Blogger Bracelet Race, and Cash Game Fonkeyrape

Do not forget about this!



That's right, we are sending a bona fide poker blogger to the World Series of Poker this Sunday night! You can email the address listed on the graphic above, or feel free to hit me up on the girly chat or at the tables and I will get you the password to this mega huge private tournament. But we need something over 50 players in order to get the prize package up to the $1500 pricetag on the smaller WSOP events, so get out there early and sign up for the event among the bloggers. I will be there, defying my and Hammer Wife's weekly plans to watch The Sopranos together on Sundays sans full tilt, and blowing off the my Hammer Girls' bed-putting responsibilities to boot. So if I can take on all that heat on the home front for this tournament, then you dam well can come out and make this blogger bracelet race the huge event that it is going to be. See you there muthafuckas!!


While you're here, check out how I got nailed for a $411 pot in a set-over-set confrontation that I think never should have happened. I can only play a hand so perfectly, but sometimes the poker gods rape my anus for a huge pile anyways, no matter how little regard for his money the donkey at the table shows.

I call a pot-raise preflop with pocket 5s. I flop a set, with an Ace on the board to boot. Set mining baybeee! Ching ching ching!



OK so even though I called his pot-raise preflop, and an Ace and a Ten fell on the flop (both overcards to his shitty pair), donkey bets out standard $15 into a $20 pot. He has to figure he's beat here and drawing to just two outs, but I guess he feels compelled to throw out the standard size c-bet anyways. It's pronounced FORM - yew - lay - ik. Well, I've learned from some of the hands I've had up on the blog this week, and all the comments I've received -- Lucko has gotten through to me with all his FPS talk, and this time I'm determined to build this pot right here and now. I'm hoping he must have an Ace to have just wasted $15 on that flop bet. Please let it be AK or AQ:



And the donkey calls, wasting another $20 into the pot. So far he has just thrown away 35 perfectly good dollars, stuff he could have bought his young boy porn with just as good as the credit cards he'll have to use for that instead when he gets stacked for all his money probably 10 minutes into his next session of playing like this. Again, this is exactly the kind of formulaic play I've been talking about at the cash tables. A certain kind of player -- and yes make no mistake, this is one of the ultimate fish qualities that we all love to make money from -- simply cannot handle admitting that he just got caught. They make a dumb bet, you raise them, they obviously know they're beat, but they find themselves clicking the "call" button anyways. What was this clown thinking when he called my raise on that flop? "My pocket 7s are good against the guy who called my preflop raise, two overcards Ten or higher fell to make my pair basically worthless against a preflop raise-caller, and then he raised me big on the flop after I formula c-bet anyways?" Christ it is so clear how it's easy to make money at 1-2 against players like this.

OK so a harmess 7 falls on the turn. What's more, Butch now bets out $50 into the $88 pot:



OK now after he called my flop raise, this bet was enough to give me some pause. Now tell me cash gamers, what am I supposed to do with this bet? Sure he could have a set of Aces or a set of Tens, but I really think he would have been more likely to have reraised me on the flop there than just smooth call, so I have to discount those holdings. Possible for sure, but not as likely as some other holdings which fit the action so far even better. Obviously he doesn't have pocket 7s for the turned set, because only an abject fuckface is going to bet out on the flop and then call my $35 flop raise with just pocket 7s on the AT5 board. So I figured I had to put him on either AK, AQ, or maybe even AT for top two pairs. Was that a bad assumption on my part? Would you cash donks have reraised here, smooth called, or folded your hand? Please tell me I played this hand wrong, because I need to learn why that is, if I did.

I reraised with my clear winner in my opinion at the time:



Yes I made the baby jebus cry with the minraise. I just figured that by betting out, he's obviously going to call my minraise and therefore it's the best way to get it all into the middle. He responded my moving allin for another $61 on top, which I knew I had to call at that point, thinking as much as before that he was most likely to have AK or AT.



Wrong! I forgot the cardinal rule: bloggers really will call a flop raise with pocket 7s on an ATx board against a guy who called their preflop raise. Unbelievable call there IMO. Tell me I'm wrong, cash donkeys!!

$411 pot, raped from me and given to the donkey who not only can't keep himself from betting out with a clear loser on the flop, but he couldn't even fold to my nice raise on the flop. That generous man might as well have been writing me a check when he called that flop raise. Donks who just can't get away from their hands, even when they get caught essentialy bluffing with just two outs. Un. fucking. Believable.

To his credit, I see that Butch Howard has a fun writeup on his blog this morning recounting his play from last night, and basically taking credit for playing like abject donkey in that hand against me, referring to his call of my flop raise as a "WTF call". OK. To his determinent, however, it appears that after not fucking being able to get away from shitty pocket 7s on an AT5 flop against me and sucking out an 11-to-1 shot to stack me, he also could not get away from pocket Aces against a set of Queens for a $520 pot when he rivered a third Ace is another stellar 19-to-1 hit. Still later it appears Butch could not get away from KK on a board with two Aces on it. Notcing a pattern?

I can't stand having to wonder all the time when the phuck I'm going to start being happy for all the donkeys sitting at the table with me. In two years of active online play, I would estimate that I've lost maybe 15,000 dollars or $T more to donkey plays than I have won from them. When the phuck is that going to even out?

