Monday, April 28, 2008

Still Sick and Waiting for Answers

Don't forget tonight is the latest Mondays at the Hoy tournament and part of the BBT3 at 10pm ET on full tilt:



Password as always is "hammer", and any and all are invited.

Still trying to figure out what is wrong with me. I felt I had to play the Big Game last night after Donkette informed me via IM over the weekend that I was currently in second place in the April leaderboard standings. And as if that wasn't reason enough to play, the current leader was this guy. So I felt the pressure to get in there and try to make something happen, but as with the Mookie and the Riverchasers last week, I simply was not able to play my game. Actually I think in the Mookie I autodonked in the first five minutes because I had to go to sleep, and I know I was nowhere near conscious when the Riverchasers went off last Thursday. I even slept through Lost last week, an absolute all-time first for me, in what turned out to be hands-down one of the very best episodes of the series when I finally caught up with it during the afternoon on Friday.

Anyways, I did play in the Big Game, but more out of perceived obligation with respect to the April BBT3 leaderboard than anything else, but my heart and my head simply were not in it. I am just not well enough. I will probably try to play the MATH tonight, but I'm not even sure I can make that at this point. I am back in the office today, at least for the time being, as I have a new lawyer starting today on my team and I needed to be here to train her and introduce her to the company and all that good stuff. But otherwise, I probably have no business being in this office here on a Monday, in particular before I even have a clue from the doctors what the fuck is even wrong with me. They've suggested mono, pneumonia, some other viral illness and a few other random things, but I don't care much for suggestions. I can make suggestions about what's wrong with me. I want some fucking answers. It is typical doctor bullshit from my perspective but now I am just waiting for them to call me back as promised today with the results of my bloodwork from my visit last week when the medical technician ravaged my inner elbow like it was a pincushion and she was a voodoo shaman of some kind. Of course they said they would call by three hours ago and now when I just called them they pretended they had no clue who I was, but again, typical doctor bullshit.

Anyways, my apologies for the effect that this latest bout of illness has had on my blog posting, but if you could feel like me for even five seconds you would understand, trust me on that one. 5000 words of pokery pomposity doesn't just write itself, you know. But come out tonight for the MATH and try to take down the latest BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat like I did a couple of weeks back. You can't win if you don't play!

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Friday, April 25, 2008

Sick Day #2

Yo. Today marks the first time I have missed two straight days of work due to illness since my law firm days in Boston. In fact at this moment I am off to the doctor's office to figure out what the fuck is wrong with me. So once again no proper post today.

But I'm not going to leave you empty-handed today. Instead here are two old links to my archives for your viewing pleasure:

1. How to play AJ. Something most of you cocknoses still need to learn.

2.Huge pokerstars rant. This was the play that got me off pokerstars for like 15 months from 2007-08.

Enjoy. My craziness is your entertainment. Isn't it great to see how much I've grown?

Expect me back and better than ever on Monday. Hopefully.

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Sick Day

Ugh. I definitely have something wrong with me but I don't know what it is. After feeling relatively fine in the mornings but getting increasingy uncomfortable and feverish in the evenings for three straight days, today I am home sick and as such I won't be writing a full-out post today.

If you are here because you linked here from Iggy and were curious which post of mine he was referring to, here it is. Some have called me a masochist after reading this post, but to me any serious poker player who has had success I bet shares my views as espoused in that post from earlier this month.

Otherwise, I should be back tomorrow with a proper post assuming I am on the mend.

See you tonight at Riverchasers at 9pm ET on full tilt (password is "riverchasers"). I will need to donk out by 10pm ET so I can watch the new Lost episode, so you'll want to be at my table at around 9:55 when the chip firesale starts.

And congrats to PirateLawyer for nabbing the latest BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat and becoming a two-time Mookie winner at the same time. My what an exclusive group of awesome poker players that is.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Still Running Gooooood

Well it was another night of the BBT3 and another strong performance from me. I final tabled the Skill Series HA tournament (half PLH and half PLO) this week in my attempt to defend my title after I won my BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat in last week's Stud8 Skills game. This makes I think final tables in four of the last five BBT events. Is that right? Who would've thought it, just a short week ago before my big win. Certainly not me. I had only made "the points" -- which I never even consider for a single millisecond while I play because I'm a Man -- in I think two BBT events prior to this streak. And right here is exactly where I would like to explain to you my secret -- the secret for winning the large-field blonkaments brought about by the BBT.

If only I had any god dam idea. I think I play all the poker games well, and I think I play pretty well in most of the BBT3 tournaments most times I play them. This is certainly not true all the time, but more often than not I show up and I play the games well. I have been wracking my fucking brains trying to figure out what specifically I've been doing differently over the past several tournaments that has me not only lasting, but making the final table repeatedly, always in at least decent chip position, and enabling me to nab my one BBT3 win so far.

My first thought in situations like this is always exactly the same thing: playing tight. I figure, I must be playing tighter if I am lasting longer, especially given my success in the last couple of Skills games, which have seen me take down about 15 or 20 bustout bounties after going literally 11 or 12 Skills games without recording a single one. But you know what? I don't think I am playing tighter, to tell you the honest truth. I have spent a lot of time reviewing my big hands from the past several BBT3 tournaments and I see myself perhaps folding a couple of marginal hands that I might otherwise have played -- the QJo from the cutoff seat in an unopened pot early, for example -- but really I am playing some marginal hands and pushing somewhat hard with them early, midway and late in these tournaments. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not playing stoopid poker as a rule, but when I review some of the plays I've been making in large pots before the last couple tables in these tournaments, I see a lot of marginal stuff going on and lots of chips flying to the middle out of my stack with not a whole lot working for me.

Similarly, I can confirm it is certainly not great cards that have been leading me to so many final tables in these things. I have not been seeing my share of AA and KK in the holdem games, and I'm not flopping quads against other people's flopped boats in the Omaha variants. Those of you who have sat at my table in one of these recent tournaments -- think how many times I am beating you with AA or KK or something. It's just not happening. I've seen guys like PirateLawyer and DonkeyPuncher last night showing lots of AA and winnings lots of big pots with monster starting cards. That ain't me.

So what is it that's working so well for me in the BBT3 blonkaments lately? I think it is a combination of two simple things, neither one of which is a whole lot in my control. First, I am hitting some big hands in very big spots. This does not extend to the quality of my cards in general, but when I've needed to fill a flush near the end of the tournament and I've made a call on 5th street in Stud with just the flush draw against two opponents, I have hit my flush in a big spot. I turned trips in a big spot where my opponent had flopped top and bottom pair earlier this week. In a few key spots, when I have absolutely needed it most, I have come through with a big hand or a big draw or my shit has been holding up. I am running good in that respect.

Also, I am jumping out to big stacks early. In some cases, really big. If you look, I have been chip leader in almost every blonkament of the past week or so with around 20 players left. The early big stack is so key because it enables you to survive and withstand some of these asscock chasemonkeys, especially in the limit games, who otherwise can ruin your night with one idiotic play then ends up costing you big time. When you start with 1500 chips and drop down below 1000 early, it is very difficult to come back to amass, say, a 10k stack because you have to double so many times to get from 900 chips back up to 10k. However, if I can get an early double and be at 3000 chips, and then another double before the first break, then I can get sucked out on, I can take the worst of it a little bit in a 40-60 pot with a smaller stack than mine, and still be more than ok. That is extremely helpful.

Lastly, and to be honest as I review everything this is the most direct conclusion I am drawing: people are playing bad poker against me. I pretty much always get called down with anything by just about anyone, so it stands to reason that when I am hitting some draws and making some nice hands early, I can really amass a stack, and that's just what I've been doing. In Stud8 last week, someone grossly overplayed two low pairs against me from 5th through 7th street with an obvious high hand even though I clearly had Aces over from the betting action and the cards on my own board. In the MATH this week I got lucky and survived an allin call with the hammer early against my opponent's overplayed AK, but then two players donked me like 4500 chips within minutes with crappy one-pair hands or even just primary draws on the turn with 9 outs or fewer and just one card to come. Even last night I got off to a nice double early in PLO when my opponent got stuck playing a not-great Omaha hand and then called off his stack on the turn with two pair and a flush draw on a board with a high straight possibility to get started off hot. It's been happening a lot with me lately, which like I said is partially reflection of the fact that I have been hitting some draws with a bit more frequency than usual, and the fact that people tend to play against me as if I am constantly in there with garbage. Calling me down allin preflop early with shit like JTo, K9s, stuff like that.

A great example of all of these ideas can be found in the hand I profiled yesterday with PirateLawyer from the MATH. Yesterday I reposted the hand history from PL's blog and asked what you guys thought I probably had. Here it is again, from PL's blog:

"Then after a long period of inactivity I play Q5s from the small blind vs. Hoy, who has me covered in the BB. This was a significant mistake in situation selection; I end up spewing a large amount of chips needlessly.

