Mixed Bag, and Fun With the Chatbox

Tuesday night was a mixed bag for me in poker, which I guess could be viewed as good or bad given my recent stretch of frustration. Despite all my talk about donking it up at the Waffles-level cash games (1 cent - 2 cent blinds) or just staying away from the game for the night, I was feeling much better when the time came on Tuesday evening, so I ended up running a few nice mtt's as if it were just a regular day, and I'm happy to say I played much better than I have been and that my mentality was pretty much where it should be. I ran three mtts on fuck tilt full tilt on the night, cashing in two of them, and I even allowed myself to get talked in to firing up the old ICB account and using some of that Bodonkey money to play a $44 mtt on the worst of the poker clients with Don in the midst of the best mtt streak of his poker career.

One thing I have to say about Bodog is that everything I've been hearing about the players there is pretty much spot on. I can't comment on the cash games since I don't play them there and can't see how playing against uber donkeys will be anything but bad for my aggressive always-get-in-ahead game, but Tuesday saw truly some of the worst tournament poker play I have ever seen. This $44 mtt started with 1500 chips, and I think after three or four hands I was already the chip leader with over 4600 chips. And I'd love to take credit for my awesome play in those hands or for being dealt AA and KK and shizz, but in reality I won two allin hands with top pair, one with top kicker and one which a 6 kicker. People literally threw their chips at me right from the getgo, it was pretty sick. Just as I've said the players on stars are worse at tournaments than those on full tilt, so far from one night's play I have to concur with what you've all been hearing -- the players on bodog are a serious joke. Playing against total idiots can be annoying in a way of course, especially when you are not a lucky player, but in general I can't really find anything good to say about the guys I ran into all through Tuesday's mtt run.

I got to do one of my favorite things last night in this bodog tournament which is ruin some jagoff's night after I busted him due to his poor play and total lack of understanding of his image. Basically, Don has just come to my table at the time, and I had been explaining to Don in the girly how I had watched this clown push allin on massive overbets on the flop and turn no fewer than 20 times in the first hour or 90 minutes of this tournament. While Don and I sat there, he again overbet every flop and turn he saw, probably two or three more times over a few minutes, and I was just licking my chops for the time I could actually pick up a hand against this clown. Long story short, a few hands later I find pocket 8s, and I see a flop of J32 against just the overbettor. He immediately bets out on the size of the pot on the flop, not even overbetting the pot which made me think for sure he was weaker than he wanted to be. I commented as much to Don in the girly, and I called his flop bet. Then the raggy undercard on the turn fell, and the guy again insta-bet me allin. I thought for about three seconds, figured if the donk of the century just got me then so be it, and I called off my stack with 2nd pair 8s. He flipped up pocket 7s and I stizznacked his ass. And then the chatbox blew up.

"How could you call that!"

"With all that money in the pot? Are you some kind of idiot?!"

"How on earth could you call that you donkey?!"

I love it. I've written about this many times before, quite recently even, but there is basically no one I love more at the poker table than a guy with a horrible image but who has no clue what that image is. We all know these guys -- the guys who call down with shit cards all night long, and then when you finally take a stand with a mediocre hand and bust them, they are nothing short of shocked and appalled. So I quickly decided on the thing that would probably bother this guy the most of all, and went for it in the chat:

Me: "Sorry, that was a misclick."

Donk: "WHAT?!! Are you ****ing KIDDING me?"

Me: "Yeah, so sorry. First time I've played here, I meant to click on another table."

A string of expletives followed. And the best part is, with my response I not only ruined the guy's entire night and left him I'm sure telling all his friends about his "unbelievably bad luck", but he is also assured of now continuing to play the exact same way he did last night. Anything I can do to keep the quality of play on bodog to a minimum, you all have me to thank. Just unreal these no-image guys.

Anyways, sadly my end results on the night still suffered from some horrific beats, as in fact each of my last three mtt's ended in a suckout or setup elimination for me. I just cannot shake the bad beats lately no matter how hard I try. In the bodog, another guy went on megatilt after losing two thirds of his stack on a bad beat himself, and pushed allin into my KQs when I was chip leader, so I quickly called and of course he had been dealt KK just one hand after tilting out of his mind. Then, the same anusnose pushed allin again when I had AK, and I called only to see -- you guessed it -- KK again not four or five hands later, and IGH somewhere in the mid teens for a small cash. So that was a very poor and shocking ending for a tournament which I literally led the vast majority of the way, but as far as one of my first mtt forays onto bodog, the players just plain sucked.

Sadly I suffered a similar fate in my other two late mtts on full tilt. In the 5050 I once again cashed, but I busted in the low 100s when my AA got allin against of all things AJ, and even though he was fully dominated by my pocket rockets, he still managed to runner-runner straight me. So ghey, but so standard for me lately on full tilt. Similarly in the $50 megasat at 9:45pm ET to FTOPS #17, which awarded $322 buyins to the top 20 finishers out of 130-some runners, I was top 15 in chips with 36 remaining when I managed to get some guy with a huge stack allin with his A7 on a board of 762 against my 88, putting me in position to double to the point where I surely could have gone to bed and made the cash (and I probably would have, at that hour), but then the clown runner runner flushed me with his 7 and IGH short of the payout spots. Hard to accept.

I know I sound like a broken record with my experiences on full tilt lately, but what can I say, variance is crushing me lately mostly in spots where I am getting it in ahead and just taking a serious beating. As I've said here many times, what more can I do than get allin preflop when I am dominating, or better yet wait until after the flop when I am ahead and have my opponent drawing to just a small handful of outs? It will all balance out in the end and I have surely had my share of success on full tilt overall, but my lord when things are running bad like this it can be really hard to believe. Frankly I can't even believe I'm willing to log in to the full tilt client these days after the consistent spankings I've been receiving, but I know I will be on there tonight to play the Mookie at 10pm ET (password as always is "vegas1"). I may be disgusted with full tilt but no way I am missing the grandpappy of all blogger tournaments just because of a little ass fucking from my favorite online poker site.

See you tonight, have the vaseline ready!