A Little FTOPS Love, Cash Game Discussion, and Another Funny Cash Hand

Finally today I have a little bit of FTOPS love to report. To be honest, I have not been focusing on the FTOPS satellites nearly as much as I should have so far since they started maybe a week and a half ago. Normally I would have been all over qualifying for as many events as I can since the very first day they appeared on full tilt. But, I've had a lot of other things I've been focusing on with my poker play, not the least of which is my cash games (another very profitable night last night, more on that later), more bracelet races and the WSOP main event qualifiers since the large-buyin sats have such favorable payout structures, as well as my nightly 30k sats and other regular activities on the virtual felt. And I've also focused more time than I wish I had on the avatar races and related satellites, which would win me an entry into five FTOPS events at once -- at least one of which I cannot actually play in, mind you -- but where the play in the satellites and even in the avatar race itself has been so goddam awful that at times it's kinda like trying to win the WWdN or something. Painful. As a result, I have not been able to get anywhere significant with the avatar races, and since I've focused so much on those, I probably haven't played more than 5 or 6 individual-event FTOPS satellites, which in the past have been profitable plays for me. In the few that I have played before the last day or two, I've donked hard in a couple when I was actually playing on megatilt, and I've gotten donked by fonkeys on more than one occasion as well. In all, qualifying for the FTOPS in my half-assed way has proven to be highly frustrating for me, not to mention fruitless. I am highly competitive and driven, and my poker play has always been very goal-oriented. I want to play in as many FTOPS events as I can -- and I honestly believe that the entire online poker landscape is likely to be very, very different by the time the next FTOPS comes around, presumably in August, once the regulations under the UIGEA have been promulgated -- and so far, nothing good to report whatsoever.

All that finally changed for me late this week. Either Wednesday or Thursday night (it all blends together for me, especially as I've been sick this week thanks to the Hammer Girls and the wonders of contagious viruses), I took on a $26 buyin mtt sat to the FTOPS HOSE event #5, which ended up being more like an sng as only 9 players entered the event. Now let me say for the record that, despite how effing frustrating razz can be, I am better than most players I bump into out there, in particular most players in the HORSE events generally for sure, and I just find it lame and almost sacreligious to be arbitrarily removing razz from the normal HORSE rotation. I don't really think this hurts my chances so much of performing well in such a multi-game event, but that doesn't mean I think it's right to just take razz out because, well, I don't even know why someone would do that. To me it's lame lame lame. But whatever, so I played in this 1-table mtt, with the winner getting a seat into the FTOPS HOSE event, and 2nd place thru 9th place winning diock. I hate that structure, which is the whole reason I prefer the mtt satellites to the sng satellites, but it was the hand I was dealt this week (pun intended) so I went with it:



This satellite was sick as ballz as we neared the end. I had played very well, getting paid handsomely on a turned boat in holdem and on a spectacular nut flush-nut low in O8, and I was actually up about 10k to 1k to 1k with just three players remaining. It took me overcoming not one, not two but three stoopid suckouts to finally take out the guy in third place, with me once again up around 10k to 2k as heads-up play began. I was extremely card dead (we were just starting the latest O8 round as we got down to heads-up), and with such a large chip lead there was just no reason for me to play any starting hands that were not strong. Eventually he limped in preflop and I checked my option to see a free flop with AQ86. The flop came JT9, making me the second-nut straight with no low possible, and my opponent called my check-raise on the flop, getting most of his chips in in the process. Then when a rag fell on the turn, I bet out, and my opponent called off the rest of his chips, flipping up J9xx and wishing me luck in the FTOPS in the chat while he did so, leaving him dead to just four outs (the remaining two Jacks and two 9s) for me to win the seat. But the hideous 9 on the river suddenly brought him from the very brink of elimination back to basically even with my stack, and with me tilting out of my mind after a fourth or fifth suckout over just the past 10 minutes or so of play and about a 5-to-1 chip advantage at the beginning of heads-up play. After this latest suckout, we went back and forth several times, and with my tilt ever-increasing I was just about ready to kill somebody. Eventualy, luckily about two hands before I literally threw in the towel and just pushed with anything (we were playing stud high at this point), apparently my opponent got to his own towel-throwing point and pushed in his stack (about 70% the size of my stack at the time) progressively allin over 3rd, 4th and 5th streets with nothing more than a split pair of 2s. I had started with KQ(T), and eventually on fifth street just as my opponent moved in the last of his chips, I paired my Ten. I picked up two pair Kings over Tens on 6th, but he also picked up a runner-runner flush draw. With one eye closed and the other squinting tightly, I saw as he missed another big suckout at the river and I took down the winner-take-all satellite. So here is me registered for FTOPS Event #5 (HOSE):



On a related front, I also qualified for FTOPS Event #1 in nlh a night or two ago. This was another mtt satellite that paid the top two seats out of I think a 22- or 24-person field, and by the end I had managed to get into a dominant position, with about a 20k stack vs two sub-10k stacks in my last two opponents, with just two of us getting awarded seats to event #1. I eventually held on to make it in, although for some reason my screenshots from this event did not capture correctly, so all I have for you to see is me registered in FTOPS Event #1 as of now as well:



I guess it looks like I only managed to capture half of the FTOPS #1 window there. Well enjoy it cuz that's all I got for ya. So I am in to FTOPS Events #1 and #5, which will run on Friday night May 11 (#1) and Tuesday night May 15 (#5).

Looking at the other events I would like to play in, there are events #6 through #8, which are also on weekday evenings which is the optimal time for me, and also Event #4 on Monday the 14th is very attractive to me, in that it also has that 9pm ET start time that I like, but it carries a $1000 buyin. Now even though my roll could support me buying in directly to a 1k event, there is precisely zero chance that I would ever do that, especially with the fonkeys I run into regularly in online play. So, I did something on Thursday that I will only do for this particular event, which is play in a super satellite that awards seats to the $216-buyin satellite tournament on Monday, May 14 at 6:30pm ET, a few hours before the actual FTOPS Event #4 is scheduled to go off. Knowing this would require me to leave work early that day, I figured it is nonetheless my only realistic chance to play in the biggest buyin FTOPS event in FTOPS IV (including even the main event which sports a "mere" $535 buyin), since I do not foresee myself playing in the $165-buyin mtt satellite into FTOPS #4 that runs nightly at I think 11:15pm ET. So anyways, on Thursday I played in the mtt super sat to FTOPS Event #4 ($1000 nlh), which again was more like an sng than an mtt with just 8 players starting at one table:



Boooooom! The highlights here were me getting redickulously sucked out on twice at the river in the final 30 minutes, but then me laying one sickass bad beat of my own against one of these suckerouters when my tilt-allin with J7o four-flushed against my opponent's TT allin preflop. He can eat it, and I'll take the victory with the exact same pride as I do any other win I care about. J7o this, muthafucka. So I am now registered for that satellite to FTOPS #4 on Monday, May 14 at 6:30pm ET -- my only chance to play in the $1000 buyin tournament.

