Mookday, an End to the Silliness, and Thinking Before you Act in Poker

Mookie day. Why do I keep looking so forward to this thing again? Despite having no chance of ever winning this tournament, I'll always love the Mookie and it really makes the middle of the week fun for me. Unlike previous years, I've spent so much of my poker time this year focusing on cash games and lately on sngs, I have probably played a literal tenth the number of mtts that I played in the past two years. If you take the blonkaments out of the picture, it's probably even less. Big tournaments are just not something I focus on anymore like they once were. But I'm still as in to poker as ever, and hopefully that shows from my ongoing commitment to poker talk here at the blog. This despite the last couple days of fun and games here.

I don't really have a whole lot to add to everything from the past few days, other than to say that in my view I think people's reactions have far, far outpaced anything that led to those reactions, at least anything that came from me. But after the recockulous threads here from the past couple of days I guess I wanted to give some closure to the whole thing from my end. I guess first I should link to this post, which I guess says it all as far as what one blogger -- named LJ by the way -- is feeling about me these days. Hopefully everyone can go and read that post and get their jollies out about what a dick I am. Get the Jergerns™ ready guys. Personally, I would rank this as maybe the third or fourth most personally attacking post against me that I've seen in my three years plus of blogging about poker every day of the work week. It's not the worst, but it's up there. For what it's worth, and I communicated this to LJ via email last night, I do not feel the reaction is anywhere close to justified by anything I've said here. Obviously LJ disagrees with that and I support her in feeling and voicing her disagreement. I will stand by my opinion about the hand in question 100%, and personally I don't think that the way I went about mentioning my feelings was wrong or inappropriate, though again I accept that reasonable minds could maybe differ on that point. Again, I'm all about that disagreement.

I also wanted to address something that I have received personal emails and girly chats about and something which was also commented about in LJ's post above. I cannot and would not want to try to stop anyone from accusing me of "trashing" someone in my blog about a play they made. People should have whatever reaction they have to reading one of my posts or anyone's post for that matter, and if they feel a certain way then they should write it down if they see fit in whatever medium they would like. That's how I handle my own interaction with the blogiverse and I would expect nothing less from anyone else, no matter who they are. That being said, and I've written about this here before several times for my truly longtime readers, I purposely choose not to include people's names or links when I discuss a bad play that someone made in my view. I try very very hard not to call individual, identified people names in my blog, nor to ever attack them personally but always instead to keep things about poker, and on an anonymous basis at that. I generally do include names or links when I see someone make a good play -- witness again ScottMc's abuse of me in the MATH just from yesterday's post -- and I do that because I think it's nice to give credit to people for playing well when someone does it. If someone makes a big tournament score or wins a ton of money playing cash and I know about it, I am likely to blog about it and to identify them by name. But if I see a bad play, my choice is sometimes to blog about it, and when I do I almost never use someone's actual name or link. The only reason for that is that I have no desire or intention whatsoever to make someone feel bad or to embarrass them or call them out at all. There's no other sinister reasoning behind it, and I am totally confident that my true readers know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. When I'm not even using someone's name or link, then I fail to see how I can be described as trashing a person at all. If you disagree, then so be it. Disagree away. And I won't even get in to the notion of someone coming to LJ's support in her blog about how sad it is that people trash other bloggers for their play the morning after blonkaments. In LJ's blog of all places. The ironing is delicious (Trip, that reference is for you). Suffice it to say that I have for some time and will continue to comment here if I witness someone making what I view to be a bad play. It's not about sour grapes -- the AQ hand with LJ didn't even have anything to do with me at all for example, nor do many of the other hands I mention here (some of the bad plays I discuss here actually benefitted me greatly) -- but if I think there is something to be gained for someone, some wisdom to be gleaned about this game from a particular play I saw, I will continue to post about it here.

This is what I do. This blog has been therapeutic for me in many ways and it has helped to me improve my own poker game immensely. I've written about this many times before too, but I think there is obviously no coincidence that I started blogging daily in January 2005, and I made my first big mtt win at the end of that very same month, after several months of pure losing in online play. But more than helping my own game, the biggest reason I blog is to give something back to the community. I also surely see no coincidence that, for example, my blog is listed in basically every single Mookie winner's profile as far as a place they love to read, and more than that, a place where they have found significant information, help and improvement in their own poker games from reading. That is why I'm doing this, still going long and strong after three years of blogging about poker every day. Every time I see that in a Mookie profile, or see someone's comment in their own blog about something helpful to their game that they found on my blog, it empowers me. That's what keeps me going. Yes I must have more haters (literally) than any other blogger out there. I speak my mind and I don't pull many punches when it comes to poker. But say whatever you want about me, I am here trying my damnedest to help other people's games, not to tear anyone down. I have profiled literally hundreds of hands that I played poorly just to get people thinking, and to share ideas from lots of players who are highly skilled and analytical about poker. And you people have told me time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time again how horribly I played these hands. I leave the comments up there for everyone to see, no matter how derogatory or downright nasty they are to me, my game, my friends, my family, whatever. I write strategy posts. Yes it helps my own game quite often to codify and organize my thoughts on a particular element of poker strategy like this, but if you think I'm doing that just for me, then you are seeing but not really seeing, reading but not really understanding. I could write these things down on paper for myself then, or in a personal online journal that only I have access to. If you can't appreciate my desire to help others instead of hurt them through the way I deliberately decline to call out someone when I discuss a play they made that I found to be questionable or flat-out bad or whatever, and from what I post on this blog in general, then so be it. I can live with that. But to portray me as someone who is out "trashing other people" for their play after blonkaments, I find that characterization to be not only unfair, but really not accurate for a guy who takes so many steps not to even identify the person or persons I'm talking about, and for someone who is recognized repeatedly as helping so many other bloggers' games in many different ways. I spend hours every single day preparing for and writing these posts, and while I won't deny some element of blogging for my own self, it's 90% done for you. All of you. Characterizing me as someone who trashes other people in my blog is in my opinion, and perhaps my opinion alone, doing a great disservice to me as well as to the many others who read here and actually improve their own games from what I have to say. Just my two cents, and with the incredible number of haters I have out there there is no doubt a ton of disagreement with my view on this. So be it. But that my friends is all the closure I think I have on this little bit of "high school drama" as it's been described from the past couple of days.

