Effed Early and Late in Monday MTTs, and MATH Recap

Despite winning another buyin at the 6max cash tables overall on the night, it was a sick, sick night of poker for me overall that saw me make exactly zero suckouts against anyone over 4 hours of multitabling, while 2 vicious suckouts against me combined with one mega setup hand to really phuck me and phuck me hard out of my mtt action on the night. And given the stakes involved, it was one of those very rare (for me) nights where when I woke up in the morning, I was still just about as sick as I had been the night before. I hate when that happens, when the very first thing that pops into my head when I first wake up is "Did that suckout really happen to me? Did it have to be in that spot?" That's me here on Tuesday morning, and I don't exactly know when the gross feeling is going to go away.

After a nice couple of sessions at the cash tables, where I finally have my pokertracker working again after a quick email to support (thanks Gnome for the suggestion), I began the latest Mondays at the Hoy tournament with high hopes, as I've been playing well in mtts again lately after a month of poor results in that arena. I couldn't have played more than five or ten minutes before I limped from the blinds to see a 4-way flop with K♣5♣. The flop comes all clubs. Soy delicious.

Because I'm a man, I manage to get thepokergrind to call my allin reraise on this flop, which you would think would thrill me. But no, I've written here many times before about how I am somehow well into the negative over time with made two-card flushes in holdem, and how I am quite sure it is not because I overplay these things. Well, I figure he's obviously got the Ace♣, and/or a set and is going to boat up on me, I know it's going to happen. So it was almost a relief when he flips up....Ax sooted in clubs! Flopflush King-high into flopflush Ace-high. That is rich you muggafuggas, really rich. Well I'll just add that one to the everlovingly huge tab that the giant flush up in the sky owes to me and will have to begin paying back to me someday. Flopping a flush is supposed to be a fucking pot of gold, but somehow for me it's a spitoon full of coal. So phuck you flushes. I hope you get AIDS and die. Please.

In the end, all-around good guy Bayne squeaked into 4th place and the money in the MATH by showing tremendous patience as the short stack on the bubble, adding $95.04 to his current lead atop the 2007 MATH moneyboard. Coming in 3rd place on the week was Kajagugu, who won $142.56 in his first cash of the year after losing a 20k+ stack pretty quick after Bayne busted in 4th place. Thepokergrind managed to make good use of the chips he was gifted from me in the earlygoing, busting out with a 2nd place finish and $198 won for his best MATH performance of the year in what I know from his blog has been a focus for his play of late. And winning this week's Mondays at the Hoy title, along with $356.40 of cold hard cash contributed to by the 33 donkeys runners, was everyone's favorite poker shock jock, BuddyDank himself! I could not listen to the radio show last night with Hammer Wife asleep right next to me, but I'm sure Buddy was on fire and loving life as he powered his way through a tough and larger-than-normal field for the victory.

So here is your updated 2007 MATH moneyboard, including this week's action:

1. Bayne_s $1270
2. Columbo $1168
3. Hoyazo $1162
4. RaisingCayne $1110
5. Pirate Wes $792
6. VinNay $775
7. cmitch $774
8. Iggy $745
9. NewinNov $677
10. Lucko21 $665
11. Waffles $650
12. IslandBum1 $642
13. Astin $616
14. Fuel55 $568
15. Tripjax $561
16. Buddydank $553
17. Byron $510
18. Julius Goat $507
19. bartonf $492
19. mtnrider81 $492
21. PokerBrian322 $490
22. Chad $485
23. scots_chris $474
24. Emptyman $461
25. Mike_Maloney $456
26. RecessRampage $434
27. Otis $429
28. Surflexus $402
28. Miami Don $402
30. jeciimd $382
30. Jordan $382
32. Blinders $379
33. lightning36 $371
34. ChapelncHill $353
35. Zeem $330
36. LJ $326
37. OMGitsPokerFool $324
38. oossuuu754 $312
39. leftylu $295
40. Wigginx $288
41. ScottMc $282
42. Fishy McDonk $277
43. Irongirl $252
43. Manik79 $252
45. Wippy1313 $248
46. swimmom95 $245
47. wwonka69 $216
48. Omega_man_99 $210
49. katiemother $209
50. Pushmonkey72 $208
51. Thepokergrind $198
52. Gary Cox 194
53. 23Skidoo $176
54. Santa Clauss $170
55. jimdniacc $166
56. Iakaris $162
56. Smokkee $162
58. cemfredmd $156
58. NumbBono $156
60. lester000 $147
61. Heffmike $145
62. Kajagugu $143
62. brdweb $143
64. Mookie $137
64. DDionysus $137
66. Patchmaster $135
67. InstantTragedy $129
68. Ganton516 $114
69. Fluxer $110
70. hoops15mt $95
71. Gracie $94
71. Scurvydog $94
73. wormmsu $91
74. Shag0103 $84
75. crazdgamer $82
76. PhinCity $80
77. maf212 $78
78. Alceste $71
78. dbirider $71
80. Easycure $67
81. Rake Feeder $53