So that's it for my progress far on the FTOPS front, although I plan to play in more of these mtt satellites over the next few weeks to try to play my way in to whichever events I am able to get into. I did want to mention briefly here one new satellite full tilt has been running for the FTOPS over the past three days or so. It is called the FTOPS mega super satellite, and it is actually a satellite with a $75 buyin, that pays the winner(s) a $600 prize package consisting of seats into seven separate FTOPS satellites that occur the week of the FTOPS itself. Now, I can't play in this thing personally, because almost all of the FTOPS satellites that are awarded in this thing go off at 6:30pm ET on the day of the FTOPS events themselves, and I simply do not have the ability to play in a 6:30pm ET satellite. But, if you're interested in playing your way cheaply in to seven of the ten FTOPS event satellites that are held the night of the actual FTOPS events, then this thing could be for you. The FTOPS mega super satellite runs every night on full tilt at 10:30pm ET, and also I think around 7:30pm ET as well, and here is the actual schedule of the 7 FTOPS satellite tournaments that you will win your way in to if you take down one of these mega super sats:



OK, enough about the FTOPS for today. Now I wanted to discuss my cash game play of late, and some of the commentary I have received over the past few days about how I'm playing certain hands, because while most of the comments are really very helpful, some of what I'm reading just seems pretty silly. First and foremost, let me say again that I certainly appreciate every single comment I get on my blog about my cash game play. I recognize fully that I'm a cash beginner and that there are guys out there with 1000 times the experience and skill that I have in cash games. But I also want to say that I find it somewhat funny how tied on to their own specific styles of play some people seem to be, and how easy some people seem to find it to critique what I'm doing just because they don't play the game exactly like I do. When I'm out there reading hands, I can fend for myself and I'm doing quite well at it. I may not play exactly like you guys do. I may be on my way to eventually playing cash nlh exactly like you do as I continue to incorporate every tidbit that seems sensible to me that I pick up from your advice and from watching you guys play the game. And I certainly have my down days just like everyone else who plays cash regularly. But let's be honest here. This is the exact same group of guys who just commented in my blog within the past week that nobody good at nlh cash ever steals the blinds, that with no escalation of the blinds there is just no reason to fight hard over a dollar or two. Meanwhile, after maybe 5000 hands of 1-2 nlh 6-max over the past couple of weeks, I can probaby count on one hand -- literally now -- the number of times that the button and the sb have folded around to give a walk to the bb when I've been at the table to see it. The bottom line is that, regardless of the advice I received here a week ago or so, the fact still remains that not just a few guys, and not just some people, and not even most people, but everybody -- and I mean every. single. body. -- steals the blinds in 1-2 6max holdem on full tilt. So the advice for me not to play out of the blinds like that is not advice I can possibly adhere to, and I could not advocate anyone else doing that either. Stealing the blinds isn't just part of the game at 1-2 6max on full tilt -- it is the game.

Now, I'm not at all saying this to suggest that anyone who has commented here doesn't know what they're talking about with cash games. I said it above and I'll say it again here, I am getting better every single day at my cash games as a direct result of the conmentary I receive right here on the blog, and I could not be more thankful and appreciative of everyone's comments. But, what I am saying is that I think everyone can learn a little something about how to play these games from someone else, and that there really isn't any one "right" way to play the game, at least not at any level of specificity. A guy who is better at reading hands can play a little looser early in the hands like Negreanu does and make money. A guy who's better at getting value out of strong hands can play tighter than most like a Dan Harrington and make money. While I do believe there is a right way generally to succeed at poker in a general sense, there are simply a lot of different specific ways of getting there.

I also wanted to note here that in the comments to how I play specific hands in both tournaments and cash games, the most common overall commentary I get is for people to ask how I could not have put someone on a really strong hand, just because they were betting. Apparently a lot of people out there do not realize just how tight they play, and more importantly, just how exploitable that tightness is. If you're going to assume that a guy who steal-raised preflop has hit a board of 579Q hard just because he put in an automatic and meaningless c-bet on the flop and then called my raise of that c-bet, then your game will improve the sooner you realize that you are going to get exploited again and again and again by smart, observant players who see your game for what it is. Now, you can read this and get all pissed and think what a jerk I am if you want, that's completely fine with me of course, but that isn't going to change the truth of what I just wrote up there. If you're someone who puts a stealer on a hand that hits a board of 579Q hard just because he didn't fold to my raise of his automatic, make-it-every-single-time-regardless-of-the-cards c-bet on the flop, then you are exploitable. You're beyond exploitable in fact. Now this is me giving you people some good advice: If your play is so robotic that you automatically assume a preflop raiser hit a raggy board just because he doesn't fold to your flop raise, then good players will eat you alive. They'll kill you. I'll watch you at my table for 15 minutes, and then I'll be stealing pots from you by simply calling your raises and then betting strong on the turn. The single biggest mistake I see people make online -- after overvaluing shitty hands themselves, of course -- is being too timid and always fearing the nuts. A guy putting in an automatic steal-raise and then an automatic c-bet tells you absolutely nothing about what he holds in his hand. If all an opponent does in the entire hand that shows any strength at all is call my flop raise, something for which he will have some decent odds thanks to the money he's already put into the pot with his preflop steal-raise and then his flop c-bet, then IMO you want to get yourself to the point where you're not automatically assuming he has nailed a raggy board of Q975. In fact, to me that conclusion is just plain silly. He's barely shown any strength at all in the hand! Fearing the nuts or near-nuts just because of one raise-call on the flop where there's already decent pot odds to call with some things like draws, 2nd pair decent kickers, etc. is not the optimal way to play the game in my opinion.