Full Tilt Poker Game #6129182836: Mondays at the Hoy (45101299), Table 9 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:02:52 ET - 2008/04/22
Seat 1: jimdniacc (8,783)
Seat 2: PirateLawyer (20,798)
Seat 4: hoyazo (22,685)
Seat 5: wormmsu (23,121)
Seat 6: BuddyDank (6,596)
jimdniacc antes 50
PirateLawyer antes 50
hoyazo antes 50
wormmsu antes 50
BuddyDank antes 50
PirateLawyer posts the small blind of 200
hoyazo posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PirateLawyer [Qs 5s]
wormmsu folds
BuddyDank folds
jimdniacc folds
PirateLawyer raises to 1,200
hoyazo calls 800
*** FLOP *** [5d 4h Kh]
PirateLawyer bets 1,400 - middle pair, second kicker = easy c-bet
hoyazo calls 1,400 - Hoy could well be floating here, or he slowplayed preflop
*** TURN *** [5d 4h Kh] [Kd]
PirateLawyer has 15 seconds left to act
PirateLawyer bets 1,900 - time to fire a second shell now that's it's less likely he has a king
hoyazo has 15 seconds left to act
hoyazo raises to 5,700 - this smells like a positional raise but I can only beat a bluff or bottom pair
PirateLawyer has 15 seconds left to act
PirateLawyer calls 3,800 - I decide to call and re-evaluate on the river; I might check-fold or open-shove depending on what comes
*** RIVER *** [5d 4h Kh Kd] [Ks]
PirateLawyer checks - frankly, this card completely surprised me and I froze like a deer in the headlights
hoyazo bets 14,335, and is all in
PirateLawyer has 15 seconds left to act
PirateLawyer has requested TIME
PirateLawyer folds - I reluctantly fold but escape to fight another day
Uncalled bet of 14,335 returned to hoyazo
hoyazo mucks
PirateLawyer has returned
hoyazo wins the pot (16,850)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 16,850 | Rake 0
Board: [5d 4h Kh Kd Ks]
Seat 1: jimdniacc (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: PirateLawyer (small blind) folded on the River
Seat 4: hoyazo (big blind) collected (16,850), mucked
Seat 5: wormmsu folded before the Flop
Seat 6: BuddyDank folded before the Flop

I folded to Hoy's pressure even though I didn't really think he had the goods; all I can beat is a bluff."


The answers you gave in the comments for what I was holding ranged from possibly the case King to make quads, or perhaps a middle pocket pair, but most of you had me on either a busted flush draw, or just flat out air.

What really happened was PL open-raised from the small blind, and given his nature I didn't put PirateLawyer on shit when he goes for the steal in this spot. So his preflop raise in this particular situation told me just about nothing about his hand. If he had been really strong or really weak I suspect he would have smooth called, so his open-raising there told me he probably has a hand between 20th percentile and 80th percentile of all starting hands, but not much less than that. As in, I figured he is open-raising easily with garbage like 86s, T7o, any soooted face card, stuff like that. I barely narrowed his hand range at all, but to be clear I had him on total ATC garbage all through the hand.

I was right, but then I was wrong. PL was playing utter garbage just as I had suspected, in there it turns out with Q5s. It's a blechy, below average hand and one he could have just laid down with me and my big stack behind him given his position in the tournament and his stack size at the time, but I am ok with the float by him as long as he is not going to lose too much to the hand if he doesn't flop strong to it.

The flop comes 45K with two hearts. I figure, I know PL's game and he is c-betting me here probably 90% of the time, especially on a non-threatening flop like this, so again I have him on total air here. I was right -- Q5s is garbage -- but PL had unbeknownst to me picked up a very low second pair on the flop that is likely to be fourth pair by the time the hand is over with. Still, when PL bet out 1400 chips, I still had him on basically ATC, certainly nothing that made me think he had a pocket pair or a King, so I smooth called. I like the smooth call of the guy I think has air on the flop, almost better than raising on the flop sometimes. The smarter aggro players are more scared of the flop smooth call than the flop raise anyways most of the time, so I like to mix in smooth calling my aggressive opponents on the flop with air once in a while just to keep them guessing.

Then the turn brought the second King, and when PL bet out again, I was more sure than ever that he did not have a King in there or anything else good. So now I figure was the time for the raise, so I popped him 3x to 5700 chips and figured he would fold his nothing hand. When PL smooth called me there, I figured he had something he thought was decent. But with a King, against me, he is reraising allin in this spot, so I did not at all put him on trips. I didn't know what to make of PL's smooth call there to be honest, but I knew I didn't like it.

When the river brought the third King, I figured no way PL has a boat, so he will lay down to my allin bet with anything less than a boat. I made my allin move knowing full well that if PL had any kind of a boat whatsoever, he was going to call. In the end, I think this was a putrid poker play on my part, because I did not have a boat and after PL had called my turn bet, he more or less had to have boated up with the King on the river. And yet I made the play anyways, with this hand:



So yeah, it was total air, and frankly I think it was a really terribly played hand by both PL and myself. Me, for pushing allin for such a relatively small bet on the river after PL had seemingly committed himself with his call on the turn and given that I had to know anyone with a boat is not likely to fold here. And him, for just calling on the turn and then the fold on the river while holding the highest boat available on the board, that move is just inexplicable to me. If I knew what PL had I would have check-folded in a heartbeat of course, but to think PL actually made a boat on the river and still laid it down for 14k more into a 31k pot, it just boggles the mind.

But I show this hand (1) because PL asked me to, and (2) because I think it illustrates well that I am not playing tight or reserved poker through these things, I am not winning my big pots due to good starting cards, and that others are playing suboptimal poker against me which is the single biggest factor in my recent blonkament success.

So, tonight for the Mookie at 10pm ET on full tilt (password is "vegas1"), please keep your donking of chips to a maximum where I am concerned, because I never have good starting cards and I am probably just making a move. So call call call me as much as you can. See you tonight at 10pm ET.

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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

MATH Recap, Running Good and a Hand With PirateLawyer

64 runners came out for the 6-max nlh MATH this week on full tilt, creating a $1536 prize pool and prizes as usual during the BBT for the top 8 finishers. About half an hour before the tournament, I don't know if I ate something bad or what but I started to feel really woozy and just generally sick. I unregistered from my other tournaments and took a short nap before waking up to start the Hoy at 10pm ET. For the first time in a long time, I actually played some good 6-max in the MATH, doubling my stack early, and then doubling again by around the end of the first hour for a 2nd-place stack. By the time we were down to around 20 players left after a couple of hours, I had grabbed the chip lead which I held roughly until the final table of 6 left, where I found myself the only player remaining who had already won a BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat. Unfortunately though it was not meant to be, as Bone Daddy sucked out on me for the tenth time in a row with his AT > AK allin preflop for about half of my large stack. Then, a couple of steal attempts gone bad later, and I was done in 6th place. I think the fact that I was feeling ill combined with the uber dumb AK final table loss and the fact that I already won my ToC seat last week to make me just not give a shit once my stack was crippled, and I exited stage left in a hurry after that.

Here are the eight cashers in this week's Mondays at the Hoy:

8. $53.76 lightning36
7. $53.76 jmill2525
6. $84.48 hoyazo
5. $122.88 jimdniacc
4. $168.96 Bone_Daddy84
3. $222.72 cmitch
2. $322.56 Donkette
1. $506.88 wormmsu

Edit: And here is your updated 2008 MATH moneyboard, including this week's results:

1. Pirate Wes $959
2. columbo $928
3. astin $900
4. Breeze81 $825
5. pureprophet $728
6. iam23skidoo $698
7. lucko21 $650
8. dwal78 $597
9. corron10 $594
10. ChipyMcStacks $563
11. PokahDave $562
12. Tripjax $553
13. Roberto551 $545
14. fuel55 $512
15. wormmsu15 $507
16. surflexus $488
17. Loretta8 $481
18. zeroluck001 $476
18. Jordan $476
20. tilt_away $461
21. TuscaloosaJohn $423
22. twoblackaces $409
23. zackklemm $358
24. hellory $353
25. Donkette $323
26. LJ $304
27. bayne_s $291
28. jmathewson_III $274
29. numbbono $261
30. Miami Don $224
31. cmitch $223
32. Donkey Shortz $215
33. katiemother $203
33. VinNay $203
35. DaBag $202
35. Byron $202
37. recessrampage $198
38. PokerBrian322 $187
39. willwonka $185
39. mattazuma $185
41. Bone_Daddy84 $169
42. Hoyazo $152
43. buckhoya $150
43. Mike Maloney $150
45. ANIguy $149
46. BuddyDank $142
47. Martyr99 $134
48. chitwood $127
49. jimdniacc $123
50. cubanlinks $120
51. waffles $114
52. kevin_with_AK $106
53. BamBamCan $95
53. thepokergrind $95
55. Schaubs $92
56. bartonf $89
57. HotPants29 $74
58. scottmc $63
58. jamyhawk $63
60. CheckinMyAA $62
61. PirateLawyer $60
62. gydyon $59
63. DonkeyPuncher74 $56
63. RaisingCayne $56
65. pokerdad13 $55
66. lightning36 $54
66. jmill2525 $54
68. jeciimd $52
68. zeroluck001 $52
70. AltronIV $47

So while it was not meant to be once I hit the final table with the chip lead on this night thanks to the poker gods, this is only my second cash of the year in the Hoy, a tournament I have previously dominated, so I am happy to get back on the board in a week where I believe all eight players who cashed made their first appearance of the year on the moneyboard. That's not something that happens every week, that is for sure.

