Playin' High

Although that could also apply to some portion of the poker I've played in my day, the title of this post actually does not refer to my mental state when I'm playing this game lately. No, instead, it refers to something I think I figured out about myself and my poker play at some point on Thursday evening.

I've been playing too high lately.

It's not a financial wherewithal thing. What I mean is, I've never even considered playing poker at levels that would actually have a demonstrable effect on my financial condition. I know some people do that, in fact I know plenty of people who kind of rely on doing that just to get that "rush" to satisfy their gamblor urge, but personally that could never be me. Gambling of any kind would immediately cease to be enjoyable for me whatsoever if I knew that losing in a particular game would mean actual financial pain to me. I don't mind pushing the limit and moving up or even taking a stab a little higher than I might otherwise have been playing of late, getting out of my comfort zone, yaddayaddayadda, but never ever close to the point where I would have any semblance of a financial issue if I lost. You'll never find me playing at that level, it would not fill any kind of a need in me, and in fact I would seriously hate it. I'm shuddering here just thinking about playing that way. So it's not like I've been risking my family's financial situation or anything resembling that of late with my poker play.

That said, I'm not totally blind to the amounts I'm playing for either. And lately, I think I've been playing a bit too high.

As I mentioned yesterday, recently I've been going through another one of those rippingly horrible streaks of luck. I could not begin to count the number of suckouts I have taken lately at the tables. Probably more than 100,000 per week if I had to count them all up. It's been disgusting, it's happened before, and it'll happen again. And again. And again. It's just something I've always had to deal with. I get in ahead when the money goes in a lot, and the inevitable result is that, while I win a lot as well, I lose in that situation more than you could probably imagine, and more than many people could handle. Even me it seems, as the past couple of weeks have seen me flipping out in the chatbox at random dickheads at an alarming rate. I mean, I just haven't been able to keep my mouth shut after taking my fifth or sixth 80% hand for a suckout-elimination midway through an mtt in the span of an hour after some nutmonkey just had to call my allin reraise for 10 times his preflop raise with his 22 and then runner-runners the wheel to beat my pocket Kings. I've called people all kinds of names, I've wished ill on them, I've invented hundreds of new and often highlarious ways of insulting their play. I mean, I haven't just tapped on the glass, guys. I've taken a sledgehammer to it, shattered it into a million pieces and let the fish pour out all over the floor to flop breathlessly and die like we're watching a "Faith No More" video or something. I'm totally embarrassed about my behavior, and yet at the same time I can totally understand it as well. No matter who you are or how calm or unaffected you think you are, you would have to withstand the string of beats that I have in order to know how you would really react in my situation, and while I am quite sure many of you would not lose your cool as much as I have, I'm equally sure that most of you would lose your cool a heck of a lot more than you think.

Anyways, I've spent more and more time trying to figure out why I keep doing this lately even though I know the suckouts are inevitable and nobody is making me play the game at all let alone play it as much as I do. And the answer, it finally occurred to me yesterday, is the level at which I'm playing. I was thinking it over, and while I haven't exactly been pleased with my nightly donkeyfucking in the $26 buyin 35k guaranteed mtt on full tilt or the $27 25k guaranteed mtt on stars, the bottom line is that those beats simply don't set me off nearly as much as when I get 1-outted in the $100 buyin 1-rebuy 1-addon tournament, and certainly not like when some masturbator monkeypusher button-mashing window-licking assclown dicksniffer sucks out like a little bitch in a $220 heads-up sng as I enjoy playing from time to time. And it occurs to me that it's the money involved that's the difference.

Like I said, none of the amounts I'm playing for are going to bankrupt me or my family, or ultimately have any real financial significance to me at all, and I wouldn't play anywhere near that level under any circumstances. Shit, I go out yearly to the WSOP and drop a couple large on just one poker tournament, and I don't care financially if I lose that one either, so a hundy here and two hundy there really isn't a drop in the bucket in the overall scheme of things, especially after the hugely profitable last several months I've had playing this game. But it has dawned on me this week that losing my buyins at a $200 and $300 per game clip, and getting monkeysucked out on to do it, definitely pisses me the hell off. A whole heck of a lot more than those $26 and $28 suckouts. And I have finally decided to do something about it.

So on Thursday night, I didn't play that 33k guaranteed tournament at 7:30pm ET nightly on full tilt -- the $100 1 rebuy 1 addon event I've been killing lately until the inevitable suckmonkey 20-80's me and then finishes me off by calling my preflop allin with his 76o and 40-60'ing me to send me home. And I didn't play either of the $200 nightly satellites into the $2500 FTOPS tournament coming up on Saturday, a satellite I have had significant success winning in the recent past. I also didn't let myself get talked into playing the $216 stud FTOPS tournament at 9pm ET, even though I am highly confident that I play stud better than pretty much everyone in that tournament given the action I watched go down over and over and over again last night in that event. And I stayed away from the higher-buyin sng's as well, which have probably been the source of my best ability lately to get in hopelessly ahead and yet end up unbelievably behind. Instead I stuck to the $26 and $27.50 buyin mtt's at 8pm ET on full tilt and pokerstars, and the highest I played on the night was the $30 rebuy that I've played so profitably over the past few months on full tilt.