And while I'm on a roll here, lets talk for a minute about some other funny stuff I've been reading and hearing people say. First of all, if you are someone who believes that "calling an allin with just one pair in cash game is donkey", then you as a matter of practical fact are too rigid to be great in your poker game. I don't care what you think of me, but when you're done thinking it, you're still not good. Period. Start facing it now. Or don't, actually. Cuz I've been stealing pots from people like you all night long over the past month. And you know what? I do occasionally get burned by people who hit 2 pairs or slow played a monster against me. So do people who don't call big bets with just one pair. You shouldn't need me to tell you this. The fact remains that I am probably up about 5 or 6 to 1 in chips in the times I've called with one pair and won, minus the chips I've lost when I've called with one pair. It's called hand reading, and for almost everyone reading this out there who thinks what I'm saying is wrong, I'm better at reading hands than you. If you read hands well and are willing to get away from one pair when you think you're behind, then being willing to go to the showdown with one pair where you objectively and honestly believe you're ahead can be quite profitable, at least at the donkey limits. I'm quite sure that calling big bets with one pair at 3-6 is not at all a winning strategy. But at 1-2, if used sparingly and appropriately, it can work. And at $.10-$.25 like the blogger cash game that I played in for a few hours on Thursday night at full tilt, it can be a very profitable strategy if done correctly against the caliber of players, and the caliber of bluffers, you will run into at that level.

This leads into my second point about the cash games (and this is just as true for tournaments as well btw) -- and this is an argument that's been hashed and rehashed on blogs and in poker rooms for as long as poker has been played, so it's not like I'm saying anything new here. But if you are someone who is going to try to run a huge bluff on the river in a hand where you have nothing, your opponent has played the hand strong since before the flop, and you've played like you've got nothing all the way through the hand as well, then the other guy -- factually speaking -- is not the donkey when you make the painfully obvious, everyone-at-the-table-knows-you-aint-got-shit allin bluff at the end, and he calls to stack your ass. You didn't even think about this bluff until the second you clicked "allin". And as a result, your bluff is more obvious than the baldness of that guy with the horrble combover. I don't care if the other guy calls you down with frigging Jack-high and beats you. If you don't lay the groundwork for your bluffs earlier in the hands such that a person with good hand reading skills can't be THAT sure that you're bluffing when you suddenly out of nowhere commit the rest of your stack to a hand where you've shown nothing but abject weakness from the moment the starting cards came out, then no matter what you may think, no matter what you may say, and no matter what the other abject donkeys at the table might tell you, you are the donkey. Again, start facing it now, because these my friends are facts. If you think the other guy has to automatically lay his hand down if it's only one pair, so you can run the dumbest looking bluff I've seen since I played 5-card-draw with Aces, Deuces and One-Eyed Jacks as wildcards for m&ms with my friends in 4th grade, then you are an abject donator. And I love having ya around my table, don't get me wrong. But just because some other blonkey supports you that the other guy shouldn't have called your blatantly obvious bluff, do yourself a favor and don't let that make you fail to question how you could make such a horrifically bad play. As many great poker bloggers have quite correctly observed, if you aren't willing to constantly analyze your own play and try to figure out why you got stacked 5 or 6 times in front of your blogger friends at that cash game table the other night, then you are absolutely doomed to repeat your suckiness. And I'll be there to call you again and again and again with Ace-high, one pair, or my monster and continually relieve you of your chips. Because I'm in your head. Accept it. I'm in there. I'm there right now as you read this. Keep telling yourself that the other guy is the donkey for calling your recockulously out-of-nowhere bluffs at the river. Keep letting the other jassack poker bloggers at the table tell you how horrible of a call the other guy made to stack you with his just one pair hand against your allin bluff with your Ten high. Just keep making those bluffs at me please.

I think that's enough of that mini-rant for today. I'm sure the better players out there disagree with a lot of what I've said above. I welcome that disagreement, and I can only assume this is because you guys play at a higher level than I do and a higher level than I am referring to here, because at those levels I'm sure a lot of how I've been playing over the past several weeks will not work. Well, I'm not playing at your levels. I'm playing at 1-2 or below, and this shit is working. Some days I get stacked. Some days I make ridiculous, horrible laughable allin calls with not-very-strong hands and lose a couple hundy to a guy with a monster. It's true. I bet it even happens to you on occasion, no matter what level you play at. But I can't argue with the fact that my roll is growing pretty consistently at 1-2, which I'm doing by taking stabs at lots of small pots, stealing the blinds when it makes sense, and sticking with my reads when I think I'm ahead. It actually sounds a lot like how I play in tournaments, to an extent. And at the donkey limits, this is working. I fully believe my higher-level-playing friends that this stuff won't work at all up there. If I ever move up, something which I'm not planning to do anytime soon right now, I look forward to having to re-learn how to beat that level. But for now, there are donkeys all the phuck over the place at 1-2 and below, and I'm beating them. Consistently. And I'm not doing it by assuming they have the nuts every time they call a raise of mine. The guy who plays that way, he's the guy whose money I'm taking consistently at the cash tables in fact. I love players like that.

OK so today I will just leave you with a sweet hand from last night at the 1-2 cash tables, where I recorded another solidly profitable session over maybe 2 or 3 hours of play. And this is a hand where I am going to specifically thank Fuel55 and Lucko for educating me that it is ok to play low connectors in a multiway pot at a cash game for a small bet.

And to Dr Zen from yesterday's comments, this one's for you! Ha ha.