That, and to just mention that I can't wait to see who the first donk is who posts a totally inappropriate and insulting picture of a handicapped child to make fun of people being annoyed over the past few days. Sometimes people just kill me.

Before I forget, I wanted to mention something about ScottMc's elimination of me from the MATH the other night that I failed to mention the other day. So if you recall, he reraised me preflop, I stoopidly called his preflop raise into a heads-up pot with JTs, and then had the worst possible thing happen to me which is exactly why you don't call preflop rereraises into heads-up pots with JTs: I hit the flop pretty well, just well enough to end up losing all my chips into it. The flop came all raggy with two of my suit, and I bet, scott raised, and then I reraised him allin in a large bet. Scott had pocket Kings. And yet, you know what Scott did before he called my allin raise and busted me from the tournament when my 9 outs failed to hit? He fucking thought about it! I mean, this guy had an overpair, a big overpair, and the flop had come all raggy after I had raised and called a reraise preflop, so there was no reason for him to really think I had hit this particular flop hard. And yet, when I put him to the test for all his chips early in a tournament, he actually fucking paused to think about whether he should call. That right there is a good poker player my friends. Frankly, the pause there should be automatic for anybody with just one pair on the flop at any point with a big stack in a tournament, but the bottom line is that there cannot be more than 2 or 3 bloggers total who are anything but insta insta instacalling in that spot. Scott has repeatedly shown me something with his play whenever I've sat down at his table or just watched him from the rail, and with all the ranting and raving I do about the recockulous instacallers out there, who are basically just about always wrong to be instacalling like they do, I wanted to be sure to mention this specifically here because it is just about the single best lesson anyone could learn about playing competitive poker. Overpair Kings on a raggy flop, against a guy who is known to be aggressive, first few rounds of an mtt, and yet he still stops to think for a good 10 or 15 seconds when put to the test for a large call of much of his remaining chipstack. That is a Man right there. I wouldn't have folded that hand to me in that spot either, but dam if I wouldn't have paused for a few seconds to consider the possibilities. Could my opponent have flopped a set? Two pairs? What about big draws, like an Ace plus a flush draw. Am I getting the right price here to call and be facing those twelve outs twice? Am I prepared to take on that kind of risk this early in a tournament where I think I have a skill advantage over the other players? That's the kind of analysis that a real playa does in poker, it doesn't matter what level you're at or what level the competition is either. Even a doofus can pick up a hand or flop a set just as often as you or me. Scott earned even more respect from me for that play, and I just wanted to specifically call it out here.

And, since Scott is male and not female, I don't have any issues with him on a gender basis after all. God sometimes people just kill me, have I mentioned that recently?

OK so tonight is the Mook, 10pm ET as always on full tilt, password as always is "vegas1". Be there for the most fun the bloggers have as a large group every single week, week in and week out. And I should warn you, this whole business from earlier in the week has actually created a considerable sense of calm about my game. I played a few tournaments late last night, and basically played as well and as patiently as I have played in quite some time. I took down 2 out of 3 more $55 turbo sngs for a total profit of a little over three hundy on the night in only maybe 90 minutes of play, and I even ran well in the 14.5k guaranteed 6max knockout tournament at 11pm ET Tuesday as well, eventually succumbing just before the money when I ran an Ace into a better Ace in a blind vs blind confrontation. But I'm feelin' good, and hopefully getting some things off my chest that have been bothering me for some time this week is going to help to limit my tiltability as we move forward from here. I guess what I'm trying to say is, tonight might be my night in the Mookie....Oh and tune into BuddyDank radio as well for the Mook which I imagine should be a good time as always for the Mookie. I will try to do the same as I make another deep run to the final table this evening. See you then.

Oh yeah, don't forget Tripjax's "Blogger Luck Game" coming up on Sunday night at 10pm ET on full tilt. This is an $11 buyin private tournament, the password fittingly is "lucky", and there will be 3-minute blind rounds. And the best part, 100 starting chips. Delicious. Now we will get to see just who is the luckiest of them all. I will definitely be there, and hoping desperately not to have this guy at my starting table. I may have written the book on super turbo tournament strategy, but no way I can withstand four pocket Kings in the first 30 hands of this thing. No effin way.