BBT3 Tournament of Champions

Well, I failed to cash in the BBT3 Tournament of Champions this weekend, busting out in 38th place of 46 runners after I lost all my chips to oossuuu754 who eventually ran all the way to 4th place and won a 2k prize package for himself along the way. Here is how I went out, presented in all its screenshotic glory:



So I'm in the big blind against known hugely aggro player osu. He just open-limps from the small blind, I've got a sooooted Ace, almost sure to be ahead and with nice prospects for a top pair-type of flop, so I bump it up to 400 chips. Standard play. Osu quickly calls. Also standard. He hasn't thought I actually had a hand since some time in the mesozoic era. 800 chips in the pot.

The flop comes down AQT rainbow. It's a bunch of high cards, not necessarily the best flop for an Ace-high hand like mine. But at the same time I have osu on precisely ATC, so I'm going to bet here. 800 chips in the pot, I bet 550, my standard roughly 2/3 the pot c-bet. Osu calls and calls quickly.



Turn card is a King. Now there is AKQT on the board. Any Jack makes a straight for osu. Now, he quick-called my bet on the flop, but again I also know that osu hasn't respect a single c-bet from me since When Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth. He didn't raise, which I believe he definitely would have done on that flop with an Ace, and I can't put him on a Jack just because he smooth called my flop bet -- is he really doing that with just a gutshot? I think not.



Before I can figure out how to much bet again, osu pushes allin on a massive overbet. And now I'm thinking -- that bet screams that he has a Jack. He is repping the Jack big time. But I'm looking at the previous action -- again, I just don't see him calling me on the flop with just the inside straight draw. Maybe he has a Jack and a pair on the flop I guess, but if he really has the Jack, would he really push allin on this massive overbet like this? I mean, sure this could be the old Over Bet For Value, but that is just not the right play with the nuts in this spot, and I can't see as how osu is making that play here. Try as I might, I simply cannot find a reason to actually believe that my top pair is behind, and the overpush on the turn here just makes me more sure than ever than he is not ahead. This guy has me on ATC every single time I steal, and every single time I c-bet, and I just don't think he has to have the straight or anything close to it in order to push like he did in this spot. I call.



Bingo! Right again, Batman. That is one of the biggest calls of my entire poker career, in that normally top pair shit kicker on an all-high-card board is not something I'm ever sticking around to call off with, but I just had him on a dead read right from his preflop limp, and the turn overpush just solidified in my mind what was going on, and I had to go with it for the rest of my chips.

What's worse, so osu insta-called my big blind raise with K6s, and then amazingly pretty much insta-called my flop c-bet as well with K6 on an AQT board. That one I am still trying to figure out. I know osu has me on literally ATC (literally), so I guess he thought his King had me high-carded. I had bet 550 into an 800-chip pot on the flop, so he had to call 550 into 1350, which don't even come close to approaching his actual odds of filling on a gutshot there (that is approximately 17% with two cards to come on the flop round of betting), and he didn't raise, so he must literally have believed that his King high was ahead. I don't know. All I know is, I got in as a 90% favorite here, calling off my entire average-sized stack with just top pair shit kicker and getting my opponent drawing to just five outs.



Boooyah! Thank you thank you ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all week. I've written about this a million times, but beats like this are the worst stuff in poker as far as I'm concerned. I mean, you get allin with AA against QQ and the guy hits a Q on the flop, that is super annoying of course, but it's just dumb luck, you were both getting allin preflop anyways late in a tournament or whatever, and you just lost to a 2-outer. It happens, and when it does, it's bad but it's not the worst. The worst has always been for me when you completely outplay someone and then they suck out on you. In this case, I made just about the only hero call I've made in the past year of my poker life, and I still fall victim to the 9-to-1 underdog draw at the river. And if you read here often you know how much I can't stand when I wait until the after the turn card to get it allin, proceed to get it allin ahead, and then I still get sucked out on the river. Waiting till the turn should be significantly decreasing my suckout percentage, and yet it does not seem to have done much of anything in the times I have been successful in reaching that goal.

Anyways, I am not here to slam on osu's play so much as to lament what could have been for me in the Tournament of Champions. I did sit and watch peripherally throughout most of the rest of the ToC until the middle of the final table when I had to run, and osu brandished his big stack like a beast. I didn't mention this, but the pot osu knocked me out on literally was a first-place chip stack pot. I was 90% to be leading the tournament with 38 players left, and then instead osu was leading the tournament and I was out. So he had the leading stack after this hand with me and he brandished it like a sword throughout, not making any other fishcalls that I saw all the way through, though I suspect that people folded to him far too much at the final table based on my read of osu's game. But the best players make people fold repeatedly, and this weekend was no different for osu as he ran to the cash in the ToC.

So congratulations to all of the ToC cashers, which were osu and katiemother winning 2k apiece for 3rd and 4th place, and Loretta8 and OMGItsPokerFool each nabbing the 12k grand prizes for their top-two finishes. Amazing runs for both of those guys, and both well deserved.

I got some IMs and comments this weekend about my strong job handicapping the BBT3 ToC odds in my post from last Friday. To that I will just say this -- I ended up ranking what I perceived to be the top half of the field, so it's not like it's that amazing that 5 of the final 6 players were among my top half. And the other thing is, and I know some people got uppity when I posted this earlier during the BBT3, but this was a dam easy field to handicap when it came right down to it. About half the field had strong credentials and a strong case for lasting to the end of this thing, and the other half of the field basically did not, plain and simple. I know some people don't want to hear the truth this, but as I said earlier, about half of the BBT3 ToC field was a longshot to last to the end. It's just the way it is. A lot of the BBT3 tournament winners got lucky, sucked out repeatedly, played more or less like donkeys all through the series including the events they won in. People can get mad at me for my opinion I suppose if they like, but that doesn't change anything. A number of people who won ToC seats were not good players, and that showed in the ToC against a field roughly half full of the best of the best of our group and otherwise. Still others in the ToC field might be good limit or PL players and won their way in in those events, but actually are not strong nlh tournament players and did not have a good chance of cashing in this thing regardless of having played very well to win ToC seats in non no-limit events. This is again not meant as a slam on anyone, but let's just say that it was pretty easy for me to slice off half the field as having a good chance of cashing and half the field as having a poor chance, and again 5 of the final 6 runners were ranked in my top half. It's really not a big deal and I imagine anyone else who understands things would have ranked the players similarly if given the chance.

One other thing for today:



That's right, the MATH is back again tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt, password as always is "hammer". Once again the format is 6-max no-limit holdem, the buyin remains at $26, and for the second straight week the prizes will once again be paid out in increments of buyins to the upcoming Sunday afternoon large guaranteed tournament on full tilt. I saw that Astin used his buyin from winning last week's MATH tournament to play in the 750k guaranteed on this past Sunday, but the oesfd on the flop did him in when it did not hit by the river. So come on out tonight and try to win your way in to this coming Sunday at 6pm ET's big guarantee event. I will definitely be there to try to prevent you from doing so in what will be my last MATH tournament until my return from Las Vegas and the WSOP later this week.

Two days. Two days and seven hours until my flight, to be exact. It cannot come fast enough.