Mookday, MATH Recap and Monday 1k Donkery

Greetings to everyone and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas or at least some nice time off with yourself, your family and/or friends even if you don't celebrate like this blogger. For many of you it is now back to the grind for the next few days heading into the New Years holiday next Monday in the U.S., but for me it is more time off as I have a very much needed vacay from work throughout the remainder of this year. This should give me some time to blog a little bit, and I will tell you that I am working on a nice -EV post on turbo sitngo strategy that I am hoping to crack out for y'all sometime in next week is my guess. It will probably come in several parts, but if nothing else I am looking forward to how Hoy Synopsis goes about distilling those badboys down into summary posts.

So the Christmas Eve $6 rebuy turbo super-double-secret special MATH tournament on Monday night had 12 runners, and full tilt almost got the structure exactly right for what I had requested. I say "almost" because, although the format was turbo like I asked and that did include the 30-minute rebuy I had requested, it was not in the end the exact same structure as the nightly turbo rebuy satellites that full tilt regularly runs. Those turbo satellites feature a 30-minute rebuy period, followed by a 2-minute break and an add-on, and then an hour-long session by the end of which the winners are quite often already determined. For the MATH this week, there was instead a 30-minure rebuy period, no break, and just another 30 minutes of non-rebuy poker immediately following the end of rebuy time. And the funniest part of all was that after an hour of turbo play, then full tilt allowed us all to add on for an additional $6 the original starting numebr of chips of 1000, which starting after the end of the first hour equated to exactly two big blinds. Not smart. Nonetheless, a good time was had by all and I have to say I am really enjoying getting back to the fun of the blonkaments now that the BBTwo has come and gone.

Long story short, I absolutely dominated the MATH rebuy this week. I was in the middle of the pack after the first hour, but I quickly built up my stack, busting several players in the process, and by the time we were 5- or 6-handed at the final table, I had a big chip lead. I just kept adding and adding to my stack all through the end game, such that when I got heads-up with cemfredmd, who was playing at his first-ever Hoy final table, I had about an 8.5-to-1 chip lead. After a couple of folds I think my chip lead had dropped to around 5-to-1, and then I was dealt pocket Queens which I slow-played preflop for only one raise, opting to push allin on a raise on the raggy flop that fell. Unfortunately for me, my pocket Queens were up against cem's ultimate setup hand of pocket Aces (heads up!!), and suddenly we were nearly even in chips. To make matters worse, a few hands later and still with the chip lead, cem got it allin again on the flop with a naked flush draw on a Q54 flop, which I called with my pocket Tens. Turn rag, river flush card and I was crippled. So my nearly 9-to-1 chip lead disappeared over the span of maybe 5 minutes on what amounted to a massive recockusetup followed by a suckout, and before I knew it I was out in second, and cem had won his first ever MATH tournament.

The three cashers from this week's MATH event were:

1. cemfredmd -- $126
2. hoyazo -- $75.60
3. TheCloserX5 -- $50.40


And here is the updated MATH moneyboard for 2007, including the results of this week's tournament:

1. Columbo $1823
2. cmitch $1703
3. Bayne_s $1400
4. Hoyazo $1238
5. RaisingCayne $1110
6. Surflexus $1107
7. Daddy $999
8. twoblackaces $931
9. LJ $867
10. Lucko21 $815
11. Kajagugu $806
12. swimmom95 $804
13. Fuel55 $802
14. Astin $793
15. Pirate Wes $792
16. VinNay $775
17. Tripjax $759
18. IslandBum1 $754
18. Numbbono $754
20. Iggy $745
21. Gary Cox $734
22. Blinders $720
23. NewinNov $677
24. Waffles $650
25. XxMagiciaNxX $630
26. JJ $630
27. Mike_Maloney $612
28. ScottMc $597
29. Jamyhawk $576
30. Buddydank $553
31. riggstad $537
31. Chad $537
33. Emptyman $513
34. Byron $510
35. Julius Goat $507
36. bartonf $492
36. mtnrider81 $492
38. PokerBrian322 $490
39. wormmsu $475
40. scots_chris $474
41. whiskigrl $467
42. jeciimd $460
43. RecessRampage $434
44. Otis $429
45. leftylu $424
46. Miami Don $402
47. Zeem $389
48. Joe Speaker $384
49. Jordan $382
50. cardgrrl $371
50. lightning36 $371
52. ChapelncHill $353
53. OMGitsPokerFool $324
54. buckhoya $312
54. oossuuu754 $312
56. Mookie $304
57. Wigginx $288
58. Fishy McDonk $277
59. actyper $276
60. Irongirl $252
60. Manik79 $252
62. Wippy1313 $248
63. Easycure $244
64. Garthmeister $216
64. wwonka69 $216
66. Omega_man_99 $210
67. katiemother $209
68. Pushmonkey72 $208
69. Thepokergrind $198
70. bsquared25 $194
71. StatikKling $180
72. 23Skidoo $176
73. Santa Clauss $170
74. jimdniacc $166
75. Iakaris $162
75. Smokkee $162
77. cemfredmd $156
78. lester000 $147
79. Heffmike $145
80. Julkeus $144
81. brdweb $143
82. DDionysus $137
83. Patchmaster $135
84. InstantTragedy $129
85. cemfredmd $126
86. NinaW $120
87. UnTiltable $118
88. Fluxer $110
89. -o-LuckTruck-o- $103
90. hoops15mt $95
91. Gracie $94
91. Scurvydog $94
93. DaBag $84
93. Shag0103 $84
95. mattazuma $82
95. crazdgamer $82
97. PhinCity $80
98. Presidentdave $79
99. maf212 $78
100. evy35 $72
101. Alceste $71
101. dbirider $71
103. kevin-with-AK $66
104. Rake Feeder $53
105. TheCloserX5 $50

