Survivor Poker

OK, so I think I'm putting together my strategy for the first half of Donkey Island Poker. I've talked to like 85 people about possible alliances (still haven't figured out exactly what that means), but in the end, for these first several weeks, here's the best strategy I can offer to my teammates for not voting me out: Not only am I kind and generous to all and one of the most wonderful people you have ever met as you doubtless already know, but I also give you the best chance to win immunity from elimivotes every single time we have one of these tournaments. Every time. I'm not saying I'm going to win every single tournament over the next couple of months. Obviously. But in any individual tournament, I think I offer the best odds in this field of winning. And, for this first month or so at least, if I last the longest in these tournaments out of anyone in the Donkey Island field, then all seven of my other teammates don't face being voted out of the game for that round.

On Sunday I won the first tournament of Donkey Island Poker, which was Goat's $1 rebuy. I was somewhere near the bottom of the pack as we ended monkey hour -- it would not be possible for anyone to run worse than I do during $1 rebuy hour against a bunch of poo-flinging bloggers -- but I got a few double-ups early enough to make a race of it as we neared the final table. By the time we made it to the final 9, my stack was up to 2nd or 3rd place, so I was able to take it a little bit easy and let the others do the busting for a while.

At some point along the way I remembered that all that should really matter to me was outlasting whoever was the last player standing on the other team. I checked out the Donkey Island Poker website, and it was quickly clear to me once we were down to 5 or even 6 left, that NumbBono was the only guy left from the other team. Unfortunately, he had a monstrous stack of around 50k with 5 players left, and I had something like 8k at my lowest. But I played really patient, and I figured even though it was going on 1am my time, I owed it to my teammates to do what I could to just try to hold on and hope to find a way to outlast Numb. Not too long after that, I don't even remember the hand that it happened on but Numb made a mistake and lost about half of his stack, dropping to around 24k, at a time when I had climbed my own stack to around 16 or 17k, and suddenly it seemed like I could really possibly catch him.

At some point I won a big pot off of the big stack across the table whose name I did not recognize (mattychise, maybe? Leave me a comment with your right name and your blog if you read this and I will update), getting him to fold on the turn after making fairly large bets on the flop and earlier on the turn before my raise, and Numb lost another hand, and all of a sudden we had totally switched; I had over 50k in chips and Numb was stuck below 15k and a distant fourth out of four remaining players. There were a few suckouts against me here four-handed, but in the end I was able to hold on to my big chipstack -- making a few disciplined folds with hands like KQo and 77 to heavy action in front of me -- and eventually I raised up front with A8o, a standard move obviously in 4-handed play, and Numb pushed allin preflop behind me from the big blind. My raise had been to around 4000 chips, and Numb's push was for around 14k, leaving me to call around 10k to win 19k or so -- I really made those numbers up wholesale -- but I figured he has to be pushing here with any Ace, as well as any pocket pair below 8s, so there are plenty of hands in that range that I am ahead of, and I'm getting 2 to 1 on my money anyways, meaning that only higher Aces had me in really bad shape at all. I called, Numb flipped up 44, and I flopped an 8 to win the race and eliminate the last player from the Bad Guy Team in Survivor Poker.

At this point, I pushed allin preflop with every single hand until the last two players -- Joanada and this mattychise fellow -- eventually succumbed to my button mashing. I think I might have sucked out on one of them in a medium-sized pot. I had a giant stack at that point 3-handed after taking out Numb, so I knew I could afford some losses, and who am I kidding anyways I didn't give a snatch about where I finished on the leaderboard after having outlasted everyone else from the Bad Guys Team. So I just kept pushing and praying when we got to 3-handed and the ITM positions, and fast forward about six or seven minutes and I was the winner.

So anyways, back to my Donkey Island strategy: All I do is crush blonkaments. I mean, for crying out loud, my name is actually "Blogger Crusher" on another well-known online poker client as most of you know. So, Team Fish, this is why not to vote me out whenever our team is up for elimination -- because you always know that in just a few days, the next Donkey Island tournament is coming up, and I'm your best chance to avoiding an elimination vote entirely if you just let me stick around and do what I do best in these tournaments. While team play remains in effect for the next month on Donkey Island, I may ultimately be the most valuable commodity you can have on your side.

By the way, for the record let me register my shock that Numb was the first player voted off by his team after the first tournament of Survivor Poker. Numb has shown repeatedly that he can win the blogger fonkfests like these, and he's a BDR regular. How does that guy capture 5 out of 7 elimination votes on his team (assuming he did not vote for himself)? Somebody please help me to understand. Is this what people mean by making "alliances"? Is it possible (likely?) that the order of 6 of the 8 vote-offs has already been decided for my team? Eek!

The next Donkey Island Poker tournament is this coming Wednesday, The Dank at 10pm ET. Until then, my teammate and I be immune.

Donkey Island Poker

After about a year of anticipation after the first dribs and drabs were leaked to the poker blogger press, finally "Donkey Island" poker has been officially announced. The brainchild of none other than Julius Goat, Goat and BuddyDank are teaming up to offer this unique combination of blogger tournament and Survivor -- a show I've never watched -- in what is without a doubt the most original and unique blonkament series that this our group has ever experienced.

I'm not much for restating someone else's rules and someone else's game, so I'm just going to link to Goat's post announcing Donkey Poker here, and encourage every one of you reading this to head over to Goat's site and check it out. Goat has the description of the game -- essentially a 16-person prop bet over a series of tournaments over eight weeks starting in February -- and the basic rules of how things will go. I tend to agree with Goat that there may be several angles no one has really thought of to this beyond just what is addressed on Goat's blog right now, but then I tend to think that is going to be part of the fun with this whole thing.

A couple of other quick points before I sign off, thanks to work utterly kicking my ass these past few days. First, I just wanted to commend Goat and Buddy not only for their originality, but just for taking a step to do something to reinvigorate and reignite interest in our weekly blogger tournaments that has waned so much over the past few years. I have no doubt that we're never going to get back to the mystique and the popularity that existed back in the WWdN days -- for a lot of different reasons -- but the weekly games are always fun and, save for those who routinely let their anger get the best of them, they are always some of the most fun you can have any week when you stop by and check out the action with your favorite fake internet friends. It's a great chance for us old-timers to catch up with our old blogging friends, and an even better opportunity for the newer readers to sit down and play poker with some great players and even better writers who you may feel like you've "known" for years from reading their blogs without ever having had any kind of a one-on-one interaction with them.

