Chips Donking to Me Left and Right

I had another deep run and fun time in the Riverchasers last night, a tournament which I have historically performed very well in although I doubt I have final tabled it since my last RC win in mid-January of this year. After a red-hot January, my February and March in blogger tournaments only brought a total I think of two blonkament victories -- one Dookie and one Donkament -- and since the BBT3 has arrived I had been on a real cold streak, blonkament-wise, even while running red hot in my mtt play generally for part of that time. After basically a month with no BBT3 cashes whatsoever, on Wednesday this week I got set up repeatedly along the way to a 4th place finish, sort of out of nowhere after a long string of BBT3 tournament flameouts. And now on Thursday, I final tabled the BBT3 for back-to-back nights with a 6th place finish in this week's Riverchasers. The total cashes from the two final tables brings my cumulative BBT3 winnings to nearly $1200 I believe, which I am very pleased with overall, and hopefully can continue the confidence boost I've been on this whole week ever since taking on those ftp "pros" to end a nearly poker-free weekend at the Hammer household.

Like my performance in the Mookie on Wednesday, my Riverchasers run on Thursday saw me jump out to a nice chip lead around the middle of the tournament, and hold on to that lead pretty much all the way till around time for the final table. Unfortunately, also like the Mookie earlier this week, I did not actually play all that well in the RC. In the Mookie I basically got AK > AQ allin preflop early and otherwise waited until Push Time began and I got better cards than my short, desperate opponents in better position than them, repeatedly. In the RC it was a little different, in that I was not picking up the premium starting cards but I did manage to channel me some of this guy as I flopped and turned nut straights and nut flushes a couple of times early. And the funniest thing was, people were paying me off like it was their jobs, even worse than usual for me.

It all started early in the tournament, probably fewer than ten hands in or so, when muhctim called off half his deep early stack on the turn when I made the nut flush with my A9s, and then the other half of his stack on the river. I showed my nut flush and the pot shipped to me, but unfortunately the table shut down immediately after that hand and I never got to see what muhctim actually had. He wasn't playing it like a made flush, so I am thinking it had to be maybe top two pairs, or maybe even a set? I don't know, but I jumped from 3000 to 6000 chips almost immediately in the tournament after making the nut flush with A9 of clubs.

Not too soon later I jumped up to 9k early without really having any decisions to make myself when scottymc raised the 50 blinds up to 200 from early position with what turned out to be TT. Mrs. Cracknaces called the 200-chip bet before the flop, which gave me the impetus to call as well out of the small blind with my 66. The flop came down a very pretty 346. Scott bet out, at which point I had him on an overpair of some kind or maybe AK, and I started thinking how can I possibly get all of his chips on this hand? I know Scott is a thinking player, and yet aggressive when necessary, and I figured he would probably lay down a hand like 77 (the hand I actually was envisioning for him as this was all going on) to any sizeable raise from me, period. Scott has repeatedly shown himself one to think very seriously about calling off his stack early with just one pair. So, I figured I had little chance of winning a big pot in this case, but that just in case he maybe had Aces or something, I would minraise, which I never normally do. Scott's spidey senses immediately started tingling, which I figured they would, and he typed into the chatbox "set?". Now I like scotty, and I figured it might be fun to mess around with the chat a lil' bit, so I responded "yes". Scott almost instantly pushed allin on the reraise then. I definitely thought for a few seconds, thinking I had been pokerstars'ed with Scott's 57 or some shit like that for the flopped straight, but he flipped up his pocket Tens and I held for another full stack pop on a hand that largely played itself.