For those of you wondering how I did in the Monday 1k buyin tournament on full tilt, I donked it up hard on what I knew even then was a really bad play, maybe 40, 45 minutes in to the tournament, that I think shows really well how important it is to go with your read and to not call of your chips like a fonkey unnecessarily. I raised it up from 3x middle position before the flop with pocket Tens, and the player in the small blind reraised me 3x, which I called to see a heads-up flop with the fifth-best (maybe 6th) possible starting holdem hand. Easy, standard call as far as I'm concerned. The flop came down a fuly raggy 822, and my opponent bet out around the size of the pot. I was concerned -- those of you who railed me will note that I paused for some time even here on the flop to ponder the best response -- and for some reason I opted to just smooth call his bet. Here I figured he could have been on a middle pair slightly lower than mine, or maybe AK or conceivably AQs, and by just calling I was hoping he would slow down on the turn, or at least that an Ace or a King would come so I could get away from my overpair pocket Tens. I knew he had reraised me a standard amount preflop and that was indicative of a strong hand, but I made the decision that I was not quite sure enough he had a higher pocket pair from just his standard flop c-bet, and I was not quite ready to give up the hand yet. A real man would probably either fold or raise here, but I fucked it up and played too passively in a situation that simply does not call for passivity when you hold a medium pocket overpair on the flop against a preflop reraiser.

The situation only got worse on the turn, which came down an ultimately raggy offsuit 5. This time my opponent moved allin into what was now already a large pot, and I must have sat there for a good minute, using up my alloted time and part of my time bank while I contemplated where I had gone wrong with the hand. For some reason, even though I had told myself when I called donkishly on the flop that I would fold to any action on the turn, when I actually saw that action on the turn, and the huge number of chips in the pot, that nagging feeling in the back of my head starting piping up. And let me tell you guys, the nagging voice back there is almost never right. I rely on my reads almost exclusively when I play poker, but not that guy. The one with the nagging, skeptical voice about everything. The guy back there always saying "really?" and "no way!". That guy is stoopid, that guy is not analytical, and that guy is -EV. But on this night, I let him get the best of me, talking myself into thinking that the very action I said would cause me to fold quick now somehow represented instead the desperate push of a busted big slick. Knowing that he might be likely to play 99, A8 or AK in this way, and basically ignoring the preflop reraise and my read all along that he probably had a higher pair, I went ahead and slid all my chips in on the turn there after much thought, basically knowing the whole way that I was calling off my stack in an uncharacteristic fonkplay by me. He flipped up pocket Kings (der der der!) and IGH early, in the first round. Sad, but I brought it on myself 100% and I have nothing and no one -- not bad luck, not the full tilt rng server, not the other player, nada -- to blame for it but myself.

Just chalk it up to lessons learned I guess. When I smooth called this guy on the flop, I figured I was probably behind and decided then and there that I could smooth call here because I knew I would fold to any action from him on the turn unless I myself improved. Well, I got that action, and instead of following through with my own promise, I called off my stack with one pair on the turn like the uberdonkey that I played like that night. That my friends is some baaaaaad poker right there. Haters, rejoice!

So don't forget the Mookie tonight, 10pm ET on full tilt, password is "vegas1" as always. I am already registered and so should you be for the biggest donkey kong game played by the bloggers every week online. And to follow up suggestions from Mookie as well as from Trip I received last week, if anyone out there has any fun ideas for prop bets I can participate in for 2008 given that I've never won a fucking Mookie title in all my life, I would love to hear them. Effing Trip even had the nerve to suggest that I should give him odds in that endeavor. I'll state here for the record what I told Trip in the girly chat last week -- if anyone is giving up odds in a battle of who will win the Mookie first in 2008, it's everyone else to me. I can't play for shit in this thing, I lose dominated pairs to flopped quads, I've been sucked out on every which way but Sunday at the final table, on the river, in this thing. You all should be giving me odds in this, not the other way around. You'll get no odds from me in any prop bet that involves someone winning the Mookie before I do next year. So don't even think about it.

See you tonight at the Mook!!