I also wanted to mention that I understand from some girly chats with Buddy that he is finally doing the obvious thing -- something I've railed about for more than a year now -- and changing the name of "the Mookie" to the more appropriate "The Dank". For those who don't know, Mookie -- who for the record is and always has been an awesome guy -- has not been setting up or really associated with the weekly Wednesday night Mookie tournament for the better part of what, two years now? Buddy has taken on administration of this tournament for a long time now, and he has set the standard for blonkatainment -- yes that's a new word I just made up right now to combine "blonkament" and "entertainment" -- by broadcasting live on BuddyDank Radio almost every Wednesday night during the Mookie festivities. This thing has been Buddy's tournament as clear as day for literally years now, and I have long since thought and publicly claimed that having Mookie's name associated with it at this point is not the right idea from a marketing perspective, given Mookie's lack of involvement with the group or his blog anymore in any public way. Changing the name of the Mookie to the Dank is long overdue in my book, and associating the tournament with the new Donkey Island poker extravaganza is a great way to help stimulate action and interest in our weekly games, something that has been more or less totally lacking for going on three years or more now at this point.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that it is not lost on me how utterly hopeless it is for me to try to succeed at any poker series that involves needing the votes of others in order to survive. Although I routinely destroy you all in pure poker, I am well aware that I have no possible shot in this particular setup. But that's ok. Anything that (1) Goat spearheads, (2) Buddy is into on the radio, or (3) helps generate interest in our weekly games is a-ok and a good time in my book. And something tells me this one is going to lead to more than a few interesting blog posts along the way as well, another thing a shizz-stirrer like me is obviously well into.

So one again, click on over to Goat's post today to read all about Donkey Island poker. I am already confirmed as one of the players, and although I can't confirm this, I believe that there may still be spots available as I write this post. Follow the directions in Goat's post if you are interested in participating, and I'll see you at the games starting in February, including Goat's newly-hosted tournament on Sunday nights at 9:30pm ET when that time comes. And in the meantime, why not stop by "the Dank" tonight at 10pm ET (password as always is "vegas1") and get your groove on, and start get re-acclimated to the donkeyrific pokerings of your fake internet friends. And for those of you so inclined, perhaps to start laying the groundwork for your many fiendish alliances and backroom deals in advance of Donkey Island's official beginning in a few weeks. I plan to be there tonight -- maybe you can too.

Exciting BBT5 Weekend

I am seriously thrilled at the outcome to this past weekend's BBT5 Invitational tournament, with Julius Goat and Jim McManus both winnings seats into the series-ending Tournament of Champions to play for the big bucks. I didn't watch a whole lot of McManus's play -- other than to see him push allin for 30 to 50 big blinds repeatedly seemingly earlier than he needed to, which is more or less par for the course in these blonkaments I suppose -- but I loved Positively Fifth Street and I think it's fair to credit that book with some portion of my own personal explosion in interest in the game of poker, so for my money having JM in the TOC is a positive development.

And then there is Goat. Goat hasn't had a ton of success in winning the private blogger tournaments in the past, but he's always managed to bust out with a win here and there to keep his name on the map, and so far in the BBT5 we have seen why. Although this weekend was Goat's first foray deep into the final table in the BBT5 that I can recall, those of you who have played most of the events will note that every time you look up at the leaderboard over the past few weeks, Julius_Goat always seems to be sitting there with a big stack. In addition to starting to find a groove as a mid-sized sng player in his own right, Goat has shown of late that he is really starting to figure out how to play against the bloggers, something you can really only say about so many people in the group overall. But Goat has figured it out, how to get the early double-up and how to accumulate chips in these familiar events, and such was the case again last night as Goat was sitting in good but not great shape as the tournament rolled down to the final few tables.

But the huge thing about Goat's play on the night from my perspective wasn't the way he started, but the way he finished. I watched him closely as I have with many of the other BBT5 final tables as I've been up late working on my "other" job almost every night of the past few weeks, and Goat played about as good of an overall game on the day as any winner of a ToC seat so far in BBT5. I didn't see the guy make a dumb call and suck out once in the final few tables, and in fact I don't think he made a single bad decision in all the time I watched him. This is in stark contrast to most of the other ToC winners so far -- myself included -- who have recorded many suckouts along the way to nabbing their seats, and in many cases involved the making of several unthinkable and inexplicable plays that were probably not worthy of winning at all. But Goat was totally on the entire night, and it was really awesome to watch. His reads were on fire -- he even called down at least twice on the final two tables on the river with less than one pair and either tied or won them both vs. an aggressive bettor on the other side. His timing was awesome, and when he bet with nothing at the river, they folded. Every time.

The closest thing to a big mistake that Goat made on the night that I saw was about midway through the final table when he called down a highly aggressive player with top pair Jack kicker and lost to TPTK for a little less than half his stack, but the good thing even about that play was that it still left Goat with plenty of chips to fight back, which is exactly what he did. Twice during the final table, Goat got a little short after failing to secure a big pot like this one, but both times, Goat immediately got right back to work instead of focusing on the downside and letting it get to him. And both times he was quickly able to get himself right back to the chip lead, and after having lost it already at the final table once, he did not make the same mistake again.

So for my money Goat is definitely a force to be reckoned with at the upcoming Tournament of Champions. He's been playing overall about as well as anyone in the BBT5, and his win was pretty much the most impressive one I have seen so far, easily over most of the recent winners.

Now who else should we be looking out for as the series moves to its final few weeks?

For starters, it's got to be TwoBlackAces. Not only has he twice bubbled in BBT5 events already, but like Goat he seems to have a big, huge stack almost any time you check him out in one of these things. He's won tons of dough in major online tournaments and has proven to be a consistent accumulator and finisher in all kinds of tournaments. And he has as much experience as anyone playing with most of these fields after his regular involvement in the blonkaments over the past year or two. I know it has been heartbreaking for him not to have nabbed the seat yet after coming so close, but if you have to pick one person to win their way in in the upcoming events, TBA is probably the guy.

I'm also looking at perennial BBT killer Tuscaloosa John, who has crushed everyone through the two BBT series in which he has been an active participant. So far he hasn't made much noise in the BBT5 tournaments, but when I saw him with that big stack as we got down to the final few tables on Sunday night, I had a deja vu and it seemed like something I am expecting to see again in the coming days and week as the BBT5 rolls on. All TJ needs to do is run a little better than he has so far in things like early 60-40s and races, and we may be looking at a ToC seat for a guy who has probably won more overall BBT events than anyone else who has participated.