More than cashing in the Hoy though, this now makes I think four poker tournaments in which I have cashed in the last two days, which is a nice little streak for me. There was an Omaha tournament on pokerstars along with a limit holdem satellite tournament and the 28k on full tilt on Sunday night, and now the Hoy on Monday. Moreover I have gone from performing irrelevantly poorly to winning a BBT3 tournament last week and now to four final tables in the last seven BBT3 events, which I would have never even conceived of just a short time ago. So it feels good to be playing good poker again, and I will look to defend my title in the Skills Series tonight at 9:30pm ET on full tilt (password is "skillz"). Also don't forget the blowdonkey tonight if you like to blow donkeys.

Oh, one more thing. PirateLawyer and I played a large pot in the middle of the Hoy this week that he ended up folding a boat with on the river. He asked me to blog the hand today so I will reproduce here the summary from PL's blog today:

"Then after a long period of inactivity I play Q5s from the small blind vs. Hoy, who has me covered in the BB. This was a significant mistake in situation selection; I end up spewing a large amount of chips needlessly.

Full Tilt Poker Game #6129182836: Mondays at the Hoy (45101299), Table 9 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:02:52 ET - 2008/04/22
Seat 1: jimdniacc (8,783)
Seat 2: PirateLawyer (20,798)
Seat 4: hoyazo (22,685)
Seat 5: wormmsu (23,121)
Seat 6: BuddyDank (6,596)
jimdniacc antes 50
PirateLawyer antes 50
hoyazo antes 50
wormmsu antes 50
BuddyDank antes 50
PirateLawyer posts the small blind of 200
hoyazo posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PirateLawyer [Qs 5s]
wormmsu folds
BuddyDank folds
jimdniacc folds
PirateLawyer raises to 1,200
hoyazo calls 800
*** FLOP *** [5d 4h Kh]
PirateLawyer bets 1,400 - middle pair, second kicker = easy c-bet
hoyazo calls 1,400 - Hoy could well be floating here, or he slowplayed preflop
*** TURN *** [5d 4h Kh] [Kd]
PirateLawyer has 15 seconds left to act
PirateLawyer bets 1,900 - time to fire a second shell now that's it's less likely he has a king
hoyazo has 15 seconds left to act
hoyazo raises to 5,700 - this smells like a positional raise but I can only beat a bluff or bottom pair
PirateLawyer has 15 seconds left to act
PirateLawyer calls 3,800 - I decide to call and re-evaluate on the river; I might check-fold or open-shove depending on what comes
*** RIVER *** [5d 4h Kh Kd] [Ks]
PirateLawyer checks - frankly, this card completely surprised me and I froze like a deer in the headlights
hoyazo bets 14,335, and is all in
PirateLawyer has 15 seconds left to act
PirateLawyer has requested TIME
PirateLawyer folds - I reluctantly fold but escape to fight another day
Uncalled bet of 14,335 returned to hoyazo
hoyazo mucks
PirateLawyer has returned
hoyazo wins the pot (16,850)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 16,850 | Rake 0
Board: [5d 4h Kh Kd Ks]
Seat 1: jimdniacc (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: PirateLawyer (small blind) folded on the River
Seat 4: hoyazo (big blind) collected (16,850), mucked
Seat 5: wormmsu folded before the Flop
Seat 6: BuddyDank folded before the Flop

I folded to Hoy's pressure even though I didn't really think he had the goods; all I can beat is a bluff."


Taking a look at the hand history above, anybody want to guess my holding given how I played this hand here? You can leave your guesses in the comments and I will reveal the answer in Wednesday's post. Especially interested in specifically what PL put me on as well to fold that boat at the end. Higher pocket pair I guess? Which pair?

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Monday, April 21, 2008

The Blonkaments and the BBT

The BBT3 rolls on this week with another 6-max nlh tournament in Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt:



Same time as always: 10pm ET on full tilt. Same password as always: "hammer". See you there as we begin the first full week of the second half of the BBT3 tournament challenge. Tonight's winner will get the cash payout from this event plus a coveted seat in the series-ending BBT3 Tournament of Champions, in which two 12k WSOP prize packages and two more 2k WSOP prize packages will be awarded to the top four finishers. Hard to beat that for a freeroll. And all you have to do to play is to win one of the BBT3 events. I won my seat last week in Stud Hi-Lo in the Skills Series. Have you won your ToC seat yet?

I barely played poker this weekend, only playing a bit on Sunday after donking it up for about an hour and a half in the donkament last Friday that I think I saw my favorite punching bag NutzCarson take down, congrats to him. I have suckout-eliminated that guy from the donkament more times than I can count, so it's nice to seem him avoid me entirely and then go on to victory in my absence in a tournament that is always a fun, laid back time for everyone.

Speaking of fun, laid back times in blonkaments, I have made no secret here over time of my distaste for blonkament competitions like the BBT in anything but slight moderation. After a couple months of most of our regular "good time" events being tied to a points race, I have spent weeks barching here in the blog about how it ruins the fun of the games, it changes the way people play from trying to have a good time to trying to hold on for dear life due to some arbitrary line in the sand picked by the tournament organizers. It really does impact negatively the spirit of our games I think after a sustained period of time, and again I have made no secret whatsoever of my happiness at the end of every single BBT challenge that has been run, to just be able to go back to everyone having a good time in the blonkaments and not playing it like there is so much on the line with every allin, every suckout, every elimination and every double-up.

Similarly, again I made my feelings known when the BBT was brought back late in 2007 for the BBT2, that I thought it was too soon, and in general it just wasn't the right time to basically clog up our last two months of the year of private blogger tournaments like that after already having eaten up three months earlier in the year with the first BBT. Now, I know why the BBT2 happened when it did -- basically we knew there was going to be 40 grand of free stuff related to the WSOP coming at us as a group for the BBT3 if the BBT2 tested well, and full tilt essentially made the BBT2 a part of the package because they wanted to pimp the Aussie Millions challenge. So the decision was made to go ahead with the BBT2 even though the timing was probably not ideal, but it was done for the sake of getting the prizes for the BBT3 to be at the incredible levels they are today.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the end result of all this was as I had feared. We took five out of 12 months of the year in 2007 and tied them up with two separate BBT challenges, under conditions in the blonkaments that I myself have publicly complained about on like a hundred occasions. Maybe some people -- in particulare those who've been part of the community for less than a couple of years here -- aren't bothered in the least by the BBT, and I like that and respect it and have no issue with it. But it bugged me, significantly by the end of it all, with both BBTs during 2007. It really changes the nature of our weekly games in a noticeable way. And it wasn't like it was because I couldn't win, as I am significantly profitable for the three BBTs overall and have won three individual events outright. But it bugged me, it really did. I love a challenge like the BBT, and I strongly suspect that running it once a year for a couple of months would be much better (or less poorly) received by the group as a whole than taking up half the year with it. But changing our regular games from times to just have fun and chat some old friends up to the majority of the time being overshadowed by the underlying prizes available, the "points" structure, etc. has not in my view had a positive effect on the games overall.

Add in the BBT3 now, and that will make 8 out of the last 12 months where our private blogger-hosted tournaments are now part of the week-to-week competition of the BBT and not just a chance for people to come out and have fun. And some people, in particular (understandably) those who were around like I was playing in the regular private events for a long time back before the BBT, before the WPBT, when just getting together and donking it up was the whole point and it seemed like far fewer people acted like monkeys in the chat and got worked up on our blogs about particular suckouts or eliminations or bad hands, are not happy about the change. And like I said, I can understand it. Personally, I think a couple-month challenge one time a year or so is more than fine -- I think that sounds like a really great idea, personally -- but more than that I think obviously really weighs on some people who miss the days when these games were not taken so seriously and people just didn't care so much. I always thought this ever since the BBT was started up early in 2007, I have been perfectly public about that feeling here in the blog and elsewhere, and I guess in the end those of us whose names or whose tournaments are associated with the BBT should expect to be on the receiving end of some criticism or ill feeling from those in the group who are not happy about the very clear changes that the BBT has brought about in our private games.