Fast forward maybe 45, 50 minutes or so, and I am I think the #2 stack in the entire tournament still, with this player AUS-Package or something like that who I recall seeing once or twice before sitting at my table to my immediate right, with the largest stack in the tournament. He was just a few chips higher than me, but basically the two of us were something like twice the third place player's chips, in a league all of our own here still early in the Riverchasers. Shortly after sitting down with him, this guy forced me to play a huge pot with him and take his entire stack to give me a huge mountain of chips in a hand that I still can't believe played out the way it did. Remember here we are the two prohibitively largest stacks in the tournament at this point when the hand went down. Basically I think the flop came down Ten-high, maybe something like T93 rainbow or so. The hand had checked around before the flop and I think I was in the big blind to his small blind, so I was in there with some garbage hand like Q8o with nothing but a gutshot on the flop. He checked and I checked behind, neither of us indicating any strength at this point in the hand. Then the turn miraculously made my inside straight, and with nothing but two of a suit on the board I was holding the nuts. Then AUS led out for roughly the size of the pot into my nuts. I paused to figure out wtf he might have, figured he is just making a move with nothing, and so I raised him on the flop, but only 3x his bet. With our two huge stacks we both probably had around 15k at the start of the hand, and AUS's bet on the turn was 600, and I think I raised him to 1800 straight. He instantly pushed allin for 15k in chips. Into me, holding the turned nuts. I instacalled with the nuts and his AT, one pair of Tens, was drawing dead at the river, giving me a monster pot and a massive chip lead. For those of you who looked at the leaderboard during most of the middle part of the tournament, this is how I got 33k early when second place had like 13k in chips. Like I said, people were just throwing their chips at me all night long, giving me no choice but to accept them as I mostly just sat around waiting for shit to come to me.

Lastly there was bonedaddy, who gave me my last large pot of the night with a hand that really could not possibly be ahead. I will purposefully butcher this hand history because I know it bothers bonedaddy, but I guess I raised preflop holding QQ or some other nice pocket pair, and he called me from around back in I think a heads-up pot. The flop came Jack high, a few seconds later he was calling my allin with his? J9. I remember being confused because I thought bonedaddy had some kind of performance-based bet with others on the BBT3 tournaments? This one must not have been included or something.

I should probably mention what happened between myself and Evy when there were probably around 20 players left in the tournament, because it was pretty sick and was another great example of me being handed huge piles of chips without really doing much of anything. At one point I got all in with AJ i think on JTx flop. I bet the flop, Evy thought for a while and called. The turn brought a rag, and I read Evy's pause and smooth call on the flop for weakness, so I pushed alliin, which she insta-called with TT for the flopped set, and I lost half my stack and my chip lead all in one fell swoop.

But no sooner had I moved beyond this hand that a few hands later with Evy, we got it allin preflop once again, and I got to proudly show my KK as she even more proudly showed her AA. But then a King on the flop and I sucked out mercilessly against her. What can ya do. Funny enough, I had a nice stack going in the pokerstars 5050 last night as well when I lost it all with my KK vs AA allin preflop. That's poker, right? I've lost AA to KK more times than I've won it this year for sure, so I can't feel too bad though I did not want to do that to Evy or anyone else in the tournament.

Unfortunately, my streak of just lucking bass ackwards into chips ended abruptly after the fateful Evy hand. I lost three favorite hands in the final 40 minutes of play for a total of about 60k in chips between them, all of which were between 59 and 69% favorites when the money got in. Eventually as my stack dwindled from these losses, I open-pushed A6 from late position and got instacalled by AK in the big blind (sound familiar?). I called shorty Alan's push with my 77 as second-shorty left at the final table, he flipped up K4s but hit his K on flop, taking most of my remaining stack in the process. Then in an attempt to "get Alan back" I called his allin raise of me from his big blind vs my small blind with my killer 95o. I did not hit, and IGH in 6th place on the night. I saw this moring that Alan went on to win the whole thing, wtg.

So that was my week in blonkaments. I missed the MATH while I was at the Yankees game, I was out early again in Skills, and then I came away with 4th place in the Mook and 6th in the Riverchasers. Yeah you can look at the fact that an hour or two before the tournament ended I had a big stack going, but looking at it from the larger picture, this was a great week for me, confidence-wise if nothing else. For the first time since the BBT3 began, I actually can tell myself I will win a BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat and not know I am just messing around. I need to get back in the final table blogger groove, as two days in a row now I have made it to the final table with a nice stack only to see it frittered away on steals and resteals gone bad, and a couple of hero calls that simply could not hold up when I needed them to. So it's been a nice enjoyable and confidence-inspiring week for me if nothing else. Something I may try to take to the latest donkament tonight at 9pm ET on full tilt. Password as always is "donkarama". Perhaps I will see you there.

Oh, actually I also won a seat on Thursday night into the Friday night 9pm ET Bracelet Race on full tilt. This is the $216 buyin tournament that pays out the 2k prize packages to preliminary WSOP events, and last night I won a $26 buyin satellites that had 60 players and awarded seats to the top 5 finishers, where I was chipleader for the entire last 75 minutes or so and never had any stress at all about lasting to the seat winners. So if I am around, I may try to play that event, but if not I will unregister and just keep the $T for a later try at the big time.