Lastly, I will mention Astin. Not sure why I have this idea in my head, but Astin has found his way in to I think all but one of the previous BBT Tournament of Champions, and I'm guessing he can pocket Aces his way in there one more time through the remaining what, eight tournaments? Of course it is impossible to predict something like this with any kind of assuredness -- especially with just 8 events left unlike previous BBTs where we would not even be to the midpoint yet of a 55-tournament schedule -- but Astin is a guy who knows how to play the big cards and who also has a lot of experience playing against this crowd. You watch, he will find his way in again before all is said and done with the BBT5.

Next event is tonight, the Monday night Poker From the Rail tournament at 10pmET on full tilt. The password is I think "2010WSOP", and the buyin is a measly $26 for a shot to play for the -- count 'em -- three WSOP Main Event packages and a couple more 2k WSOP packages as well as I recall. Be there or be square

NFL Playoff Picks and a Quick Pimp

Real quick over this holiday weekend I wanted to get in my NFL picks against the spread for the first round of the playoffs, with this weekend seeing the first time in history that all four road teams and lower seeds are favored to win their upcoming games.

First we have the Atlanta Falcons -2.5 at Arizona. Zona had a great year behind veteran quarterback Kurt Warner, but the Cardinals seem to be limping into the playoffs here with absolutely no momentum, having peaked at this point four or five weeks before the end of the regular season. Atlanta had a better regular season record and has a better overall team, although with the Carindals' offense playing at home, I do not love giving up the 2.5 points. To me this one is basically a pickem at 2.5 points, and if I had to pick someone I suppose it would be the Falcons but I would not be happy about the pick.

Next on Saturday is the Colts -1.5 at the Chargers. With Colts quarterback Peyton Manning fresh off winning his third NFL MVP this weekend, the Colts will be looking to extend their recent win streak to 10 by taking it to the 8-8 AFC West champion Chargers. I was a bit surprised when this line opened at Chargers minus 1, but I get the sense that the betting public know what it's talking about with this one. With the Colts favored by 1.5 at this point, I would go with the Chargers. The Colts are a solid team with a lot to play for, and the Chargers had a mediocre season and an exceedingly mediocre coach, but I've felt basically all year that the Colts were not winning a superbowl this year, and if someone has to be beat them, why not the Chargers? I take the Chargers plus the 1.5.

I'll plan to be back tomorrow with my picks for the Sunday games. Before I go though, don't forget to register for Goat's Bad Bankroll Management Tournament this Sunday night, January 4 at 9pm ET on full tilt. This is the first time Goat has run his BBmT tournament, and it's a blonkament I've been looking forward to for a long time since he first announced it several months ago. The buyin is $50 and it should prove to be a fun time with some decent coin for the winner(s). The password for the BBmT is a very fitting "busto", so go stop by and register now before you forget. See you this Sunday night, 9pm ET on full tilt!

Mookie Curse '08, Dookie Victory and 2007 Blogiverse Highlights

Different year, same fucking result on a Wednesday night. Played the Mookie on Wednesday, did not play particularly well, and got donked out on two silly hands within the first 40 minutes or so. Here's the way it went down. First, I'm in the big blind with 99. The action folds around before the flop to the small blind, who is a megashort stack with only 600-some chips and pushes allin on my 100-chip blind. Obviously I call -- as insta as any instacall by me is ever gonna get -- and he flips up the jackace. I've already typed in the "nh" before his two pairs fall on the flop. Nice setup.

And btw, while I'm on the topic, why do some people refuse to acknowledge the existence of a "setup" hand? I mean I've seen it discussed, and that just makes me wonder about people's poker knowledge in general. Call it what you want I don't care, but when the cards fall such that you were going to get it in and lose no matter what, that doesn't automatically make it "your fault" or somehow a fair loss that could have been avoided if played correctly. Not if the term "setup" is being used correctly it's not. When you're in the BB and the shorty in the SB pushes in and you call with pocket 2s, that's not a setup at all. You should probably have folded, and if you wanted to call then be my guest but you can't cry setup when that hand is done because you knew of course you were at best a 52% favorite when you called the allin. No setup there. But a true setup is by definition not your fault, and when the term is used correctly, that's exactly what happens: you get set up to lose. As in, it folds to you the SB short stack who pushes allin, and you instacall with KK. He shows AA. Bad beat? No, you were behind all the way. But is it just a bad play by you? Of course not, don't be ridiculous. You had to call, you had to be behind, and you were going to lose. It had been preordained since the moment that the evil full tilt server scripted the cards for your tournament that on that hand, you absolutely, positively had to lose and double the shorty there. Clearly a different animal from a bad beat since you were actually behind the whole way, but it strains all credibility to suggest that any "setup" is really just a way of not blaming oneself for a play that is one's own fault. Not with a real setup it isn't.

Anyways, so that hand took over a quarter of my stack and left me near the bottom in chips with just over 1700 chips remaining about a half hour in to the Mookie this week. Then, maybe 10 minutes later, I flopped top pair on a two-club board into a raised pot, and overbet allin on the flop with my shortish stack. The big stack on the other side, playing in his first Mookie ever, typed in some clever comment about doing this "just for the bloggers" or for the rant or something, and called my allin with just the naked flush draw. Full tilt let me off easy by bringing the third club this time on the turn instead of making me wait till the river and think I was actually going to double up. So IGH on a setup and a suckout. Setup and a suckout, setup and a suckout. Doesn't this shit ever get old? Can someone please take my Mookie stack one of these days by getting in ahead once in a while, preferably by more than 52-48%? Believe me when I say it would feel awesome just once in a long, long while to actually get outplayed in the Mookie instead of having to watch Evil Wonka win his 44th Mookie title while I wonder about what should have been. Congrats though to EW for winning another Mookie. EW is quickly becoming one of my more fun reads and guys to chat with. I really do like a guy who can take it in as well as he can dish it out. I think that is of the utmost importance if you're going to talk some smack among the blogging crew -- although EW once accused me of being a hypocrite, in reality hypocrisy is not something I have anything to do with and, along with cheapness, it's one of the ugliest qualities I personally see in other people.