The result? I still got monkeyfucked, so gheyley it's hard to even describe. In the 25k on stars, I busted about two-thirds of the way through the field when I raised preflop with 87s, flopped two pairs, bet and got called, and proceeded to turn a boat which also completed the flush draw that was present on the flop. I strung my intelligent, kind opponent along like the nice little man that he was, got him all in, only to find he held overpair Kings, which was great until a third King hit the river to give this nice, nice man a higher boat courtesy of that 5% shot that I have come to know all too well. I busted early from the 35k on full tilt after chasing two unfoldable straight-flush draws early at good odds and missing them both. And in the $30 rebuy I destroyed the field redonkulously to the point that I was in 3rd place out of 200 some runners at the end of rebuy hour, only to see half of my stack disappear halfway through the starting field when my pocket Queens got called allin preflop by pocket 7s and the cute little guy across the table flopped a set of 7s, a blow I could never recover from as I busted about 50 players from the money. It was a brutal night of poker to say the least, and in reality no different from what's been happening to me almost nightly lately, other than again the level of buyin I was playing at.

But you know what? I didn't wish brutal, painful death on any of my opponents -- in front of other family members or otherwise -- and I'm pretty sure I didn't even swear at anybody in the chatbox at all as I recall. No doubt I couldn't resist commenting on a couple of these people's play in the chatbox -- you gotta give me some time to come back down off the ledge, especially given some of the stuff I saw on the night -- but it wasn't the same that it has been lately for me, and for the most part I didn't do or say anything that most of you out there would not have done either. So I think I learned a good lesson about myself after a couple of weeks of playing higher than my true comfort zone. Just because I know I'm better than the regular caliber of players at a certain level doesn't mean I should automatically play regularly at that level. If my psyche -- for whatever reason -- can't handle the regular swings and in particular the inevitable downswings, suckouts and just general horrifyingly poor play, then my job needs to be to move down to the point where I can.

Guess I'll see you in the $1 mtts on stars tonight!

Serena

For anyone living in a cave or something, up there is Serena Williams officially losing me this weekend, after I have been a big fan of hers for a long time. I mean, I've always loved the Williams sisters, mostly because they can really play the game and they make for great, interesting television, and secretly I've always rooted harder for Serena than for Venus because I too am a younger sibling with an overachieving older brother very close in age to me, so I understand the competitiveness and the spirit burning inside Serena better than most. But somehow, since Serena completely lost it at the US Open this past weekend, all I seem to be hearing is how she got screwed, she was the victim of an unfair foot fault call, and that what she did is wrong but no big deal.

Well it is a big deal, it's a very big deal, and in my view, so far Serena Williams has gotten off very easy compared to what should be happening to her as a result of her little outburst.

Let's start by talking about what got Serena all worked up in the first place. Serena complains that she never gets called for foot faults, but suddenly here in this U.S. Open, she got called for them all the time. Specifically, two points away from losing the U.S. Open semifinals to Kim Clijsters, Serena was called for a foot fault that ended up making her face two match points in a row. And ESPN and the networks have plenty of up close and personal footage where you can easily see that part of Serena's foot does in fact touch the line on the serve when she was called for the fault, so there's no actual doubt about whether or not the call was accurate. Serena's explanation above seems to suggest instead that she thinks she is entitled to foot fault whenever she wants because it is not something that she feels has been consistently called against her this year. To this day Serena only refers to the call as "the unfair foot fault call", even while eventually apologizing to her opponent, her fans and even to the line judge after about two days and making two other press releases first.

Unfair? And how exactly is this call unfair? So let me get this straight: Serena makes a habit of foot-faulting, and some times this year the line judges have not always called it on her. There is a clear rule, the thick white line is there where the players serve for a reason, but Serena I guess just likes to disregard that clear rule of tennis when it suits her. And some people have let her get away with it previously. So now she's automatically entitled to continue getting away with clearly violating one of tennis's main procedural rules? I mean, this isn't necessarily like when people say the refs should swallow the whistle in overtime of a hockey game, or in the final minute of a close NBA game (which I absolutely disagree with as well btw). Many of those calls or debatable whether or not they are violations, and much subjective judgment is involved by definition in making a call like holding or pass interference in the NFL, roughing or intereference in hockey, or a blocking foul in the NBA. In this case, there is a clear white line, there is a lineswoman staring right down the line for the exact purpose of watching the foot faults, and Serena clearly stepped on the line. It's a foot fault -- factually speaking -- and there is no debate about it. So just because Serena has gotten away with doing this before, does that mean she is now entitled to keep breaking that clear rule in the future, even in the biggest spots near the end of the biggest tennis tournaments in the world?

Let me ask it a different way: just because OJ clearly murdered two people and got away with it once, does that now mean that the murder statutes no longer apply to him, and he's allowed to kill whoever he wants for the rest of time? Is that how it works? Obviously not. Some people let Serena break a rule. But the rule still 100% applies to her just like it does to everyone else. Others were called for foot faults during this year's U.S. Open just like Serena was, and it's not like she is even trying to argue that it is only being applied to her and not to others. No, Serena is just objecting to the lineswoman calling a foot fault -- one which Serena was clearly guilty of -- at that key point in a match.