So I'm in the big blind with 64o. A totally shite hand by any possible standards. But when middle position just min-raises my $2 big blind to $4, and then the small blind calls the raise as well, I'm looking at seeing a flop in a $12 pot for just $2. This is a hand which I would have insta-folded just a few weeks ago. But I specifically remembered as I played this hand both Lucko and Fuel making calls like this (not saying either of you would have necessarily made this specific call, just calls like this with low suited or connecting junk) at cash tables I was at, and then seeing them get lucky, hit a big flop and suddenly they're stacking someone else at the table. So I looked at those pot odds, and I made the call:



The flop comes down:



Not bad. Bottom two, it's not a great flop but obviously I hit it pretty good here, and since I called a preflop raise, nobody is really going to put me on this hand. I check it, because I know the guy up top, Mr. Formulaic, is gonna c-bet on this raggy flop. He obliges with a $7 bet into the $11.40 pot. Then the guy after him raises before the action even gets back to me:



Now I know here this was a bit of a tough decision. I think if I had put the guy up top on any kind of a hand at all with his c-bet, then I might have been a lot more tempted to fold. But to me, the guy up top I know for absolute certain fact is c-betting here with any two cards. Any. Two. Cards. That's just the way he plays, and I am 100% positive of that fact. So all I'm really looking at here is a guy raising on the flop, a raise that could easily mean just top pair decent kicker. In fact I'm putting him on something like JT, since he called the preflop raise with just one other player in the pot at the time, so I'm guessing he's on a Jack and a decently high card. Yes he could be on a set, but there is just no reason for me to believe he's on a set yet. I debated reraising to find out now if he does have me beat, but the bet was so big already that I decided to just call it and see what this player does on the turn with the information that I called his big raise on the flop. I'm guessing not everyone will agree with this move, but I think it was ok given my hand at the time:



The guy up top folded. And this was when another shining, beautiful 4 fell on the turn, giving me a delicious boat. What's more, the guy on the right, whom I still had on top pair of some kind, liked the 4 as I probably would in his shoes, but liked it enough to push in the rest of his stack:



This I think was a horrendous play by him, given that I had just called a bet and a nice-sized raise on the flop. In particular when you see what he had in his hand, since I insta-called his bet of course:



Top pair, shit kicker. Another great example of why you don't want to be the guy always putting players on the nuts or near-nuts just because of one modestly aggressive action on the flop against a guy who is perceived to be auto-cbetting without any need to have actually hit anything on this hand. The J3 guy played this hand about as badly as humanly possible, but I would have never been there to take down this $280 pot:



if not for Fuel and Lucko. I should send you guys each $2.80, one percent of this pot for each of you, for being the impetus behind me winning this guy's money. Again, I'm not trying to say that either one of these guys would have played this hand at all, or played it exactly like I played it on every street, or anything like that at all (I bet they would not have played it exactly like me, in fact, given both of their massively more cash game experience than I). But it's a great example of the kind of thing I'm constantly looking to add to my game from watching and learning from other better, more experienced players out there. I specifically remember thinking "donkey!" the first time I saw Fuel call a raise and 3 callers of that raise preflop with 64s. Then when he stacked me with the hand, I kinda did a double-take. Then a few days later I watched Lucko call a few preflop callers with 76o and do the same thing. I questioned, and I got answers from each of them explaining the rationale of calling a small preflop bet with junky connectors, soooted or otherwise, to try to nail a cheap flop against multiple players and get to stack somebody good. And slowly but surely, this stuff is finding its way into my game. I may put my own spin on things, but I'm always looking to get better, and the best way in the world to do that is to learn from observing and picking the brains of others who are better than you. That's what I hope some people can get out of the 347 posts I've put up here over the past couple of years. Well, maybe not Dr. Zen, who obviously has emotional problems after busting his bankroll for the umpteenth time this year. But the rest of you.

Have a nice weekend, everyone. I should be online intermittently in the evenings so you can come and berate me for the content of this post. God I love being a blogger. Now go and qualify for the FTOPS!

The Big Game, and Can You Say W-S-O-P? [Take III]?!!!

Wow what a turnout last night for Miami Don's Big Game. 53 players, each ponying up the $75 price tag to play in the biggest-money blogger tournament around. This thing was huge, and it made for some very fatty cash prizes for the top finishers as a result. And guess who finally made the BBT points board for the first time? That's right, you're reading him right now! Don't worry, I still played like ass through the entire event, only getting a couple of nice setups to get enough chips to last into the top half of the field, before my pocket 7s lost a race allin preflop. And yeah I know those of you who were there are expecting another rant today about that play. What can I say. I've been beat now by the bloggers by people calling my allin preflop with AQ. AJ, more times than I can count. Recently AT ("but it was sOOOooooted!") was added to the list. These last couple are downright unconscionable, but it's happened. I've been called allin and lost a race countless times by KQ. Lately even KJ has entered the fray, which is also truly funny. But I'm happy now after last night's Big Game to be able to add still another hand to the list of hands that bloggers have called my allin raises with preflop, and gone on to beat me: QJ. But it was sOOOooooooted, I know I know. Good for you and your QJ. I'm not sure which was better, seeing the guy flop a muggafugging nut straight immediately after calling my allin with the QJ (AKT, you know it baby!), or seething in anger while reading the chat just afterwards, where the move was repeatedly justified based on my fictional hand range, the fact that I was desperate, etc. Cheesus. I just cannot catch a break in these blogger tournaments.

As an aside, can you imagine if I actually played anywhere near the hand range people claim they put me on when they make these recockumoves against me? Seriously. There's no way I could ever have won a single one of my big mtt scores if I played the way people like to claim I do when they call my allin raises with their KJ and QJ and AJ. And this is where I'm supposed to say that I love getting these calls, but anybody who thinks I will take these people's money over time -- regardless of what the math says -- just doesn't pay attention to blogger tournaments. In my experience at least, the overcards seem to get rewarded at least 75% of the time in what should be race situations, and I am losing to these kinds of allin calls -- some even after the flop is already out, mind you -- at an alarming rate so far in the blogger tournaments in 2007. And btw last night confirms what I was saying last week -- I was actually sorta happy when Lucko called my allin on the flop with just AQ and no hit on the flop whatsoever in last week's Mookie tournament, of course nailing an Ace on the river to do me in, because as I said last week, he admitted it was a donkey move. He admitted it before he made the call even. That guy was playing crazy-aggro poker through that entire tournament, he knew it, and he admitted it even before the fact. And I enjoyed that. But like I said last week, it's when people make these redickucalls against me, win the race as the underdog, and then act like their call was a smart move that really kills me. So at least I know that's part of it. But cheesus christopher do you think one of these times some donkey could call me with AJ or something against my pocket 9s, and I could just win the race? How about one fucking time? I haven't doubled up in a blogger tournament in forever, because every time I get it allin, someone calls me on a race or worse, and I never win 'em. It's gross. I mean, seriously. QJ?! Seriously? Did that really just happen?!

