FTOPS Begins, and I Return to TIlt

Only time for a quickish post today (by my standads anyways), as I am already playing in FTOPS #2, a $240 knockout PLO tournament, and I have a million things to do for work while I sit at my home and play the game.

A quick recap of last night, which sent me on megatilt and to an early exit from the world of online poker on the evening.. A whopping 5319 entrants showed up for FTOPS#1, the $216 buyin nlh tournament to begin the series, and easily the biggest ever first event that I can recall. The prize pool was also a whopping $1,063,800, with a cool $183,526 and change to first place. Wwwwooooowwwww. I had AKs dealt to me on hand #2 of the tournament, where I chippd up nicely to 3410 out of the big blind. Noice beginning. But then the donkeypunching began.

I raised preflop with 99, and got called by one player two to my right. A raggy flop came down with two spades that gave me an overpair to the board, and my opponent led out from the sb for 130 into 210 pot. I raised him up to 520, and he called prety quick. The turn came down another undercard rag, he checked, and I checked behind this time as I was (I think correctly) fearing a higher overpair so I didn't go for the raise there and would secretly have been happy to check it down. The river brought the Queen of spades to make three spades with flop, he bets out half the pot for 730 chips and I called. He showed KJ spades for riverflush. Donkeypunched early, beautiful. He had bet out for over half the pot on the flop with just the naked flush draw and not even an Ace, and then had instacalled my 5x raise, so I just couldn't put him on two regular spades. Silly me.

I did slowly grind back to close to 3000 chips on some big steal-raises on the flop, mostly bluffy raises with less than optimal cards. I found AK one more time and won a pot on the flop with it. At the first break I had 2750 chips, good for 2811th place out of 4179 or so left.

I recorded my first and only double to 4860 chips at 10:14pm ET with 88 on Jack-high board with three rags by the turn card, when I pushed the turn and my opponent called my allin with 66!!! I had bet flop and he called it too. AWESOME! Up to 1074th of 4037. Donkeypunchers 1, Hoy 1.

At 10:37pm ET I slipped back down to 3040 chips when I restole the small blind's open raise from my big blind with my A9o. The sb quickly reraised me allin with a largeish stack, and I figured I had to be behind here, so I folded, angrily. 2301st place out of 3422 remaining. Then three minutes later I lost another big one when I open-raised preflop with ATs from mid-late position. Just the button called. The flop came ragged, I bet nearly the pot and the buton raised me alin for around 2.5x my flop bet. I had nothing and knew I could only bet the KQ or A9 resteal bluff here, so I had to lay it down again, now down to 1920 chips, my lowest point in the tournament so far. Ugh.

One minute later I played my last hand of the tournament. I open raised from the hijack on the very next hand with AJs, now a short stack with under 2000 chips. The big blind, sitting on a big stack, reraised me around the size of the pot. I knew that my play seemed like a tilt steal after the previous two hands in rapid succession, so I pushed, and he instacalled with 99. My racing hand does not hit and IGH. Bad performance by me, as it all fell apart real quick over just a few hands, and I am out in 3328th place at 10:41pm ET. Oh well. This FTOPS begins just as the last one ended for me.

Congratulations to Joe Speaker who cashed in 344th place for $436 and change as the highest blogger I saw on the list of finishers for FTOPS #1, which literally did not end until after I woke up this morning, sometime right around 6:45am ET. Wtg Joe. pokerfool also finished in the money, ending in 533rd place for $308.50, nice job.

I also played the 9:45pm ET $50 megasat on Wednesday night to the $535 HORSE FTOPS #3. Gotta play it with 5.5 to 1 odds and a chance to play in Thursday night's big HORSE event. But what a flipping disastrously poor job full tilt did of running sats to this, and to the other $535 event which is the FTOPS ME. There have been barely any opportunities to satellite in, and it will cost them. Anyways, two minutes in to Hour #2 in this thing, I run 2nd set into top set kings in an unraised pot preflop on an all-high board, and lose almost my entire stack as a result, which had been right around starting stack from an hour+ earlier. Two hands later the dregs are gone and IGH, well out of the money.

Of course I also played the Mookie on a Wednesday night, where I also played good poker for the most part. I received my usual share of decent starting cards (absolutely none), and I won nothing but steals and bluffs all night to stay basically just a shade above the 1500-chip starting stacks all through the first hour. More than halfway through Hour #2 in the Mook, I had just gotten up to my largest stack of the night around 2100 chips on another flop steal, and I find AQs in the blinds. Somewhat short-stacked Dubspoke raises preflop ahead of me. I reraise around the size of the pot with my AQs, and he pushes for a small amount more, basically an allin call with what turned out to be 66. Of course this is a shitty hand to basically call allin with, but he was short, and I'm sure I would have done the same thing in his shoes. Again my racing hand does not hit and I am chopped way down to just around 800 chips. But never fear, literally two hands later I find QQ in the hijack. Someone raises it up from middle position, another player calls that raise, and I push in my last 800 for about 3.5x the original raise. Both players call my raise -- perfect for me with what is likely the best starting hand since I am short -- and it turns out I am up against KK and AK, and I come in third of the three players in the hand. Hahaha. Another Mookie funtimes for me.

That's it for my whining today. As of 3:30pm ET I am still alive a little more than 90 minutes in to the FTOPS $240 PLO tournament, but I am in 322nd out of 554 players remaining with 4,390 chips. I have yet to receive AAxx or KKxx or any double soooted or double-paired hands. It's been one of my most hideously poor runs of starting cards ever. Why am I not surprised?