So I guess then that Serena is allowed to break other rules too if the match is on the line? What's next? If Serena is down a break already in the first set, and she hits a ball out of bounds, the referees should allow her to hit the ball into the doubles court of her opponent? Or can she smack a ball two feet long and still expect it to get called In near the end of a match since all those fancy white lines on the court apparently don't apply to her when the match is on the line? Or better yet, why can't Serena just walk right up to the net and serve from there as hard as she can and smash each serve by her opponent? I mean, the foot fault rule isn't supposed to be called in that spot according to Serena, so how do you draw the line at being just one inch over the line, or one foot, or ten feet for that matter, right? Face it -- the foot fault line was enacted to ensure that people do not get the unfair advantage that clearly goes to someone who serves from closer to the net than everybody else. It cuts down the angles, increases the speed of the ball when it gets to the opponent, and makes it that much harder to return a serve as it is served closer and closer to the net. The powers that be in tennis decided that serves must be launched from fully behind the back line, and that any touching of that line by the player's foot before the serve is made is a violation. For good reason. And that's the rule in tennis, period. So to be clear, there is nothing "unfair" about this or any other call made against Serena at the U.S. Open. If anything, her being allowed to foot fault at other matches during this year is what's unfair -- both to Serena, in making her think the rules did not apply to her, and especially to her previous opponents who apparently repeatedly had to deal with someone getting a little bit of an edge on every serve by breaking a clearly established, clearly defined rule of the game.

And now let's clarify exactly what this outburst was. This was not someone slamming her racket on the ground (that was earlier in the match) and yelling out "Shit!" in a loud voice. And this wasn't even someone doing what I call "pulling a McEnroe" and asking how the line judge could be so blind, how could she miss that call, etc. This went far beyond complaining about a bad call. For those who don't read lips and have not heard the story, what Serena turned to the line judge who called that foot fault on her and said was "If I could, I would take this fucking ball and shove it down your fucking throat! Motherfucker!"

Somehow, nobody is talking about this angle, but what Serena did here goes right to the integrity of the game, and that's why it is no small thing even by John McEnroe's standards. Serena repeatedly menacingly shook her racket towards the line judge, and screamed at her about shoving the fucking ball down her fucking throat. This is far beyond complaining about a bad call. This is threatening an official at the game with imminent and detailed physical violence, and that is a huge no-no. In all professional sports.

Let me ask you this: what would you think if Alex Rodriguez came out onto the field in between innings at Yankee Stadium, put his arm around the home plate umpire, and said "Listen, Bruce. If you'll make sure I get something to hit by calling the first two pitches thrown to me next inning balls instead of strikes, I'll give you $10,000 cash money after the game"? Does that sound acceptable to you? Of course it's not acceptable, and it is expressly against the rules to offer anything of value to an umpire that is likely to or designed to -- or which gives the impression that it could -- influence the way he calls the game.

Well it's the same thing in the other direction. What if A-Rod lifted up his shirt showed the umpire a long, sharp bowie knife stuck in his pants pocket, and told the ump that if he didn't call the first two pitches to A-Rod balls instead of strikes, that A-Rod was doing to plunge that blade deep into the umpire's throat? What are your feelings on that? Of course it is not acceptable, and in fact just like the previous example, it's grounds for an immediate suspension to make statements that influence or attempt to influence the officials in this way. I mean, it's one thing to whine about a bad call. You can yell, you can swear, you can complain all you want (within reason). But when it moves to the point of threatening imminent physical violence towards someone for making a call against you, what's the likely result of that going to be? We didn't get to see it here because Serena's blowup immediately cost her match point and the players left the court, but what do you think would have been going through that lineswoman's mind if, say, 10 minutes later, she saw Serena foot fault again in a later play in the match? Would she have made that call just as readily as she made the first one, having just been threatened with imminent bodily harm like that by a clearly very angry and out-of-control Serena Williams? Maybe yes, maybe no. I don't know. But the very fact that we have to wonder about it is exactly what makes Serena's outburst so totally unacceptable, on a very basic and significant level.

The best analog I can recall to what Serena did by threatening serious physical violence against a lineswoman in the US Open is when Rasheed Wallace flipped out at NBA referee Tim Donaghy back in 2003 (in what actually turned out to be one of the many games Donaghy fixed) and actually waited outside by the loading dock for Donaghy to leave the stadium later that night in an attempt to kick Donaghy's ass. Wallace was suspended by the NBA for seven games for this little stunt, the longest suspension in NBA history for something that did not involve actual violence or substance abuse. And why did 'Sheed receive such a long suspension? For fucking with the game itself. For attempting to use physical threats to intimidate a game official into calling the game the way Wallace wanted him to, instead of the way the ref saw fit.

