Donking in the Wheaties, and a Bunch of Hands to Review

First off, if you happened to enjoy my post yesterday on taking notes on different players, then you should really like Lucko's note-taking post yesterday, which takes things maybe even a bit further than mine into some specifics of his strategies around what he makes sure to note of his competitors' actions. It's great to hear from a cash and tournament game specialist like him on the same topic at the same time that I'm posting about it (thanks again to windbreak247 for the idea), and most of the commenters seem to have gotten a lot out of reading both posts in conjunction with one another. As you hopefully can understand, neither Lucko nor I feel that we're in a position to give away too many details of exactly how and what we take note of among our opposition at the virtual poker tables, but I think between the two of us we have provided a pretty solid and hopefully helpful look into why we focus on the things we focus on, and somewhat of a snapshot into the specific types of notes we take. Go check both posts out if you haven't already, and just remember all I ask that is that you don't use any of these strategies to take notes on either Lucko ("donks out of blonkaments even faster than hoy") or myself ("loses to any two overcards and then goes on massive donkey tilt") since that just wouldn't be right to use our own stuff against us.

So very briefly, and this isn't something I'm necessarily proud of given my recent comments on the level of skill involved in these tournaments, but I did final table and cash in both the WWdN and the WWdN2 last night. I was asked in the chat after I made the cash in Wil's second chance tournament (limit O8 btw, who woulda thunk it) if this means that my streak of blonkament frustration has finally come to an end. In a word? No. There is one simple reason why I did so well in the Wheatie after weeks of futility across all the major blogger tournaments:

I got great fucking cards. All night long.

I'm serious. No doubt I played them well and got the most out of my hands. But nonetheless, I was dealt quality starting hands on several occasions, and more than that, I was hitting flops. I mean, smacking 'em up good. I'd see a free flop out of the big blind with Q6o? Q86 on the flop. Call a raise and three raise-callers from the small blind with 8s? A85 rainbow. I think I flopped a set at least twice if not three times during the WWdN, which is about 2 or 3 times more than that's happened all year so far in all the other blonkaments put together. I made some dqb on the river once. And I consistently got it in before the flop against shorter stacks with pocket pairs when I happened to be holding higher pocket pairs. I know I've said this several times before, but it's amazing how easy this game can seem when you're getting cards. And I'm not above admitting it, last night in the Wheatie I hit a ton of flops, and I believe I busted 9 of the 47 players in the event on my way to the final table. Now granted, I busted in 7th or 8th place at the final table when I raised with a medium Ace (sooooted of course) from middle position, got reraised allin, and when I realized that a fold -- clearly the correct move in this spot -- would leave me with just 3000 chips and well in last place, it took me...oh...about 1.2 seconds to determine that I just didn't feel like playing from that position. So I called, took my loss to AK like a man, and got outta there a happy donkey.

As I mentioned, the WWdN2 last night was limit O8, and this one had 17 runners gunning for the top 3 cash spots. Once again, I was dealt a fair amount of good starting hands, and I hit a lot of flops and a lot of boards with just what I needed to get it done. I played very well, and I even have a little admission for all you donkeys who could not stop cutting on my O8 play in last February's FTOPS when I posted after bubbling in the 580-some person event after missing 8 consecutive low hands with A2xx in my starting hand. This time around, I barely ever raised preflop, with A2 or otherwise. And it worked very well. I've just been reading another of the Cloutier-McEvoy books, the one just on Omaha, and they make the point again and again that in Omaha tournaments, almost no hand is worth open-raising with before the flop. There are several arguments for this, but the general thinking is that it's one thing to reraise from late position with a very strong hand in O8, which is often a perfectly wise and profitable move, but to open-raise even with AA23 double suited, or any AAxx or A2xx hand for that matter, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense because you're giving away more information about your hand than whatever gain you're getting from putting in this extra bet so early in the hand in a game like Omaha where basically everything ends up riding on which cards come out on the flop and beyond. So, I barely raised preflop at all in the WWdN2 last night, and the end result was people never really seemed to put me on the nuts when I had them, and I was able to get paid off consistently on what again were very good cards overall on the night. It didn't hurt to nail some big river draws as well, including this one, my personal favorite on the night:





Blammo! DQB baybeeee! This was originally referred to as a one-outer by the victim at the table, but note that in reality I had 10 outs, not one, to make a winning boat (or better) in this hand. Nonetheless, I'll take it, and the DQB makes it look a whole lot better than the 20% shot that it was heading into the river.

