MATH Recap, and Multitabling MTTs

We had a strong showing for Mondays at the Hoy this week on full tilt, as 23 runners came out to play in the first Shootout-format blogger tournament that I can ever recall. And I have to say, I think it worked out really well. I went with a shorthanded 6-max format for the shootout, anticipating not the huge fields that we generally see when the BBT is in da house, and this worked out nicely as we were left with four starting tables of 6, 6, 6 and 5, with each playing down to their one winner before the four table winners sat down at the final table to battle it out for the cash.

The only downer that I saw was that all four of the starting table winners did not get paid, since 23 runners only translates to the top 3 finishers receiving payouts. Thus, Jordan from HighOnPoker, who utterly dominated his first table and basically crushed his entire starting field within just 30 minutes or so, still ended up not cashing when he busted first in 4th place of the four final tablers on the day. I regret that, as I think it would be much nicer for Jordan to have shared in the payouts since he won his first table in the shootout, but it's not like that is my decision since that is instead decided solely by full tilt, but as I said I still think the Shootout format worked very well overall. I could see extending the format to full ring Shootout tables if the fields were consistently going to be larger, but with a usual turnout in the 20-30 range, I think shorthanded tables works out much better and makes for a much better final table of original table winners as well.

In the end, as I mentioned, Jordan bubbled the cash despite crushing his original starting table and just generally continuing his lawyerly dominance in the Hoy so far this year. The final three players remaining after Jordan busted were left making the cash, and here is how it all broke out by the time the smoke had cleared on the final table:

1. Bayne $276
2. lucyfred $165.60
3. VinNay $110.40

So one lawyer on the bubble this week, one lawyer-hater at the bottom of the cash list, and an unknown player in lucyfred whose name I think I recognize from a few other blonkaments in the recent past. Lucyfred, please let me know in the comments if you have a blog and I will link your shit up.

Otherwise, just to recap on my last few days, I have played an incredible amount of tournament poker since returning to my bachelor pad without my family for the week late on Saturday night. From midnight to midnight on Sunday, for example, I managed to rack up over 1600 FTP points, and unlike some of you cash gamers to whom that number is probably not so stratospheric, those 1600+ frequent player points were amassed using 100% sitngos and mtts only. And it's not like I'm buying in to the Monday 1k or some shit where it's easy to rack this kind of points up. I played basically every large mtt that ran on Sunday, in addition to a ton of satellites into those and other larger tournaments. I did regular speed, turbo and even a number of those delicious super turbo sngs, where I am standardizing to the $45 and $75 level as my preferred donkathons of choice.

I mentioned yesterday that I also ran the turbo fiddy and the turbo hundo for the first time very late on Saturday, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Maybe it's just me, but I really love me some turbo mtt action. Not just a turbo sng like are constantly running on one or two tables on full tilt, but a straight-out multi-table tournament. The $3 turbos n shit I just find too donkorific even for my tastes as such a low buyin tends to really make people just push n pray with any two right from the getgo, but this week's MATH winner bayne said it best in the girly over the weekend when he told me that the turbo fiddy and turbo hundo both play like a super turbo sng after the first 30 minutes. And I have to agree, that pretty much sums it up, although there is still a bit more tournament skill, use of position, and deception involved in the large mtts than in a similar one-table event any day of the week. Give me a regular nightly turbo mtt at a reasonable hour on the East Coast, with a buyin of between $26 and $50, and I am there. Every night.

I've actually even toyed with changing the MATH to a straight-up turbo event for a month and seeing how that goes. As I was discussing with some of the players in the chat box in this week's MATH tournament, I find it usually takes a good 3 or 4 weeks to really identify the problems, weakness or just differences with a particular tournament format that are not otherwise readily apparent or intuitively obvious. So I've taken to trying new structures and new formats for about a month before making a decision, as I did with the change to and then change back from payouts based on the big Sunday guarantees, which in the end I felt after four weeks to see it play out that people were mostly just changing it over to $T anyways and not playing on Sunday, so why bother. But it took a month of Hoy tournaments like that in order to ascertain that it wasn't really acting to spice things up. With the BBT away for a bit I am definitely looking to keep things interesting with the MATH -- because when I know that my own interest in playing has been sapped after a long trek like the BBT3, I can only assume this feeling is even more noticeable among you all out there who play or might play in the private blogger tournaments. So I am trying some new formats out to see if anything works best, like for example I absolutely love the double-stack Mookie's on Wednesdays as compared to the old 1500-chip style format. So right now we're checking out the Shootout, and so far so good I would say after last night. But I do long sometimes for a month of turbo MATHs, I won't deny it.

Anyways, I also took 4th place in Sunday night's 50-50, to the tune of $3400 and change. As I mentioned briefly yesterday, it is ironic because my first ever final table at the 50-50 occurred one year ago almost to the fricking day, during this exact same week right after July 4 when my wife and kids were again spending the extra week at the beach while I came home to work for the week before heading back to the beach the next weekend. So I final tabled that biatch again in my first full day home alone this time around, which was another fun ride and which I have a million screenshots of, but I can't be getting into the habit of doing a full tournament recap every time I run to frigging 4th place in an mtt. Suffice it to say, this was one of the gheyest, suckoutiest tournaments I've ever run deep in (excluding blogger tournaments, of course), one where I got highlariously lucky when I was allin and behind I think four separate times during the tournament. That's ok, though, because I know I stopped counting the times I was sucked out against when I reached eight suckouts against me, and that wasn't even all that close to the end. But it's hard for me to feel too too good about the big cash when I was allin behind a bunch of times and managed to win those key 35-40% shots a few times in addition to one nice flopped set with an underpair when allin before the flop. Still, what a ride, and what a nice re-introduction to the world of mtts. As I have played so few mtts over the past few months, the big 5050 cash gets me back into the black for even just the past 3 or 4 months worth of action, which when combined with profits at the cash tables, blogger tournaments and in sngs, is making out for easily my best year yet as an online poker player. I may actually have to really work to drum up some losses this time around just to keep myself from having to write a big fat check to good ol' Uncle Sam early in 2009 for all of this year's poker donkery, who woulda thought it. I guess in the overall scheme of things that is a good problem to have, and one I look forward to hopefully making even worse for myself here as I still have another several nights of home-alone-ness and I feel like I have another score inside me, just waiting to come bursting out.

OK don't forget the Skills game is back, now hosted by cemfredmd. That should be tonight again at 9:30pm ET I believe on full tilt. Same password as always of "skillz". I'm not sure what the game today is but I plan to be there to donk it up and then complain about it tomorrow. You know how I roll.