What Serena did was exactly the same thing as Rasheed, only in a bit of a different medium. That the U.S. Open let the dollar signs do the talking and allowed Serena to play in the women's doubles finals with her sister Venus two days later is sad enough as it is. But Serena should clearly be suspended for what she did the other day in New York, for at least a couple of tournaments as far as I'm concerned. I am sure if it was anyone other than Serena (or Venus) that a multi-tournament suspension would have already been announced. WTA, get off your asses and do the right thing to show Serena and the rest of the players on the men's and women's tours that threatening physical violence against the game's officials will not be tolerated in any way, shape or form. So far Serena has suffered absolutely nothing from her outburst, other than the ridicule of millions of Americans who watched a desperate, angry little baby sulking and moping and lashing out in a pathetic attempt to blame a totally innocent lineswoman for her own crappy play and semifinals loss.

Donkin on a Monday

Wow, boredom set in in an awful hurry for me in the BBT4. This was even quicker than in previous series. With the attendance at the weekly tournaments dropping noticeably here in just the early third week of the 13-week challenge, I must say that without even realizing it, I am just part of the herd losing interest in the series, and in actually trying to play well when I do sit down to play.

Of course it didn't help that I got riversucked out of four sitngos in under and hour on Monday night heading into the Riverchasers tournament. I stopped playing the sngs when I got a bit short in one ring sng, picked up KQ in the small blind and raised two preflop limpers. To my mild surprise, both called. When the flop came K22, I pushed my last chips in on the flop on an overbet to the pot, knowing this would appear like I was pushing short when weak. Again, to my amazement, the first player called, the second pushed allin, and the first insta-called. When the first guy flipped up KK for the flopped overboat, I just chuckled. I did not even see the other guy turn over his pocket 2s for the flopped quads vs. flopped overboat until after the hand was over and I was eliminated, when I noticed all the chips in the other guy's pile and wanted to replay the hand to see what had happened. A good rule of thumb I try to live by is when I've been riversucked four times and then run KQ on a shrot stack and on a K22 flop into KK and 22, it's time to hang 'em up.

By this point, unfortunately, the Riverchasers had already started, and I was feelin' tilty. I quickly dropped down to around 2500 chips from the starting stack of 3000 on donkish stabs at pots with nothing and on silly resteals for little chips early. Basically I was pissed off and wasn't into the tournament and thus was just trying to push shitty cards and steal somebody's stack on a suckout or something. Stoopid. Eventually I allin overbluffed on the river against someone for about 4 times the current pot, and got called down instantly by a pocket pair below top pair. That one definitely surprised me, but I guess I just have to be happy with someone making a play that I will double up on 98% of the time. It was actually the second time I had been called down on a big bet with nothing in my short time in the Riverchasers on Monday, both times of course with me hardcore bluffing with nothing. I guess I was giving off the vibe that I was feeling inside -- that I should not have been playing, that I did not want to be playing, and that I was just going to make stoopid bets and raises with no rhyme, no reason, and no plan for the hands I got involved in. That worked about as well as you might expect from reading that description.

Needless to say, I didn't last long and I didn't stick around any longer than I had to on the night. After making the points and nearly final tabling the first three events of the BBT4, I stopped giving a crap any more than I did right before the series started, and it severely shows in my play. In my last four BBT tournaments, no money, no final tables, no points, no good play at all. Well, except for the Mookie last week when I got two-outered after the flop by someone who spent the entire previous week bitching in his blog about how unlucky he is and how great everyone else runs. Running bad at this game just fucking blows.

It's gonna be at least a few days before I get the bitter taste of last night out of my mouth. You might want to call me down in the HORSE tonight in the skillz series, because I'm going to be calling and betting with absolute shit and just hoping to donk somebody out early. Bitches.

Oh. My. God.

Oh. My God. This past Sunday was one of the tiltiest days I've ever experienced. And for me let me tell you, that is really saying something.

It all started with me losing in one of my fantasy football playoff games today to an anushead playing Ike Fuggin Hilliard, Justin Fuggin Fargas and Ronald Fuggin Curry. All on the same team. At the same time. In the playoffs. This is who my genius opponent came up with for a third of his total team in a fucking playoff game in a fantasy football league. If this isn't proof that fantasy football is the stuff luckboxes are made of, then I don't know what is. I mean, Ike Fuggin Hilliard? 9 yards today at home against the powerhouse Falcons defense. This may have something to do with the fact that Ikey boy just celebrated his 86th birthday this year. And what's up with Ronald Fuggin Curry? In a playoff game? 23 yards today, no surprise at all against the top-rated Colts defense. And Justin Fuggin Fargas?!?! Also against the strong Indy defense? No problem, plug 'im in there, right? It's only the fantasy playoffs, why not? 89 yards later, and these three shitheads have put up 24.8 fantasy points and I lose. And the best part of all? This anusass fucking sat a little player named Tom Brady this week, in favor of Brett Favre. He fucking sat Tom Brady. Against the fucking Jets. In a fantasy playoff game!!!! Did I mention that fantasy football is for lucksacks?