Of course I hit my river suckout King in a phucking $5 donkfest and not a 400k guaranteed tournament. My suckout King comes of course in more like a $100 guaranteed than a $400,000 guaranteed. Not even, actually. An $85 guaranteed tournament. Phuckers.

Anyways, much as in the original WWdN, my great cards and consistent pounding the board kinda left me shortly after making the cash positions, in the top 3 in the O8 event, as I busted out on this gem of a hand:



As you can see, I flopped not only the nut low draw but also a made nut flush. Then it was just a question of getting my opponent to give me as much of his chips as possible. That involved me checking the flop, betting the turn and then getting it allin on the river, only to see this gorgeous runner-runner bullshiat:



Lovely, huh? Runner-runner 4-A to make a boat for my opponent, and at the same time counterfeit my low draw on those same two runner-runner cards. You have got to love the way O8 goes sometimes. Especially on pokerstars, still the suckoutiest riverbullshitiest site I've ever played at. Ever. Anyways that hand staked o-hole-ne to about a 13-10 chip lead heading into heads-up play, but I was outta there at that point and didn't even stick around to see who won. But it was fun not embarrasing myself in front of the bloggers, for literally the first time in as long as I can remember. I mean, I ended 11th in last week's Riverchasers tournament, but to me that was highly embarrassing as I truly folded and limped my way into the BBT points, literally blushing from shame in front of my computer screen as I open-folded on the button repeatedly, I declined to open-raise with A9 in the cutoff+1, etc. Weak weak weak play is not something I'm proud of anyone else to see coming from me. But last night in both WWdN tournaments I played strong and the cards cooperated in a big way. Don't expect that to repeat anytime soon, I almost never get cards like that, and even in my big tournament wins I am usually seeing less than 10% of flops and winning far more based on bully tactics and bluffs than on the strength of my actual cards.

The even better news from last night as far as I'm concerned was in my cash game play. I have been winning with much consistency at the 1-2 6-max nlh tables, so much so that I'm even considering moving up levels and seeing what 2-4 is all about. I haven't moved up yet because what I'm not doing at 1-2 is winning 2 buyins a night or anything. What I am doing, though, is winning consistently in the vast majority of my sessions. Probably an average of around half a buyin over a 90-minute session. I don't know what that equates to in big bets per hour, but let's just say that all of my 6-max play in the 30k and the related satellites has left me feeling very comfortable with 6-max nlh generally, and I typically have a very good feel for when my starting cards are likely to be best. And combine that with good hand-reading and player-reading ability at the tables, and I am basically almost always coming out ahead in these sessions. It's been great, and there was no doubt whatsoever that even just a month or maybe two ago, I was a cash game donkey. I'm definitely not anymore. My strength is definitely in 6-max cash as opposed to ring games, and I seem to really excel in situations where everyone tries to steal the blinds every opportunity they get with a pot-sized raise like occurs at every table I sit at in 6-max $200 nl. That kind of thing isn't happening nearly so much at a full ring, and I have to say a good portion of my winnings are occuring in those situations where I call someone's steal-raise with a fairly good hand from my big blind, flop something good, and then let them make one or even two big bets at me before I scare them away. It's been very profitable lately, and has helped to easily absorb my lack of significant tournament victories over the past week or so, other than my normal satellite wins that have themselves not led to any significant cashes. I did win my way in to the nightly avatar race for the second time last night, and let me tell you, at $216 a pop, you might be tempted to think the quality of play in these things is good. Wrongo buster, wrongo. Check out my bustout hand from last night as a great example (and I tell you, this is par for the course with the players in this thing, despite the attendance list also including some of the biggest-name guys around in the online mtt space):

I'm just under the starting stack about 40 minutes in to the event, and a guy I've only seen raise one pot so far before the flop puts in a good-sized (3.5x) raise from early position. I've got two Queens, so figuring him for a decent-sized pair I move it all in:



What does this guy do? He calls for 2/3 of his existing stack, when he only had 210 in there to begin with and could have easily folded, with Ace-fucking-Six:



That is just laughable. Normally this is where I would suggest that this guy ought to get a blog right away with the way he played this hand. But shit, even the blonkeys out there don't make this call with A6. You clowns like to save this type of move for AT or AJ or AQ. A6, that is just plain old dumb stuff. Unbelievable. This is a perfect example for Smokkee's note of "soooted donk" that he mentioned in the comments to Lucko's notes post yesterday. And this:



is another shining example of full tilt's fucking random number generator rewarding a soooted donk for his oh-so-fine play. On the river of course. I've been thinking, I really should get one of those t-shirts that say "F*cking River!" on them. That's becoming my mantra lately. Who sells that shit anyways? I've definitely seen it advertised on somebody's blog or somewhere that I read on the Internets. So anyways that was me busting out of the avatar race last night less than an hour into the event. But don't kid yourselves -- the play in this thing is mediocre at best, and as long as you can avoid the big names -- the THAY3R's, the PearlJammed's, the Hoyazo's, you should be just fine. Heh heh.

Now, before I leave today I'd like to post my biggest pot in a cash hand of the night, and find out from you cash game donks and otherwise if you think I played this hand well or poorly, and how or why. Because I was very surprised with the way this hand shook out. And you tightydonks who say I should always fold to any pressure with only one pair can be my taint-hounds for the night (that one is for you, big fella, I'm doin' my part!)

So I'm UTG+1 with pocket Aces, and the UTG player has pot-raised it up. I feel like I've got a good handle on him either having a high Ace or a high pocket pair to be raising the pot from UTG like that, so I go ahead and just call with my Aces. I figure (correctly) that no one else is gonna stay in the pot anyways after this early action, so I'll get to heads-up before the flop which is where I want to be anyhow, while at the same time getting a lot of deception in against a guy I am clearly dominating in a big way:



The flop comes 346 with two hearts. I don't have the Ace♥, but I don't see how I can really be concerned here, right? That's just about the raggiest flop possible, and my Aces have got to be good here against a guy who pot-raised it from UTG. When he bets out $13 into the $17 pot, I again elect to go with the smooth call, thinking this guy has an overpair and I can get a bit more from him on the turn if I play my cards just right (pun intended). There's now $42.75 in the pot heading into the turn:



The turn is the 2 of clubs, putting 2346 on the board and making a possible straight with any 5. My opponent leads again at the pot, this time for $37:



Now what am I supposed to do here (again, tightydonks need not reply, we all know what you would do)? Fold my Aces because I fear that he's got a 5 in his hand that he pot-raised with UTG before the flop? Come on. Am I supposed to put him on two pairs here, pot-raising UTG preflop with a hand like 43 or 64? Please. I am aware that he could technically be on a set, but he did pot-raise it preflop from under the gun, which I wouldn't even do with a hand like 66, 44, 33 or 22. Nope, that is still just not as likely as my original read on the guy -- I've still got him on an overpair, which I believe is far and away the most likely holding given the action so far. So I put him to the test:



I'm actually hoping that he calls me here, because I don't see how he can put me on holding a 5 either, since I called his pot-raise from UTG+1 preflop. I have the guy on an overpair, so actually nothing would make me happier than to see him stay in with his QQ or KK or whatever he's got. I'm sure my Aces are good here.

My opponent responds by moving allin for an additional $85 more on top of my big raise. Now at this point I am trying to figure out how I just lost the hand. I mean, I guess it's trips? He really open-raised UTG with a shitty pair like that? That sucks. In the end, it was $85 more to me into a $350 pot, and I decided I had to call it, since I had put the guy on a big pair all along and I figured it was at least 1-in-4.5 likely that he did indeed have something like KK or QQ. Of course I bascally knew I was beat already when he re-reraised me allin, but for those odds I felt I had to make the call.

Who wants to guess what he's holding? Take your guesses, I'll give you some space so you don't ruin the big surprise.

























So there you have it. Open-raising the size of the pot UTG with 75s. Gee, wonder why I couldn't put him on this hand on the miracle 346 flop. Tell me, is this fixed or is this for real? Cheesus christopher. But that's what it takes for me to lose big pots nowadays in the cash games, where even despite this recockuhuge pot on Tuesday night I still ended the day up nearly a full buyin through several tables and several hours of $200nl 6-max play.

