Mookin' to the TOC

Is this the real life? Or is it just fantasy?

This one is gonna take a while to really hit me. I woke up this morning after a scant three hours of sleep, and I had to check the computer screen to make sure it wasn't all just some elaborate beer-fueled fantasy, but it appears to be genuine and official:

I am now a Mookie winner.

That's right. On Wednesday night (well into Thursday morning, actually), I took my place among the most hallowed names of all of poker bloggerdom. Nay, the most venerated names of all time. The name "Hoyazo" has now been etched in stone in Mookie's Hall of Champions, forever more right up alongside such lofty legends as rbledj494 way back on July 23, 2006 -- not to be confused with rmbj494 who won his Mookie on December 13, 2006.

Ahhh but you say, that was 2006, back when the Mookie was still a brand new thing, very different from what it is has become. Look to the next year, when the BBT was started and the word really started getting out about the Mookie, check out all the big names to nab Mookie victories in 2007. Ok then, so my name is now alongside the likes of mtnrider81 (March 21, 2007) and, of course, how could you forget NomeyMyHomey (May 2, 2007), and of course Julius_Goat on September 12, 2007. And of course 2008 as well, with another voraciously-attended BBT series, has contributed its own set of awe-inspiring Mookie champions, names like Jasper6294 on June 4, Roberto55 on November 11 and 777GMoney on November 26 to name a few. Shit, any tournament which can boast the likes of numbbono, waffles, evil wonka and piratelawyer all as three-time champions, I mean what more do you need to know. So to become a part of this group, enshrined, hallowed for ever among the greatest names to ever play this game, it's hard to put into words how I feel right now. Again, I still haven't even begun to really get my head around the accomplishment and the notion that I will be permanently etched in that kind of company, forever.

I knew things were going my way in the Mookie this week when, of the 68 runners who came out to play, my erstwhile prop bet opponent Mookie himself was a no-show, as was everyone's favorite chip dumper. So that was two obstacles out of my way just like that. Then, when I saw that Blinders was the first one out on the night, I knew my path to the final table was clear with the Master of the Mookie and the King of Expected Value out of the way.

On a whole, I got what I would describe as fair cards for me for a Mookie. In the end, through nearly 300 hands I received no AA and one KK, which I doubled with. I also got dealt JJ three times, and QQ and TT two times apiece, with AK twice and AQ twice as well. As I said, the way I won my first Mookie was not with superior starting cards so much as with superior luck in my big hands holding up. In a nutshell, I got in dominating or otherwise way ahead (I'm not talking races, or even "waffles races", which for those who don't know are hands favored to win about 65% of the time) several times on the night, and for the first time in as long as I can ever remember in a Mookie, I didn't lose a single 80% or better shot on the entire night. In this way I was able to take advantage of most of the big cards I was dealt, even though it wasn't really a particularly common occurrence compared to what is to be expected. In fact, I don't think I got sucked out on at all the entire night, other than when I called pushmonkey's shove with 10 left in the tournament with my A4 versus his K7o and he promptly flopped top two pairs, which is barely a suckout at all ultimately so much as a 40% hand winning in a given instance. And I can affirmatively say that I did not suck out on anyone else myself either all the way through, which is amazing given the total crap I was seeing hold up and suck out and win again and again all around me from basically start to finish on the night.

My strategy for the night was simple: bet and raise like crazy, as usual before the flop, but also on the flop and even on the turn as well. With the big fields and the silliness of the BBT, this is the way I've been approaching most of these blogger tournaments, and it has worked fairly well, with me squarely in the top 20 overall so far for the BBT, which just on Wednesday reached the midpoint of its 13-week run. In the Mookie on Wednesday, I played one of my most aggro games of all time. I raised relentlessly preflop, and I bet out on the flop and turn more often than my usual, to mostly good success start to finish, buoyed by the twelve hands I was dealt in the range of AQ+ or TT+ during the tournament. Purely from stealing alone, I had grown my 3000-chip starting stack to 3600 chips by the end of the first hour, good for 25th place of 51 remaining at the first break.

Here was my first big hand of the tournament:



Here, there were four limpers in front of me in the big blind for 120 chips apiece, and I looked down to find the Ladies in my hand. Those of you who know how I feel about pocket Queens know there is no way in hike I would consider limping along there, so I went for an outsized raise-the-limpers-move sort of raise to 700. Hacker59, a former Mookie winner himself, pushed and I insta-called. My 82% hand held, the start of that big trend on the night for me, and I had managed to near-double with my first big hand of the night early in Hour 2. For the balance of Hour 2, I bet, raised and stole my way to maintain the stack I had amassed from the Queens, sneaking my way into 6th place with 35 runners left as we neared the end of the hour.

