Full Tilt Update

As happens regularly from time to time, when I went to fire up my full tilt to play some stud hi-lo with bloggers on Tuesday night, I got the message that a new version of the poker client was available on the full tilt servers. I dutifully clicked over and got the update over with, expecting as usual to not even notice the changes but to be able to play. But for the first time in a long time, two changes jumped out at me, both of which I think are very positive overall, one of which, frankly, things I can't believe I never thought about myself, and the other which everyone has thought of but it looks like a major online poker site has finally executed on.

The first cool change in the new ftp update is that all mtt's now have their break at the same time, at 5 minutes before the hour, every hour. This is starkly different from how full tilt has been for years, which is that every mtt has a break every hour, 60 minutes from the end of the last break. The old system made sense, in that you sat down to a tournament, played 60 minutes, and then got a break every 60 minutes to be able to go to the bathroom, grab a snack, hit some Wii baseball home runs, whatever it is you like to do during your online mtt breaks.

But that was also exactly the problem with the old break system -- for anyone who plays more than one mtt at a time, ever, then you don't typically get that 5-minute break period to do all those breaky things. If I sit down and play the Skillz game at 9:30pm ET, the $14 token frenzy or whatever it's called at 9:45pm ET and the 28k at 10pm ET (which Chad won again the other night btw, for only the sixth time though), then that means I get a 5-minute break in the Skillz at 10:30, but I'm still playing through my other two tournaments at that point. At 10:35 the Skillz resumes, and then at 10:45 comes the break for the token frenzy, which ends at 10:50, and then ten minutes later comes the break for the 28k. So that is three 5-minute breaks in the span of 30 minutes, butfor all practical purposes, I have gotten no real break at all, because there was never even one second where I could actually get up and pee like I've had to for a good 30, 40 minutes now.

Well now, with the new change, this will no longer be an issue. Now all mtts will take their break at 5 minutes before the hour. So on Tuesday, for the first time ever, I was able to take a true break while multi-tabling a turbo FTOPS satellite and the Skills event at the same time, at 10:55pm ET. Good stuff, and a good change. Like I said above, I can't believe nobody has thought of that before now.

The other change I noticed as part of the new full tilt update is that they now offer cash no-limit games with antes for the first time. This one is not particularly relevant to my own online poker experience, in that I haven't focused much on cash games for the past year or two, but still it is surely an improvement to have such games available. For the Real Men out there who recognize full ring cash poker as the slow, boring time-passer that is is, the real action junkies who play shorthanded or even heads-up cash just to avoid the incessant folding that can basically guarantee you a very small but fairly easy-to-scratch-out profit, adding antes to the structure is a very welcome turn of events for sho.

I am so into the idea of online nlh cash play with antes that I've been toying with the notion of starting some formal or informal challenge to get myself back into no-limit cash game play after a long time away. As I think I've mentioned previously, somehow, some way, a switch was flipped a couple of months back, and I just stopped being interested in playing the large multi-table tournaments like I had focused on for the previous year and more. It was definitely nothing specific that happened, not some kind of bad mtt run or something, but if anything I think it was probably health-related in that I contracted a cold or flu virus, and for a few weeks solid I was really unable to maintain my focus anywhere near late enough to make even a mediocre run in an mtt. Honestly I bet if I search my stats I won't see a single true mtt played by me in at least two months. No 50-50, no 32k, no 28k, no 35k, no stars 70k, no UB and no bodog multi table tournaments. It's just something I have gotten away from as I do from time to time, and I'm sure I'll be back in mtt land soon enough. But for right now, playing some nlh cash with antes sounds like it could be right up my alley.

Maybe I can convince some of you diggheads to join me and donate to the cause?

Weekend Recharge

Man. A nice weekend of no poker whatsoever. No mtts. No sngs. No frigging FTOPS. And I have got to say, I am feeling gooooood this morning. You know it's bad when just staying away from the game for a few days feels so dam good.

I have really taken some sick losses lately. I don't mean in big spots so much (though many have been), but rather some just disgusting hands the way they all played out in the end. I'm still seething over getting pokerstarsed hard in Pauly's tournament last week, and that was a full week ago for crying out loud. But pokerstars has previously pissed me off so much that I didn't play there for a fucking year, and it's sad how quickly I get reminded why. When some f-wad is literally trying to lose and then stars hands him the most recockulous flop imaginable in a totally unreadable situation to stack my far better hand, it just brings me right back to all those feelings I've had over most of the past few years about stars. I don't know what I'm actually trying to say, because it's not like I actually believe that pokerstars if fixed or anything -- I've had far too much success on that site to think it is anything but totally on the up-and-up just like full tilt -- but that doesn't stop my brain from recognizing the patterns on the sites and reacting to them. When dickheads are calling large preflop reraises with 75o and then flopping straights against high pocket pairs, with A2s and then flopping trip 2s, it has to make any thinking person wonder why they keep playing at that site.

And the shit hasn't just been happening on stars either. It's just been a bad couple of weeks for me for sure. That's why this weekend was so enjoyable for me. On a whim I decided to take my girls home to my parents' house for the weekend, where they absolutely love to go and hang out with their grandparents, swim in the pool and eat some good old-fashioned Philly food. I will admit to having eaten not one but two Philly cheesesteaks over just the four meals I was home with them this weekend, and dam is that shit good. It's sad, really, how impossible it is to get a truly good Philly steak anywhere in New York City. I mean, this is the biggest, baddest, best city in the world, and the food from all walks of life and all ethnicities and geographic areas is known the world around, and yet you can't get a dam Philly steak anywhere to save your life. Oh sure, plenty of restaurants have a Philly steak on the menu, but when you actually order it, it's not thinly-shaved top round steak grilled in succulent frying oil on a fresh, fluffy Philly-style bun. Typically it is some crappy filet mignon, sliced maybe 4 or 5 times and then laid out on a toasted piece of garlic bread or some shit. As a Philly guy, let's just say it is a major insult and leave it at that.

Anyways, this weekend I chowed down on some real Philly steak right from the Philadelphia area, had a blast with my kids, and completely avoided poker. Until I got back late on Sunday and found perennial tournament hater Miami Don not only running way deep in the Bodog 250k guaranteed for one of his biggest tournament scores ever, but I also learned that Don went nuts this weekend and cashed for another two large or so in a few other mtt's over the past few days. Seeing another blogger really start figuring shit out mtt-wise is what it's all about, and it being Don is especially cool for me since we have spent so much time together chatting about the game, about tournament strategy, and really just bitching to each other about the successes we wish we were having in our respective poker pursuits.

So that right there was my one and only poker highlight of the weekend, and I have to say that I liked it that way. Now for tonight I had previously qualified for this $1060 buyin FTOPS nlh tournament that I have played I think once before, and I am inclined to give it a go again tonight after a weekend away to recharge. If I'm not feeling it I will surely unregister and keep the nice wad of cash for another day, but one of these days I figure I will play well and avoid the sickening suckouts which have twice dusted me out just short of the money in the full tilt 1k buyin events and hit a nice score. I certainly feel up to the challenge myself, even though I have to acknowledge that the 1k buyin tournaments are a much, much harder field to play against than my usual $26 and $50 rabble. So come on by tonight during the 9pm ET 1k FTOPS event and see if I am still alive and kicking, and otherwise maybe I'll see you elsewhere on the felt during the evening's pokerings.