And that's the most ironic thing to me about some of the stuff that's been said about me over the past week or so -- I actually agree more than most out there with most of the sentiment that has been raised lately, be it about the BBT specifically or about the attitudes of several bloggers playing in the BBT tournaments generally. Although I can't say that I agree exactly with the sentiment involved, a part of me did enjoy the "Circles of blogging hell" posts because, frankly, I have had numerous conversations, both live and in the girly, about the "new crop" of bloggers and how on multiple occasions I have been disappointed in how certain things have gone down, the intentions of some of the people involved and just generally their attitudes about poker, about other bloggers and about things in general. I may not have been at the first few live gatherings in Vegas, but when I joined the group it was still fairly small, at least compared to what it has become nowadays. I easily have the perspective to see how things have changed over the past few years since I started getting involved first in reading poker blogs, then in playing in the private tournaments and eventually to creating my own blog in Autumn of 2005. And in general to be quite honest I can't say that attitudes are improving, at least compared to what I would ultimately like people to act like to each other.

Anyways all this is a very long way of saying how unfortunate I think it is that some of my actions over the past week have rankled some feathers of other bloggers. It isn't the first time by a long shot, and it surely won't be the last. I make no apologies for anything I have done given the circumstances -- I think the particular circumstances of last week's chop clearly say what I want them to say about that whole thing -- but it's not like I am happy when I see guys I respect being pissed at something I did, even if it does not really have any direct effect on the people involved. Oh and btw, to those who still haven't figured this out -- I am an egomaniac. I'm a pompous ass. It's like my defining characteristic. So every time I read a comment where people complain about that, I kinda laugh a little inside. I thought that by making that the explicit tagline of my fucking blog, this would help spread the word so that readers are not surprised by what an egomaniac I come off as in the blog. I guess that still isn't working. Oh well, I'll deal with it. And of course, everyone can make their own decisions about everything they do, but I also kinda laugh when someone shows up in my comments and insults me, my writing and my blog in general, and then I check my stats and I see that person having hit my blog 841 times in just the past year. 841 hits in a year? I must be doing something right for somebody.

OK that's enough rambling for a Monday here. I'll see you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!

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Friday, April 18, 2008

Live Poker Radio, and BBT Chops

I had a fun time on Live Poker Radio last night with IT. It was totally unplanned, but IT hit me on the girly shortly before the Riverchasers started, and since there were some topical things to discuss I got on air and we just jumped right in to it. I was very pleased with the entire convo that I had on air and frankly had a really fun time doing it all as I always seem to. When IT tried to start talking about American Idol contestants, I just sidestepped that whole thing and drove the conversation right back to Poker where it belongs. When we discussed some of the controversial issues of the day, it seems like IT and I were in some disagreement over the details. But that's ok with me, I made my point and he made his, and we moved on.

The whole issue on chopping in the BBT is kind of a non-issue to me. As I said on air last night, it is obvious from some of the specific language used by some of the haters detractors that those people are not aware that chopping in the BBT is already standard accepted practice. To read some of these posts and comments, you would think that I, Hoyazo, have single handedly ruined poker bloggery and turned it into the drivel that it has become today, all by accepting a chop offered to me from a guy who could not play in the BBT3 Tournament of Champions anyways earlier this week. Of course those of us who have actually been involved at the end of some of these large-field BBT events know that chops have been discussed on several occasions, and they have even been agreed to more than once already, even in just the BBT2 and the BBT3 which were focused on a challenge-end Tournament of Champions. Heck, there was already a seat chop earlier in the BBT3, not some 3 or 4 weeks ago! And if memory serves, the same thing happened once or twice in the BBT2 as well.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not so naive as to be arguing that just because someone else did it in the past, that automatically means chops are awesome. I'm not saying that, and I don't even think it. But what I am saying is that, when this guy offered me the chop the other night, I accepted it without really thinking about the legitimacy of chopping up for a seat, because it's already been done on a couple of occasions in the last two BBT challenges. As I mentioned, it was done 3 or 4 weeks ago in the BBT3 for crying out loud. So to act like I have somehow done something to bloggers, to blogging, to Poker, whatever, merely by accepting another guy's offer for a chop at the end of a BBT tournament that we both expected me to win anyways, is the equivalent of you making trouble.

The biggest point I made on the radio last night was this. In the BBT3, the very people who have most vocally complained about what the BBT has done to the blogging community, have suddenly become the people doing the complaining that are threatening to ruin the spirit of our games. The same people who have posted numerous times on their blog about how the fun and jovial spirit of our private games has been sapped away with the growth of the group and the competition within it, now those are inexplicably the same people arguing that we must never allow a chop at the end of one of our BBT tournaments? Now our BBT events are too serious to even discuss a chop?

But I thought it was all about the friendships, and not taking things too seriously? I thought it was just a game, just an amicable poker game among friends? That people should not be taking these things so seriously, right? That it's not supposed to be all about winning and who played better than who. Right?

But now the notion of two of those amicable friends ever being able to chop at the end of a BBT tournament is worthy of words like "despicable" and "shameful"?

One thing is clear. Some people have clearly lost their way and are completely missing the spirit of the BBT and the private blogger tournaments. I guess the exact identity of those people we can disagree on.

Have a great weekend everyone. Don't forget to come by and donk it up tonight in the latest installment of Kat's donkament, the $1 rebuy extravaganza every Friday night at 9pm ET on full tilt. Password as always is "donkarama". As usual I'm not sure if I will be there. Yeah right.

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

$T on Full Tilt, and Back to the BBT3

Man do I love the new $T system on full tilt. It's far better than the corresponding system at pokerstars, which for some of their larger tournaments only allows you to unregister and re-register for a different tournament at the same buyin level as the one you already won. Full tilt, on the other hand, basically lets you unregister from any tournament you satellite in to, and you keep 100% of your $T from that unregistered buyin for use on other full tilt tournament buyins. Unrestricted. Sitngos, mtt's, blonkaments, you name it. If you want to convert your $T to cash, full tilt will do it for you automatically without the need to match up with another specific player as is the case on pokerstars. The exchange rate is less than 1-for-1 of course (I forget exactly but they keep a small chunk for you to cash out $T from the site in this way), but I don't care about that because I cannot envision a situation where I would ever want to cash in my $T. Basically, I know I play tournaments regularly at full tilt, and therefore I have absolutely no second thought about keeping my money tied up in $T and some in cash. What's the diff, right? As long as I know I'm coming back to play tournaments there, why the F not just keep the $T? Especially if it costs me 10% or some shit to transfer it to cash direct. NFW.

So anyways, I am absolutely loving the new $T system on full tilt, as it truly has opened up a whole new world of tournaments to me that I used to always have to pass right by. I'm talking about those regularly-scheduled Sunday Brawl and Sunday Million satellites they're always running. I'm talking about all the myriad FTOPS satellites that are constantly filling up as mtts and sngs. Basically, any kind of satellite tournament for an event I would never actually play in online, all through the past I had to just scroll right by all that stuff. I mean, I got to know the colors and everything. Dark blue yes, those are FTOPS. Green no, those are Winners Choice which have terrible odds to win, or things like the Irish Poker Open or the WPT Latin America or something that I would never be going to in a million years. Not in a million billion years. Light blue maybe, those are the token frenzies which I have not been playing much lately at all. The light orange were probably the most annoying for me, which is the near-constant trickle of Sunday Million and Sunday 750k sats that must run 5 or 6 times a night over a few-hour period in the evenings all through the week these days.

In the past I learned to tune out those "bad" colors whenever I looked over the mtt schedule for the night upon sitting down to bag me some donkeys. But not anymore. Now I can play in just about any tournament I want, and when I win, just go unregister right away and 100% of that win transfers into my $T pot. I have nearly 2 grand sitting in $T alone just since they instituted the whole $T thing, which I can spend whenever I feel like it now on any tournament or sng I want to play. It's great. Last night during the Mookie I fired up an mtt sat to this week's Sunday Million. It was a $109 buyin and ended up with 30 entrants, so the top 6 won seats in Sunday afternoon's $535 buyin million dollar guaranteed prize pool nlh tournament. So yeah the buyin is a little steep, but if there is one thing I have focused on doing since winning a nice wad of cash at full tilt is to up my buyins as much as necessary to get into those mtt satellites with the ratios of winners to players that I like so much.