Speaking of donkeys getting recockulously lucky, the tilt continued when I logged in to the pc at some point on Sunday afternoon and made the mistake of looking at the final results of Saturday evening's Winner's Choice tournament on full tilt, which I satellited in to a few hours earlier on Saturday night. In that tournament, which I spent $104 to win my $216 buyin for, I got donked out recockulously just 20 minutes in when some phucknut first called my utg raise (I had KK) with what turned out to be T♣8♣. Then I bet the pot on the all-undercard flop with two clubs on it, which phuckboy also called. When the turn fell, which also happened to be a third club, I checked, doing my patented go-and-stop move planning to checkraise, and when the phuckdonk bet out, I instantly moved him allin. He beat me into the pot, of course showing the made flush and IGH that early. So it was a hideous, horrible beat that ended my run at this winner-take-all WC $12,000 prize package tournament way, way earlier than it should have. It sucked, whatever. I've taken worse beats. But what killed me was the guy bragging in the chat afterwards about how he "played the hand perfectly".

Wow. Perfectly, huh? So he calls a utg raise preflop from middle position with T8s. Is that "perfect"? Try "-EV". "Stoopid" maybe. Try "horrible" even. It's a call with several players still to act behind him, of an utg raise, with a middle sooted one-gapper. This is the stuff that donkeys are made of. Then the dinkhead compounds his assity by calling a potbet on the flop with just the naked flush draw. More -EV bullshit. I'm not saying I've never seen this before. I'm not saying I've never even done it myself -- not usually though. But when I do, I don't go around claiming that I played the hand "perfectly". That was a majorly fucked up hand that this guy played, and he got incredibly lucky to have lived to tell about it. I let him know that there was zero chance of him retaining his chip lead in this basically winner-take-all event with 64 players, a fact the truth of which I had absolutey no doubt whatsoever about.

Well, that was before I logged in on Sunday to see where the clown ended up, how early his horrible preflop and flop play cost him his shot at glory in a big WPT or WSOP event. And there he was, right at the fucking top! This guy started off being a fuckfool against me, and it just never stopped. He rode my shit all the way to the 12k prize package. After the fantasy football shit that was already going down, this thing really set me off, let me tell you. I can't stand it enough already as it is when full tilt rewards the donkeys for their horrible play on an individual hand. But to reward a guy all the way through a 4-hour tournament, it was just too much for me to handle in the midst of my ghey fantasy football loss at the hands of the triumvirate of Hilliard, Fargas and Curry. What a joke.

Then let's talk a little bit more about lucksacks. So I sit down to the Big Game on Sunday night, and on Hand #1, Astin takes the pot preflop and shows pocket Kings. On Hand #2, he flops the nut straight against Iak's flopped 2nd-nut straight. On Hand #3, he has pocket Queens, and flops a set to boot. On Hand #9 he wins the pot with a bet on the flop, and flashes pocket Kings again. On Hand #11 he cracks someone's pocket Aces with his flopped nut straight. By 10:39pm ET, less than 40 minutes in to the tournament, Astin has shown his fourth pocket Kings. He did claim in the chat that he had been dealt no pocket Aces at all to that point though, poor guy! Can you imagine? No AA in 39 minutes in a big blonkament? How do some people do it? In all seriousness though, congratulations out to Astin who rode all those pocket pairs to the huge last-minute victory to play his way in to the ToC in addition to $1242 cash money. His heads-up battle with Maudie was one for the ages, with both players seesawing into 3-or 4-to-1 chip leads at one point before Astin powered back into the lead for the last time with K3 vs J3 on a 932 flop or some shit like that. He then made a huge call of Maudie's allin reraise preflop with his QJo, and when Maudie flipped up 44, Astin proceeded to cap off his big night by turning a straight to nab the win. It was super fun to watch and I personally am really fucking happy for the guy who has been the runner-up so many times in the BBTwo and finally gets his chance to be the big kahuna. Just awesome.

Speaking of the Big Game, I also watched a blogger call an allin rerereraise preflop with AQo maybe 7 minutes in. Of course this blogger is up against the only donkey in history who rerereraises preflop with A2, and of course it's a Queen on the flop and the blogger doubles early. I'm sure I'll read all about the "read" on that hand. Actually, I won't because I won't be reading anything about that performance. Suffice it to say, it is just about the most shining example of bad, lucksacky tournament poker that I could come up with without seeing it myself. Eight fucking minutes in to a tournament that everybody who hasn't yet won a ToC seat wants to win, and you're calling an allin rerereraise with AQo. Good stuff. And then of course there were the donkorific "nice hand" comments in the chat. Nice hand? Nice hand? The last thing this person needs is a yes-man saying nice hand after a play like that. To people who don't show a lot of introspection about their game, yes-men are the worst possible thing. And coupled with everything else I had going on already on Sunday, this business was seriously more than my fragile psyche could take.

Meanwhile, I also played in Chad's Blogger Skill Game. Sadly this turned out to be anything but. I can't stand the way that in any limit of HORSE I've ever played, people will just stay in and draw with anything all the way to the river. I often joke how you would need to raise the limits up to $50,000 - $100,000 to get people to play the game like they should, and I think I'm right. For a lousy $30 buyin, someone chased a flush early, calling bets on three streets against me before hitting on 7th to take a fifth of my stack after I played perfectly and the other guy played assily. Then a few minutes later I made two low pairs on 4th street in stud hi, so I had to bet out every street. Someone called the whole way with just one high pair, and hit a second pair on the river. By the time I made the nut flush on sixth street in stud hi -- all three of these gheyass hands occurring within the first 25 minutes of the tournament, mind you -- and lost to another player's full house, I was completely over the edge and lost all control.

