In Poker, So Hot and Yet So, So Cold

Ever wonder why I tend to get kind of short when people talk about how "bad they run"? Why I openly chuckle when I read about someone quitting poker because of how bad they got screwed...in the Mookie last night? Or why I don't have the pitying reaction you're looking for when I read your story about your brutal loss in the first hour of that 1500-person mtt you like to run on occasion?

This weekend of online poker for me had all the answers and then some. I should start by saying that I played some of the best poker of my entire life over the past four nights (I was home from work on Friday, so this was like a four-day weekend for me in terms of being able to stay up late and make some deep runs without having to worry about being up at the crack of dawn to get to the office). But while playing a bunch of really awesome tournament poker enabled me to make deep run after deep run over the weekend -- some of it in some pretty damn big tournaments -- something always seemed to just get in the way to prevent me from making the real big money on the weekend. And the stuff that "just got in the way" this weekend was enough to make most of you yak in your shoes, especially when you consider how much actual cash money I left on the table over the past few days.

So here was this weekend in a nutshell for me.

On Thursday night, I didn't do much in a few of the other tournaments I played, but I made an awesome run in the nightly 25k guaranteed sniper (bounty) on UB. After nearly five hours of play, I'm in 6th place out of 17 remaining. I've spent hours building up a solid image and playing absolutely, positively mistake-free tournament poker to get to this point, and I find JJ in mid-late position and open-raise it up preflop. The guy to my immediate left calls, who had played fairly tight over the past couple of hours at the table with me and the flop comes the almost best possible flop I could imagine:



I mean, sure, everyone wants to flop top set, but when you think about it, when you're this close to the final table and are looking to build an insurmountable stack, and your preflop raise without an Ace gets called, you're almost rather looking to flop second set with an Ace on board so you can feel confident you're going to get paid off by someone holding a big Ace of some kind. I had played with this guy for hours and I was quite sure he does not just call my preflop raise with pocket Aces, so needless to say I was thrilled with my situation there on the flop, and I could begin to smell the 6k+ first prize as I prepared my bet on the flop. I bet around half the flop, wanting to seem a little weak and encourage a raise from a guy with an Ace, and was overjoyed when the guy pushed allin on me without even a moment's deliberation:



Of course I can't fall over myself fast enough to call, and my opponent flips up QTd -- not even an Ace -- for a Queen-high flush draw and an inside straight draw to boot. With my set on the flop, plus all the redraws to a boat even if my opponent makes his straight of flush, I am a 66% favorite here, or 2-1 to amass a monstrous stack and be comfortably in second place of the 17 runners remaining. But then check out the turn (and the river!):



He made his 2-to-1 shot on the turn, and then made it again on the river for good measure, and of course no resuck for me. First prize in this tournament was a little over 6k. I bust in 17th place for a paltry $420 instead after playing absolutely perfect poker and flopping a set on pretty much the most favorable flop for me that I could realistically have imagined.

Moving on to Friday, I should mention that I finished in 22nd out of 1227 players in that same nightly 30k guaranteed tournament on pokerstars that I took 2nd place and 1st place in earlier this month:



My exit here wasn't bad, really. After losing a big race with 77 vs AQ, I was in 18th place out of 22 left when I obviously open-pushed allin with A8o from the hijack, and the cutoff woke up with AK. IGH in 22nd place -- netting under $100 cash in the process as opposed to the first prize of around 6k -- but at least it wasn't a suckout or bad beat that did me in.

Unfortunately, I can't say that about the rest of my weekend's big eliminations.

Also on Friday, I busted from the nightly $75 buyin, 7pm ET 40k guaranteed tournament on full tilt in 26th place, my second-deepest ever run in this tournament, and this one was another of those eliminations that I just cannot deal with very easily. A middle position player who's been highly aggro for hours open-raises it up preflop, and I call from late position holding pocket 7s, feeling pretty confident based on this guy's history that I am ahead here of what is likely a couple of big calls. The flop comes T88, and my opponent insta-pushes allin for the rest of his stack without waiting even half a second after seeing the flop hit the felt, the classic sign that a donkey has missed the flop with two overs, and I think for just a few seconds before calling him down, and I am shown AQ unimproved. I'm in line to have a top-3 stack with fewer than three tables left, but no sooner can I begin to enjoy having outplayed another guy in a huge spot in a big tournament, that the turn comes a Queen:



First prize in this one was around 10k. I bust in 26th place for $220. Who knows how much more Tournament EV I left on the table there, but with a 3rd-place stack and 25 players left, several thousand was entirely likely for me, a heck of a lot better than a measly $220 for my efforts.