Full tilt is always running sats and super sats to the Sunday big guaranteed tournament. They have $8 rebuy turbo sats and supersats, they have I think a $10 rebuy sat, they run $26 buyin satellites at least a couple of times every night. They run some $75 buyin sats and even this $109 buyin one. And the bottom line is, if you have the means to make a $109 buyin and do so profitably, it is far and away the best investment to make.

If you recall my previous discussion on the winners-to-entrants ratios for mtt satellites, I will generally try to avoid a satellite that pays out fewer than one winner for every ten entrants. Ideally you want to more than 10% of the entrants to win the larger seat, or investing in that particular mtt begins to lose its value to me. There is just so much variance and luck involved in winning any particular mtt that requiring you to finish in the top 10% is asking quite a bit.

But finishing in the top 20% is a whole other story. Sure that is still hard to do, but when full tilt is going to pay out 6 Sunday Million seats out of 30 runners, that helps me in two major ways. First, of course, it upps my odds of winning. Assuming all 30 entrants were of equal skill, my odds are 10% to win in the sat that awards 3 seats because it had a $50 buyin instead of $100, and 20% to win in the sat that awards seats to the top 6 finishers. It's just simple math. Even if you allow for variation in the skill among the players generally, it's not going to change the fact that awarding seats to the top 6 of 30 instead of to the top 3 of 30 increases every single player's odds of winning a seat.

But the other major way that a better seat ratio helps me -- and secretly this might be the more beneficial of the two benefits -- is that I only have to play down to the final 6 people. This means, for example, that we only had to play two hours flat on Wednesday night to play from 30 runners down to the final 6 in a standard (non turbo) format mtt. If that thing has to play down to 3, it adds another 30, 40 minutes of lucksackery and donkdickery that we all have to survive to get that seat. It is without a doubt measurably more difficult to take top 3 in a 30-person mtt than it is to take top 6. With top 6, if you get a huge stack in the middle of the thing you can probably shut it down entirely. You can certainly call some short-stacked donks with hands like JTo and shit like that and take your chances with that stack, which also helps ends these things earlier and makes it easier for everyone else to get there. Even as you get near the final table, when you know you only have to hang on for the top 6 instead of the top few spots, the action is just nowhere near as frantic, as allinny, or as movemakey. There is just more margin for error, more room to be a little more patient instead of forcing the issue. In short, it's a measurably easier, more pleasant tournament to play down to 6 than it is to play the lower buyin, higher ratio satellites.

So yeah, thanks to the whole new $T thing, last night I can log in to play the $109 mtt sat into the Sunday Million, and in two hours flat I can log off having donked out of the Mook and the Dook long ago, and yet still more than pleased with my night thanks to winning myself the $535 seat. The Sunday Million a tournament I'm sure I would win but one which I would never play in due to the 6pm ET start time, but now I can still play the plentiful satellites into it with abandon. Because as soon as I won the sat last night, which was done in line with the big-stack-early-then-wait-it-out approach I mentioned earlier thanks in no small part to cracking some bitch's Aces allin preflop with my 9s, I went and unregistered from the Million. That is $535 of tournament buyins just sitting in my account now, waiting to be used on things like BBT3 blonkaments, the 5050, stoopid prop bets with bloggers on things like if anyone will win 3 blonkaments in the series, if anyone will win 2 more tournaments during just the rest of the BBT3 and similar silliness.

Man winning that ToC seat earlier this week feels good. As you know if you read here with any regularity, I put a good deal of expectation on myself to play well in the blonkaments, and I'm not ever showing up for 2nd place. I don't really care about the money involved in most of the private events -- though the Big Game is dam nice when I cash in it every other month -- so final tabling or making "the points" is something I never even consider. But if I'm going to make a commitment of the time, the effort, just the general thinking I will do about anything that happens in blogger tournaments over the next year, then I put high demands on myself to perform well in them. I like to. And even though I won two events in the first BBT, both I think Riverchasers events in the second half of the series after running horribly in the first half, I was completely shut out of the BBTwo which was the first series that included a Tournament of Champions only for the BBTwo event winners. So I got to sit and watch while the winners battled it out and jeciimd eventually took the crown and won the 18k Aussie Millions package, instead of playing with the big boys.

This time around, now I know I won't have to watch enviously from the sidelines. And that is a really awesome feeling. Like I said here after Waffles won his seat in the Mookie the other day, I definitely believe the Tournament of Champions is more interesting and just better with me in it. I think that about mostly all of the seat winners so far. And there are some other people out there who will definitely add to the panache of the whole thing, but who are not in the ToC yet. From a historical BBT perspective, previous BBT champions Bayne and jeciimd still need to qualify, and previous BBT write-in champions Fuel55 and the Goat need to get in there. For the social aspect, we need to get LJ in to the ToC, Riggs needs to find his way in as well, and maybe some Kat, Irongirl or even some Al for good measure.

I've also been noticing that the A-lister quotient so far in the BBT3 Tournament of Champions is really suffering. No Iggy this time around? Everyone's favorite little person won his way in early in the BBTwo thanks to numerous players spewing their chips at him with nothing but air. Is StB, aka NightRanger on full tilt, going to re-enter the world of winning blonkament play, or has the stink of those fifth-circlers gotten him too off his game to get back to the winner's circle where he used to hang out with some regularity not too long ago? I've even seen the good Doctor making some rare BBT3 tournament appearances lately. We need to get some of these guys in to represent for the old schoolers, the ones who started everything that has led up to us being offered nearly 40 large in free prizes as part of the third go-round of the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments.

There are a few other good poker tournament players whom I would like to see get in to the Tournament of Champions. Chad obviously makes the thing 10 times more fun, even sans his quite solid chatbox abilities. Cmitch and surflexus are each very solid players and great guys who are definitely worthy of a slot in the big one. Emptyman is great at all the HORSE games and so should have a good shot with all the Skills Series and alternating limit RC tournaments, and Donkette of course is the best poker tournament player of all the bloggers so she I'm sure will play her way in as well before all is said and done. Just having crossed the halfway point of the BBT3, it is my hope and expectation that most of the people I mentioned above will find their way in to the end-of-series event where two 12k WSOP Main Event packages and two 2k WSOP preliminary event packages will be awarded to the top 4 finishers out of a maximum of what, 53 runners. I'm just glad I will be there to participate in all the fun this time around.

Even if my BBT3 "win" was really just handed to me wrongly. Muhahahahahahahahahahah!

Suckas.

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

You'll See Me, in the Tee Oh Cee

When I won my seat to the BBT3 Tournament of Champions on Tuesday night, I did it in a surprising and yet unsurprising place: the Skills Series. The Skill Series! Can you believe that? If you had told me that was going to happen at any time over the past three months I would have snarfed my Killians Red right out my nose all over you. If you had told me that just one week ago today, I would have thought you were a dam fool. Dumb enough to have two blogs even.

But then a strange thing happened: I found my blonkament game out of nowhere for no apparent reason last week, which not coincidentally coincided with going on a nice hot streak of cards. Not so much starting cards, but hitting some draws and winning some big pots in key spots. It's been happening to me now for a week straight, as I cruised into my third consecutive BBT3 final table on Tuesday with once again a nice stack to make some noise with. In this week's Stud Hi-Lo Skills event, I played great poker for about 98% of the time, making only a small handful of mistakes on the entire night, and on a couple of those occasions managing to come from behind anyways to win some big hands and eliminate some donks. I lost some big pots and did absolutely nothing early, but as the bringins and the antes started to climb and the pots started to really matter, I consistently got in the bets when I was ahead and managed to drop out of most of the big ones when I was a long shot to win. As I've mentioned here several times before, hilo is probably the single poker game I've been playing the longest, going back to playing it at the Trump Taj Mahal in the early 90s as a teenager with my father. So I know the game, and I know enough to know what a minefield this was going to be, no different from the other Skills Series events that have been so well attended so far.

So as I mentioned, I had literally zero big hands in the Skills Game through the first 90 minutes I think. Literally nothing. It sucked, and it was a fairly typical beginning for me in Skills in general, although I did remain very focused on playing tight and not chasing donkey pots especially early. But as a result, I was below 2000 chips from the 3000 starting stacks by the end of Hour 1, sitting in 54th place of 66 players remaining (70 started) with 1900 and change:



So, not a good beginning at all, and I wasn't even good about not spewing too much early. Twenty minutes in to Hour 2, I scooped my first pot of the night with two low pair off bonedaddy who knew I was low but thought his buried Jacks might be good for the high. That got me back "up" to 2400 chips, still well below starting stacks now 80 minutes in. Blech. And even more blech when I dropped back below 2000 chips again by the 90-minute mark, when I took a snapshot of my stats in the tournament to date:



Now I am farrrr from an expert in proper stud hilo tournament stats, but those be lookin dam fugly to me. Not sure what I was doing in this first 90 minutes or so, to be totally honest. Just trying to survive I guess. Which is all I was doing.