So Bayne adds to his lead and becomes the first member of the $1200 club in the MATH this year, while Buddydank soars up into the top 20 with his $356 and change won this week, while Kaja and thepokergrind both break into the moneyboard for the first time as the fourth and final quarter of the year begins.

And now we can move on to the real reason I am still feeling sick this morning: the Monday 1k. I mentioned here in Monday's post that I had satellited in to the Monday 1k buyin mtt with a 150k guarantee over the weekend with one of those tier II tokens that I love to win in the nightly 9:45pm ET token frenzy on full tilt. 259 runners showed up, contributing a lofty 259k prize pool to be paid out to the top 27 finishers. I got no cards at first (what else is new) but ran some huge bluffs in what I thought were good spots to get off to about a 50% bump from the 3000 chip starting stacks around the end of the first hour. Just before the break I played a very interesting hand , which I'm going to profile in a moment because the pussy vagina who was involved with me ending up stalking me for several hours in the chat and being abusive about the way I played, and I'd like to get your thoughts. Basically, I had an up and down 2nd and 3rd hours, where my stack vacillated from around 10k at most to around 3k at the least, but I never gave up and I never made one of those oh-so-tempting awfuckit calls, but I did manage to win one big race near the end of the third hour when I called an allin with AKo preflop and nailed a King on the flop to stay alive. I also endured one uberlame suckout where I had my opponent dominated allin preflop for all his chips, but he four-flushed me. Another flucking fush, what can ya do. Unfortunately my night ended early into hour 4, just 6 spots from the payout positions, when I reraised my opponent allin preflop when I held JJ, and he called quickly with AKo, the same thing I had benefitted from doing earlier in the evening. In the end, he won the race as a roughly 48% underdog going in, but that doesn't begin to describe the scene. Once he and I were allin preflop, the flop came down J42 rainbow, giving me the literal nuts with top set on a board with no discernible draws, and I was stylin'. I was going to be top 10 in chips with 33 players remaining and 27 spots paying out a minimum of $1500. Yeah baybeeeee.

Turn Queen.

River Ten.

IGH 33rd place of 259 runners with 27 spots in the money.

Now if that ain't some sick shiat, I don't know what is. In the end I can't get too crazy about it because I was just a 52% favorite preflop when the money went in, but to have it happen in that order and give me the nut flop with no draws whatsoever, that one fucking stings me, even the next morning I have to say. Basically, my opponent needed to make one of four outs on the turn and one of four outs on the river to beat me at that point, as there was no way other than the runner runner straight for my opponent to catch up to my nut flop. Even running Aces, Kings or AK at that point wasn't going to win it for him. But that's the way it happens I guess. So I go 3 1/2 hours into this thing and play great with not much to work with and then get donked by a runner runner 0.6% chance on the flop to lose just short of the money. Ouch.

OK and now the hand I wanted to profile from earlier in the tournament. As I said I received one of my worst and longest-lasting beratings ever after this hand by the pussass I played the hand with, and I would like to get your thoughts on the way the hand played out.