Btw, I love the guy who made this move on me yesterday. He knows that and I know it. It was just a bad play, so bad that I couldn't even sit around to donkeycall anyone in the chat afterwards. I immediately left the room, ran down to another part of the city and killed about 15 immigrants in savage fashion until I felt better. You may hear about this on the news, but nobody tell please. Anyways, congrats to Drizz for winning the Big Game, and to Drizz, Mike Maloney, crazdgamer and Cosmicclown (who I am not familiar with) for agreeing to a 4-way even chop and $786 apiece for their efforts last night at the end. Also congratulations to me for making my first BBT points of the season, going out I believe in 18th place out of 53 competitors thanks to the above-described move, and to the guy who made that brilliantly played call against me, who was in 3rd place just a few minutes after my elimination, but still somehow managed to bust short of the final table nonetheless. Go figure. Maybe he called someone else's allin with 94 (sOOOoooted of course) and it somehow didn't hold, I don't know. Oh, and congrats to jeciimd who I know has made the BBT points in all 6 of the 6 BBT tournaments so far. Now that's impressive right there.

OK on to other things that don't threaten to send me off into an insane rage. Tonight is the latest Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt, the next event in the BBT tournament series (and a big thanks to our resident photoshopper Mookie, from whose blog I lifted the below image this weekend):



So see you tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt, where I will attempt to avoid the minefield that is blogger tournaments for me lately and make my second straight BBT points finish. Normally I'm striving to win these things, but I am so far away from that right now that I need to set more realistic goals. In general, I will probably take it a bit lighter this week on the blogger tournaments in general, as I am just getting smushed in them and the way it's happening, and the way it makes me feel afterwards, cannot possibly be good for my game overall. In fact, just to make this interesting, knock me out of tonight's MATH tournament by donkeycalling me allin preflop with AJ-A2, KJ-K2 or QJ-Q2 and I will tranfser you $10 on full tilt for your donking pleasure. Just like that, you're bought in to the Mookie on Wednesday. And all it takes is for you to make the exact same fucking play that you were going to make on me anyways you fucking donkeys!!! Bring it on, now there's a bounty if I ever saw one. Hope you earn this one guys, I really do.

OK so back to this past Friday, where I managed to win my second bracelet race of the year on full tilt. That night I had my wife's family over for dinner and some hearts (I came in second, to a donkey of course -- just kidding E!), and I didn't manage to log on to the computer until after 11pm ET sometime, so I missed all of the satellites into that juicy midnight bracelet race event that I've been telling you all about. But given my recent cash win in the 30k, for just the second time ever, on a whim I decided to up and buy in directly with cash to the event. I was feeling good, feeling "on" whatever that means, and I figured I'd give it a shot. As it turned out, I probably played my best poker in a long time, better than in my first bracelet race win and better than the big 30k cash last week as well, as I got sucked out on a couple of times in this thing but did not suck out on anyone else in the entire run through the tournament until the payouts. The overall theme of the event for me was that I played very aggressive poker, and I consistently laid reads on people, acted on those reads, and ended up being right again and again and again. It doesn't always work out like that as you fellow aggro tournament players know, but on this night I could do almost no wrong. And what was especially great about this performance on Friday IMO night was the level of the competition involved. I looked at the lobby just as the tournament started, and out of the 89 players entered (8 would win the 2k WSOP prize packages), the roster included all the big guys I run into more and more in the large-buyin mtts on full tilt. I'm talking about P0KERPR0, da_professional, THAY3R, johnnygstacks, PearlJammed, and all those other guys who you will recognize if you play in the same tournaments that I play in these days, and guys who if you look them up on thepokerdb are all showing huge amounts of cash won in their online poker careers. So it was really a whos-who of the mtt world on full tilt, and I was primed and ready to show my stuff in just my second direct buyin into the midnight bracelet race on Friday.

As a good example of what I mean about how I played this thing right from the getgo on Friday, here is a hand early on in the tournament where I felt quite sure from the early action I'd already seen that my opponent had just called my raise because he was in the big blind already, and then was trying to steal the pot on the flop with an overbet before I could put in my continuation bet:



He folded, and I took down my first decent pot of the night (morning).

A few hands later I got that big boost early on that you desperately want to have in these big-buyin events when I flopped this straight still during the 20-40 blinds level:



That's me betting the pot there, because slow-playing on the flop, especially on a flop with lots of big cards like this, is for donkeys. He smooth called me when I knew I held the nuts, which is always good, and then when a harmless 5♠ hit the turn, I did one of my favorite moves and checked the turn, acting as if I was trying to steal on the flop and now didn't want any more of that action:



He checked behind again, which shocked me because people usually bite on that move about 90% of the time, but again I think it goes to show that the level of competition you face in these larger buyin tournaments is a bit higher than the monkeys you usually run into at the lower levels. I woulda been allin on the turn for sure in most of the non-$200 bracelet races for example, but this time it didn't happen for me on the turn. Nonetheless, I had laid the groundwork to extract something from him at the river if he has anything at all, by acting weak here on the turn.

When the Ace♠ fell on the river, I was ecstatic. You almost could not have picked a better card for me, in that I figured my opponent was likely to be on either a draw or some kind of an Ace to have called on the flop but then checked behind on the turn. So when he led out on the flop for 720 chips, the size of the current pot, I sprung the trap:



I went for the allin move here on the assumption that the Ace might have helped my opponent, he acted like it helped him with his river bet, and that the overbet raise might look like a steal attempt since I had gone out of my way to check the turn. He called my allin, and I emptied his stack with my nut hand. He held this in the end:



Did I mention that that Ace on the river was the perfect card? So this got me off to a nice early stack, enabling me to have some breathing room to continue taking some chances by relying on my reads and playing aggressive poker when I felt I had my opponent on a hand or a range of hands.