Also in a continuation of last year's performance, I won the first Dookie of the year, this week in Stud Hilo, the poker game I have been playing the longest and actually enjoy playing for the most part:



To be clear, Chad and I both actually won the Dookie this week, as he was cool enough to agree to just chop the top two money prizes and push allin on every street once we got down to heads up. At the time it was about 1:55am my time but only 10:55pm Chad's time, and I did have an 18k to 8k chip lead after busting heffmike in third place. So I was in good position but there was no way I felt like taking on the undisputed King of all Donks in two-handed Hilo, just about the donkiest thing any two people can play together, especially starting at 2am local time when I know M and K will be jumping on my ass in bed at 6am sharp just like every day. So I appreciated his willingness to just chop it up, and my chip lead enabled me to withstand an early blind-allin loss and end up on top for the official screenshot.

Why the F I can win so many Dookie's but not one single Mookie is beyond me. Despite them all counting as blonkament wins, it actually frustrates me more than I can win the Dookie seemingly once every month or two but can never wade through the minefields in the Mookie. And I think full tilt knows this, which is why it is having a field day with me on a weekly basis, every Wednesday night. Bastages.

OK so moving on as I continue my week-long lookback on 2007 in the world of poker and poker blogging, today I wanted to mention a short list of my own personal favorite highlights in the poker blogiverse during the past year. Some of these involved me personally, and most of them do not but were things that meant a lot to me and that I think really kicked ass. These are the things that really stick out in my mind as the best or coolest things that affected me in 2007 in the world of poker and poker blogging. So here they are, in no particular order:

1. The Battle of the Blogger Tournaments. This thing kinda came out of nowhere in 2007, really stemming from a drunken conversation between myself and Al at an obscure bar in the Borgata in Atlantic City. I was out there in March to play in the WSOP Circuit Event at Caesar's, and I came by the Borgata bar to meet up with Mr. Soco after my bustout abot 7 1/2 hours into the tournament, at the time my longest-ever live tournament performance. Creating and tracking a short series of blogger tournaments was actually something I had been thinking of starting up back when I was writing for cardsquad, but then that gig ended and I had never really pursued the idea once that venue was gone for me to write it up. But I was thrilled when Al mentioned a similar idea to me in AC back in March, and of course with Al involved the whole idea of lots of free swag was opened up, something which frankly I would never have even conceived of on my own. Fast forward a month or so, and several convos between myself, Al and Mookie, and voila, the BBT was in the house. Now a lot has been written about some of the negative effects of the BBT -- this is really fodder for a separate post entirely its own that I've been writing in my head for a good couple of months now -- but as long as it is done over a relatively short period of time, and in my opinion with long gaps in between where people can just play the blonkaments for fun without having their stats "mean" something extraneous as with the BBT -- then I am all for the series and I don't think anybody can effectively argue that the results have been anything but immensely, hugely positive for individual bloggers, their bankrolls, their blog traffic, blogging in general and for poker blogging in general. The BBT really changed the way I and I know many others out there look at and approach playing the blonkaments in general, and it brought into our world a whole new slew of poker bloggers to keep the torch burning even as many of the old-schoolers find themselves burning out after writing about poker nonstop for so many years.

2. The Donkament. Now I don't remember exactly when this thing started up, but it seems to me it's been the better part of a year now that we have all had this tremendous opportunity to receive our weekly dose of Friday night poker therapy, courtesy of full tilt poker and of course of Kat, the hostess with the mostess. I have no idea where Kat got the brilliant idea of a weekly $1 rebuy tournament, and I remember discussing with Kat early on in the girly how I did not know if the idea would last beyond a week or two, but boy how wrong I was. It turns out, everyone else out there can really use the therapeutic pushfest known as the donkament as much as I can whenever I am around at 9pm ET on Friday night. Now I know for some of you that timing is not good, but to those of you I say "Have some kids!" That will take care of your Friday nights once and for all, and then you too can realize the amazing wonders of pushing allin every single hand for an hour, with the auto-double-rebuy feature activated, just waiting for your 94o to suck out on someone's pocket Jacks and get you a nice stack. Having played in this thing probably a good 20 times or so this year, I can say without hesitation that my weekends are always noticeably more fun thanks to this little brainchild of Kat's. Why someone didn't think of this sooner, I will never know, but in some ways innovation among the bloggers is what makes our group keep going, just like with the BBT I mentioned above.

3. Speaking of innovation, how about Buddy Dank Radio? The single coolest new and original idea to hit the poker blogiverse in 2007 has new poker bloggers Buddydank (always) and Instant Tragedy (usually), along with various special guest hosts broadcasting live from their homes via Skype (whateverthefuck that is) during most of the regular weekly blogger tournaments, and if you haven't listened, then #1 you are a schmuck and #2 you are missing out on some seriously awesome shit. For starters, if you've been living under a rock for the past year, Buddydank is a seriously awesome DJ with a great voice and perfect radio personality. IT plays the perfect complement to Buddy's frenetic style, and when there is public drunkeness going on during the broadcast, let me tell you the airwaves are just bursting with the kind of quality programming even HBO or Sirius would love to have working for them. Throw in some hardnosed skill poker guys with attitude as the guest hosts, and you have the absolutely perfect combination for a fun evening along with the blonkaments we already look forward to playing regularly. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Buddydank Radio is the single greatest innovation to hit the poker blogiverse this year, and if you aren't listening regularly, then you are missing out, plain and simple.

4. This post by Miami Don. For my money, without a doubt the best blog post of the year, I still get fucking chills just from reading that shit. Go read it if you have not already. Or even if you did read it like me ten months ago several times, go read it again. Well written, interesting, and inspirational to the max. Congratulations Don for your courage over the past couple of years, and a heartfelt thanks from a great many of us for the feelings that this post in particular is able to stir up, and for making all of us stop and think about our own lives if only just for a little while. Just Wow.