Blinds are 30-60, and I'm in the hijack where it's folded around to me. I have QJs. I like to raise here and try to take down the blinds, and I know if someone calls I have a good hand to do some damage with regardless of what my opponent has. I kick it up to 180 chips. Vegan213, the bfp of the tournament (Biggest Fucking Pussy), reraised me to 540 chips from the cutoff. Vegan had been a stealy guy at this table for a while, and to be honest I put him on a steal and figured with big soooted connectors I had a good hand to see a flop with and hope to hit something big. This is admittedly not a strong move on my part and it's not something I do very often, but as I've discussed here previously I find myself calling preflop raises in situations like this more and more as I get more and more comfortable with my postflop play and in knowing that I can lay this hand down unless I flop strong to it, which means something better than TPTK or at least a draw to something strong.

The flop comes AT4 with two hearts, giving me the flush draw and the inside straight draw, and I figured with pussyshit's preflop reraise he very likely had an Ace in his hand, one that based on his play he would want to push strongly. With at least 12 outs to an almost surely winning hand, I figured this guy will surely bet out nearly the size of the pot on the flop with what I figure is a big Ace, and then I can raise him allin and make him lay this down if he is anything but a TPTK monkey. I checked to him, and he bet out 825 chips like a good little puppy dog:



Following my plan all along, and knowing I had at least 12 outs to the almost surely winning hand, I reraised allin on this flop, almost indifferent between him calling and folding. With 12 outs more or less assured, I figured I'm looking at more than 40% equity in this pot, and maybe more depending on what exactly my opponent has, but either way I'm figuring this guy for having a solid top pair hand. I guess it's better that he folds since I'm not quite 50% equity with my two-way draw, but in the end I figured if he's not a donk he has to lay down any non-two-pair hand to my allin reraise for his and my entire stack here.

Vagina Man instacalls my allin bet, and flips up his AKo. Bingo! Top pair top kicker donkey to the rescue! I love these guys. TPTK donkeys have probably made me more money over my poker lifetime than any other type of player out there. I mean, it's one thing to be the guy making a big raise and creating pressure by putting your opponent to a decision for all their chips, but to call off your entire stack on a huge overraise allin for about 3 times the current pot, with just TPTK, is...well...you guys tell me what it is.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the hand, because the turn card brought me the sweet victory:



and this assclown Vegan213 proceeded started laying in to me on the chat. These are the guys that I really make my money on, both at tournament and cash tables -- the guys who not only are TPTK donkeys, but who live in denial and refuse to open their minds to the possibility of ever getting better. When you're instacalling a huge overbet for your entire stack with just TPTK, I say you need to check yo'self before you wreck yo'self. But maybe it's just me. Am I way off base here? I read this guy like a book, I got him to bet out and commit himself on the flop and then I moved in the rest of my chips in a spot where he has to fold. Instead he called, and lost, and berated me horrendously, for several hours. Literally. At like 1am ET, when I finally got donkeyfucked by the roughly 140-to-1 runner-runner straight against my JJ on the J42 flop, suddenly there was Vegan213 to type in "hahahahahah". I love it.

So this guy literally stayed awake for four fucking hours after I busted his ass after what I view as a donkey instacall by him. He stays up until after 1am, watching every single hand I play, just hoping, waiting, praying for me to bust out somehow. Then I get donked by a less than 1-outer, and he is suddenly right there, four hours after my hand with him, laughing at me in the chat. Wow. Which leads me to one opinion about Vegan213 that I just can't escape no matter how hard I try:

Vegan213 has a small penis.

I just don't know what else leads to the kind of feelings of inadequacy that poker obviously stirs up in this individual. Did I really play this hand so poorly? Did he really play it so well?

Another Mookie Flushed Away, and the All-Suited Flop Concluded

Wow. A crazy thing happened to me on Wednesday night about 30, 35 minutes into the Mookie on full tilt. So I'm sitting on my bed with the laptop on a pillow on my lap (those of you with laptops will know why I choose to have a pillow between the bottom of the laptop and my merely 98.6 degree skin of my legs), and as usual I haven't hand a single playable hand yet, through probably 30 hands. Annoying. But standard. I mean I haven't even sniffed a hand. I might have had QJs one time, and I think 44 at one point in the first couple rounds. But that's as good as it got.