I would really love to get everyone's opinions as to how you think I played this hand, where you think I went wrong and what if anything you think I should have done differently. I have had a great run in the cash over the past month but at the same time I recognize that I have a lot of room for improvement, and any and all input is welcome. All I ask is that you try to put yourself in the position of actually being in the hand at the time, instead of just being the guy reading about it the next morning and assuming the worst, etc.

OK that's all for today. Don't forget the last BBT event of the week -- the Mookie -- is tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt, with the password of "vegas1" as always. I don't need to give the usual spiel about how this is always the biggest and the most fun blonkament of the week, because you all know that by now. And you don't need even a Tier I ($26) token to play, as the Mook is always a mere $10 buyin for the pleasure of playing with and getting to learn from some of the best poker players in the world. Ok, I surely did not mean that, but it's fun as hell and you should definitely check it out for that reason alone, not to mention all those awesome cash and other prizes available to the top BBT players of the year as we near the end of the first month of the three-month BBT tournament schedule. And don't forget about Lost tonight either -- it's up to you to figure out how to balance the Mookie and Lost both starting at the exact same time on Wednesday nights -- where we will get to find out the scoop on this chica who fell from the sky out of her helicopter at the end of last week's show, who I swear was sent by Desmond's sexay ex-woman. Can't wait for that, and then I'll see you at the virtual tables sometime after as well.

MATH, the 400k, and More on the FTOPS Satellites

The Battle of the Blogger Tournaments returns this week with two tournaments for your donking pleasure, starting with tonight's Mondays at the Hoy tournament at 10pm ET on full tilt:



Remember, the buyin for the new full-tilt-bound MATH tournament is a Tier I token or $26 cash, and it is a double-stack tournament, meaning that everyone who plays will start off with 3000 chips instead of the normal 1500 chips for most of full tilt's other multi-table events. The action has been fast and furious over the past three weeks at the MATH since the BBT took effect, and the result has been prize pools of well over a thousand bucks for each. Almost anyone can capture the top spot on the 2007 MATH moneyboard with a victory this evening, and then you won't have to listen to my incessant blogadoccio for another week because I'm still on the top of the list. So why not take your shot at fame and notoriety by taking over the yearly money lead from me tonight at Mondays at the Hoy!

Anyways, as far as my weekend of poker went, I think I can sum it up in one word: tilt. I didn't do anything much on Friday or Saturday night, only playing maybe one or two tournaments over the two days, but one thing I did do was play in the Sunday afternoon 400k guaranteed on full tilt. Basically I had watched the kids all afternoon on Saturday, and the Hammer Wife, being the goddess that she is, suggested to me for the second straight week that I should just play the big weekly guaranteed tourney on full tilt to get some time to myself to make up for my giving her Saturday afternoon off with her family. And who am I to argue with that logic, huh?

OK so fast forward to Sunday evening, where I'm sitting in the 400k guaranteed, and then I run into the following gem after nearly doubling my stack early against a donk who insisted on calling multiple bets from me with just an inside straight draw:

I limp utg with Aces (notice guys, not with AJ, but with pocket Aces):



Of course here I'm hoping someone will raise it behind me, so I can repop it with the best of all possble starting holdem hands. This move tends to work especially well for me, as I come in raising in maybe 95% of the hands I choose to play before the flop, so when I limp up front at a table I've sat at for a while, people tend to smell weakness and try to take the action away from me right away. I get my wish:



Yup. A raiser and a caller of that raise. I love it. So what do I do here? Of course, I make the baby Jebus cry with a min-reraise:



Now if this guy can't smell the Aces yet, after I limp UTG and then min-reraise a 4x raiser and a caller of that raise, then he's a clown. Ok so he's a clown. Awesome. So I'm seeing a flop 3-handed, although the first guy to my left is already allin, and it's just between me and the guy at the bottom of the screen who couldn't sniff out my Aces.



Shitty flop for my Aces, no doubt. But, since this guy called a big raise preflop with me having already limped UTG as well, I can't really be afraid of his hand at this point. In my head he's gotta have a pair of face cards or AK, and although you tighty donks out there are thinking "Oh no he's made a set of 7s!", in reality that is plainly speaking a downright foolish conclusion. Of course. So I'm allin. As I have him on a high pocket pair, I think I have to do this here since I am as close to knowing I'm ahead of him, given the preflop action, as I could possibly be, and I think there's a good chance that he'll call me as well.