5. Astin's starting cards. Now I'm not going to sit here and say that Astin had unbelievable starting cards all throughout the entirety of 2007 (not saying it isn't true, but that's just not what I'm going to say here). But there was a stretch of 3 or 4 consecutive tournaments near the end of the first BBT where this guy was absolutely on fire. "On fire" doesn't even begin to capture the shit he had dealt to him and fall his way with the cards in this string. It was so crazy that I remember it now, more than half a year later, like it was yesterday (or maybe it also happened yesterday, but again I'm not going there now). Just go click on this link to see three of the posts about the nights I am talking about. I can honestly say without exaggeration that I have never, ever even one time ever received pocket Aces more than three times in one blonkament, and surely not AA and KK combined more than four or five times, tops. But try to imagine this: in the first post on that link above, Astin plays 348 hands in the 5050, and receives AA, KK or QQ twelve times, and AK another nine times on top. A full 18% of all hands dealt through 348 hands that night were pocket pairs, Ace-face or paint-paint hands. Think about that. In the second post on that link, probably my own personal favorite shmorgasbord of silliness, Astin details the AK (won preflop), AQ (won Q65 flop), KQ (won with a straight), 77 (won on turn), 44 (won preflop), AA (won on flop), AK (won on flop), KK (won on flop) -- these last three in consecutive hands -- 88 (won on river suckout against TPTK on flop) and then J8 (won against 77 on 388 flop), all in the first 30 minutes of the tournament! Again in that post, 18% out of his 306 hands were pocket pairs, Ace-face or double-paint. How do you not love that? Then in the third post there is more of the same, showing among other things Astin's AA, KK, KK, KK, QQ, AK, AK, 66 and 66 all before the first break! Me so horny just reading that stuff. Astin had an incredible run of cards there and it's something that really sticks with me as I look back on the year in blonkaments in 2007.

6. My WSOP cash. This one of course is more personal to me than something that happened in the blogiverse in general, but it really was the highlight of my year and something which had been a serious unstated goal of mine for the past many years. I am sure I will never forget my run to the cash in what ended up being the fastest-ever WSOP tournament right up to the money bubble at 127 players remaining out of 1527 who started, followed by the longest bubble in WSOP history that saw me take the brunt of that thanks to one J.C Tran. Nearing the money bubble, my table broke up and I was moved to Tran's table at a time when he was the prohibitive chip leader in the tournament, and shortly thereafter we hit the bubble and Mr. Tran went to work. Raising in the dark on every single hand at a time when nobody but nobody wanted to even consider playing back at him, Tran manhandled every single player at our table with the full knowledge that he would call anyone's allin with ATC given his ginormous stack at the time and the relatively little damage that any one of us could do to his chip position. In the end I outlasted some redonkulous hijinks that extended the bubble far longer than it probably should have, and recorded a $2500 cash in just my second ever WSOP event. I know to some of the true big dog poker players in our group, a piddily little cash in a preliminary WSOP event is nothing much to be happy about, but accomplishing one of my long-term poker goals, and something that literally seemed like just a dream in previous years to the point of me not even speaking about it out loud before leaving for Vegas last summer, is a feeling that I simply cannot and could not put into words. Not that that stopped me from trying, as I wrote what I personally consider to be my best ever non-rant post detailing my WSOP run thanks to the copious notes I took on a pad I kept in my pocket throughout the day's poker activity. It's nowhere near inspiring like Miami Don's post above, but hopefully does a decent job of conveying the excitement, the stress and really the awe I felt on that day from start to finish as I played basically from noon to midnight in my longest ever live poker session and by far my most tense and most significant.

7. Rebuys and knockout tournaments at full tilt. This was another big development during the year for us online players, in particular me and many other bloggers whose online play focused mainly on full tilt. Somewhere around the middle of the year, full tilt finally introduced its first rebuy tournament, long overdue given that the other major poker sites had been running these events for some time. Now while full tilt still has some kinks to work out no doubt with their whole rebuy thing, the addition of rebuy events to full tilt's tournament slate has been a significant positive for us mtt guys, and in particular for the more aggro mtt guys who have won and know how to play well in rebuy tournaments in their poker careers. Not only did I win cash in straight-up rebuy tournaments in 2007, but I also satellited into multiple larger-buyin mtts -- FTOPS rebuy tournaments and the FTOPS Main Event on more than one occasion come immediately to mind -- in low-buyin rebuy sats that use the usually 3-4 times as many rebuys and addons as players to fund additional seats for the top finishers. Similarly, around the end of 2007 full tilt added to its slate by bringing knockout tournaments into the field, another nice development that has made for some interesting blogger tournaments, mtts, FTOPS events and sitngos. Usually paying out roughly 15% or so of the tournament buyin as a knockout bounty for every player you eliminate from the tournament, these events feature slightly smaller prize pools for the winners but also add the element that one can easily be freerolling in the event if you can last a couple of hours in and bust some donkeys along the way. So these are two nice developments at my preferred online poker site during 2007 that are definitely positive ones for anyone who enjoys playing a variety of mtts. Now we just need them to bring on some shootouts, and especially some frigging heads-up tournaments with all those full tilt pros out there, and ftp will finally be a "full service" mtt shop in my view.

8. New bloggers. As with previous years, 2007 definitely saw another spike in the number of people blogging about the world of poker, which is always a great thing. I've already mentioned guys like IT and Buddydank above in discussing the illustrious Buddydank Radio, but there were several other newcomers on the scene who made some noise with their posts and with their general outlook on things. As I've written about several times here on the blog, my own personal favorite among the new-in-2007 poker blogging crew has to be Julius Goat, whose awesome writing style helped him end the year by writing his way in to the BBTwo Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions with his excellent story The Ghosts of Poker that I and many others think easily surpassed all other comers in full tilt's write-in challenge for the ToC. But more than that, the Goat entertained us all with his wit all throughout the year, be it regaling us with his regular blonkament bustout and donkeyplay tales, his incredibly witty player profile series earlier in the year (I have to agree with Goat, Rig A. Myroll is probably the funniest of them all, but they're all great reading), or his poetic side when it came to his series of poker- and pokerblogger-themed limericks and haikus from this past autumn. Goat is a great example of the kind of creativity and wit that I always hope there is more of, and why it's so great seeing the new crop of bloggers enter the fold every year among our ghey little group.

9. The WPBT summer gathering. I wrote quite a bit about my experience at my second WPBT gathering in June of 2007, including this giant post right here on the blog, but even that post doesn't really do justice to the kind of kickass time had by myself and really by all going out for meetings like this. Of course I got to renew a number of friendships with people I had met in my first WPBT live meeting in the summer of 2006, but I also got to meet a ton more people in 2007 for the first time that I had previously known only as a girly chat name and/or a bunch of words on a computer screen. There really are no words to describe what one of these weekends is like, something which I imagine is made all the more precious for a guy like me who due to other obligations in life considers myself lucky to even get out to Las Vegas once a year for any reason. I was and will remain bummed that some of the biggest old-schoolers apparently feel that the summer gathering is just not worth their attendance anymore, and I will never understand the desire of poker bloggers to avoid Las Vegas at the very time when the WSOP is going on and some of the best writers we know are out there doing their thing professionally already, but so be it. All I can say is that the live blogger gatherings have twice now proven to be two of the most fun weekends of my life without exaggeration or hesitation, and I have made some lasting friendships and relationships from these things that I hope will persist for years to come. Anybody who is part of our group, keeps a public poker journal of some kind, plays in our weekly tournaments and yet who has not been out to meet the group in person yet, you are missing out on truly one of the great experiences of your life, bar none.