So I'm sitting there, I'm playing the Mookie, and my starting stack of 3000 chips is probably somewhere around 2800 or 2900 or so. I had been up a couple hundy, down a couple hundy, but nothing major in either direction as I recall. Eventually I limp from the cutoff with 96 of diamonds. The flop comes...all three diamonds. Now, you would think this would excite me. But I know better. I say to Hammer Wife "Wow. I flopped a flush. And this is where Hoyazo busts out early from the Mookie." Now, when you flop the flush, in all but the most unusual and runnerrunnery of situations, the only way you can lose is to a guy hitting a higher four-flush on you on the turn or river, so of course that means my big objective here is to get one of the two other players in this pot to either lay it down or get it allin when I am a 2-to-1 favorite. So imagine my happiness when someone in early position bets out, and then another player raises, all ahead of me. Now I basically "know" that one of these guys has some kind of pair or two pair or set hand, and the other guy must have the Ace or King of diamonds along with some other kind of hand or draw. I pause the requisite few seconds to fake-think, and then I push allin. Firsty folds immediately, and riggstad in middle position instacalls. I'm bracing to dodge a fourth diamond on the turn or river, and with just 7 left in the deck I am going to be around 70% to win the pot, which I've already known from the minute the flush flopped for me I was not going to win.

At least full tilt made it easy on me. Riggstad flips up his cards, and he, of course, has also flopped the flush. The King-high variety. IGH among the first handful of players out. Nice. And that's when the strange thing happened.

At first it was just something I felt lightly touch my hair on top of my head. My first thought was a fly or something must've landed on my head and be walking around on my head or something. Not usual but nothing so unbelievably crazy or anything. But then I felt it again, on the other side of my head. And suddenly right in front of my eyes, a streamer or something flew past. And that's when I heard the trumpets. It was a festive beat, kinda like what they used to run at the end of Let's Make a Deal. And all of a sudden, there is confetti all over the fuckin place. My bedroom is completely beseiged with party gimmicks and party sounds. Just as I start to wonder what the hike this is all for, Wink Martindale comes through my bedroom door and announces that I have just lost for the 2 millionth no-limit holdem hand with a made flush on full tilt poker! Yay for me! Who knew, I thought, who knew. What an exciting time for me.

I've written about it here before, but I cannot win with a fucking flush to save my life, and it's not for lack of aggression, due to slow-playing or for not respecting the presence of a pair on the board. My Poker Tracker stats show it all, where I have still lost over $1500 in total with made two-card flushes, and that's just in cash games. Again, this is situations where I've made a flush with both of my hole cards, and only 1 out of 14 losses with made flushes was to a full house. That means I've lost thirteen effing times just in cash games and just in the past 4 or 5 months or so that I've been running Poker Tracker, where I made a flush using both of my hole cards, but ran into a higher flush from my opponent. I submit to you all that nobody out there can come up with a more recockulously unlucky statistic than that about their own play. And I'm not even touching how many times I bust out of tournaments with these same two-card flush hands, including this week's Mookie. Bahh. Full tilt has been absolutely lambasting me lately. What else is new. Congrats to leftylu for yet another Mookie victory, blahblahblah. Eat it.

Oh yeah, I also got talked into playing the Dookie this week, pot-limit holdem, but then some no-name called my allin on the flop with absolutely nothing but an inside straight. It filled on the river.

Did I say "Eat it" yet? Cripes.

So on to the conclusion of this week's hand analysis. To recap one last time, I checked out of the big blind to see a 5-handed flop with K9 of hearts. The flop came KT6, all spades. I checked and then called a small bet on the flop, thinking my top pair is likely good but not wanting to commit much with a 3-suited flop out there and still two cards to come. Then when an offsuit 7 came on the turn, I bet out nearly the size of the pot, and just one opponent, the original flop bettor, called my nearly pot-sized bet to see a river card. The river came another rag, the 3 of hearts, and I asked what do you do here (my opponent has 460 chips remaining in his stack):



The comments to yesterday's post interestingly tended more towards checking than betting here, and in fact the majority of the commenters appear to think I am likely behind here and certainly should not bet. A few of the comments took the opposite tack, which is the side I came down on, and I will explain why, although again some of the comments I think pretty much hit my analysis head-on.

