Final MATH Recap of 2007

Happy New Year everbody!!! With 2008 upon us, here's to all of you and myself having an even better year this year than in 2007. And I mean both in poker and otherwise.

This year, I was lucky enough to have New Years Eve fall on a Monday, which meant one last Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt before the year came to a close. And to end the year on a fun note, I opted for a straight-up HORSE tournament, at the same $26 buyin, to finish things out on what to me has been a truly exciting and enjoyable series of tournaments that at least for me have really made Mondays far less hateable during the past twelve months, even something to look forward to on occasion. I was pleasantly surprised to see 12 runners show up for New Years Eve HORSE MATH, about 8 or 9 more than I expected given the holiday and the party hardy types that generally comprise the blogger crew, but I guess between late partying times, kids and a few friendless dorx thrown in there we had enough to have a good group to donk it up in some non-nlh games and have a good time in ringing out the old year and ringing in the new.

Unfortunately for me, my early New Years Eve plans ended up running much later than expected, which even included me watching Evan Almighty, one of the worst, dumbest movies I've seen made in years, and as a result I ended up missing just about the entire first hour of my own HORSE tournament to end the year. When I logged on at around 10:50pm ET, I had blinded down to 300-some chips remaining, the game was limit holdem, and I found 44 in the small blind. It was raised ahead of me on the button by jec, no doubt using his alcohol-fueled aggression to attempt yet another steal my defenseless blind, and so I reraised him, planning on just taking the pocket 4s to the river and going down in a blaze of glory. Instead, both jec and the big blind folded to my allin bet on the flop and I basically more than doubled up in the process in just the one hand I had played. Which was a good thing, because then I had to drop off for another 5 or 10 minutes to take care of some last minute items at home, and by the time I logged back in, it was about two hands before the first break, and I was in late position, still limit holdem, and this time with 97o. I raised preflop once again, jec was in a heads-up pot with me this time, and I ended up pushing just a pair of 7s on the flop and then a flush draw as well on the turn all the way to allin on the river and outlasting jec's even more shitty hand. This got me up to over 2k in chips and around the middle of the 10 remaining runners at the first break, with me having played only two hands all through the first hour and pushmonkeying both of them to boot.

I still had to drop on and off for the next 15 minutes or so, but by the time we were in the razz round of Hour 2, I was in for the long haul. Of course I got sucked out on recockulously by chasedonkeys a couple of times -- razz has been pure evil to me ever since I spent a couple of months playing cash razz in mid-2006 and won a few razz tournaments to boot -- but I also managed to bust a few more guys whom I know were none too happy with the way I kept popping in, pushmonkeying and then dropping right out of the tournament. What can I tell you, I played it the way I felt I had to, and it worked out for me and to the detriment of a few other players in the earlygoing. It was ghey, but what can I say.

Fast forward another hour or so, and I was three-handed and in the cash in my second straight MATH tournament, against two non-bloggers but guys who both have had some success in the Hoy in the recent past and in HORSE games in general. Twoblackaces busted pretty quick at the hands of a late-street suckout in hilo I think by SRC1013_JD, leaving me and SRC -- jeciimd's almost-equally-tight brother btw -- to play heads-up for the final MATH title of the year. Although we started off fairly close to even in chips, I quickly built up close to a 2-to-1 chip lead before donking it off early in the limit holdem round by making two dumb calls back to back with just a drawing hand. Baaaaad tournament poker when you're heads-up with a chip lead, but about a six-pack of Corona Light in me kept telling me it was the thing to do at the time. Through the rest of lhe and all of the O8 round, we basically held our ground with me giving up a bit and eventually dropping to a more than 2-to-1 chip deficit as we headed into the Stud Hi round. The thing is, SRC it turns out is just as tight (if not tighter, if you can believe it) then his brother jec, and the end result was I stole probably 90% of the pots through the entire stud round to get right back into it just a few minutes in to stud play. Then I got lucky and hit a few hands, which src paid me off on to varying degrees before folding on 5th street or earlier. Finally I was back to a more than 2-to-1 chip lead, still in stud, when I made two pairs on fifth street and src had committed with I guess just an inside straight draw and some overcards. My two low pairs held up, and I had won my fifth MATH tournament of the year!



So the cashers for the last Hoy of the year are as follows:

$144 Hoyazo
$86.40 SRC1013_JD
$57.60 twoblackaces

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 $1382
5. RaisingCayne $1110
6. Surflexus $1107
7. Daddy $999
8. twoblackaces $958
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. SRC1013_JD $86
94. DaBag $84
94. Shag0103 $84
96. mattazuma $82
96. crazdgamer $82
98. PhinCity $80
99. Presidentdave $79
100. maf212 $78
101. evy35 $72
102. Alceste $71
102. dbirider $71
104. kevin-with-AK $66
105. Rake Feeder $53
106. TheCloserX5 $50

I ended the year on a major heater in the blonkaments, something I love and which I really hope I can ride on into 2008. In the last two weeks of the year, I finished 4th in Riverchasers after that redonkulous hand where I minraised 7 times preflop with T8s on the very first hand. Then I ended second in the MATH after cemfredmd outlasted me on the QQ-AA headsup setup and then river suckout, followed by my donkout in 20th place of 61 runners in the Mookie last week, but at a time when I had been in 3rd place on a number of great plays before that horrible setup hand with my A4 on the 446T board against what turned out to be pocket 6s for the hidden higher boat. Then in Riverchasers this past Thursday I final tabled again, ending the night in I think 2nd place for another deep blonkament run, which I followed up by winning the Donkament last week in dramatic, crushing fashion, thanks in no small part to this guy and his generous penchant for rebuying and pushing allin preflop. I then ended things out for 2007 with another MATH victory on New Years Eve. So that was 6 final tables and 5 cashes in my last 7 blonkaments (I final tabled the Donkament the week before as well), with my only non-final table occurring on that sick Mookie setup hand (what else is new) in a spot where otherwise I had been in 3rd place through more than two-thirds of the field already as it was. So I've been playing these things really great lately, which is a trend I hope to continue into 2008, starting on Tuesday night with the brand new Blogger Skill Series, the brainchild of KOD, which tonight will begin with a $12 buyin Stud-High tournament on full tilt. Anyone who is around today I heartily encourage to participate, as to me (and I know to Chad and several others as well), the real mark of a great poker player is without a doubt the ability to excel in all the poker games, not just no-limit holdem. I will definitely be there tonight at 9:30pm ET on full tilt (password is "skillz"), and I hope to see you there as well to kick off 2008 in Studly style!