Just before the second hour completed, I got into my second big hand of the night, this time with my only KK of the evening:



I played this one just slow enough before the flop, opting not to put in the reraise that would have committed sophie2002 to the pot to call, such that by the time she c-bet the flop after my check, she was committed to calling my check-raise on the flop with just the AK unimproved. Once again, an opponent with just four outs twice failed to hit, and my 82% hand once again prevailed, surging me up to 3rd of 32 left, where I stayed through most of the next hour thanks again mostly to some seriously aggro betting from me on all streets which repeatedly took me down many pots, big and small. This period included three of the five hammers I won pots with on the night, getting me as high as 2nd place with 19 left around midway through the third hour of the tournament.

Late in Hour 3, Carmen pushed her short stack into my pocket Jacks with her 7s -- yet again, an 81% hand holds up for me -- representing yet another instance where I was able to get serious value out of the relatively small number of strong hands I was dealt on the night:



This hand gave me my first chip lead of the night, in 1st place of 16 remaining:



Now it's nice to be in first place -- rather be there than in any other spot at least, obviously -- but it's not like I haven't been there before. I have been final table chip leader at the Mookie three or four times in the past year or so, all four of which ended in disaster of course, including once already earlier this year. I know how these things tend to go with me, so 1st of 16 left was nothing to get excited about in the least.

Here was also the point where I took the first screenshot of my ftp stats for the night. It seemed to me that for nearly three hours I had been taking down a lot of pots. A lot of em, even for me. So I checked it out, and you can see it for yourself, my stats through 179 hands of the Mookie this week, just short of the third break:



That statistic that I had won 22% of the total hands dealt at my table, at a full ring table over nearly 3 hours is utterly disgusting. I tend to push that number higher than most people when I'm playing well due to my preflop aggression factor, but 22% in a full ring tournament over three hours? That is unheard of, plain and simple. At 9-handed tables like I had been playing at for basically the entirety of the three hours so far, the math dictates that everyone should be picking up roughly 11% of the pots. To perform at twice that rate over such a long period of time in relative terms, well, it really just goes to show evidence of just how aggro and relentless I was in my approach to the tournament on Wednesday evening.

As the third break hit, I was in 2nd place of 12 players remaining. I got back into 1st of 11 after I made a steal on the flop with a donk bet into an 8000-chip pot against two other players on relatively short stacks who I figured were more interested in waiting for the final table than in calling off here on the bubble. And then here with 11 left is where I made the call with my A4s against pushmonkey's K7o and he doubled through me for my worst loss on the night as far as getting it in when ahead, but as I mentioned even this was what, a 57% favorite for me or something? The key for me was all of my significant favorite hands held up, from start to finish, for the first time maybe ever. But here, the pushmonkey hand suddenly dropped me to 5th place with 10 remaining. When the final table bubble burst a few hands later, I had stolen my way back to 3rd of 9, but still with a lot of work to do in my second consecutive Mookie final table.

Through 221 hands as the final table began, here I am still having won 21% of the total hands dealt at my table all night, seeing 18% of flops in the process:



Early at the final table, I had the hand that set up the run I ended up making for the roses. I'm sitting in the small blind, and pushmonkey, who had been living up to his name in a sick, ridiculous way all throughout this tournament, put in the button steal raise, which I immediately read for weak. I know I had just Q6o in my own hand, but looking at the stack sizes, I saw that I could push here with ATC and face pushmonkey with having to call off a quarter of his remaining stack with what I felt strongly was not a good hand. So I went for it:



I thought this would be an easy fold if pushmonkey was actually weak like I thought. But I guess I was wrong:



And, mind you, this call happened so fast, it was like he was already clicking the empty space on his screen where the "call" button was going to pop up when it became his turn. Well, here I was again with yet another 75-80% favorite with the money allin, a spot where I have gotten screwed in this tournament so many phucking times it's sick, but once again as you can see, my dominator held, and I was back in business near the top of the leaderboard at the Mookie final table.

At the fourth break, I was in 1st place of 7 remaining at the final table:



Obviously it's good to be final table chip leader anytime any way, and I had a nice chip lead over second place at the time as well, which is always good and another nice testament to my aggression even as the final table wore on. But I did have Chad sitting right behind me so I knew I had to keep my eye on that fucker if no one else. Through 251 hands, and still only 7-handed at the final table, I was still winning an utterly sick percentage of total hands dealt at my table:



My next large hand occurred about 20 minutes into Hour 5, and it was one of those hands that had to tell anyone familiar with my history in the Mookie, on full tilt, and in online poker in general that perhaps that night could be my night. I limped for 1200 into a 7500-chip pot from the small blind with 92s, based purely on pot odds and nothing else:



After the flop checked around, I led out on the turn after I picked up a runner flush draw and given the weakness shown on the flop:



And I got called by one player, not Chad thankfully. When my flush filled on the river, I debated how to best get paid off on the hand at this point. I had the sense from my opponent's call on the turn that he could have been on a draw, or holding something beatable but strong like two pairs, and with the flush having come runner-runner, I figured I had a decent opportunity for an overbet for value. The idea is that, since it's going to be so hard for me to get paid off anyways on that river, I can just pretend the guy made a straight on the river or flopped trip 7s, hope that is correct, and make as big of a bet as I think he will call if holding one of those hands. I quickly determined that that size was allin, so I pushed for the large overbet to the pot:



and somehow, he called and lost:



And check out the hand he lost with:



Bloooom. What can I say? After all the countless times I've been donked out of a tournament, sng, blonkament, cash table, you name it by losing with flushes -- runner-runner flush over flush being my preferred way of losing in terms of how many times it's happened -- to finally get to be on the winning end of one of those situations was about as sick as it could be for me. Not sure if you call that "luck" right there given the fact that I think I played the hand very well on all streets, but dam if that wasn't a sign right there that perhaps something different was in the air tonight. Instead of running AQ into AK or AQ into AA down to four-handed like happened to me twice in the Mookie during the BBT3, here I am with 5 players left flush over flushing someone in runner-runner fashion to vault to a solid 5-handed chip lead.

Unfortunately, shortly after this point, Chad's JTs fell to pushmonkey's KQs allin preflop, and pushmonkey once again nabbed the big chip lead against just myself and MaggieO, with push holding more than twice as many chips as myself and nearly 4x Maggie's stack:



I made a few of my most key decisions in the tournament during this 3-handed phase, which lasted about 15 minutes I would estimate. First, I struggled hard with this one to Maggie, before laying it down:



Then a few minutes later I was faced with a similar situation, but this time against pushmonkey who again had been flipping up utter garbage with regularity all through the previous couple of hours, to the point that a preflop raise from him almost meant nothing better than ATC:



Again I laid this one down, despite feeling I was likely ahead as I had been earlier when I had made the decision to call pm down with my A4 and then lost my 57% favorite hand to his K7o. I just kept thinking that if I could just hold out for a slightly better spot I might be able to make a huge move based on a mistake by one of my opponents. Not 5 minutes later, I got my chance. I was dealt my third and final JJ on the night, and I raised the 3000-chip big blind to 9000 from the button. Just pushmonkey called, and when the flop came down K87 rainbow, pushmonkey led out with the donk-bet despite my being the raiser preflop:



I figured the odds of me being ahead with my JJ were substantial, especially given the way pm had been playing on the night, and if I was going to lose JJ to K4 in 3-handed play then so be it, it is the Mookie after all and I am cursed, right? Anyways, I think I should like my hand here, so I'm all in:



Pushmonkey pretty much instacalled me again here, just as he had earlier on the night when he held just 76o preflop on a pretty large pot. When he called so quick I knew I had to be beat by a King-rag type of hand, but then I saw this:



There are no words.

My 75%+ favorite held up yet again here, giving me an 82k - 63k - 58k lead in what turned out to be a close matchup in three-handed play, but gave me my first Mookie chiplead with as few as three players left in at least two full years.

Again, despite being fairly sure I was ahead here, I once again figured I had to be able to find a better spot to play, so I folded another chance to knock out the pushmonkeying pushmonkey himself here:



and again here:



By the time Maggie called my very suckbetty river bet here with just A5 unimproved in her hand:



I had her pegged for feeling a little too over-aggressive and a little under-trusting of me, so when I made my inside straight on the turn a few hands later:



I checked, expecting her to bet so I could get her allin, but instead Maggie failed to take the bait. Then when the river made a higher straight possible, I decided to go with the math and the odds that I was ahead and try to get the rest of her chips right there:



Maggie called, and I won. Turns out she called me with this hand:



Now I know she was short in this spot, but T3o? Now that's what I call a lack of respect. I mean she's gonna lose to any A, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 or any pocket pair in my hand, and some of the 3s I might play as well. But such it is, she was very short at the time, and I had been betting and raising like a maniac all night, showing hammers and just generally being way aggro even for myself, and this is the kind of thing that can happen if it breaks just right for you in that kind of situation.

