MATH Recap, and BBT3 One Month Review

65 runners came out for the latest 6-max Mondays at the Hoy tournament this week, making for a tidy $1560 prize pool and payouts for the top 8 spots. The action was fast and furious as usual given the shorthanded format, and in the end I succumbed to some of what I would call megadonkery when one of the eventual cashers in the tournament called my preflop allin reraise for about 20% of his stack with what strong showdown allin-calling hand? Want to guess? What's the worst hand you can think of someone calling allin with when sitting on a nice sized stack about a third to a half of the way through the field? Nope, it's worse than that. I got called down on an allin reraise by a guy holding J8. Offsuit. Of course I lost and then full tilt went on to double the rewards by lifting this player all the way to the final table of the Hoy on the night.

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

8. $54.60 waffles
7. $54.60 pokerdad13
6. $85.80 mattazuma
5. $124.80 willwonka
4. $171.60 tilt away
3. $226.20 Astin
2. $327.60 Roberto551
1. $514.80 Breeze81

One of the fun things about this week's MATH tournament is that it also marks the final BBT3 tournament of March, and thus there were some nice implications for the BBT3 Player of the Month race for the winner of the first 2k WSOP preliminary event prize packages. There were probably 5 or 6 players in the running who could have won POTM for March with a win and a bunch of early bustouts from the players ahead of them, and most showed up to stake their claim this week. When Tuscaloosa John busted twoblackaces in 38th place, lucko eliminated corron10 in 26th place before himself busting in 23rd, and then Tusca John followed up by outlasting jeciimd, Johnny appears to have wrapped up POTM for March and the first of the 2k prize packages. But this is 100% unofficial and in fact is based purely on speculation from some others who are more involved in the POTM race than I. Check Al's blog later for more details and the final leaderboard results for the month.

So the first month and a full one-third of the BBT3 is over, and it's time for a little look back on the month that was. In a word, I sucked large anus. I mean, my version of anal suckage might be different from some of yours, as I am going to end the month just shy of 50th on the Player of the Month leaderboard, but just shy of 50 ain't working for me. I know I can play better than that, and the bottom line is, I haven't even been coming close. I think I have exactly one final table in the entire first month of the BBT3, which is what, 17 or so tournaments? That ain't happening. It's an embarrassment. And I am one of the lucky ones, in that I scored big for 3rd place in my one and only final table which happened to occur in the very first event of the BBT3 which was that ginormous Big Game last month where even 3rd place paid out over $900. So I've basically paid for my entire set of buyins to the BBT3, but dam have I sucked the big one for someone who is freerolling into this tournament series.

I've discussed what I think my shortcomings to be in connection with my performance so far in the BBT3. Generally, I am playing too loose early on, although I am trying actively to correct for that as the series moves forward. It seems perhaps more prevalent than I had originally thought that I am getting "caught restealing" as well in these tournaments, if you can count things like someone heehawingly calling my allin raise with his J8o and then hitting the flop to eliminate me as me getting caught doing anything. These are things I need to work on as I have not been putting myself in position to win in almost any of these tournaments short of my one final table, which at this point seems like ages ago. And even then I had the specter of Scott Fischman and his donkalicious stack to deal with all along through the final table.

Somewhat more concerning to me is the broader issue that, if you can't tell just from reading here over the past several weeks, the huge heater I was on through most of March is truly long gone at this point. I hesitate to even claim I am running well at all right now, as although I have posted a few nice winning sessions or winning days over the past several, the general trend since, say, my last 5050 final table maybe 3 weeks ago has been downwards, with some big losses and dumb decisions thrown in there to boot. I am not even close to happy with the way I've been playing poker lately, and I am aware that my job right now is to figure out what I am doing wrong, and how I can get myself back to the way I was playing just a month ago when I final tabled the Big Game and made four 5050 final tables between pokerstars and full tilt. And I will start that job tonight as the Skills Series and the BBT3 roll on with an O8 Limit game tonight at 9:30pm ET on full tilt (password as always is "skillz"). As donkorific as O8 is as a game, the idea of limit O8 is so god awful that I want to cry just thinking about how lucky someone will have to get to win the next seat in the BBT3 Tournament of Champions tonight, but it's going to happen to someone so why can't that someone be you? Or even me maybe? Well no, let's not get ridiculous, but someone will walk away with a new ToC seat tonight, the first seat awarded as the second third of the BBT3 tournament schedule kicks off tonight on April Fools Day on full tilt.

And speaking of April Fools, isn't anyone going to threaten blog deletion today like some clever dood seems to come up with every single year on this day? Please folks, we are running out of time here.

Edit: I have added the newly updated 2008 Mondays at the Hoy moneyboard, including this week's results:

1. Pirate Wes $959
2. columbo $928
3. astin $900
4. Breeze81 $825
5. lucko21 $650
6. dwal78 $597
7. corron10 $594
8. Tripjax $553
9. Roberto551 $545
10. fuel55 $512
11. surflexus $488
12. pureprophet $484
13. zeroluck001 $476
13. Jordan $476
15. tilt_away $461
16. TuscaloosaJohn $423
17. twoblackaces $409
18. Loretta8 $389
19. ChiipyMcStacks $316
20. bayne_s $291
21. jmathewson_III $274
22. numbbono $261
23. Miami Don $224
24. Donkey Shortz $215
25. VinNay $203
26. DaBag $202
26. Byron $202
27. recessrampage $198
28. mattazuma $185
29. buckhoya $150
29. Mike Maloney $150
31. iam23skidoo $144
32. BuddyDank $142
33. chitwood $127
34. willwonka $125
35. cubanlinks $120
36. LJ $119
37. kevin_with_AK $106
38. BamBamCan $95
38. thepokergrind $95
40. ANIguy $89
40. bartonf $89
42. HotPants29 $74
43. katiemother $67
43. Hoyazo $67
45. scottmc $63
45. jamyhawk $63
47. CheckinMyAA $62
48. PirateLawyer $60
49. DonkeyPuncher74 $56
49. RaisingCayne $56
51. pokerdad13 $55
51. waffles $55
53. jeciimd $52
53. zeroluck001 $52
55. AltronIV $47