What does that mean, that I "lost all control", you ask? Well, it's simple. In the Big Game, I called an allin on the flop against a big stack when I held nothing at all, knowng I was heading to the rail. I had the window shut long before even seeing the flop, and I felt better instantly. In the "skill game", I autobet and autoraised just about every hand I could possibly get away with in every game, taking all of 13 minutes to purposefully donk from 3600 chips to out to bust as gigli in the first ever game of this type. I'm sure there will be more of these HORSE events, and frankly I think it's a great idea, but as I write this I have to say it feels like I will not be playing blogger HORSE again anytime soon. Not for this buyin anyways. When you're ready to start up a 100k buyin HORSE blonkament, someone please let me know. Edit: at least somebody with some actual skills ended up winning this event, as Chad busted out with the victory in his inaugural HORSE tournament, so congratualtions to him as he somehow overcame what had to be a 10-to-1 chip deficit when heads-up play began and I decided to hit the sack.

So anyways, how many of you out there can honestly say that you've 100% purposefully donked off a $75 buyin and a $30 buyin over the span of 15 minutes just because you knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would be happier not to be playing? My guess is not many. Some, maybe, but not many. And you know what? I was right! I mean, within seconds of closing out those two games, my tilt began to recede and my mood started to improve. I had just gotten myself all out of whack due to a bunch of different things I had the misfortune of seeing, and my lack of ability to compartmentalize these things instead of letting them overtake my emotions. And turning off the pc was the smartest, most +EV thing (mentally and financially) I could have done when I did on Sunday -- trust me on that one.

I actually need to get better at sometimes just turning off the poker and moving on to something else that makes me happy. That much is obvious. Last night my "happy place" was watching the finale of "Dexter" with Hammer Wife -- easily the best show this year that no one has ever heard of. The finale wasn't quite as good as the last few episodes IMO, but that is more a commentary on how awesome this show got near the end than on the badness of the finale, which was really very well done and enjoyable and tied up all the good loose ends as the second season came to a close. So after poker to cool down I watched "Dexter", and I played a bunch with my new toy -- the Sprint HTC Touch phone. This is something I picked up on Friday, and the thing just blows me away. Not only will it help me to blog from right under my dorkwork's collective noses, but the shit has everything -- music, email, high-speed internet, touch screen, finger-scrolling, TV, and oh yeah, it's actually a phone too! I'm sure I'll write more about this one day soon, but for now suffice it to say that it was Dexter Morgan and my HTC that helped me to get over my funk on Sunday night, and to get me ready to face the online poker world again on Monday for the first non-BBTwo tournament I've held in quite some time:



Tonight's MATH will be BBT-free, a nice change for me and I know several of my blogger friends who grow tired of the constant scoring and so much riding on the performances in each. And tonight again we will be playing 6-max no-limit holdem, $26 buyin, password as always is "hammer". 10pm ET on full tilt. See you then as I try to start a new week at the virtual tables the way I've ended the past few, on a nice winning streak, and tilt-free at that. Whatever you all can do to help me on that front will be much appreciated. Including calling allin rerereraises preflop just 8 minutes in with AQo. Please give me summa that if at all possible.

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

Tilt! Tilt! Tilt!

I have a confession to make.

I've been playing on tilt for at least a week now. There's no sense in denying it any longer; the people in our group with whom I am closest already know this from my 10,000 pissed off girly chats every night. Even though I've had some poker success during the week, that success has not come because I am in the right poker mindset. Instead, I've had to get pretty much wasted just to be able to stay calm enough to play anything even remotely resemling good poker, and at best that's all it's been -- remotely resembling good poker.

I spent some time overnight trying to think about exactly what has me on tilt. When I got up this morning, it seems somewhat clearer to me, at least some of the things. Some of this stuff (most of it, really) has no business tilting me, and in fact goes to show just how easy it is to take me off my game. That is one of my many personal weaknesses and one that has direct application at the tables. Just another part of the constant struggle I go through every day to try to improve my game and rein in those things that counteract me playing my best poker. But nonetheless, I'm here now and I'm telling you, there's some shit out there that literally has me on tilt before I even sit down at the pc. Then it only gets worse during the night, and inevitably like in this week's Riverchasers tournament I end up donking on purpose or targeting one particularly annoying player at the table, making plays I know I will lose with just because I want to go out, in a vain attempt to shake this tilt that's been lingering on me for days. It's ghey and it sucks.

For starters, some of the stuff that goes on in the chat box in these blonkaments is just plain ridiculous. I don't care who you are and I don't care how completely, totally 100% accurate what you're saying is. A lot of people have written about this recently, and there's a reason for that. It's not appropriate. Although I was not the literal first blogger to play in the first blonkament, I've been playing in them consistently for nearly three years now, back since the very early days of the WWdN. In fact, I might have literally played in more blogger tournaments than any human being alive, given the focus I have always placed on playing regularly in these things and the length of time I've been doing it. I almost bet that really is true. So I am qualified to talk about this stuff, and I'm here to say that when you are launching personal attacks at other people in the chatbox in our private tournaments, you are despoiling them. Period.