Of course, there is always the possibility that I am up against a flopped flush. That possibility is always going to be there, and I'm never going to be able to make that possibility go to zero. It's there, it's possible. But in terms of probability, I simply was not worried at this point about my opponent having either a flopped flush or a stronger King than mine. Let's review the action and put ourselves in this guy's head as best as we can:

On the 3-suited flop, he bet out small from late relative position after a few guys has already checked the action to him. This could mean a lot of things, but to me seems most consistent with either some decent pair on the board, or more likely a flush draw. Maybe a little bit of both. The made flush might also bet out small here, if he's a real man, but that's still a fairly remote possibility odds-wise (forgetting my Mookie story from last night, of course). Then on the turn when a raggy card fell, I bet out and bet out solidly. I bet nearly the size of the pot for a very good reason -- only a bet that size will tell me what I need to know about my opponent's hand at this point in the action. If I bet out a third of the pot here, he may again call with second pair top kicker, top pair shit kicker, or any number of flush draws. But by betting nearly the full pot on the turn, as soon as my opponent called, leaving himself just 460 chips into a now 1200-chip pot, I felt I had formulated a very reliable read on the guy. If he's got the made flush here, as at least one of the commenters mentioned, there is aboslutely no point to him not pushing allin here. Of course I'm calling based purely on pot odds, and he can only lose me on the river, not get more chips from me than the allin he could have clearly gotten on the turn. So no way I put him on the made flush here.

Similarly, I feel his just calling (not raising or folding) on the flop made it highly unlikely that he held some kind of a King in his hand. While I suppose a very specific (and thus very unlikely) holding very close to my hand might have just smooth called there with the 3-flush on the board -- something like K8 or K7 perhaps -- put yourself again in his position for a minute. There's 3 spades on the board, and I check-called his smallish bet on the flop. He has got to put me on a flush draw here. Now, with just 460 chips left in his stack after calling my 390-chips turn bet, why on earth would he just smooth call with a hand like, say, KQ for top pair better kicker than me? What if he had a set, or two pairs or something like that? He's going to smooth call me with the 3-card flush draw sitting out there, while leaving himself an almost unthinkable 460 chips left in his stack? He's going to make it that easy for me to draw out on him, even when he has just that few chips left to put into the pot that is now nearly 4 times as big as his paltry pile of chips over there? When I thought quickly about it that way, I just did not think at all that this guy had top pair or better, which I think would either fold (if he's a Man) or raise (if he's a donk), or the flush which I'm sure he would have raised there on the turn. Thus, I felt very strongly that my K9 was ahead, and in fact my biggest concern was maybe him misplaying a hand like KT or KJ by failing to raise me allin on the turn. And that just seemed very unlikely to me overall.

All of this analysis led me to just one obvious option, as inuited by Bayne in his comment -- this was a clear candidate for the reverse hoy:



Anybody want to guess how he responded to this river bet by me? I'll give you some space to formulate your guesses, and then you can scroll down for the final screenshot and see what happened:



























Foldy foldy! Can you believe it? And believe me, for his last 460 chips he was not folding any top pair hand there, not after calling off most of his stack on the turn with that hand. Nope, this was a good old fashioned flush-chasin' donkey, who had nothing else in his hand but probably the Ace♠ and some other junk. So I really enjoyed reading all of the analysis on this hand, and hopefully most of us can at least learn something from the way that the others who commented would have played this hand. Feel free to post your thoughts on the way I played the hand, but FWIW I like the way that I played it, and despite careful reading and consideration of all of the commentary, I would play this hand the exact same way again. I think the all-suited flop ends up being a specific situation that is somewhat unique, but calls for a somewhat unique strategy for taking on a multiway pot when I also manage to flop a hand that I assume to be best right now.

See you tonight at 9pm ET for Riverchasers on full tilt. Password is "riverchasers". Show up tonight if for no other reason than to be at my starting table and you can flop the nuts against my second-nuts in the earlygoing. There's just nothing like that feeling of knowing that there are donkeys literally seated all around you like you will feel tonight if I am near you at the virtual tables. 9pm tonight means probably no gym for me, but I will I'm sure hit up the Wii Tennis for a bit tonight as well as I continue to work my rating up over 1800. That's right you Wii Heads, you read that right. 1800 and change, and counting. I'll dominate you anytime in Wii Tennis or Bowling, whoever you are.