He calls my allin on the flop and...BINGO!!! I'm going to be in 2nd place out of about 1750 players remaining after I take down this 11,481-chip pot. The first guy is an uberdonk moving allin with KTo. The second guy, he's just the chump who ran his KK into AA. Man I love being the guy with the Aces against the Kings once in a long while. The turn is a harmless 3, and I'm one card away from being off to a 2nd place start in the 400k guaranteed. Which, btw, I'm totally going to win.



To describe this as "crushing" doesn't even begin to do justice to the way I felt when that King hit the river. That fucknut had one card and one card only that could win him the big portion of this pot. Yes the donk on the right had his four 9's as well, but even if one of them hit I'm still winning about 8500 chips on the hand overall since his was just the smaller main pot. I think my favorite part about the fucking shitcocking King on the river is that the donk on the right already has the third King in his hand, meaning that this is literally the only card left in the deck for mister 14141414 to hit on the river. There goes my buyin, and my chance to win the 75k first prize or whatever it is. All stolen away from me by the fuckers at full tilt. I'm beside myself as I write this right now. Time to get drunk. Thanks to my late-afternon grocery run today, tonight's buzz will be brought to you be the good Irishmen who make Killian's Red.

And hey, at least this is some solid kind of player to be off to a 2nd place start in the first hour of the 400k guaranteed on full tilt, right? Check out 14141414's lifetime stats:



Great. Nothing like a 49-to-1 loss on the river to an abject donkass muggafugga to start your poker week, to a guy with four cash wins of any kind in full tilt mtt's in his entire life, and none larger than $29 (yes you read that right, $29), until winning his way in to the 400k on Sunday in a 1215-person, $50 buyin mtt satellite which awarded seats to the top 300 or so entrants. That's the kind of donk who took this pot from me, and who, by the way, managed to end near the bottom of the top 100 in the 400k (I checked along the way) for a cash payout of around $350 thanks to that redickusuckout. 49 to 1. One in 50 times he hits that shit. With his Kings. To beat my Aces. Un. Fucking. Believable. And you just know I would have done so much more with that huge starting stack than making less than twice the buyin for this tournament. Grrrrrr.

Now, since this is me we're talking about, let's just say that I spent the rest of Sunday night taking out my anger about this beat on my bankroll. As if my roll had anything to do with causing this redickushitness. I played 3 or 4 ftops satellites, donking easily and stoopidly out of all but one of them. In the fourth, an mtt satellite to FTOPS Event #1, I was way, way out in first place with 8 players left, with the top 3 finishers winning seats, as I had a chip stack that was more than 3 times bigger then the guy then in fourth place. I could have basically folded to the money at that point. Well, jump ahead an hour later and not one, not two but three AK losses to QQ, and even still I had clawed my way back into second place when the first place guy calls my allin reraise with his A5s against my pocket 6s (what a fucking donkeysucker!), he hits his Ace on the flop and IGH in 5th place. I still can't believe the way that last one happened. But it's ok, because I was just hemorraging my roll on Sunday. Completely bleeding it out. Most of it, being done on purpose by me. I mean, I would enter tournaments, solely with the intent of moving allin preflop the first time I found any two face cards, regardless of the other action at the table. I knew I was tilting but I just didn't care. This is me at my worst, as I have always had a problem with tilt and that beat in the 400k just set me off redickulously. I know I need to get better about this, I always have known, and if you can believe it I'm actually much better about it nowadays than I was a year or two ago. But I'm still a terrible tilter, make no mistake. And the result of last night's self-inflicted rampage? I tilted off around a third of my existing roll on full tilt. Just like that. Mostly on purpose. It was unreal. I'm embarrassed to even admit that, but it's true. Now, I don't keep a huge amount of money on any of the poker sites anymore so it's not like I lost 5 grand or anything. But believe me when I say, this was one of the worst nights of tilt in my entire life of playing poker. Perhaps even the worst.