10. Lastly, the big blogger tournament scores. I've detailed a few of my biggest cashes in poker tournaments in 2007 in an earlier post, but some other bloggers really nailed some of the big tournaments this year and that to me is always the most exciting stuff there is. The "other" Jordan busted out with easily the biggest score of the year in the Pokernews Cup in the land down under with his 6th place, $47,000 and change finish. Close behind this one was Fuel55 for his 12th place finish in the BC Poker Championships Main Event, both of these live tournament scores that top basically anything I could ever hope to achieve personally given the status of my own poker play. HoP Jordan also won his largest-ever tournament win back in June when staying home from work "sick" for the day in a nice story for all us hookey-players out there. SoxLover also recorded his first major online tournament win during 2007, back in July in the domain of KOD himself by taking down the nightly 28k guaranteed biatch on full tilt. And let us not forget how Chad first obtained the nickname of "KOD", standing for King of Donks, after he fucking final tabled that 28k minefield five times over a roughly one-month timespan, including two first place finishes and total winnings of over $23,000 just from that event alone during 2007. At least Fuel, Lucko and KOD won $10k seats to the World Series of Poker Main Event this year. Various other bloggers also recorded their largest-ever tournament scores to my knowledge, including (though I'm sure I am forgetting some) Miami Don and LJ both live at the Venetian in Vegas as well as online in the in full tilt's 55k guaranteed, 750k guaranteed and others, and of course who can forget jeciimd who took down the $18,000 prize package for two to the Aussie Millions with his huge BBTwo ToC freeroll win courtesy of full tilt, in addition to winning over 13k for his 3rd place finish in an FTOPS O8 event earlier in the year (thanks Chad for that reminder).

In all, 2007 was a huge year for many individual bloggers and for the poker blogging scene in general. I can't wait to see who breaks out early and often in 2008 with the big scores that we'll all be talking about during the year and writing about come this time a year from now. And one of the best parts of what we do as bloggers IMO is that it is a completely open market, with basically no barriers to entry, so you never know what new writers will capture our eyeballs and our hearts with posts like some of the ones I have highlighted above. 2007 was a year to remember for our group and for the online poker scene in general, and I look with extreme optimism to 2008 for more of the same from who knows where among our ghey little group.

Back tomorrow with my goals for 2008. Until then, don't forget the Riverchasers tonight at 9pm ET on full tilt. Password as usual is "riverchasers". I'm already in, and I've cashed in the last two of these biatches playing like an utter donkey on purpose, so look for me to take you down allin on a draw within the first few hands if you're not careful.

Silly Superstitions, Smartass Kids, Funny Goat, and Suited Connectors Hand Concluded

Tuesday night was my first solidly winning day at the tables in several days, and man did it feel good. And more than that, I know exactly why it happened:

I changed my shirt.

When I get home from work and head into the evenings, including during my nightly online poker play, I usually wear my "pajama" shirt, which for me amounts to no more than one of the many fugly t-shirts I have acquired over the years and which I would not otherwise be willing to wear outside of the house. Well, for the last several nights I had been wearing this "Hudson, New York" t-shirt that my wife picked up for me one day when she took the kids with her family up to the Catskills to walk around some ghey little town (so sorry I missed that one, btw!). And I was losing. I think I had one other winning day mixed in there for the past week or so of wearing the Hudson shirt while I played, but for the most part I was a tilting mofo and was losing overall almost every night. As I've written about some here, I have really been struggling over the past several days to figure out a way to get out of this poker funk I've been in, and I've tried a lot of possible solutions, including sitting in a different place to play, trying to focus on getting into the right mindset before I fire up full tilt, and even heavy drinking, none of which have really worked to get me playing my best poker. But then out of the blue it hit me at some point after work on Tuesday -- my shirt was obviously the problem! I changed things up, throwing on my too-small ESPN Radio shirt that I won when I won a New York Jets prize package off the radio (1050 am ESPN Radio New York) a few years ago that also won me tickets to see that year's opening-day Thursday night game between the Jets and the hated Washington Redskins.

And you know what? I played better on Tuesday right from the getgo, no doubt about it. I was typing in less smack talk in the chat after horrible plays by my opponents than I had been for days, and more importantly, I was playing good poker again. I consciously recognized myself not calling allins with marginal hands where I know over the past few days I had been instacalling and just hoping for the best. It's so hard to recognize every time your game has gotten a little off kilter, at least for me it is, but I always make a concerted effort to do that and I have had a lot of success at this game overall in always keeping as keen of an eye as I can on my own game and the decisions I am making at the tables. So I played better, and the results were excellent as I won outright three of the four sngs I participated in on the night. Sure I gave some of that back by being sucked out on and setup-eliminated from both the 50-50 and the 28k on the night, but that's ok. Overall it was a good day results-wise, but much more importantly, a good day from a decision-making perspective, which for me is really the only important thing there is. The results may be good or bad on any given day, but if I'm playing well, and playing this game to win as opposed to playing it on tilt, then over time my results will take care of themselves as the short term turns into the medium- and long term.

It's funny too, because I am so not a superstitious guy. At all. I don't have a lucky charm and I don't believe in walking under ladders or breaking mirrors or any of that stuff having any effect at all on luck. In fact normally I laugh at people who believe in those things, I really do. Just like I laugh at all these donkeys who "find God" once they're on death row after brutally beating and murdering 25 children. That said, sometimes when I'm on a protracted downswing in my poker game -- something which happens to all of us, very much including the best poker players out there -- I will try just about anything to get me back on my game. Believe me, it's not that I actually believe my ESPN Radio shirt will bring me good luck. It wasn't luck I was looking for at all over these past several nights in the first place anyways -- rather, what I've been searching for is a way to get back on my game. Something. Anything that could help just to shake things up, and change my perspective from the way I've been playing, the unneccesary pushes and the ill-advised calls I've been making, and back to the way I know will lead to profitable decisions and, ultimately, profitable play. And for me on Tuesday night, finally, changing shirts was the thing to do it. So Boooo to Hudson, New York, and yay to ESPN. I want to thank Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic on the ESPN Radio "Mike & Mike in the Morning" radio show for first alerting me to this Jets contest back in 2004, and to Michael Kay in the evenings for picking my name out of a hat from among 20-something winners to win the grand prize of the NY Jets package. Without you guys, I would have probably donked out of another 5 sng's last night. Instead I get to write a pompous and confident post for the first time in a few days. Thanks, guys, from my heart.