So here I was, heads-up in the Mookie for only the second time in my lifetime of playing Mookies -- it's gotta be at least 150 of them I've played now -- and I had a 122k to 82k chip lead. It was a nice chip lead, but nothing even close to prohibitive. Whoever would win the next allin pot would likely win the tournament, no matter which of us it was. Fortunately, pushmonkey, who had already sucked out on me allin preflop once during the tournament but then had also gifted me a huge stack of chips by calling allin when dominated by me not once but twice in the final 10 players left, and I could not have played more than four or five hands of heaqds-up play I don't think before this happened:

I was dealt K8o, a better than average hand in heads-up play, and pm started the action by raising the 4k blinds to 10k. I called for another 6k into a 15k pot with what I figured was likely -- but by no means definitely -- the best hand, given pm's shorter stack and erratic play I had seen so far on the night. The flop came King-high, giving me top pair, and of course I checked to pushmonkey since he had been the preflop raiser, but again he scrwed up my plans by checking behind. When the turn then brought a raggy 2, which was also the third heart on the board (I held the 8 of hearts), I sensed an opportunity to get in my checkraise there, since I had been surprised as it was that pm failed to c-bet the flop, but now with the three hearts I figured it would be a good bluffing opportunity that pushmonkey was not likely to miss. So I checked it to him again:



This time he did lead out, betting just 9k into the 21k pot, a decidedly smallish bet that could either mean extreme strength or extreme tentativeness. I quickly followed through with my plan to checkraise big, determined to go with my top pair decent kicker against an uncertain range in my opponent, especially given the weakness I had showed on the flop and the turn already in the hand:



PM called quickly and turned up:



And there I was. The whole word went silent. The buzzing of the little fan on my laptop, gone. The sounds of "Live Free or Die Hard" on the tv, faded to nothing. Even the crickets outside, I heard none of it. Instead, my entire Mookie life flashed before my eyes. I saw myself losing heads-up to Surf a couple of years ago when I had outflopped him and had just two cards to fade 2 outs to nab the Mookie title. I saw myself losing AA to KK down to a scant two tables left during the BBT2. Me pushing AQ into AA when 4-handed in the BBT3, and then not a three weeks later once again pushing AQ into AK, also 4-handed. It all cycled right through my vision, all in a split second, as I raised my hands in the air in silent celebration. I wanted to make sure I enjoyed the moment before the river fell, because with three Aces and four Queens, 7 outs once would still give pushmonkey a roughly 15% chance to suck out and further my Mookie Curse forever.

This was it: the moment of truth. Who am I gonna be? The Red Sox, who finally bust through the worst curse in sports history to win a World Series in 2004? Or the Cubbies, who Bartman'd away their best shot at the World Series and furthered their own curse with another tale for fans to tell their children and grandchildren? Winner or loser? Champion or runner-up? TOC or nada? Red Sox or Cubs?



It's the Red Sox, folks!



I write this today from the computer of a Mookie winner. And nobody can ever take that away from me.

MasterCard

Trying to suggest that a string of seven 30-man sngs tournaments -- against bloggers no less -- is in any way suggestive of someone's overall poker tournament skill -- good or bad?

Zero dollars.


Waiting until I take my third 2-or 3-outer after the flop out of seven tournaments to bash my results publicly on your blog and say it can't possibly be luck?

Zero dollars.


Repeatedly referring to me as a "self-proclaimed poker expert" even when I have never used and would never use that term to describe myself?

Zero dollars.


Staying home from a rare win for your favorite NFL team and letting your season tickets go to waste just to fold to the frigging points and limp into the Bodonkey final table with 3 big blinds remaining?

Zero dollars (literally).


Showing the world that you have so little going for you that my performance in a blonkament series takes over your life?

Zero dollars.






Still getting to ram it up your craw even after you say all those things?




Priceless.


Guess I am a poker expert after all!

Still Running Gooooood

Well it was another night of the BBT3 and another strong performance from me. I final tabled the Skill Series HA tournament (half PLH and half PLO) this week in my attempt to defend my title after I won my BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat in last week's Stud8 Skills game. This makes I think final tables in four of the last five BBT events. Is that right? Who would've thought it, just a short week ago before my big win. Certainly not me. I had only made "the points" -- which I never even consider for a single millisecond while I play because I'm a Man -- in I think two BBT events prior to this streak. And right here is exactly where I would like to explain to you my secret -- the secret for winning the large-field blonkaments brought about by the BBT.

If only I had any god dam idea. I think I play all the poker games well, and I think I play pretty well in most of the BBT3 tournaments most times I play them. This is certainly not true all the time, but more often than not I show up and I play the games well. I have been wracking my fucking brains trying to figure out what specifically I've been doing differently over the past several tournaments that has me not only lasting, but making the final table repeatedly, always in at least decent chip position, and enabling me to nab my one BBT3 win so far.

My first thought in situations like this is always exactly the same thing: playing tight. I figure, I must be playing tighter if I am lasting longer, especially given my success in the last couple of Skills games, which have seen me take down about 15 or 20 bustout bounties after going literally 11 or 12 Skills games without recording a single one. But you know what? I don't think I am playing tighter, to tell you the honest truth. I have spent a lot of time reviewing my big hands from the past several BBT3 tournaments and I see myself perhaps folding a couple of marginal hands that I might otherwise have played -- the QJo from the cutoff seat in an unopened pot early, for example -- but really I am playing some marginal hands and pushing somewhat hard with them early, midway and late in these tournaments. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not playing stoopid poker as a rule, but when I review some of the plays I've been making in large pots before the last couple tables in these tournaments, I see a lot of marginal stuff going on and lots of chips flying to the middle out of my stack with not a whole lot working for me.