Also on Friday night -- a "great" night of poker for me that featured three really deep runs in the same evening -- was UBOC Event #12, the $150 buyin, 75k guaranteed sniper tournament that is right up my alley. I absolutely crushed in this one, taking advantage of two AA's and a KK during the second hour of play to build up a massive stack early, after which I coasted for a good couple of hours before taking advantage of countless Harringbots on my way to another deep run in UB's annual poker tournament championship series. I made so many great plays in this thing, never missing a read and always keeping my aggro in check despite being in the top 10 in chips pretty much from early in the second hour all the way to the 7th hour. I managed to bust 16 people along the way, which I know because you get one of those little bounty windows (and a $15 bounty prize) with every elimination in these sniper events on UB, and I was an absolute terrorist from start to finish through the field of 573 runners who came out to play UBOC #12.

Unfortunately, "finish" for me in this ended up being in 15th place, when I held a 4th place stack and ran KK into the 5th place stack's AA:



KK into AA, with less than two full tables left in one of the annual majors on UB. It is just so sick, especially since I didn't even reraise allin preflop with my Kings, opting instead to wait to see if an Ace fell to give me a way to get off the hand, but the Q22 flop did me no good as it it just about the least scary flop imaginable for a guy holding KK. But alas, this one was in the cards (pun intended) from literally seven hours earlier, and IGH two hands later in 15th place with just $570 to show for my efforts, plus of course the sixteen $15 bounties I picked up along the way. First prize in this tournament was 18k, and I had been in 4th place of 15 left, and was dealt KK to boot. From 18k to $571, with one flip of the cards. In light of all the other stupidity I ran into late in mtt's this weekend, this KK into AA might have been the biggest sickness of them all.

Not to be outdone, on Saturday night I final tabled full tilt's nightly $26, 8pm ET 35k guaranteed tourney for the second time this month, powering my way through more than 1200 runners despite having nothing going on for the first two hours in the event. So we're down to 8 runners left, with me in 6th place of those 8 remaining. The tournament short stack raises the 24k big blind to 72k from early position, and I push my own short stack of 390k allin from the big blind with pocket 7s. I am of course instacalled by AQs. The flop is clean, and the turn is cleaner, and I am just one card away from sitting solidly in 2nd place of 7 remaining in the 35k:



And then, putting a delicious capper on a weekend that was so hot, and yet so, so cold on the virtual felt:



Seven hands later, I'm out in 8th place, for a wonderful consolation prize of $761. Now, 29 buyins is 29 buyins to be sure. But, first prize in this tournament was $8800, and I was one card away from a 2nd-place stack with 7 players remaining. From $8800 to $761, it's hard for me to feel anything but queasy about it even when I re-read this a couple of days later.

I played consistently the best poker I've played over a whole weekend in my entire poker-playing life over the past few days. And while I probably netted around 2k overall over the period, realistically I've got to guess I left what, 15 to 20k in Tournament EV on the table in very real terms over the entire weekend.

So forgive me if I don't necessarily share your opinion that you "run so bad" because of how that $10 90-person sitngo ended for you the other night.

Thinking Happy Thoughts

I was going to start today by saying that I don't even know where to begin, but to be honest, I've already been starting off like that for at least a week or so, and the shit I've endured and seen over the past several days in the poker world has only gotten worse. I don't even know where to begin beginning anymore. I've already given up ever winning a BBTwo tournament, I've already lost every which way imaginable in the FTOPS, and I already can't stop myself from losing to instacalls by utter donkeys, even with completely shitty hands that are significantly behind my own. The depths to which my frustration and outright anger about this game have sunk are without a doubt at an all-time low, and I don't even need to say stoopid things about what I'm going to do or not do about it anymore. I am at a total and complete loss. I know reading this blog has been like reading a depressed, angry mental patient's memoirs over the past few weeks, and let me tell you right now: it's only going to get worse. If you haven't enjoyed reading recently any more than I've enjoyed writing and (believe me) living through this shit, then stop now.