Now don't get me wrong. A little good natured ribbing is fine. Fun, even. I am the very first person to type in "nice call" or "well played" when some asshat calls my preflop allin with T9o or of course the JackAce. Invariably they win with their garbage hands, and I'm not trying to sit here and say that I have never let someone know that I know that they just made a bad play. I do do that from time to time, very rarely actually as I typically opt for the "gl all" or even "nh, gl" when I get uberdonked out of a blonkament and leave it at that, but I'm not trying to paint myself out to be some kind of an angel here. I'm being real about what goes on in these things. But one thing you will notice about even when I might type this sort of thing into the chat following a truly, indisputably horrible play -- I type in my one comment about the play itself, tops, and that's it. It's over. I don't sit around and harangue someone at the table for the next 3 minutes, 10 minutes, hour or whatever.

And more than that, one thing you never, ever see me do is launching personal attacks at people at the tables. In fact, even right here in the blog where I am known for making an occasional rant or two, I don't spend my time attacking people personally. That shit has no place in my blog. Are you people really not able to take a step back and see what your personal jabbing back and forth looks like to the other people at the table? Have you really lost your sense of perspective that much? I mean, it's one thing to question the poker play of someone, and to do so in a short comment or two and then move on. Frankly, I've seen most (not all, but definitely the vast majority) of the people who play in our games do this at least once or twice over time and frankly I think some degree of that is hard to keep out of the games with any real consistency, nor do I think it is any kind of a problem. But getting into personal attacks against people in public right at their table? Engaging in back and forth insults over an extended period of time in this kind of a public forum, even if tangentially related to one's poker plays? I'm telling you guys objectively: it is ridiculous, it looks ridiculous, and everyone seeing it thinks it's ridiculous. And make no mistake: it's not about what other people think about this stuff. It is ridiculous, objectively speaking.

This is the thing, guys. The people who started these regular blonkaments in the first place a few years ago, the people who helped form our ghey little group and who so wanted to have a regular forum for us to hang together, chat together and play together in groups, we never, ever would want this kind of stuff going on in the chat in these games. There is such a thing as girly chat, and if you feel the need to rant about a particular individual personally, or to rant for 5 hours about a particular person's poker play, that is a much better forum for such issues. Take it from me, especially over the last few weeks I've been doing a lot of that, and I apologize here to those of you who have borne the brunt of my angry girly chatting. That's something I need to and plan to work on as it is, but I never, ever do that in the public chat box during our weekly tournaments.

Now don't get me wrong. No one here is trying to tell you how you need to act or how you need to chat. I say this because I've mentioned this here before in perhaps a bit less of a direct way, and certainly an increasing number of other bloggers have written about this same thing in their own blogs as this seems to be happening more and more often, and basically it has gotten the same predictable and quite absurd response. No I'm not ordering anyone to act a certain way, and no I'm not telling anyone that they're not "permitted" to do anything or say anything. But, the very relevant point I am making is this: the people who play in these tournaments do not like when you do this in the chatbox. 98% of the players would be happier if you didn't act this way. Whether you like it or not, these things were not started to be and are not intended to be forums for you to launch personal attacks nor to follow someone around who indeed made a refuckulously horrid play against you and harangue them for an hour. It pisses 98% of the players in these things off when you do it, and more directly, it makes the tournaments far, far less enjoyable and less attractive to play in when you do it. And that my friends makes it wrong.

Now, having seen the highly predictable responses to this stuff when it's come up in blogs in the past, I can already see these same few offenders typing the same silly responses now. I think I will address some of those in advance.

1. "I can do whatever I want, I paid my buyin." True statement. You can do whatever you want. But it isn't right. No one's saying you aren't allowed to type this stuff. You just shouldn't, and you are ruining 98% of the other players' times to various degrees by doing what you are physically permitted to do.

2. "Hoy you hypocrite I've seen you rant about people ten thousand times in your blog." This one is one of my personal favorites. Read the blog guys. I will say all I want about the way someone played a hand. That's attacking someone's poker. I don't typically spend my time attacking someone personally though, and there's a reason for that: I don't actually have personal issues with most people who read here and who play in our tournaments, and I don't like to use my blog as a forum to make someone specific look or feel bad for some personal issue involving them. Tell someone they made a poor play, and you won't hear me complaining. Tell someone they made a poor play for 45 minutes in the chat, and that's not something that I ever do. Ever. And I'd like to see where in this blog I take my valuable time attacking someone on a personal, as opposed to a poker, level.