Similarly, I can confirm it is certainly not great cards that have been leading me to so many final tables in these things. I have not been seeing my share of AA and KK in the holdem games, and I'm not flopping quads against other people's flopped boats in the Omaha variants. Those of you who have sat at my table in one of these recent tournaments -- think how many times I am beating you with AA or KK or something. It's just not happening. I've seen guys like PirateLawyer and DonkeyPuncher last night showing lots of AA and winnings lots of big pots with monster starting cards. That ain't me.

So what is it that's working so well for me in the BBT3 blonkaments lately? I think it is a combination of two simple things, neither one of which is a whole lot in my control. First, I am hitting some big hands in very big spots. This does not extend to the quality of my cards in general, but when I've needed to fill a flush near the end of the tournament and I've made a call on 5th street in Stud with just the flush draw against two opponents, I have hit my flush in a big spot. I turned trips in a big spot where my opponent had flopped top and bottom pair earlier this week. In a few key spots, when I have absolutely needed it most, I have come through with a big hand or a big draw or my shit has been holding up. I am running good in that respect.

Also, I am jumping out to big stacks early. In some cases, really big. If you look, I have been chip leader in almost every blonkament of the past week or so with around 20 players left. The early big stack is so key because it enables you to survive and withstand some of these asscock chasemonkeys, especially in the limit games, who otherwise can ruin your night with one idiotic play then ends up costing you big time. When you start with 1500 chips and drop down below 1000 early, it is very difficult to come back to amass, say, a 10k stack because you have to double so many times to get from 900 chips back up to 10k. However, if I can get an early double and be at 3000 chips, and then another double before the first break, then I can get sucked out on, I can take the worst of it a little bit in a 40-60 pot with a smaller stack than mine, and still be more than ok. That is extremely helpful.

Lastly, and to be honest as I review everything this is the most direct conclusion I am drawing: people are playing bad poker against me. I pretty much always get called down with anything by just about anyone, so it stands to reason that when I am hitting some draws and making some nice hands early, I can really amass a stack, and that's just what I've been doing. In Stud8 last week, someone grossly overplayed two low pairs against me from 5th through 7th street with an obvious high hand even though I clearly had Aces over from the betting action and the cards on my own board. In the MATH this week I got lucky and survived an allin call with the hammer early against my opponent's overplayed AK, but then two players donked me like 4500 chips within minutes with crappy one-pair hands or even just primary draws on the turn with 9 outs or fewer and just one card to come. Even last night I got off to a nice double early in PLO when my opponent got stuck playing a not-great Omaha hand and then called off his stack on the turn with two pair and a flush draw on a board with a high straight possibility to get started off hot. It's been happening a lot with me lately, which like I said is partially reflection of the fact that I have been hitting some draws with a bit more frequency than usual, and the fact that people tend to play against me as if I am constantly in there with garbage. Calling me down allin preflop early with shit like JTo, K9s, stuff like that.

A great example of all of these ideas can be found in the hand I profiled yesterday with PirateLawyer from the MATH. Yesterday I reposted the hand history from PL's blog and asked what you guys thought I probably had. Here it is again, from PL's blog:

"Then after a long period of inactivity I play Q5s from the small blind vs. Hoy, who has me covered in the BB. This was a significant mistake in situation selection; I end up spewing a large amount of chips needlessly.

