Monday Craziness, and When Does the FTOPS Start Again?

Another Monday, another BBT3-enabled Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt:



See you tonight at 10pm ET, password as always is "hammer". $26 buyin shorthanded no-limit holdem is the game, same as ever. 13 events left to win your BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat, so get in the game tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt.

Anyways, as I reflected over the weekend, a bunch of crazy shit actually did happen while I was out of commission for a couple of weeks, most of which I never even had the chance to mention in the blog since I was so dead to the world for about a week and a half or two weeks there.

1. In the feat whose craziness simply cannot be topped, Waffles went and won the BBT3 Player of the Month for April, along with the 2k WSOP preliminary prize package that goes along with it. When we had chatted on the girly at some point before he officially claimed the POM, Waffles said he would not play the actual WSOP with the money unless he wins the Main Event package in the upcoming BBT3 Tournament of Champions. At some point when I caught up on my blog reading after resurfacing sometime last week, I think I saw a post from Waffles that he was considering playing one of the preliminary WSOP events. Waffles, if you're out there, come play the 2k nlh tournament with me on Thursday, June 12 I think it is. You will crush that field I am sure. Anyways I know I was close at some point near the end, and I went on a big run in the middle of the month there, but when I got sick there was simply no chance of me playing. It wasn't a question of heart and it wasn't a question of pain threshold. Those of you who've had mono I am guessing will understand. I could not sit down and play for more than 5 or 10 minutes. Period. And in the end, Waffles was outplaying me thus far in the month, he was leading the race by a decent margin, and he would have gone on to win anyways.

Now at least we all get to see what we thought we'd never even have to think about seeing -- Waffles' spewage after his first big score. All you guys who've won a big tournament or made a big online score for the first time will know what I'm talking about. With 2k sitting in that account, it is gonna be dam hard for Waffles to play smart poker for a while me thinks. It's fun to get to be in that situation, don't get me wrong, but continuing to play smart gets about 10 times harder once you get a little roll to help you not worry about things.

2. I am still trying to figure out wtf happened to Buddy Dank radio while I was gone. I knew something about a new thing called Live Poker Radio, which I had processed as really just a name change, but maybe I was wrong about that. But otherwise, I basically passed out for two weeks with BDR being just BDR, our normal awesome online radio show hosted by Buddy and IT, rolling live and on-air during most of the weeks' private blogger tournament. But then I wake up and like Rip Van fuggin Winkle, now it's officially called Live Poker Radio, and they're broadcasting from the Borgata? WTF?

As you might have guessed I have been unable to listen to BDR or whatever it's called now for the past several weeks, where I am sure most of these details have been hashed and rehashed, but for those of us who haven't been awake enough to listen, can somebody give me the scoop? Are Buddy and IT down in Atlantic City broadcasting this shit live from the Borgata? How often are they broadcasting from there? Whatthephuck is going on with that shit, I have no idea but it sounds really awesome.

3. The quarterly FTOPS series of high-buyin poker tournaments basically started without me even knowing. And if you've read here for a while then you know how rare and odd that really is. Usually I am all about the FTOPS, and I will devote basically the month before the tournament to qualifying for as many FTOPS as seem interesting to me, usually averaging around 30-40% of the buyins spent to qualify for as many events as I want to play. This time around, however, I struggled to stay up to play in the Mookie last Wednesday, and when I logged in to full tilt I suddenly see the graphic up top of the lobby on the client that says FTOPS #1 and has some unnamed, probably horrifically bad red FTP pro's picture on it. I was like "Holy shit, the FTOPS is going on right now already?" So I literally missed the final two weeks of qualifying for the FTOPS before the series started, and as a result of this total lack of ability to plan, I haven't even thought about playing a single event yet. I saw some blogger donkeys qualifying for several seats so far, but I've been too out of it to even know although I have not heard of any big blogger scores so far in this thing.

So here's my plan for this week. The one FTOPS event I did qualify for this weekend in a $69 buyin 1-table sng is the one coming up I think on Tuesday evening, the $216 buyin Turbo nlh tournament. I play a whole lot of turbo tournaments in my nightly satelliting, and this thing definitely sounds interesting to me. Yes it will be quite a crapshoot about 80 or 90 minutes in or so, but it's a crapshoot that I definitely have developed the right game for, so I'm looking forward to that one. I know I say this all the time, but if you have the means, I highly recommend the $75 buyin sng sats to the $216 FTOPS events. They are so choice. You pay $75, and the top three finishers out of 9 players win their seat. It's quick, and it's effective if you know what you're doing. Top 3 out of 9 donkleshits just isn't that hard to do if you know how these things play.

Otherwise, there are probably only a couple of other FTOPS I would realistically play in at this point. I would have loved to have played in tonight's 1k buyin tournament as I have in the past two FTOPS series, and I would have too if not for being sick given how easy this one is to qualify in in one of the many, many satellites they run, but that's not gonna happen this time around. I played in the megasat on Sunday night for the 1k FTOPS event, but I picked up the dreaded open ended straight flush draw early in that one. I say "dreaded" because somehow I always end up allin against some top pair monkey or a higher flush draw, and somehow my oesfd never seems to hit despite being the alleged favorite on the flop to take it down.

Anyways the real plan is to probably play in most of the 9:45pm ET mega satellites this week, which FTOPS will run every night as they always do these days during the FTOPS. For those who don't know, these are almost always $50 buyin tournaments, and they run as mtt satellites, posted on the regular mtt tournament lobby in dark blue font. They are almost always satellites into the following night's FTOPS event, whatever that is, and typically they will take the exact same format as the underlying FTOPS event itself. It's good stuff, and with the advent of $T I can even play a gheyass game like razz where I would never actually drop the actual $322 to actually sit down and be dealt rolled up trips three times an hour at razz. No way. But I'll play it and keep the $T in a second. And with so many seats available in these 9:45 mtt sats -- that's why I always call them megasats -- they are much, much easier to qualify for the FTOPS in. Again, of course, the caveat is If you know what you're doing. To only have to end up in the top 100 finishers out of a 486-person mtt, again, it's just not that hard. Not saying it's a walk in the park, but top 100 out of 486? Come on.

The other thing I will have my eyes on this week are the nightly 10:45pm ET megasats into the FTOPS Main Event. These are typically $100 + $9 buyin mtts, they guarantee at least ten $535 FTOPS ME seats, and on average they probably attract somewhere between 55 and 80 runners a night. So basically it costs $109 to play, which may make these tournaments prohibitive for many of us and that is something I can completely be down with at this buyin level. But again, if you have the means, a 20% chance of satelliting in to the ME every single night this week? I don't care if I win the seat right away tonight, but as long as I am feeling up and awake for it, I will try to get in there every night this week until the FTOPS concludes with the $535 buyin Main Event next Sunday at 6pm ET. And if I do win a seat, then I will try to figure out how to get Hammer Wife to be cool with me playing. Man if they could just move that shit to 8pm instead of 6pm ET, I would be golden. But either way, I will definitely take at least a few cracks at the ME this week, and if I can play my way in for less than the $535 buyin, then I will view my goal for the week as being accomplished.

That, and winning a few more BBT3 tournaments maybe.

See you tonight at 10pm ET for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!