I used this big stack to push a lot of players off of hands in the first round on Friday, in particular when scare cards would hit the board and I didn't think my opponent would stand a big bet. So here is me pushing hard on the turn card, even after my opponent had called my pot-sized flop bet, because I had put him on a pair to the board on the flop and I could not see him taking it further after both the oesd and the flush filled on the turn card:



I was so confident in my reads on Friday that I was even making moves like this:



Here, I had led out with a potbet on the Ace-high flop, representing an Ace in this small blind - big blind confrontation, and my opponent had smooth called my flop bet. But from having watched him for around an hour at this point, I had personally seen him raise on the flop with any kind of top pair on multiple occasions, and so I just couldn't put him on an Ace (even though I didn't have squat either). So when the turn brought another high card, I figured I would do that same bet-check-bet move that I had used when I had flopped the straight in the earlygoing, and I checked the action to him. When he led out for 600 chips into the 720-chip pot, I was more sure than ever that he did not hold an Ace, so I went for the big raise here to test him. Again, clearly this is me taking a big chance here, but what can I say I had a read and I ran with it. He folded:



A few hands later came probably my biggest hand of the entire tournament, and strangely this was a hand that I ended up not playing. UTG raised it up 3x to 360 chips, and up to that time I had only seen him raise UTG with AK in the tournament, so I opted to go for a little bit of deception and just smooth call the 360 with pocket Queens. In retrospect I think this was a terrible move, but I am a firm believer in not doing the same thing every time in the same situation, so I just smooth called with the Queens here to show a little respect to that UTG preflop raise which I figured indicated some kind of an Ace. While I'm debating whether or not this was the right move in my head, the small blind reraises both of us to 1200 chips. To top it off, UTG, one of the chip leaders at the time with over 14,000 chips, re-reraises allin himself, easily putting me and my 6000 chips allin if I make this call. So I've got the Queens, I always lose with these effing biatches and I am otherwise off to a nice start here. I was conflicted. But in the end I chalk this one up to my stated goal of not talking myself into making bad moves just based on math if doing do requires me to ignore the betting and raising evidence I'm seeing in front of me. I knew this was the third-best possible starting hand and so I was, mathematically speaking, unlikely to be behind so far. But I also knew with all this redickulous action ahead of me, somebody had to have another big pair, and/or somebody probably had to have AK. I agonized over the decision -- a move which in retrospect I don't even think was worthy of agonizing over -- and I laid down the third-best possible starting hand in holdem. Not only did one of my opponents flip up pocket Aces (not surprising, given the betting), but check out this final board:



So there I was, still alive after being dealt QQ at the same time another player was dealt AA, and another player made quads with TT in his hand as well, and I only ended up losing 360 chips on the hand. I was proud of that one, although as I review it today like I said I don't feel nearly as much pride as I did then, mostly because I think this is an easy, obvious laydown given the reraise and the re-reraise in front of me. It's just not something that has come easy to me over time, as my longtime readers know, when I know how mathematically unlikely it is to be dealt QQ and AA in the same hand, but in the end by focusing specifically on this exact sort of situation, I am getting better about learning to trust what I'm seeing in addition to, if not more reliably than, what I know about the math.

Anyways, I made another huge jump in the second hour here on this hand, which I can't really explain so I'll just show it. Basically UTG limped, I raised around 3x out of the big blind with Aces, and he called. The flop came raggy as hell, I led out with a potbet, and he did this with a huge stack:



Now I know all you tightasses out there and cash gamers are screaming Fold! Fold! here, but as I reviewed things I just didn't think I was up against a set. Not sure why, but I just didn't feel it. I guess I thought the UTG limp was more consistent with a high pair than a low one, I don't know exactly but it was just a feel I had. So continuing my streak of going with my reads, I made the big call, taking time to type into the chat beforehand that if this is a set, that I am done with poker forever. Check it out because I cannot explain why he would do this:



No explanation needed on that I guess. Wtf? Anyways, this one put me in 3rd place out of 42 players, down to less than half the field with the top 8 winning the 2k WSOP prize packages (othewise known as 2k in cash into your full tilt account).

With a big stack and feeling increasingly confident in my reads, I became a fucking beast. I reraised stealers and got folds like here:



I bet out on flops with high cards against late-position limpers who I was sure did not hit the board and could not possibly call me:



and I punished limpers with plays that even I can't really explain or justify, other than that I had watched both of these opponents for quite a while and just "knew" they were not strong enough to call me here (not that this was my greatest move ever, as I look at the screenshots I can't even believe I did this one):



Given my big stack and constant pressure raises like the ones above, I also had enough chips to make some calls against short stacks as we moved into the final few tables in the tournament, such as here where a late position shorty moved allin and I just felt like my middle Ace was likely to be best:



Here's how this one ended:



And don't worry, the guy had the chutzpah to berate me for a good five minutes in the chat for my call there. God I love guys like this. Pushes allin from late position on a short stack with J7o, and then berates me for calling him with A8. You gotta love it. But, this is why I find the middle game, where so many other people seem to have problems, to be the part in mtt's where I tend to excel most. You play deep in enough of these things and you just start to develop a feel for when you are likely ahead, and then you just need the courage to go with your convictions. I still make mistakes all the time in this spot, don't get me wrong here when I say that, but the bottom line is that my approach in most of the larger-buyin mtts I play is usually to try to survive to the 2nd and 3rd hours, and from then I generally feel like I am at a significant advantage over most of my competition once the blinds start to squeeze the shorties. Personally, I think the whole reason I build up a big stack like I had here was so that I can call the late-position shorty over-raising allin in this exact spot. He, apparently, does not understand or agree with that approach. Poor guy. Meanwhile his push here helped me get up over 17,000 chips for the first time, in 6th place of 17 players remaining at the time, again with the top 8 players winning the WSOP packages.