My first big pot of hour 2 happened here shortly after the halfway point, where I got into a 3rd street raising war with Riggs:



I am starting with under 1700 chips here, so you can see things are still not going well. But I have three straight flush babies to start with, so especially given my stack size I am definitely planning to play it long and strong here against the Ace up.

Eventually we got it allin:



and BOOOOOOOooooooooom!:



From there I quickly jumped up to over 5600 chips and 14th place of the 47 remaining players when I took down a large pot against lakefront that he seriously misplayed I think. This was where he went wrong:



I mean, just look at my upcards. With the 8 showing. Ugh.



So, sitting in the mid teens as the second hour drew closer to winding up, I played a flush draw and chased a little bit against Don and got rewarded. I called with an Ace-high flush draw and trip 2s against Don's four cards showing to a high straight and a bet from Don on 6th street, and then I filled my nut flush on the river. When I suddenly checkraised at the end, I'm sure Don knew he was beat, but in the end I knew I was drawing to a boatload (pun intended) of outs with both my flush and full house draws, and I made my flush on the river to take the big pot and bring me up to 8161 chips and 6th place of 42 remaining with ten minutes left in Hour 2.

At the second break, I was 17th out of 32 leftr with just over 6000 chips after I chased a couple of streets and folded when I missed and/or my opponent caught good on 4th or 5th. Still alive, but still not exactly dominating like I had through most of the mid-game in the most recent Mookie and Riverchasers tournaments. In fact, just 8 minutes in to Hour 3 of the Skills Stud8 event, here I am in 22nd of 28 players remaining as my relative chop position continued to worsen:



Down to under 4000 chips a short while later, I looked down to find my only rolled-up hand (2s) of the entire tournament, and dammit if heffmike didn't nail his low on 7th street once I was already allin and ahead both ways after 6th.

My next double came at the hands of Archimedean on this hand, where he made a bad call on 5th with what turned out to be nothing more than I made 87-low against my 243 showing:



That is not good hilo poker right there, and it cost Arch and got me a much-needed double up to buy me some breathing room as the blinds were already up to 600-1200 with a 100 ante per hand, leaving me with an M of basically 3 at that time. A lucky break when I absolutely needed it most:



Generally, I floundered around for the next 25, 30 minutes of Hour 3 after the Archimedean double-up, getting me back down below 4000 a couple more times. Most of the chips I won -- which as it is only managed to help me to tread water and certainly not to build my stack to any particular degree -- were from steals and really more positional-type of raising than anything else. What I mean by this is, the action on 3rd street folds around to me in middle position and I have the only Ace upcard left. I raise even though my downcards are rubbish, and I take it down. Or, the on 4th street I catch good for a second low card while my two opponents, both of whom also showed low upcards on 3rd street, both catch bad. Now, even though my two downcards are rubbish, I may raise and take it down right there. This is the kind of stuff that you simply have to do in limit poker, in particular in the non-holdem variations where there are upcards in everyones' hands to supply information to all the players, and I definitely took advantage last night. Again, it's not that I am building my stack with that stuff, which simply does not amount to enough until maybe the final table to be worth a ton of focus, but those extra chips won were the very thing that enabled me to still have 4000 chips instead of only 1600 chips when I finally doubled up again, etc.

I won a big pot against myelephants on this hand, where I looked ahead on 4th street so I pushed and got called allin in this spot:



Eventually here was the end result:



Now here I believe I was accused of sucking out, but I have to take umbrage with that. I don't know the exact odds especially given that this is a split game, but I have the higher high card hand, I have the higher three-flush draw, and I have the better 3-card low while my opponent got me allin with his only 87-low onj 4th street. If he is ahead at all, it's surely not by much and not nearly enough to be fairly called a suckout. I call this a bad play by him with the 87-low and one that ended up like many such plays with 8s and especially 87s showing on 4th street in the split games. This hand got me to 9th of 17 players remaining.

After scooping a big pot to eliminate the ever-present swimmom in our limit games when she checkraised me for all her chips on 6th street with just a flush draw and an 8-low draw that never filled and get me up to over 18k in chips for 5th place of 13 players remaining, I completed myelephants's night by taking his short stack on allin here with my three low cards against his split 9s:



and then surviving thanks to a sweet river King:



Here I was at the third break in the Skills game:



Now with 9 players remaining, we are playing at super-shorthanded tables, and no doubt that shorthanded limit split games (especially the Stud variants) require lots of stealing and again really more positional stuff than actual steals like the moves I described above. That's what I did for another few minutes into Hour 4 until the final table was reached:



It was a good final table, but not one that I was intimidated by or anything like that. Not sure how many lifetime blogger tournament wins there were contained at that final table, but I was happy to see that it certainly was not a slate full of (1) aggro types who are hard to deal with, (2) luckboxes who are also hard to deal with especially in the limit, chasedonkish games or (3) guys who win blonkaments for breakfast and routinely run over the other bloggers, who are perhaps the most annoying of all to deal with because I don't really know of a strategy to beat that kind of a player per se. I started at the final table in 4th place out of 7 remaining as two players were knocked out on the last hand right before the final table was set. The biggest issue to note about the final table was that a big bet was 4000 chips already at that point, so even first place at the FT has only like 10 big bets. That is gheyer than ghey, and really in the end makes this tournament very close to a luckfest as far as who actually ends up the last person standing.

I won a big pot very early at the final table off of iwantitall when he/she had to fold to this bet on 6th street as my board kept getting better and better and his/hers was moving in the opposite direction:



Here I moved up to 35k in chips and into 3rd place of 7 players remaining. And I wasn't done mixing it up with iwantitall, who a short while later got involved in this hand, where s/he called not once:



but twice:



but an inside draw to a wheel, which did not fill as my pair of Aces held up to scoop in the end:



and suddenly I was in 2nd place, well above 3rd place and within just a few grand of PokerEnthusiast in the mid 40k range in chips.

Fast forward about 10 minutes and I eliminated CK on an interesting hand where she started off obviously very strong, but I felt I had a hand worth calling with here:



Then, when CK caught bad for her low draw but still bet out on 5th street and I felt it reasonably likely that my two pairs were ahead, I raised her here:



and, just as I had been hoping at this point in the hand, CK felt committed to go with it and hope to make a hand to win against what looked on my board like a completely weak set of upcards. And here was the final board, with CK's 8-low never filling and my pair of Jacks just edging her pair of 10s for the big scoop:



giving me 68k in chips, well in 2nd place of 5 left but still behind PE who was winning most of the big pots at the final table and really since about two tables remaining. Congrats out to CK though for what I believe was her first ever blonkament cash. Way to go, that was a long time coming and certainly was well-deserved from CK's play this week in Stud8.

Two hands later I put short-stacked bone daddy all in with my (K5)5 vs his King upcard, reasoning that he is unlikely to have a King underneath since I know I have one under and he already has one showing as well. I was right:



and it held on to win and to nab me probably my 6th or 7th bounty of the night:



More importantly, this was my first chiplead of the entire tournament as well, which is a great thing to experience when you're down to 4 players remaining at the end of a long minefield donkeyfest.

And then came by Biggest Hand of the Tournament. The one that basically set me up with the chiplead that I rode the rest of the way to victory without ever giving it up again. My largest pot and just generally when it all comes down to it, the most proximate cause of my winning the Skills Stud8 event.

It started off as I called to see a rare three-way 4th street with four of us still remaining at the final table with three spades on 3rd street, including an Ace and a 2. Don't see myself laying this hand down much on 3rd street in this spot:



When I picked up a 4th spade -- unfortunately (or fortunately, I suppose) not another low card as well -- I checked and then smooth called once again a bet from each of my two other opponents in the hand to this point. I debated raising here, in an attempt to get a free card or two later in the hand, but I figured it was unlikely that a raise would get me a free card given the amount of other action I was getting on this hand. So I thought it best not to telegraph my 4-flush with a raise -- which I think would be pretty obvious if I suddenly raised in Stud8 when a sooted 9 falls on the turn -- and went for the smooth call instead for the second straight street:



Now here is where the hand got really interesting. On 5th street, I picked up a Ten to give me split tens and still my Ace-high four-flush, while both of my opponents in the hand broke out into nice 3-card lows. I did not like missing my flush of course, so I checked up front, and by the time the action got back to me it was suddenly a bet and a raise to play:



So it was 16 grand to me into a 50k pot, and both of my opponents were looking certainly to be going low, with no obvious flush or straight draws out there to threaten my Ace-high flush draw. Surely if there had just been one bet this is I think a no-brainer call, but with the raise -- and the possibility of short-stacked Alan moving in right here and now on this street behind me as well -- I agonized quite a bit over this decision. In the end, I decided to make the call, reasoning that if I could get in against the other table big stack and try to make my flush on 6th or 7th, then maybe just maybe PE would fail to make a low and I could go for a huge scoop. I figured I would take one more street of betting at most, and I might even have folded if Alan reraised and PE made it four bets to go here. Instead, to my delight, Alan paused, asked for time and eventually folded himself here, leaving me up against the player I had been less concerned about anyways in this particular hand.