I guess first let me update you on what's happened since I posted here last. On Friday was FTOPS #12 in limit holdem. I dominated that tournament, tremendously. As with just about every other FTOPS tournament I played in (more on that later), I made it well through half the field and had more than twice the average stack about 3 1/2 hours in. Then, in the span of 15 minutes, it was river suckout, river suckout, and then when short-stacked, run TPTK into pocket Aces, and I was done. Just like that. I'd love to say I messed something up in there, but there's no way you could play it any differently than I played any of those three hands that is anything but -EV as compared to what I did. I was ahead, I knew I was ahead, and then I got riversucked for a straight and for trips, and then of course there was the pocket Aces. In fact, at the same time on Friday night I played in the donkament, and wouldn't ya know it I got busted with TPTK vs. pocket Aces there too, the fourth fucking time I ran into pocket Aces in just that tournament alone, and I'm talking about just probably 90 minutes of play.

On Saturday night I sat down to play my one and only satellite into the FTOPS ME. It was one of those $100 buyin satellites, it had 74 players and I believe paid 14 spots into the ME. I dominated. It was ugly what I did to people. Again and again. I was in 1st place when we reached the 14 money spots, and I ended up winning it outright just for good measure. I played in the ME on Sunday evening at 6pm ET, and I quickly doubled up against a complete tool when I flopped a set of 8s on a Queen-high flop, and this jackass paid me off his entire stack with me betting or even raising on every single street when he had just KQ. Good stuff. Anyways I ran through this thing playing very, very well, and spent most of the first 3 1/2 hours of the tournament at around 15k, three times the starting "superstack" of 5k. Then this fun hand went down against the table chip leader:

FullTiltPoker Game #4222309179: FTOPS Main Event (30641981), Table 162 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:40:27 ET - 2007/11/18
Seat 1: EroEza (9,012)
Seat 2: Hockeystud94 (17,050)
Seat 3: tilteymcfish (13,290)
Seat 4: BrandonPL (10,053)
Seat 5: The-Toilet 0 (11,843)
Seat 6: iranewport (19,630)
Seat 7: hoyazo (17,677)
Seat 8: 2raven (39,611)
Seat 9: pcon23 (25,483)
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hoyazo [Ad Ac]
*Action folds around to me in the cutoff.
hoyazo raises to 1,640
2raven calls 1,640
*Everyone else folds, so we see a heads-up flop:
*** FLOP *** [9s 3c 2s]
hoyazo bets 3,400
2raven calls 3,400
*** TURN *** [9s 3c 2s] [3s]
hoyazo checks
2raven bets 8,000
hoyazo raises to 12,587, and is all in
2raven calls 4,587
hoyazo shows [Ad Ac]
2raven shows [6h 6s]
*** RIVER *** [9s 3c 2s 3s] [8s]
hoyazo shows two pair, Aces and Threes
2raven shows a flush, Nine high
2raven wins the pot (36,304) with a flush, Nine high
hoyazo stands up

I do have the screenshots of this entire hand but I just can't stand looking at these piles of dogshit anymore. I really can't. All I know is, this is just the latest in a long long string of examples where I show the patience to wait until after the fucking turn card before getting allin, and still get megafucked. I mean, it's not like I slow-played pocket Aces to see a river, which is just about the fucking stoopidest thing anyone with AA can ever do in holdem (and yet I see it all the time). I raised my standard amount preflop from the cutoff when I was sure I was ahead, and the table chip leader called me from the blinds. I bet out my standard amount on the flop -- a little more than 2/3 of the 4300-chip pot -- when I was again sure I was ahead, and it was the raggiest flop you could imagine. Dinkhead table chip leader calls me out of the blinds. Now with about 12k in the pot, I check to the guy I am manipiulating like clay, and he bets out 8k into the 12k pot. I could not possibly be any happier of course, and I insta-push for my last 4500 or so on top. Now at this point it's 4k for him to call into a pot that is around 28k, so I can't kill him for not folding here. I thought for sure he would call, and I was dancing in my room knowing that he probably would. If you think I wanted him to fold here, then you're nuts. I'll take that last 4500 chips from him, why the F not! All I know is, I bet standard preflop, and I bet standard on the flop, and then I checkraised allin on the turn. So that ain't slowplaying AA. That's what we in the business call kicking the crap out of the table big stack and doubling up with AA by playing it perfectly. Beyond perfectly. He made a horrible play, but I can't blame him. I've yet to meet the person who doesn't double me up with the way I played that hand. It's not possible. I was just that good.