Full Tilt Poker Game #6129182836: Mondays at the Hoy (45101299), Table 9 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:02:52 ET - 2008/04/22
Seat 1: jimdniacc (8,783)
Seat 2: PirateLawyer (20,798)
Seat 4: hoyazo (22,685)
Seat 5: wormmsu (23,121)
Seat 6: BuddyDank (6,596)
jimdniacc antes 50
PirateLawyer antes 50
hoyazo antes 50
wormmsu antes 50
BuddyDank antes 50
PirateLawyer posts the small blind of 200
hoyazo posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PirateLawyer [Qs 5s]
wormmsu folds
BuddyDank folds
jimdniacc folds
PirateLawyer raises to 1,200
hoyazo calls 800
*** FLOP *** [5d 4h Kh]
PirateLawyer bets 1,400 - middle pair, second kicker = easy c-bet
hoyazo calls 1,400 - Hoy could well be floating here, or he slowplayed preflop
*** TURN *** [5d 4h Kh] [Kd]
PirateLawyer has 15 seconds left to act
PirateLawyer bets 1,900 - time to fire a second shell now that's it's less likely he has a king
hoyazo has 15 seconds left to act
hoyazo raises to 5,700 - this smells like a positional raise but I can only beat a bluff or bottom pair
PirateLawyer has 15 seconds left to act
PirateLawyer calls 3,800 - I decide to call and re-evaluate on the river; I might check-fold or open-shove depending on what comes
*** RIVER *** [5d 4h Kh Kd] [Ks]
PirateLawyer checks - frankly, this card completely surprised me and I froze like a deer in the headlights
hoyazo bets 14,335, and is all in
PirateLawyer has 15 seconds left to act
PirateLawyer has requested TIME
PirateLawyer folds - I reluctantly fold but escape to fight another day
Uncalled bet of 14,335 returned to hoyazo
hoyazo mucks
PirateLawyer has returned
hoyazo wins the pot (16,850)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 16,850 | Rake 0
Board: [5d 4h Kh Kd Ks]
Seat 1: jimdniacc (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: PirateLawyer (small blind) folded on the River
Seat 4: hoyazo (big blind) collected (16,850), mucked
Seat 5: wormmsu folded before the Flop
Seat 6: BuddyDank folded before the Flop

I folded to Hoy's pressure even though I didn't really think he had the goods; all I can beat is a bluff."

The answers you gave in the comments for what I was holding ranged from possibly the case King to make quads, or perhaps a middle pocket pair, but most of you had me on either a busted flush draw, or just flat out air.

What really happened was PL open-raised from the small blind, and given his nature I didn't put PirateLawyer on shit when he goes for the steal in this spot. So his preflop raise in this particular situation told me just about nothing about his hand. If he had been really strong or really weak I suspect he would have smooth called, so his open-raising there told me he probably has a hand between 20th percentile and 80th percentile of all starting hands, but not much less than that. As in, I figured he is open-raising easily with garbage like 86s, T7o, any soooted face card, stuff like that. I barely narrowed his hand range at all, but to be clear I had him on total ATC garbage all through the hand.

I was right, but then I was wrong. PL was playing utter garbage just as I had suspected, in there it turns out with Q5s. It's a blechy, below average hand and one he could have just laid down with me and my big stack behind him given his position in the tournament and his stack size at the time, but I am ok with the float by him as long as he is not going to lose too much to the hand if he doesn't flop strong to it.

The flop comes 45K with two hearts. I figure, I know PL's game and he is c-betting me here probably 90% of the time, especially on a non-threatening flop like this, so again I have him on total air here. I was right -- Q5s is garbage -- but PL had unbeknownst to me picked up a very low second pair on the flop that is likely to be fourth pair by the time the hand is over with. Still, when PL bet out 1400 chips, I still had him on basically ATC, certainly nothing that made me think he had a pocket pair or a King, so I smooth called. I like the smooth call of the guy I think has air on the flop, almost better than raising on the flop sometimes. The smarter aggro players are more scared of the flop smooth call than the flop raise anyways most of the time, so I like to mix in smooth calling my aggressive opponents on the flop with air once in a while just to keep them guessing.

Then the turn brought the second King, and when PL bet out again, I was more sure than ever that he did not have a King in there or anything else good. So now I figure was the time for the raise, so I popped him 3x to 5700 chips and figured he would fold his nothing hand. When PL smooth called me there, I figured he had something he thought was decent. But with a King, against me, he is reraising allin in this spot, so I did not at all put him on trips. I didn't know what to make of PL's smooth call there to be honest, but I knew I didn't like it.

When the river brought the third King, I figured no way PL has a boat, so he will lay down to my allin bet with anything less than a boat. I made my allin move knowing full well that if PL had any kind of a boat whatsoever, he was going to call. In the end, I think this was a putrid poker play on my part, because I did not have a boat and after PL had called my turn bet, he more or less had to have boated up with the King on the river. And yet I made the play anyways, with this hand:



So yeah, it was total air, and frankly I think it was a really terribly played hand by both PL and myself. Me, for pushing allin for such a relatively small bet on the river after PL had seemingly committed himself with his call on the turn and given that I had to know anyone with a boat is not likely to fold here. And him, for just calling on the turn and then the fold on the river while holding the highest boat available on the board, that move is just inexplicable to me. If I knew what PL had I would have check-folded in a heartbeat of course, but to think PL actually made a boat on the river and still laid it down for 14k more into a 31k pot, it just boggles the mind.

But I show this hand (1) because PL asked me to, and (2) because I think it illustrates well that I am not playing tight or reserved poker through these things, I am not winning my big pots due to good starting cards, and that others are playing suboptimal poker against me which is the single biggest factor in my recent blonkament success.

So, tonight for the Mookie at 10pm ET on full tilt (password is "vegas1"), please keep your donking of chips to a maximum where I am concerned, because I never have good starting cards and I am probably just making a move. So call call call me as much as you can. See you tonight at 10pm ET.