Here comes 6th street:



BOOOOOooooooooom!! There's my flush. When PE bet out, I raised him, again figuring I will probably split but figuring with the Ace-high flush and no reason to fear a boat or a flush in PE's hand that I was freerolling to the high half of the pot, so let's just see how much money I can get in in case my opponent does not actually have or make a qualifying low hand. After 7th street, PE check-called my 8k bet once again, bringing the total pot to nearly 115,000 chips, I had him on a low hand, but instead he had this:



for the hidden trips, and I scooped the entire thing with my Ace-high flush. Exactly the kind of thing I am hoping for when I make these freerolling type of hands like this. I mean, if I make a wheel on 5th street and my opponent has some high cards already showing, I know I have the low part covered. Even if my opponent is showing TJQK as his upcards for the likely higher straight to win the high, why not bet it when you are sure you have half the pot locked up all to yourself? I was very lucky that this freeroll play here paid off as well as it did and that PE did not hit any of his full house outs, and suddenly I was sitting in this chip position:



Bloooooooom! 143k for me to 27k for second place, at the time a guy named Tom Jefferson.

And now, I had to win the tournament and nab my BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat while the getting was good for me with this kind of chip lead. No more final table donking like was the story for me last week at the Mook and the RC. So I got very tight here for a bit, as I did not want to double up any of the other stacks playing loosely. While I sat tight, Alan busted out in 4th place shortly after my monster hand, leaving us with three players remaining, and my 140k in chips to 35k for Tom Jefferson to 25k or so for PE. We played a long time 3-handed like this, probably for a good 30 minutes or so, with everyone playing real tight without near-nut hands and really trying not to get caught for a big pot without a big hand or large two-way draw to back it up.

Eventually, I did make a bad spewy-type of play, almost giving up my chip lead as I made a few bad decisions in a hand against PE. I think the source of my problem can be traced to my call on 5th street here, where even though I have some nice up cards, I am behind his own up cards for low and am holding absolutely nothing worthwhile whatsoever for the high side, and yet I made this call anyways:



Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid. Then I even called here just because PE was so short-stacked, I figured he basically has to bet out with literally any six cards here on 6th street, another foolish move for me:



And suddenly I'm only up 92k to 76k to 41k in chips. Shiat!! That right there was pure, unadulterated spewage, and it was probably the worst play I made all night at just about the worst possible time. Luckily, I still had my chip lead, albeit slight, and I was able to hold it together emotionally enough to immediately commence those stealing and position-raising sorts of moves I have described above that are typical of any high-blind, high-ante stud tournament, which I was able to use to quickly get my stack back up over 100k.

Here is the final table and chipstacks at the fourth break:



So I'm still doing well and sitting pretty, with 119k in chips to 66k for Tom Jefferson to 24k for PE.

Within the first hand or two of Hour 5, PE busted when the money got allin here on 4th street when PE held a low pair and a 3-card low draw:



but PE could never improve his low or a high hand and was soon eliminated in 3rd place after a strong run that saw him in the overall chip lead for much of the final quarter or so of the tournament:



And so heads-up Stud 8 play began between myself and blonkament unknown Tom Jefferson, with me up roughly 113k to 93k, so I was holding about 55% of the total chips in play:



Almost immediately, Tom asked in the chatbox if I wanted a chop. With a slight chip lead playing a game as frustrating as heads-up split pot games can be, where even heads-up I only have around 7 big bets, and that is as the chip leader? And with a BBT3 ToC seat on the line for the winner? Fawk yeah I'll chop it! So I told Tom the truth -- I don't care about the money per se, but what I really want is the seat. I wanted any chop to be in public and to avoid if possible whatever discussions stemmed from the earlier chop that got Scottymc his ToC seat and that was the subject of so much controversy in the blogosphere.

So, first place in this week's Skills event was slated to pay $245, and second place paid $161. As I said, frankly that amount of money is meaningless to me, and yet I cared quite a bit about winning the BBT3 ToC seat. So I told Tom sure, I'll chop him more money than I if he gives me the win and the coveted ToC seat. He thought for about two seconds and readily agreed. Smokkee got in his requisite "there is an asterisk on this win" comment in the chatbox, and then Tom commenced raise-folding a few times to officially put the chop in place. While we were doing this, Tom suggested that I pay him $225, nearly the $245 awarding to first place, and I agreed. I literally asked him to name his price, and that's what he came up with, and I took it. At one point after I had accepted his offer of a chop out at $225, he came back and said he would only chop for full first-place money, which frankly I rejected. I want the seat, but I didn't want it that bad that I wasn't willing to play a game where I had at that point a decent chip lead and I believed a skill advantage in any event. So I wasn't going to pay out first place money for a tournament that I had every reason to believe I would have won outright anyways, but Tom quickly re-agreed to $225 and we completed the chop as Tom raise-folded his way out, leaving me the Skills game official winner and the latest recipient of a BBT3 ToC seat:



Blooooooooooooooooom!

I would be remiss if I did not mention a special thanks to out to Donkette for her consistent votes of confidence, dating way back when to when she bet this guy near the beginning of a Riverchasers tournament that I would win the entire thing, and then I went on to come from behind to win. This time, Donkette's involvement was a bit more direct in my success in this week's Skills tournament, as before the Skills tourney she and I were chatting on the girly when it came out that she had bet someone a cool hundy in cold, hard cash that I will win at least one BBT3 tournament. Slowly it dawned on me that this means someone has bet against me winning at least one event. Ouch! With all the blonkament success I have had, this year and in past years? With my WPBT success a couple of years back, with my 4th place finish in the first BBT? People are still out there making bets that I cannot win a single BBT3 tournament? Wow, that really slammed me good, I have to be honest. I mean, to tell the truth I have a similar prop bet about my own performance in the BBT3 tournaments with someone in our ghey group, but it's one thing for someone to openly bet me that I can't win a tournament. Seems to me it's entirely another thing for someone else to bet with someone else that Hoy will never win one. So that more than anything else really lit a fire under me and kept me focused as I sat down for the start of the Skills game this week. Then there I was some five hours later being congratulated by Donkette for nabbing my ToC seat as well as winning one of my biggest backers, and still the actual best poker player of all the bloggers, her $100 prop bet all in one fell swoop.

So, with my Tournament of Champions seat now all sealed up, the better question may be: Who is willing to bet me again that I won't win another BBT3 event before all is said and done?

Maybe tonight in the Mookie, huh? Why not? I can always dream of being a shithead, can't I?

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Blogging Anonymity, and MATH Recap

One of the most key aspects of being a blogger in my eyes is the anonymity. I mean, most of you know a whole lot about me at this point if you've been reading here for some time, and many of you have met me in person. Some of you know me by name, which I am fine with in the specific sense. But I don't go posting my name or posting pictures of myself on the blog here. Ever.

It's not that I can't stand the thought of you guys actually being able to call me by my real name. And it's not that I want my real identity to remain shrouded in mystery. It's because with the internet these days, you just never know who can find your little corner of the blogiverse. And once they're there, who knows what they can choose to do or think about the information they find.

A couple of times now over the past few months, the whole sordid Bobby Bracelet "outed at work" thing has reenacted itself on a blogger whose blog and whose presence I have missed. I believe the internet as an institution has been worse off with these guys gone. Slowly the process of getting these guys's presences back on the intertubes has been moving forward, but the fact that this stuff even happens and can negatively affect people's lives shocks me every time I hear about it anew.

All of us who've been around the poker blogging scene for at least a few years will remember the Bobby Bracelet thing. For those who don't know, Bobby was here near the beginning of the poker blog thing and truly had (and has) one of the funniest blogs around. The man can write and he can make you laugh out loud almost at will. Anyways, one day around the time when I was fairly new on the poker blogging scene myself, all of a sudden, I log in for my daily dose of Bobby, and the site isn't loading. It isn't there. Blogspot is working fine, but there is no site. Most of us know very well what it's like when one of your favorite daily sites is suddenly gone or down one day (thanks Chad). I was freaked out.