Then the river completes his 11-outer 24% shot, that he could not possibly think was anything more than a 2-outer btw, and IGH in 1331st place out of 4371 runners. I was one card away from being back in the top 100 in chips, and suddenly the fonkey who has lucksacked (obviously) his way into the table big stack knocks me out by playing so unmitigatingly poorly that the full tilt rng just has to reward him. What the flock can I do better than this? Like I said, if I slowplayed those Aces on any street, maybe you could question me. But I bet preflop, I bet the flop and I checkraised allin on the turn. It was perfect. Perfect doesn't even begin to describe it. I effed the guy and then full tilt effed me. Story of my life on full tilt poker dot comsucker.

I also played the Big Game on Sunday night, the latest BBTwo tournament, and I played well in that too, getting out to a decent win early on and then maintaining my stack above the 5000-chip starting stack from beginning to end of the tournament. Unfortunately, that end was about 90 minutes in, in 30-somethingth place, on one of the worst setup hands I have endured in some time:

FullTiltPoker Game #4223382025: Blogger Big Game (31592875), Table 4 - 150/300 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:17:40 ET - 2007/11/18
Seat 1: DonkeyPuncher74 (6,552)
Seat 2: Kajagugu (7,330)
Seat 3: irongirl01 (2,165)
Seat 4: HighOnPoker (10,935)
Seat 5: cmitch (15,361)
Seat 6: hoyazo (11,590)
Seat 7: OtisDart (14,472)
Seat 9: twoblackaces (4,270)
cmitch posts the small blind of 150
hoyazo posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hoyazo [4c Th]
*Action folds to cmitch in the small blind.
cmitch calls 150
hoyazo checks
*** FLOP *** [8s Qh Tc]
cmitch checks
hoyazo bets 600
cmitch calls 600 So here I bet the flop with my second pair in the blind vs blind battle. I figured going in my Ten was most likely ahead, but when cmitch, a known tighty, called that bet, I figured maybe he happens to have a Queen. But don't worry, that's not the setup part of the hand. No way I'm going broke with 2nd pair 4 kicker, even in a blind vs. blind confrontation. Not a chance in hell.
*** TURN *** [8s Qh Tc] [Td]
cmitch bets 900
hoyazo calls 900 Now look at me. I'm so evil. First I bet out with 2nd pair, got called and put cmitch on a Queen, two pairs, something like that after he called me. Now I've turned trips and I have mitch exactly where I want him. What's more, this time he leads out against me. After I led out on the flop and he called. It's obvious he has a Queen or something similar at this point. So what do I do? I just call that bet. Like I said, I'm evil what can I say?
*** RIVER *** [8s Qh Tc Td] [6s]
cmitch bets 2,400
hoyazo has 15 seconds left to act
hoyazo raises to 9,765, and is all in
cmitch has 15 seconds left to act
cmitch: man - horrible freaking turn card
cmitch has requested TIME
cmitch: yuk
cmitch: yuk
hoyazo: youre calling
hoyazo: i can tell
hoyazo: you dont believe
cmitch: u have a boat
cmitch: ?
cmitch calls 7,365
hoyazo: no i dont even have a car Great example of the humorous chat you always get from me in any tournament, even if you're too out of it to recognize my stellar play like most of you fuggerz.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
hoyazo shows [4c Th] three of a kind, Tens
cmitch shows [Js 9h] a straight, Queen high
cmitch wins the pot (23,330) with a straight, Queen high
hoyazo stands up

Now how do you not love that? So cmitch flopped a straight with J9o out of the small blind. So what if that hasn't happened for me in approximately the last seven years? I can live with that. It's the Ten on the turn that made this hand into the monstrous setup that it was. There is no way I can possibly think I'm behind in this hand once I trip up on the turn, even with my shit kicker. Anyone out there who doesn't go broke here? Then you're a fucking idiot. So there.

I guess without getting into the details, let me just say that I watched a lot, a lot, of absolutely horrible poker this weekend, basically seeing it repeatedly get rewarded in sick, disgusting and truly unbelievable ways. Some of this happened against me, and some of it was just things I saw from the rail. People with clearly no clue of how tournament poker works. People who obviously just wanted to go home. People who were so tilted that they had decided they were going allin before the hand even started regardless of what they were dealt or the action ahead of them. Again and again and again it got rewarded this weekend. There are not even words to describe the shit I saw. And yet all I did was get sucked out on 14 times over the weekend, with exactly, precisely zero suckouts in my favor over the same timespan. Think about it, you guys who played the donkament and the Big Game with me and/or who railed me in the FTOPS ME -- not one of you fonks saw me suck out on anyone even once. 14 suckouts against, zero suckouts for, over a good 10 or 15 hours of poker. Think about that, for real. Can any of you even really imagine what that must feel like? How the fuck do I still have a bankroll on full tilt? Seriously.