The Mookie Curse?

As I've written much about here, I am on a raging hot streak of late, including especially in the blonkaments. In the latest Mookie tournament on Wednesday night, I continued this streak by reaching another blonkament final table in a row:



As you can see I am slightly in second place and well ahead of the other 7 players at the table. I played dumbo aggro early, losing half my stack on two silly bluffs that got called or where I was raised out of the hand, but then I decided to start playing Hoy poker and was able to slowly grind back a stack. I won a big hand late in the first hour where I called an allin reraise from a player I was not familiar with when I held just the JackAce. Yes, you read that right. I called an allin reraise from someone with the JackAce. I can't say what it was but I felt like I was racing and my opponent had the unfortunate timing to run into me when I was at my lowest in the tournament and thus cared the least about the prospect of racing to get back all of my lost chips. I hit a Jack on the turn and bested my opponent's pocket presto. Such is poker. I'll say this -- since you all know that when I'm the guy with the pair and the Jackace calls me , I lose in that spot with a frequency of probably 90-95%. So if you think I think it is sad, sorry, funny or even anything out of the ordinary that my JackAce won a 49% shot for me for once last night, then you don't know me very well. What would've been funny would be if I had finally decided to donk it up like the rest of 'em and called an allin myself with the Jackace, was up against a lower pocket pair and then I still managed to lose, this time as the Jackace instead of the pair which I usually am. That would have been funny and unbelievable to me. This? Standard.

Anyways, other than that I bluffed like mad and played a whole lot of shitty cards as is my usual practice in the Mookie, but I did these things in good spots. Although my reads are wrong sometimes, especially since I make decisions by those reads in most of the hands that I am playing, in general playing aggressive poker but never getting called in big spots with weak hands, I was able to consistently chip up through the second hour, busting a number of fellow players along the way.

As an aside and on this same topic, I really appreciate all of the comments I received yesterday on my bustout hand in the 15k rebuy mtt from the night before on full tilt. Yes my read was obviously dead wrong on that hand, but the commentary I received was worth more than any written explanation from me could possibly do, because it illustrates better than anything I could ever have said myself a crucially important poker point. Basically, I had pushed allin on the flop with big overbets on TPTK or better hands, all of which I was sure were best, probably five or six other times in the preceding hour or so at that table by the time this hand came up. The fact that a few of the commenters all fell for the bait that this overbet on my bustout hand somehow means I am weak is illustrative of why it is so important to mix up your bets. Because in reality these guys who automatically think that an overbet screams weakness, and therefore would have called me with any top pair, or even second pair, on an all-suited board, would have been busted by me about an hour earlier. And then again. And again. And again. See, poker is all about getting into people's heads. And because I know that many people will view the flop overbet as a desperate attempt at a push bet, I make use of it again and again as a pull bet where I know I'm ahead and I want to be called, including in that tournament where probably the last 40,000 of my 59,000-chip stack was won on flop overbets where I got called by worse hands. Poker is a beatiful thing. You just always need to be thinking one level ahead of your opponent(s) and you should be in good shape.

So anyways, back to the Mookie. That's all how I played my way to a nearly leading stack as the final table began this week. I played great at the final table, taking it typically slow at first and then making some big plays and huge resteals with air to push into the money bubble at 5th place, and then eventually to bust #5 to take a nice chip lead with just four players remaining.

Then the most amazing thing happened. I was dealt pocket Kings. At a final table.

This never happens for me. I had already been screaming in the girly chat for an hour to just give me one more premium hand in this entire tournament, and I will find a way to get an opponent allin with it. This has always been one of my strengths, and even though it has led to some recockulopolous beats as I've allowed other players to develop a hand late in an mtt, the overall payoffs to me with final table premium hands have been hugely positive. So here I am with pocket Kings. When the action folded to me in the small blind, I put in a pot-raise, representing a steal and hoping to get some action from leftylu in the big blind who I know knows how aggressively I play, especially in this spot. I get just what I want -- leftylu moves allin quickly, and here I am with pocket Kings calling allin as the chip leader with four left in the elusive Mookie tournament, and the allin I am calling is coming from the second-place stack at the time. When I win this hand I'm going to be about 2-1 over second place and 10-1 over third place left in this thing. And I'm going to win. Finally. My first Mookie. This is it:



and here is the glorious final board:



Nice flop, huh? So that's how I went from dominating to done in the Mookie, getting someone allin preflop with me against my pocket Kings. Two hands later I was out, my third cash in a month at the Mookie which is always nice, but I've been thinking about it. I've decided that my $44 cash in the Mookie this week can lick my ballz. And congrats to leftylu for surviving the short-lived clash with my pocket Kings and then going on to win the tournament, yet another player with a Mookie victory while I have none.