I've written about this several times before, but the 400k debacle was one of the very worst kind of bad beats to me. I've always said, at least to me, it's one thing to lose to a bad beat when the other guy is blinded in, or basically had the pot odds and had to get allin or whatever. Those suck ballz, and they too can tilt me no doubt. But in my head it's a whole other ballgame when I use superior play and trickery, fucking fool some guy (or in this case, two guys) into putting all their chips into play when I have deliberately made them sure they're ahead, and then I spring my trap on them. I think about that feeling in the stomachs of my two 400k opponents who got allin preflop and on the flop in that hand. I think about them literally involunatarily sucking in air when they saw my Aces, in particular the guy with the Kings. I think about him seeing the third King in the other allin opponent's hand, and knowing it was over. I just love knowing how he had to deal in the first couple milliseconds with knowing that he just got played, played by the ultimate player. I love knowing that I caused him to feel that way, and to feel that overwhelming sense of loss, in what I assume was his first-ever 400k guaranteed tournament, and the biggest-buyin event he's ever played in. And then to have it all raped away from me by a 49-to-1 card at the river, it just drives me nucking futs. Like I've said, it's one thing to just lose to a bad beat that happens because of the randomness of the cards. But when I set up the fucking beat to begin with, when I use my poker skills and my deception to trick someone into giving me all their chips, I have a major problem dealing with losing like that.

Given the magnitude of the tournament itself, the fact that I would have been off to a second-place start within the first hour, and just given the redickulousness of my 98% favorite on the river, this hand in the 400k is without a doubt one of my all-time worst bad beats. It may or may not be the literal #1 worst, I don't know -- my wife suggested my WSOP beat at the hands of Joe Hachem last year, and maybe she's right -- but it is without a doubt in the top few. And man did it suck, and it ended up costing me a lot more than just my shot at the 75k first prize. A third of my full tilt roll later, and I'm still trying to find my footing. I can only hope that tonight I am able to play with some more stability than on Sunday, or else it's gonna be another short run for me in the Hoy. At least I did manage to win a little at the $200 nlh 6-max cash tables last night, as I sat at a table that ended up having fellow poker blogger nabomb at it, and both of us played most of the session at or above the $300 mark thanks to some early wins and consistently solid play, which helped to erase some earlier cash losses when my tilt rage was at its worst. Still, I head into this evening's poker play with probably more questions than answers, and I'm just hoping something good happens early on for me or it could be a short night for me on a lot of fronts. In fact, look for me at the Hoy because I'm going to have to be drunk on my Killian's already by the time that badboy starts if I'm ever going to be calm enough to even consider playing +EV poker. And a drunk Hoyazo is always a threat to make a dumb play, and even more of a threat to go off on somebody in the chat and/or to write a drunken rant for tomorrow's blog post. Ahhh the joys of being an angry, tilting drunk.

OK well after that happy little interlude, I just want to get back to the new "Avatar Race" on full tilt, as promised last week. After having a weekend to check things out, here's the scoop. So the FTOPS is coming up again, ten events as always, ranging from May 11 to May 20 next month. As with the past three FTOPS series, the overall winner of the entire series in FTOPS points will win his or her own avatar created specially for him or her for use on full tilt in the future. As a result, in the past, full tilt has run something called an "avatar race", which is a multi-event satellite that awards the winner(s) with seats to multiple of the FTOPS tournaments, and hence it is called an "avatar race" since it is a satellite to help someone get a leg up in the race for the avatar by entering them in multiple FTOPS events for one satellite victory. Anyways, as recently as FTOPS III this past February, I actually won an avatar race so I know from experience, this was a $75 (tier II token) buyin, and it awarded seats to three of the ten FTOPS events -- events #1, 6 and 8 if you're counting.

Well, I guess full tilt decided that they are really in to the whole avatar race idea, as they have expanded the concept even further for FTOPS IV in May. Just like in February, full tilt now runs an avatar race once every night at 10:30pm ET. The newly created avatar race carries a $216 buyin, typical of full tilt's larger buyin tournaments, what I tend to think of as a Tier III sort of buyin, even though Tier III tokens do not exist (yet) on the site. In addition to expanding the buyin for the avatar race since FTOPS III, full tilt has also expanded the prize package for this nightly event, which now awards a seat to FTOPS Events #1, 3, 6, 8 and 10 (the main event). So winning one of these seats is a quick n easy way to get into five of the 10 FTOPS tournaments, just like that. It's a really cool idea, and the best part is that, due to the $216 buyin and the $1505 total prize package award, it is basically one avatar race winner for every 7.5 entrants. So if you get the 40 or so entrants that has been common during the first few days of this event, the top 5 finishers will win the 5 FTOPS seats. You really can't do much better than those odds as far as a quality mtt satellite, and for a guy like me this is basically just what I'm looking for.

