suckout and setup stories. Not sure which kind I actually like worse, but this week was definitely the setup kind. I'm in third place out of 21 players remaining of the 51 runners who started this thing, having played well and recording no suckouts of course along the way to get to that point. I limp in to a 3-way pot with A4o. The flop comes down 64x, no suits. I don't remember what the x was, but trust me it was not material to the situation and created no draws, maybe a Ten or something, I don't know. It was either checked around or maybe there was a small bet by me, I don't recall and it really doesn't matter. The turn comes and it's another 4. I am stylin with trips and top kicker. I bet a reasonable sized bet on the turn, which muhctim raises huge over on my right. I ponder the situation, rexcognize that although I do not have the nuts, I do have a hand that beats the vast majority of the range of hands that muhctim would be raising with here (i.e., any other 4 in his hand that does not make a boat, and maybe two pairs as well). Plus, his raise was so huge -- something like 6 or 7 times my turn bet -- that I figured there's no way he is super-strong here. If anything, with that rather obviously large bet, I figured him for a low 4 and I was about to take a massive chip lead into the final 20 players.

I reraise allin, and muhctim thinks for a few seconds before typing "no way I can lay this down". When I saw this I was laughing all the more, knowing that with any of the four hands that actually beat my A4, there would be no hesitation and no doubt about his call. But what does he flip up? Pocket 6s. Indeed, one of the four hands that beat me, and IGH in 21st place. Abjectly sick is what that is. Just like so many of the other setup hands I have fallen victim to this year in the Mookie, if that third 4 does not fall on the turn, of course I don't lose another dime in this pot, let alone my entire huge stack of over 12,000 chips. But I defy anyone who says they would have gotten away from that hand in that spot. And if you would have, then you are laughable in my book. Period. End of story. Oh I'm sure certain dickheads will claim they would have gotten away to the big raise with top trips on the raggy board, but don't worry -- I have too much respect for those people's games to really believe the drivelcrap they regularly post here under the guise of "comments". I know exactly what's going on with most of the Hoy Haters™ and exactly why they come here to post what they post in reaction to my daily poker musings. But this was just another in a long line of sick setups and gross bustouts for me in the Mookie, putting a capper onto what was a great year for me in blonkaments in general, but utterly and completely despicable as far as the Mookie.

Amazingly, someone told me today I am still in the top 15 or something in Mookie winnings for all of 2007. That, my friends, is an indictment of you all. In terms of overall skill of play exhibited in the Mookie this year, I will happily take the top 15 banner and wear it proudly. But total winnings? You guys are all embarrassments to your race, and to poker players and bloggers everywhere.

And with that, I will end today's semi-rant post. This one should be easy for hoysynopsis to distill down into one or two lines.

Btw I'm still taking ideas for a fun prop bet between myself and Mookie at least, if not with others as well, regarding winning the Mookie in 2008. Mookie and I, both never having won his weekly private tournament despite having played it probably close to a hundred times apiece at this point, are considering a private prop bet fo 2008 on who wins this thing first, but I would love any and all creative ideas on how such a prop bet could work. Anyone out there have any good, interesting ideas other than the run-of-the-mill $10 from one of us to the other for whoever wins the Mookie first in 2008?