Big MTT Week

Whew! With the UBOC going on over on UltimateBet -- and the events starting at actually playable times for Americans (mostly 8:05pm ET) as opposed to WCOOP at pokerstars these days -- as well as Full Tilt's double-guarantee week, I have been playing the most mtt poker I've played in probably a year over the past week or so. As I have alluded to previously, I made a deep run to the final table in one of the UBOC events earlier this week, about which I plan to get a post up later this week for sure recapping what ended up being another solid tournament score for me, albeit one where I -- again -- left a lot of dough on the table thanks to multiple bad breaks when down to the final few at the last table. But otherwise, I have been trying to get in on as many of the larger mtt's on full tilt in the evenings as I can, even taking it so far as to leave work a bit early one day this week to get in on the 7pm ET mtt's which I pretty much never, ever get to play anymore thanks to work and family obligations.

So far, as I mentioned I made a big hit in the UBOC a few days ago, but on full tilt I have just not been feeling the love yet after two nights of heavy mtt playing (heavy for me, anyways). I continue this week to amass some massive stacks in the UltimateBet tournaments -- some leading to small cashes and some to no cash at all, sadly -- but I have had very little luck getting anything serious going on full tilt so far, and I'm not sure exactly why. I think part of it is that, despite my hope that there would be tons of overlay in these events with the guarantees doubled, what we're finding instead is that every fonkadonk and his mother are joining in on these tournaments to try to get a piece of the swollen prize pools that this week offers. As a result, unlike past times when this double-guarantee promo has been run, I have literally yet to see a single tournament on full tilt with any overlay at all. The 50-50 usually attracts around 1000 runners for very close to the 50k guaranteed in the prize pool. So this week, they turn it into the "Fifty Hundo" with a 100k guarantee, and what happens? 2200 donklickers show up to try to slip on some banana peels and stagger their way into the money. The 28k at 8pm ET on full tilt, which usually attracts around 1500 runners at $26 apiece, this week suddenly sports fields of over 3000 runners every night. And like I mentioned, for the most part these additional players are not the more skilled players who you might normally find participating in the large-field $26 and $50 mtts available on line. No, for the most part I think these extra guys are by a vast majority flonkeys -- the kind of guys who would never normally play in an mtt at this level -- but you are just hoping to get lucky and get deck-smacked for a few hours and try to make a hundy or two.

With such a huge influx of flonkadonks in the big guarantees on full tilt, it's no wonder to me that I am not having success. I've never really done particularly well in the $26 level nlh mtts on full tilt. If you think about it, most of my success has either been at the next level or two up ($50 or $75 buyins or more), or in rebuy events which again distort the buyin levels up from just allowing anybody with $26 of scratch in their full tilt account to register to donk it up. As compared to a guy like, say, Chad, who has been called the King of Donks for a reason after he won the nightly 10pm ET 32k on full tilt like seven times in one year, I simply do not fare as well against the lesser competition as I do against just one level up from the bottom of the large-field mtts. I have written about this before and have long thought that this is because these clowns simply do not understand when to fold, be it preflop, on the flop, or afterwards. And you know what? I could not count how many times -- just in the past two days of double-guarantees week on full tilt -- I have been called down in a big mtt by an abject moron making a hideous play, even some times where they actually turned out to be ahead. Because I have noticed that, when the board comes down 9TJ with two suits, and then the river brings an 8 of the same suit as the other two sooted cards, there is just no way you're getting your opponent to lay down his pocket Kings, not on the flop, and not on the turn, and it just doesn't matter how much you're betting or how well you have told your story of strength right from the getgo in these things. I've always fared better against opponents who know how to fold at least a little bit, and that is exactly what appears to be missing from the fields this week on full tilt as opposed to the normal participants in these events.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying. I would love to say that I'm just not going to try to push anyone off a hand unless I am holding a monster for the rest of this week on full tilt, but in a nutshell I get dealt a monster hand only about once a week or two, leaving me with no other option but to make plays when I know more or less exactly what my opponent has that I cannot imagine him calling me down with. They just keep calling anyways. Thank god there's been UB this week to get my game on in sort of the opposite -- a smaller field of players where people are at least willing to fold if it is obvious they are beat, even if they started off with two good cards in the hole. I don't see this as much of an issue on full tilt in general, but this week it's just been painful watching these tournament morons call call call with shit, and then either suck out or just end up ahead because they aren't smart enough to fold their pocket pair to the obvious straight or flush on the board, etc. Unfortunately I do not think Wednesday's action in the UBOC is any good from what I recall, so I might be stuck playing a million full tilt mtts again, resigning myself to just hoping to limp to the min-cash like all the other monkeys while praying to get slapped in the face with the deck.

There's just so much money at stake, I feel like I can't stay away.