Slowly over the next few weeks, word trickled down through blog comments and other posts that Bobby had been "outed" at work. Outed. It just sounds bad, doesn't it? Anyways, I don't even recall what it was that Bobby was doing at the time, but it had nothing to do with his poker blog. He was not talking about where he works by name or anything. And yet, his employer freaked out. The blog had to go, and I think Bobby might have told me when I met him in person two summers ago at my first WPBT live gathering in Las Vegas that he left that company soon after. Bobby was gone from the blogosphere for a while, then he was back with his Totally Gay Online Diary for a while, which was once again funny as shit. Then he was gone again, and only in the past several months or so has he seemed to find a new permanent home on wordpress. But it was a couple of years without any steady posts from one of the funniest poker bloggers around, all because his employer found out about the existence of his blog. His personal journal, attempts to be humorous. Not that much different from a physical diary, or a leatherbound personal journal. It's kinda sick, if you think about it.

Because of all this stuff, I take great pains not to be outed at my work. I can only assume a similar fate would befall me if the ubiquitous They figured me out. I do not upload my posts from the office, and I do 95% of my writing not on office time for the most part. But that said, I know it could happen. First of all, one disgruntled person at my office who somehow figures out my full tilt handle could very easily find out what he needs to know. And if you look hard enough, one can find a picture of me on some of the blogs as well to confirm one's suspicions. So it very realistically could happen, to many of us. I personally know a significant number of poker bloggers whose employers (and continued employment) would be dubious if their blog were discovered, many of them just among the New York blogging crew, so it's not like I am alone in this. And yet we do it anyways.

The anonymity is key. Once that is gone, it makes it much more difficult to blog interestingly, and to blog honestly. No matter how determined you are to produce good content for your blog, if you know the subjects of your posts and especially Big Brother are always reading over your shoulder, you simply can't do it exactly the same. Take it from me.

I used to think it was so dorky when other bloggers would remind people before every Vegas gathering not to post pictures of them on other blogs. Now, I have to say I kind of count myself among those people. I am 100% fine with there being a couple pictures of me out there on a few blogs. But it's not a practice that I really want to keep expanding, if you know what I mean. Everything is just better if I remain just a guy with a Japanese-sounding name who plays aggro online poker and steals your blinds, and may even write a rant or two once in a while in an online journal from the comfortable anonymity of 12 million residents of metropolitan New York City.

***********************************************

There were 70 runners in this week's Mondays at the Hoy, for a cool $1680 prize pool. I showed up from delicious Chinese dinner at around 10:40pm ET, blinded down around a third of my stack, and I donked around for 10 minutes trying to double to get back to near average before donking out with something, I don't remember what. Probably ran into Aces since that's been my thing lately. Then I logged off and watched some tv with Hammer Wife. Here is the list of cashers in this week's Hoy:

8. $58.80 Gydyon
7. $58.80 Waffles
6. $92.40 Loretta8
5. $134.40 Martyr99
4. $184.80 pvanharibo
3. $243.60 pureprophet
2. $352.80 hellory
1. $554.40 iam23skidoo

So congratulations to Skidoo who took down this week's first prize in addition to the valuable BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat. I have watched Ski play the blonkaments for a good two or three years now, since back in the heyday of the WWdN, and let's just say I can't wait to hear how he won. I mean, Ski has won blogger tournaments before several times so the guy can play, but his game is generally highly aggro and tends to get him into a lot of trouble early or get him a big stack early. So somebody tell me, how bad was it last night?

Edit: And here is your updated 2008 MATH moneyboard, including this week's results:

1. Pirate Wes $959
2. columbo $928
3. astin $900
4. Breeze81 $825
5. pureprophet $728
6. iam23skidoo $698
7. lucko21 $650
8. dwal78 $597
9. corron10 $594
10. ChipyMcStacks $563
11. PokahDave $562
12. Tripjax $553
13. Roberto551 $545
14. fuel55 $512
15. surflexus $488
16. Loretta8 $481
17. zeroluck001 $476
17. Jordan $476
19. tilt_away $461
20. TuscaloosaJohn $423
21. twoblackaces $409
22. zackklemm $358
23. hellory $353
24. LJ $304
25. bayne_s $291
26. jmathewson_III $274
27. numbbono $261
28. Miami Don $224
29. Donkey Shortz $215
30. katiemother $203
30. VinNay $203
32. DaBag $202
32. Byron $202
34. recessrampage $198
35. PokerBrian322 $187
36. willwonka $185
36. mattazuma $185
38. buckhoya $150
38. Mike Maloney $150
40. ANIguy $149
41. BuddyDank $142
42. Martyr99 $134
43. chitwood $127
44. cubanlinks $120
45. waffles $114
46. kevin_with_AK $106
47. BamBamCan $95
47. thepokergrind $95
49. Schaubs $92
50. bartonf $89
51. HotPants29 $74
52. Hoyazo $67
53. scottmc $63
53. jamyhawk $63
55. CheckinMyAA $62
56. PirateLawyer $60
57. gydyon $59
58. DonkeyPuncher74 $56
58. RaisingCayne $56
60. pokerdad13 $55
61. jeciimd $52
61. zeroluck001 $52
63. AltronIV $47

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Monday, April 14, 2008

Reining It In Late in Tournaments

Another Monday, another MATHday!



Tonight 10pm ET on full tilt, password as always is "hammer" for some 6-max donkery and another BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat to be awarded. For the second straight week, you guys are in luck because I will be starting the MATH late due to some plans I have. Tonight it is dinner at what I think is probably the best pure Chinese restaurant in Manhattan outside of Chinatown proper to celebrate a friend's birthday, and while I should be in the Hoy I'm not exactly going to rush home for the right to be instacalled down with 33 or J9s and take my donkout. But like I said last week, when I get home, I will be in it to win it, so see you tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt.

This was a good and yet frustrating weekend for me on the poker front. On Friday night I played in the $216 buyin Bracelet Race, which ended up awarding the 2k WSOP prize package seats to the top 6 finishers out of 60-some entrants. I was able to take my time early, and then I set some bitch up hardcore with a slowplay when I turned a straight and took his stack which I was able to ride along with about 50 blind steals down to the last couple of tables. Down to ten players remaining, I had nabbed the chip lead with a huge hand getting in allin ahead preflop with a higher pocket pair than my opponent, and that is when the bottom fell out. We had played ten-handed for some time, and the stacks were still fairly deep with even the 10th place player sitting on more than 15 big blinds, so there was still a lot of play left and a lot of hands to get through before true desperation struck anyone.

Then I was dealt JJ in the big blind. The tournament short stack raised from the button, which I called from the big blind, planning to take the pot with a c-bet on nearly any flop. The flop came Q95 with two of a suit. I led out for around the size of the pot, probably close to a third of the shorty's tournament stack, and he instantly raised me allin. I looked at the flop, decided I might be beat by some gheyass Queen, but figured that the pot odds were not sufficient for me to fold here. I just thought it was too likely that he was making a move from the very short stack at that point, and that is how these deeper tournaments tend to go for the last several eliminations. So I called begrudgingly, and he showed KQ or some shit and took close to half my stack.

I barely had time to internalize that I had just lost my chip lead and, frankly, a huge portion of my total chips, when I was dealt 99 maybe 5 or 6 hands later. I think I was back in the small blind, and this time when again one of the shorter stacks left in the tournament raised out of the button, I pushed with my 9s in the hopes of taking the pot down there and climbing back into the top 6 stacks left in the tournament who were ITM for a $2k WSOP seat. Instead I got insta-called by a genius with KQ, and a King on the flop and IGH in 10th place. So from 1st in chips out of 10 remaining with 6 winning 2k seats, to out of the tournament, in the span of maybe 5 minutes. It sawked.

And this caused me to realize, over the past week or so I have not been playing smart poker late in tournaments. I've made two blonkament final tables and now this Bracelet Race near-final table, and in all three cases I managed to lose a nice pile of chips near the end being more aggressive than I needed to be. Now, I'm not sure how I lay down JJ in a spot where I can easily eliminate the 10th place player in the Bracelet Race and all but assure myself of being able to fold to the seats (almost). But I surely didn't have to press with the 99, and that doesn't even get to the A6 I pushed with in I think a good spot in Riverchasers last Thursday and surely not to my infamous J5o push on LJ in the Mookie last week.

The bottom line is: I am pushing too hard in some ill-advised spots late in tournaments just lately. Of course it is good news that I am making that far to even be alive to face these tough late-game decisions, and in general I would say over the past week I played clearly much better tournament poker than in the few weeks before that, so that is all good. But I'm pushing too hard and giving up some nice chip stacks as a result. I need to get back to playing a little bit tighter game at the end of these things, at least where I have a solid chip stack relative to my competitors. That will be priority #1 this week in this ever-changing game I hate to love and love to hate.

Starting with tonight after 10pm ET as soon as I am back from my late start in Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt. See you then!

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