Survivor Poker

OK, so I think I'm putting together my strategy for the first half of Donkey Island Poker. I've talked to like 85 people about possible alliances (still haven't figured out exactly what that means), but in the end, for these first several weeks, here's the best strategy I can offer to my teammates for not voting me out: Not only am I kind and generous to all and one of the most wonderful people you have ever met as you doubtless already know, but I also give you the best chance to win immunity from elimivotes every single time we have one of these tournaments. Every time. I'm not saying I'm going to win every single tournament over the next couple of months. Obviously. But in any individual tournament, I think I offer the best odds in this field of winning. And, for this first month or so at least, if I last the longest in these tournaments out of anyone in the Donkey Island field, then all seven of my other teammates don't face being voted out of the game for that round.

On Sunday I won the first tournament of Donkey Island Poker, which was Goat's $1 rebuy. I was somewhere near the bottom of the pack as we ended monkey hour -- it would not be possible for anyone to run worse than I do during $1 rebuy hour against a bunch of poo-flinging bloggers -- but I got a few double-ups early enough to make a race of it as we neared the final table. By the time we made it to the final 9, my stack was up to 2nd or 3rd place, so I was able to take it a little bit easy and let the others do the busting for a while.

At some point along the way I remembered that all that should really matter to me was outlasting whoever was the last player standing on the other team. I checked out the Donkey Island Poker website, and it was quickly clear to me once we were down to 5 or even 6 left, that NumbBono was the only guy left from the other team. Unfortunately, he had a monstrous stack of around 50k with 5 players left, and I had something like 8k at my lowest. But I played really patient, and I figured even though it was going on 1am my time, I owed it to my teammates to do what I could to just try to hold on and hope to find a way to outlast Numb. Not too long after that, I don't even remember the hand that it happened on but Numb made a mistake and lost about half of his stack, dropping to around 24k, at a time when I had climbed my own stack to around 16 or 17k, and suddenly it seemed like I could really possibly catch him.

At some point I won a big pot off of the big stack across the table whose name I did not recognize (mattychise, maybe? Leave me a comment with your right name and your blog if you read this and I will update), getting him to fold on the turn after making fairly large bets on the flop and earlier on the turn before my raise, and Numb lost another hand, and all of a sudden we had totally switched; I had over 50k in chips and Numb was stuck below 15k and a distant fourth out of four remaining players. There were a few suckouts against me here four-handed, but in the end I was able to hold on to my big chipstack -- making a few disciplined folds with hands like KQo and 77 to heavy action in front of me -- and eventually I raised up front with A8o, a standard move obviously in 4-handed play, and Numb pushed allin preflop behind me from the big blind. My raise had been to around 4000 chips, and Numb's push was for around 14k, leaving me to call around 10k to win 19k or so -- I really made those numbers up wholesale -- but I figured he has to be pushing here with any Ace, as well as any pocket pair below 8s, so there are plenty of hands in that range that I am ahead of, and I'm getting 2 to 1 on my money anyways, meaning that only higher Aces had me in really bad shape at all. I called, Numb flipped up 44, and I flopped an 8 to win the race and eliminate the last player from the Bad Guy Team in Survivor Poker.

At this point, I pushed allin preflop with every single hand until the last two players -- Joanada and this mattychise fellow -- eventually succumbed to my button mashing. I think I might have sucked out on one of them in a medium-sized pot. I had a giant stack at that point 3-handed after taking out Numb, so I knew I could afford some losses, and who am I kidding anyways I didn't give a snatch about where I finished on the leaderboard after having outlasted everyone else from the Bad Guys Team. So I just kept pushing and praying when we got to 3-handed and the ITM positions, and fast forward about six or seven minutes and I was the winner.

So anyways, back to my Donkey Island strategy: All I do is crush blonkaments. I mean, for crying out loud, my name is actually "Blogger Crusher" on another well-known online poker client as most of you know. So, Team Fish, this is why not to vote me out whenever our team is up for elimination -- because you always know that in just a few days, the next Donkey Island tournament is coming up, and I'm your best chance to avoiding an elimination vote entirely if you just let me stick around and do what I do best in these tournaments. While team play remains in effect for the next month on Donkey Island, I may ultimately be the most valuable commodity you can have on your side.

By the way, for the record let me register my shock that Numb was the first player voted off by his team after the first tournament of Survivor Poker. Numb has shown repeatedly that he can win the blogger fonkfests like these, and he's a BDR regular. How does that guy capture 5 out of 7 elimination votes on his team (assuming he did not vote for himself)? Somebody please help me to understand. Is this what people mean by making "alliances"? Is it possible (likely?) that the order of 6 of the 8 vote-offs has already been decided for my team? Eek!

The next Donkey Island Poker tournament is this coming Wednesday, The Dank at 10pm ET. Until then, my teammate and I be immune.