Speaking of pompous and confident, I just have to share some amazing news that I received on Tuesday afternoon as well. This is the first time I've gotten to experience anything like this feeling, and I have got to say -- it's at least as good as everyone says it is who has kids. My oldest daughter, M, just turned 4 this week. About a month or two so, at the ripe old age of 3 years old, we took my daughter to a psychologist to get an IQ test. Now, if you have a brain on your phucking head you're probably thinking, "Whaaaaa? What kind of a sick fuck IQ tests their child at 3 years old?" And let me tell you, this is a very good question. But there is also a very good answer -- anyone in all of New York City who wants their child to have the option to go to any of the gifted & talented public schools in the city. Every one. Period. To me this is and will always be one of the sickest fuckest things about living and raising a family in this city, but it is what it is and, unless Hammer Wife and I are prepared to shell out 30k a year for our barely-old-enough-to-use-the-toilet daughter (and then another 30k a year for K, starting in a couple of years) to go to private school, the g&t public schools are simply the best option for us. Really, the only option other than moving out of the city within the next couple of years. So we had to take her in to get her ghey little 3-year-old IQ test. And yesterday we got back the results.

99th percentile!!!!! I mean, this chick got the best possible score on the thing. She is awesome. For the first time in my life on Tuesday, I got my first taste of that feeling of why some parents are always bragging about their kids and how smart, how accomplished, how whatever they are. Because of course I give M most of the credit for how great she performed on test day, and how smart she is and driven she is to be the best at everything, even at this young age. But you know what? There is no doubt that Hammer Wife gets a lot of credit as well for all the incredible work and time she puts in with these kids. I credit their school as well, no doubt, and I'm sure that her teachers will be beaming with pride themselves when they hear the news. But I know my wife, and I know how awesome she must feel knowing that she has contributed significantly to what is now the first real proof of success and intelligence that we have ever had the opportunity to get about either of our kids. And myself, at the very least I've contributed the genes to these kids to enable them to grow up smart, testing well and hopefully succeeding at whatever they do. Even though I can be as much of a pompous pain in the ass at home as I come off usually on the blog, on Tuesday for the first time I know that Hammer Wife got a nice piece of incontrovertible proof of why it was a good move for her to have chosen to settle down with me. I may be a tremendous pain in the anus, but I've always known I would make me some smart offspring. I've spent a ton of time working with both of my girls on having the right attitude about school, about practicing their memories and about learning to read and talk and write, etc., and to see it all pay off like this with a Hoy-level domination of an IQ test by my 3 year old daughter is the coolest fucking thing in the world. I realized this week that I really am going to be just another one of those fucking annoying parents constantly crowing about all of my childrens' accomplishments. Deal with it.

Now, moving on to some tangentially poker-related items, I have to give a shout-out here to some of the funniest shiat I've seen in a while in any poker blog. Julius Goat, whom I have often stated here is clearly one of the wittiest and overall best writers among our group, has been busting out some awesome poker limericks over the past few days. Go on over to his blog and take a peek, this shit is some high quality stuff no doubt. If only I could write like this, I would have a fucking book of poker limericks, one for each one of the bloggers and probably one for each of the professionals on tv as well. It would be a New York Times bestseller and I would have retired by now from the grind and the rat race and would spend my days frittering away my countless mobneys at the nlh and plo cash tables on full tilt. But instead, I have no wit and no writing skills at all, so I'm left to prattling on and on about my kids and profiling hands that I misplayed throughout and getting lambasted for it repeatedly in the comments here. But Goat has done it right, and these limericks are really funny shit. Even funnier though I think is Goat's poker haiku, really a series of haikus, from an earlier post this week. Go read that shit, I dare you not to crack up.

I also wanted to make a quick pimp for tonight, which is as always the Mookie at 10pm ET on full tilt (password as always is "vegas1"). I am already registered and I think I saw more than 10 of my fake internet friends in there as well, which is good because the Mookie is the shiznit. And it's the shiznit that I can never win. But tonight I am all but assured of lasting through the first hour or so. How can I be so sure? It's simple -- I won't be there! Hammer Wife is taking me out for a belated birthday dinner to Peter Lugar's, allegedly the best steak place in New York City. I'll be the judge of that of course, but after nearly seven years living in the city, it really is a crime that a cow lover like me has not yet been to the best of the best of steakhouses in New York. Well, tonight that all changes, and I can't wait. But it will cause me to miss the first hour or so of the Mookie. Normally that might really bother me since it will make it practically impossible for me to compete in tonight's BBTwo blonkament. But, when you've accepted your complete inability to win one of these things no matter how well you play or how far you get or how close you are to winning like I have, things like giving up all chance to win take on literally zero meaning. So I'm just going to roll with it, outlast half the field before I even sit down, and join in some time around 11ish with 1000 chips. It's more chips than I would have had if I played in this thing anyways, so what's the difference, right? Let's be honest -- missing the first hour probably increases my chances of survival, not decreases them. And do not forget to tune in tonight to Buddy Dank radio, which will be broadcasting live from The King's house along with special radio guests KOD, Miami Don and LJ. I guess it remains to be seen what kind of a radio personality LJ turns out to be, but Chad and Don have already proven themselves to each be the best of the best as far as radio guests on BDR, so tonight should be a great time, especially given what I expect to be a good deal of fuckedupness among that radio crowd live from Las Vegas. I can't wait for that, although again I'll be missing the first hour or so. But there is absolutely no reason why you should not tune in to BDR prior to the 10pm ET start of the Mookie -- Buddy has good directions on his blog for how to tune in to his stellar radio program. If you've been waiting for your first time to check out what all the hubbub is about with Buddy Dank Radio, then make tonight that night -- I predict it is not one that you want to miss.