Btw congratulations to VinNay for winning the next BBTwo Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions seat in the Big Game on Sunday. And congrats to jeciimd for his second place finish in the Big Game, following up on his Big Game victory from last month. That guy is on such a roll right now. Seriously guys, I do not understand why you people who run good all the time do not play the big tournaments all the time. How do you not? With the way I saw some people running this weekend -- again and again and afuckingain -- how can you not be finding the money to play in the biggest tournaments? I just don't understand. If I ran like that -- or if I even just didn't run horribly at all times every second of every minute of every day of every week of every month of every year of every decade of every century of every milennium -- you could not keep me away from the big weekly Sunday tournaments on full tilt and the similar shit on fuckerstars. You couldn't pay me not to play in them. I would play poker professionally and I would probably make 10-20 grand a day playing tournaments.

But instead I am perpetually cursed to get in ahead and finish up behind. How the fuck do I still even have a roll on full tilt? I honestly cannot explain it. With the sickass luckboxes I play against regularly, these people who don't even care to learn anything about poker or to better their sorrowfully flawed play and prefer instead to just keep making the same mistakes over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, I just can't understand it and I am having an incredibly difficuilt time right now even dealing with it all, just taking it all in. You know, there are plenty -- believe me -- of bad poker players among our group of ghey bloggers. But even some of the bad ones are obviously trying to better themselves, trying to figure out what goes wrong and striving to get better. And I respect that. Those people have a little bit of me in them. Sure, they haven't spent the last five years reading every single poker book ever put out onto the market and constantly practicing what they're reading and consistently focusing on their game, their mistakes and on improving their decision-making. But even some of the poor players you can just tell are trying to get better, even if only in their own ways. It's the people who just make no effort whatsoever to improve that are getting to me lately. I don't know. I am more down on poker right now for sure than I've been at any time since starting this blog. I may need to go back and read through my archives from 600 posts ago and see how true that really is. I remember getting sucked out on to bust out of I think 15 or 16 consecutive tournaments on fuckerstars. But I left that site long ago and it's been much better since then. I can honestly say I'll never go back to dickwadstars, because I think the site sucks and I hope it licks my balls. This is as low as it gets for me. At least I hope it can't get any lower than this.

OK after that positive spin on things, tonight is the latest fucking BBTwo tournament -- Fucking Mondays at the Shiteating Hoy.



FMATSH goes off tonight at 10pm ET as always on full fucking fucktilt. Password as always is "hammer". Tonight as I've mentioned previously will be turbo 6-max holdem. If you don't like that format, then please take your shitty titty poker game and fuck off. And in case you're wondering, I meant what I said last week when I said I had given up on doing well in these fonkfests. I'll tell you shitheads what I'm going to do tonight -- I am going to suck out on someone. Bad. At least I'm going to try. I saw so many people win so many huge hands this weekend by calling huge preflop allins with big stacks and pocket 4s, by instapushing in huge massive overbets with 95o and getting called by strong hands, that tonight my only goal in life is to play like a fucking monkey without a clue about tournament poker and ruin somebody's night. That's what I've been reduced to. You fuckers think you're the only ones who can act like shitcocks and consistently get away with it? Well you're right -- obviously I will get donked early whenever I try to play the exact opposite of smart tournament poker like I described above and suck out on someone else. But I'm going to try anyways. For the FMATSH's $26 buyin tonight, all I want to do is ruin someone's else night. Destroy their chance at making the BBTwo ToC freeroll, and crush their dreams of going to Australia to donk themselves out of a real poker tournament in the first hour or two because that anushead hasn't got the first fucking clue how to play this game and not a bone in their body is interested in trying to improve. All you assholes who sit around and rely on refuckulous luck and idiotic play to win a buck or two once in a long, long while, watch out tonight. I'm not even going to think about trying to win, cash, make the points, or even survive at all in the MATH tonight. Tonight is all about trying my damnedest to do to some of you little shits what's been done to me and what I've seen you do to others for farrrrr too long.

Tonight I am coming for you. Be there at 10pm ET on fuck tilt "poker".