I'll never win a Mookie. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm cursed with the Mookie. I've won everything else in the world I would like to win. And I've been close now with the Mookie on three separate occasions, all three of which saw me a significant favorite to either win or take a significant lead with just a few players remaining. One time it was my JJ losing to some other clown's 88 allin with 3 players left and me in second place. Last week it was Surf hitting that 6-outer on the river after I had spiked a Jack on the turn when he was allin in heads-up play. This week it's my pocket Kings losing allin to the second place player's A8 when I had a chip lead already with four players left. This shit is painful. So I ask you: Am I really cursed in the Mookie?

In support of this argument, I offer up these non scientifical calculations:

In Mondays at the Hoy, I would estimate that I have cashed for around $1700 during the lifetime of this event over about 14 months. At an average buyin of around $23 (given the midway switch from pokerstars $20 to full tilt $26), let's say I've played in roughly 52 MATH tournaments. That is $1196 spent, and $1700 won for a total net profit of around $500 from the MATH tournament over its lifetime and my lifetime playing in it almost every week. This equates to a profit of around 25 tournament buyins won from this event over time.

In Riverchasers, which runs every other week on Thursdays (I never play the Sunday afternoon events), I have posted two wins and I think four cash finishes for a total cash of around $500 over probably 13 tournaments. At $10 a pop, that is $130 spent and $500 won, for a total net profit of around $370 from the Riverchasers tournament as a whole. This equates to a profit of around 37 tournament buyins won from this event over time.

In the Big Game, which only runs once a month and sports that delicious $75 buyin, I estimate I have played 7 times for a total expenditure of $525. I finished in second place in the second Big Game held on full tilt earlier this year, and I came in second again on July 1 on the final event of the BBT calendar. Then I took down August's Big Game entirely for my third cash in 7 tries in this tournament, giving me total winnings here of around $1650, or a total profit of around $1100 from this tournament. This equates to a profit of around 15 tournament buyins won from this event over time.

So let's review real quick here. In the Hoy, the Riverchasers and the Big Game I am up a net of $500, $370 and $1100 respectively, for a total profit of over $1800 during the lifetime of these three respective events. When you take the WAC (weighted average cost of capital) for these three events, weighting them for the frequency of the buyins -- i.e. taking into account that the MATH is weekly, the RC is bi-weekly and the Big Game is monthly -- you get an adjusted average buyin of nearly $29 per tournament, meaning that I have won, on average, 62 buyins per tournament throughout the entire lifetime of these three events. Who says the blonkaments can't be profitable, right?

Now look at the Mookie. This one has been going on longer than the other three events by a few months, so I've played in the most of them. Since I was there from the beginning and I try to play almost every week (except during Lost season, of course) I would estimate that I have bought in to probably around 70 Mookie tournaments, for a total expenditure of $770. With my few top-three finishes and probably only 5 or 6 other cashes total in this event (most of them not this year, btw), I would estimate total cashouts from the Mookie for me at around $350. This means that I have a net loss of $420 in the Mookie over the lifetime of that tournament, or a loss of 42 freakin Mookie buyins over time in just 70 events. Wow.

Now, it's not at all that I'm trying to say that I am simply too great at poker to have gone through losing 42 tournament buyins in this one event over the past couple of years. Rather, just look at the differential between my performance in the Mook and that in all of the other big blonkaments out there. I win an aggregate of 62 buyins per tournament in the Hoy, the RC and the Big Game -- which all together I have probably played almost the same number of times as I have played the Mookie alone, but in the Mookie for some reason I lose more than 40 buyins over time, while I win more than 60 buyins over time in the other half of the events put together.

What does this all mean? Am I really cursed in the Mookie? Trust me when I say that there are no external stimuli on Wednesday nights or something that make me not devote my full attention or anything like that. I never really have any distractions when I play any poker online in the evenings, and that goes just the same for Wednesdays as any other day. Yes Lost was on during part of the Mookie run this past Spring, but to be honest I barely played in the Mookie during that run to avoid any distraction issues. If anything, Sundays are clearly the night where I have the most distractions because it's the one night of the week when The Sopranos and Entourage have usually been running in my bedroom while I am trying to focus on the games. And there I have won the most money in the Big Game, not the least. So that's not it.

Is it that the competition is just better in the Mookie for some reason than in the other blonkaments? Ha ha.

It's not even that I don't play well in the Mookie. Just look at the past few weeks, where each time I've been in position to win but somehow have taken the brunt of lady luck and been beaten by a fairly significant longshot in a spot where I am likely otherwise going to win the tournament. What makes me play these hands the way that I do? What makes this keep happening to me week in and week out in the Mookie tournament?

So I ask again, am I cursed in the Mookie or what?