Now, after tilting off a third of my online roll this weekend, I can't exactly be buying in to this $216 avatar race for cash very regularly. But, never fear, since full tilt continues to be the smartest- and best-run online poker site out there, they have devised a range of five nightly satellites to the avatar race, which run every single night between 7:45pm ET and 8:40pm ET for your satelliting pleasure. Those satellites, all of which are very reasonably priced, are:

7:45pm ET -- $10 turbo nlh mtt with one guaranteed winner. This one is cheap, but it also does not IMO offer a very favorable number of winners for the difficulty of coming in first place out of the entire field. Remember, you need 44 players in order to award just two avatar race seats, and so far this satellite has yet to approach the 44 player plateau.

8pm ET - $14 turbo nlh mtt, also win one guaranteed winner. Again, the buyin is good but this suffers IMO from the same problem as the first satellite listed above. You need more than 31 players to award two avatar race seats at $216 a pop, and again there has not yet been 31 players in this thing, and even if there were, personally I prefer to spend a little more up front to get better odds than just one winner out of every 16 entrants. As with the first sat above, you basically need to win this thing outright in order to win your seat to the avatar race, and that's a pretty tall order for anybody of any skill level in my view.

8:10pm ET - $5 turbo rebuy nlh mtt, with one guaranteed winner. Now here is a structure I love and really excel at -- the rebuy satellite, but the problem here is the $5 buyin. Make this badboy a $15 buyin and I would be hooked. And I'd be playing in the avatar race every single night. But here I think full tilt screwed up, although I'm sure they are trying to make this thing affordable to the masses. And the result is that, even though I love the rebuy structure for an mtt satellite like this, this thing has never even been close to awarding more than one avatar race seat in its first several days of running. So for now I gotta stay away from this one as well, which really hurts since I own full tilt rebuy satellites.

8:20pm ET - $24 turbo nlh mtt, with one seat guaranteed. Now this is getting to be more up my alley. Yes you have to come up with a tier I token or $26 cash to buy in to this satellite, but at least it awards an avatar race seat for every 9 entrants. That's my kind of odds -- get 27 players, and the top 3 win seats. It's still not great, but it's doable and I'll probably play it most nights until I win one of these avatar race badboys.

8:40pm ET - $40 turbo nlh mtt, with one seat guaranteed. This is the last of the nightly avatar race satellites, and as is often the case on full tilt, the last one is also the best one, if you have the bankroll to buy in to it. In this case, it's a hefty $40 a pop to enter this satellite, but at least it awards one seat for every 5.4 players entered. So, if 22 people play in this 8:40pm ET satellite, then the top 4 will win avatar race seats. This is the kind of odds where I want to be, and I will probably be in this thing as well most nights when I'm online by 8:40pm.

As far as I'm concerned, there are only two things full tilt is missing with these avatar race satellites (not that you asked me). First as I mentioned above is a $14 or even a $20 rebuy satellite into the avatar race. I wish they would add this, but I find that somewhat unlikely as they already affirmatively chose to run a rebuy sat but elected to go with the lowest-common-denominator of $5 for the buyin/rebuy cost instead of a more winning-ratio-friendly higher number. The other thing I wish full tilt would do, which I think there is probably some chance of them adding if the avatar race does not start filling up a little more over the next week or two, is add a $75 tier II token buyin avatar race satellite. I know the buyin is a bit steep, but my roll can afford it (even after this weekend), and I would play that shiat probably every single night to get in to the nightly 10:30pm ET avatar race. I mean, they run a regular $75 satellite into the weekly $216 HORSE mtt, so why not into the nightly avatar race as well? I'm hoping they will consider this over the coming week or two to help stimulate action in the avatar race, which I have to say, after a weekend spent researching what's out there, has got to be the best overall value for getting in to a number of the FTOPS events for a minimal buyin.

That's all I got for today. Remember, I'll be hammered by the time you see me tonight at the virtual tables, probably in a few of the avatar race satellites I mentioned above, as well as possibly one or more of the 9 o'clock hour satellites to the midnight ET bracelet race. Come look for me because drunk Hoy is always a threat to give away his chips.

And speaking of giving away my chips, I'll see you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!