OK before I end today I wanted to close out the hand I've been profiling this week. To recap, utg+2 minraised the 500 big blind to 1000 chips preflop, and I smooth called next from middle position with T9s. The next player to my left also called the 1000, and everyone else folded. The flop came down QT9 rainbow, giving me bottom two pairs, and when the utg+2 player checked on this flop, I bet out 2600 chips into the 4200-chip pot, representing a bet of around a third of my less than half the average stack. The player on my left surprisingly minraised my bet to 5200 chips, and then to further complicate things, the utg+2 player went and called the 5200-chip minraise after having led off the flop betting with his check. Here is what the situation looked like:



I was interested to see that the comments to yesterday's post seemed somewhat evenly split between people saying I should push, and people saying I should fold. I still don't know what the "right" answer is. I mean, obviously calling here is out of the question, as basically all the commenters agreed with. No reason to leave myself with a tiny stack left when I have flopped two pairs on a scary board, and I have a short stack to begin with. So the real option is between pushing or folding.

I'll be honest with you guys -- I tried hard to find a fold here. My reaction to the action after my bet on the flop was that I was quite possibly behind, and certainly facing a lot of outs. But I wasn't so sure. This is the 28k after all, and there's a reason that Chad became the "King of Donks" for final tabling this tournament 25 times in a month -- the play in this thing, more or less all the way through, is utter and complete shit. These people are horrible for the most part. Now, that doesn't mean that even horrible players never pick up a strong hand or flop strong to their hole cards. But at the same time, the combination of my short stack and my flopped two pairs, including possible outs to a boat, weighed heavily in my mind. And of course the fact that I know the 28k donkeys are horrible, horrible poker players for the most part.

Let's talk about my reads here. I like the read from many of the commenters that the guy on my right was likely on an overpair. He had minraised from utg+2 preflop, which could easily be AA or, more likely, KK, and KK seemed to me to be a likely holding for his entire actions so far in the hand, including having the overpair and the inside straight draw to check-call the bet and minraise on the flop. The guy on my left, of course, was the bigger concern. He had just minraised my flop bet into a growing pot, a move that had to be seen as scary at the least. But I also noticed he was on a big stack, much larger than either myself or the guy on my right, and that made it possible that he wasn't quite that strong and was just trying to get both of me and the guy on the right to fold for relatively cheap. Again, if he had been on a short stack, then a minraise like this would be more or less screaming out that he had a set or a straight, but with the big stack this move could mean more than just a monster hand on this flop. Personally, although KJ was possible I just don't really put a guy who called a preflop minraise with still four players left to act on KJ. Even sooooted. The bigger concern for me was a flopped set. But in the end, with me having T9 in my hand, lefty having TT or 99 was unlikely. Possible yes, not certainly not likely. QQ was certainly possible given his flop minraise, but I guess I don't see him just calling the two minraises preflop with pocket Queens, especially given the likelihood that the minraisers and the minraise-caller are on some kind of Aces and/or Kings.

So the set possibilities for the guy on my left just didn't scare me that much, and the two pair possibilities were somewhat limited, and the KJ is just such a bad call of a minraise and a minraise-caller preflop, and my stack was so short at this point, and the buyin was just so low to this tournament, that all of these things together convinced me to get in there and play for what I had planned all along with my smallish bet on the flop. As Astin pointed out in the comments yesterday, my whole point in betting out with my short stack on this flop was to get someone's entire stack. Now clearly I was going to get it, and even though it was clear that I could be behind or even hopelessly behind, the math of the situation made most of the hands I feared most somewhat unlikely, and the preflop play made the rest of those hands (i.e., KJ or J8) even less likely. So I pushed for the rest of my chips, very much aware that I could be behind, and totally willing to lose my $26 buyin with my current short stack if I was in fact beaten:



Notice btw that there was basically no chance of anyone folding at this point, with over 22,000 chips in the pot and it being only another 2500 chips maximum for both opponents to see the river since the guy on my right only had another 2639 chips remaining at this point. So I know I'm taking my bottom two pairs to the river here on a scary board. A questionable decision no doubt, but one which I explained above and which I am comfortable with making given the reasoning I just provided.

Just to make the screenshotting a little more interesting, and the suspense a little stronger, the fool on my right did not raise allin, opting to just call the extra 2500 and change, and leaving himself just 65 measly chips in his stack to see the river card. This was irrelevant of course in the overall scheme of things with this hand, but it did increase the suspense because (1) both opponents' hole cards remained hidden, and (2) this fuck-shitty turn card fell:



Holy shit was I pissed off. Now AK, A8, KQ, QJ, QT, Q9, Q8, JT, J9, 98 and JJ all just moved ahead of me with this card, just about the worst possible thing that could have happened. Whatever brilliance there might have been with my flop play here -- a dubious proposition already -- was gone in a puff of smoke, and I just had to watch the bullshit and know I was drawing to basically a few outs, at best, with just one card to come. I think I typed in some pissed off comment in the chat about that turn card, and then I watched the ultimate raggy 2♥ hit the river.

Now, to change things up a little bit from the way I usually present the conclusions to the hands I profile, I will tell you here that I won this hand, and I took down a monster pot. Knowing that information, anybody want to guess what each player held in the hand to have played them in this way? I'll leave some space here below while you take your guesses, and then you can scroll down to see the carnage for yourselves (and I'll give you a hint -- neither one of them even had AQ!):























Wow. Two fucking raging jackaces. So lefty not only called but minraised me into a large pot on this scary board with just the OESD and an Ace kicker. Wow. And righty, at least he was short stacked like me, but he got it allin on that flop after checking his OESD plus Ace kicker, seeing a bet and then a minraise for almost ihs entire stack, and yet he still smooth called those two bets and then also called allin when I re-reraised allin myself. That is some shitty ass-smelly poker right there, but absolutely fully typical of the 28k on a nightly basis. And the fact that I outlasted not one but two jackaces in this hand is still amazing to me, even now a week later as I review the screenshots one final time. I think a lot of the decisions I made in this hand were questionable, although I don't think any of them were wrong and as I review it all I am pretty sure I would play this hand exactly the same way today.

And don't worry -- I still didn't cash in the 28k this night. First I got sucked out on in a huge pot when a clown hit a 2-outer at the river to crush me when I was about to move into the top 20 with less than 200 players left, and then within one or two hands later, I moved allin with pocket 9s or Tens, got called by the jackace and of course could not beat that hand again on the night. But hopefully you guys enjoyed this hand and benefited from thinking about the best way for me to play it, as well as from analzying my opponents' play and trying to put them on a hand as well.

See you tonight, late, for the Mookie and on Buddy Dank Radio!!