And as I continued to build my stack, I continued to ratchet up the aggression as well. Here I am again in another small blind - big blind confrontation where I was sure my opponent did not have an Ace. Even when I led out with a potbet on the Ace-high flop and he called:



I just got the feeling he was on middle pair, or maybe a middle pocket pair of his own, but I just didn't see him having that Ace. So on the turn, now with a nice pile of chips in the middle, I figured I would keep going with representing that Ace:



And he laid it down as I thought (and hoped) he would, not willing to risk his entire stack with that Ace sitting out there:



This was just another risky aggressive move I made in this tournament, and as I mentioned at the beginning, almost every time I laid a read like this on someone, on that night they almost always proved to be correct. It doesn't usually happen this regularly, but on Friday I was The Man with my reads and I don't think I messed up one of these extremely aggressive plays the entire night long.

Along the same lines, here I am again adding nicely to my stack with a big flop push against a late-position caller who I just didn't think had the goods:



And again he folded, lifting me up to over 25,000 chips for the first time. It's great as you get near the bubble in these mtt satellites awarding multiple seats to the top finishers -- and I find that the larger the prize, naturally the larger this inclination is -- but people with big stacks in good position to make a run at the prizes simply do not want to call off their stacks with anything short of the nuts or near-nuts. You can even get people off most top pairs in a situation like this, with less than a table of people remaining before everyone left wins their seats. It really pays to ratchet up the aggression at times like this, just like all the big pros write about, and Friday night was no exception for me. I was punishing everybody with moves like this, any one of which could have been called and I would have been behind and probably eliminated. But it just all worked for me on that night.

In 8th place out of 13 players remaining (remember, 8 get the seats), I laid this one down:



reasoning that I was either behind (most likely), or racing, either one of which I wanted or needed no part of given my stack at the time and how few players were left.

And here I am in 5th place of 11 players left, keeping everyone on their toes like only our crew knows how:



About 10 hands later I managed to eliminate the 11th place guy, again making a call of his allin with a middling Ace in my hand, relying on my large chip stack and his short-stackedness and late-position push to get it done:



A few preflop and flop steals later, and there I was in 3rd place out of 10, with 8 of us set to win the 2k WSOP prize packages. I could taste it!

Here was a good one. So we're at 10 people left, 2 more eliminations until we all win our WSOP seats, and the 10th place guy is allin preflop. And here is this anus to my right, who himself is on a nice-sized stack, betting into me on the river:



Do people at this level really not understand late-stage bubble play, and the whole concept of implicit collaboration? Apparently not. Can this guy really not see how much wiser it is to just check this down with as many players in the pot as possible once the shorty is all in, to maximize everyone's chances of taking him out? Apparently not. Well, you might think, maybe he has the nuts to be making a bet at this point in the tournament. Nope -- in fact I'm the one who had the nuts here thanks to a beautiful river card. So, I let him know what I thought about him in the chat here, and then I pushed it allin. I figured maybe he would call, but either way I hoped he would learn something from this. He folded after a few seconds, but man what a donkey. I don't care if you somehow had flopped seven Aces, in this spot it's just smarter to check it down and get us that much closer to the bubble. Thankfully I was able to eliminate #10 here, sending us to the final table, with 8 of the 9 players getting the seats. My stack was so big, and I'm not an idiot, so it was all but assured that I would win my second bracelet race of the year, but with a whole bunch of bloggers and non-bloggers railbirding, this is when things got really loopy.

First there was this recockuhand against the short stack who was all but blinded in:





Against four players no less, which managed to nearly quintuple up the short stack after a fuggin flopped set. Sick.

Then after another suckout by a blinded-in short stack that for some reason I did not screenshot (probably because I was busy putting my first through my tv screen), we had to sit through a 5-minute break with the big blind all ready to get blinded in himself on the first hand of Round 4. On that first hand, the guy managed to quadruple up again when he spiked two pairs on the river with 94o to beat out again four other players who had called and checked it down to get him out (again I was too busy killing some animals to capture that screenshot).

Then five hands later, here is the fourth blinded-in suckout at the bubble, once again winning over four other players who checked it down to see the river:





Thankfully, this was all just funny to me, as I was in such a good chip position that I knew I would win the seat. But for the guys who were right near the bottom and constantly in danger of blinding out, this must have been one of the worst nights of their lives.

Eventually, I managed to knock out #9 just like I knocked out #11 and #10, when he got blinded in and I held the top kicker on a 2-pair board to win my second WSOP buyin:



Here was the leaderboard when we got down to the 8 winners:



In messing around to play out the final 8 meaningless spots (eff the TLB), just like in my first bracelet race win last month I managed to find pocket Aces in a big spot to win a huge one:



DQB baybeeeee!!!!!!

And then here was the final hand, literally my only suckout of the entire 4 1/2 hours of play, and not a huge suckout at that:







In all, it was a really fun experience, and hopefully this writeup captures just how much I got by without running into a single monster and without muffing up a single read all through the event. If only all of my big mtts could go like this (I would even settle for once every month or two), things would be so different. I wish I could capture and know exactly what I did, if anything, to make this particular tournament go so smoothly, but alas I don't think it was anything. One wrong read, one slowplay that I didn't pick up on, in this thing and I woulda been toast in any number of the hands I showed above. Playing hyper-aggro like this can be fun and when it works you look and feel like a genius, but pushing allin with as much regularity and betting with nothing as often as I did in this thing does not work nearly this well generally speaking.

Now my big question is what to do with the two bracelet race wins. I'll be posting about this later this week, as I look to finalize my Vegas plans for the second weekend of June within a week or so, but now with two bracelet races won so far, this really expands my options as far as I'm concerned with respect to what events and how many to play, when exactly I need to be there, etc. It all still seems kinda surreal, but I will definitely be out in Vegas in less than two months, hopefully to meet as many of you as possible, and playing in at least one and probably two events in the World Series of Poker!

See you tonight at Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!