And before you get cute, I freely admit that recently in the comments here, I let a couple of people have it pretty good for some things they said in the comments. Let me just say that when someone starts off a comment with "no offense", and then goes on to call what I'm doing "assinine" and to accuse me of just trying to exert control over other bloggers, they're gonna get it, especially when I'm kinda tilted already as it is. Plus, notice that that is done not in the chat box of our tournaments, not even in my blog, but in the comments to my blog. Believe me, I wanted to post that whole comment and my tremendous response to it here. But I didn't. Because say what you want about me, but I'm never looking to use my blog to make someone look bad on a personal level in front of my readers. If you make a truly bad poker play against me you are likely to read about the bad play here. But you're not likely to read about what a dickhead I think you are on a personal level. And frankly I rarely ever like reading about what a dickhead someone is on another blog either, though of course I defend anyone's right to say what they want in their own blog.

And again, this isn't a post about what people write in their blogs at all. It's about the way people behave in the chat box during our tournaments. Like I said above, no one is going to try to physically stop anyone from being a penis head in the chatbox. That decision is going to have to be made by each individual himself, in each specific situation. What I am saying though is that the people who came before you, the people who started up this entire tradition of our group getting together regularly to play this game we all barely know and love, the people who still make it a priority every week to come together and play in these things, we don't like what a lot of the chat in these things has turned in to. And the "we" I am referring to represents a good 98%+ of the people who play in the tournaments. These are the facts, what the people do with those facts is of course out of anyone's control.

Anyways, the shit that's been going on in the chat box in our private tournaments for the past couple of months I would say definitely contributes to my tilt these days. Just about everyone hates it, and I love our private tournaments and I love what they represent, and I hate knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that a few people's antics in the chat make so many of the truly nice, fun and interesting people I've played in these things with for over two years not want to show up anymore. That is clearly a suckdickity outcome (that's a bad thing, not a good thing in case it's not clear), but it's just as clear that it's already happened and continues to happen as we speak, and I wish it would change. It bums me out that I have no control over changing that.

I guess the other thing that's been tilting me lately is some of the recockulous luckboxery I've been seeing from the same people again and again and again, combined with those same people then turning around and denying their luckboxery and even accusing other people of the very same luckboxery that they themselves have exhibited so obviously. Just like the first thing I talked about above, there really is no good reason why this seems to tilt me so bad, but it does and that's something I need to get cracking on fixing since I always aim to play my best game. I mean, I've read posts this week where people have actually taken the time to write an entire post about how they're not really a luckbox at all, and in the very post where they make this argument, they go on to show five or six examples from just one hour of play which make it so fucking recockulously obvious how lucky they got that the whole thing reads like a poor childrens' joke. I've written about this many times before, but getting refuckulucky in a tournament that you do well in is part of the game. It is rare that someone lasts deep into a big tournament and does not get lucky at some point along the way. And getting lucky of course includes getting a lot of good starting cards, it includes getting strong hands when your opponent gets slightly less strong (but still strong) starting hands, and it includes things like winning 5 races in a row, it includes flopped 5 sets during a tournament, it includes river suckouts in key spots, it includes all of these things. I like a guy like Alan who wins the Mookie this week and then has the balls to get on his blog and post all the awesome starting hands he was dealt. That's great, and of course it doesn't take a dam thing away from his performance in the tournament. He played his good cards well, got a little lucky, stepped up at the end and won the tournament. Big deal. There's no insult buried in admitting that one got some good cards to play with. It's what happens when you win a tournament. The only insult is to the readers when you luckchuck all the way to the final table and then try to claim it was all skill and that luck played no part in it at all.

But when I see these people posting how they did not lucksack in a tournament to pick up pocket Aces twice, pocket Kings twice, and to flop 3 sets in just the first hour of a tournament ("but I played all my hands so well!!!"), it just makes me sick. I mean, my reaction to a post like that is obviously not important, their lucksackery still exists no matter what they say of course. But it really drives me crazy. I've complained about this for a year or more in the blog. You get lucky as shit and win a tournament, don't act like you did it all on skill. It's called keeping it real. Be like Astin who is man enough to post all the AA and KK and QQ and AK hands he was dealt. Be like Alan the other day. Be like The King who won his first BBT tournament in the Riverchasers this week, and happily posted a kickass post about his three flopped sets (I think there were actually five) and about the 3-outer he hit in a key spot late in the game. That's what a real Man does. Only a pussyshit lucksacks his way through an hour or three and then goes on to his blog and claims it was all skill and how awesome he played is what got him where he ended up without referencing the fact that he couldn't go fucking five hands without flopping a set or top two pairs, and didn't go 10 minutes without picking up a premium starting hand or better yet, flopping huge against someone else's premium starting hand. Somehow the idea has been formulated and then perpetrated by dickheads that one can get lucky but then make that luckiness disappear by revising history and claiming it didn't happen. We're all there watching, you shitforbrainses! Your luck already did happen. Can you really be such schmike (yes that is the plural of "schmuck" in my language) to think you're going to trick us into thinking you were playing with air that whole time? We just saw your cards for the past four hours!! Christ. I'm getting tilted all over again just typing this stuff.

And please guys, don't win 18 races in a row and then bitch for 30 minutes in the chat about the one you lost. And don't call 313 allins with Queen-high and suck out every time, and then lose your shit on someone in the chatbox when they call you down with Ten high and beat you. It's like I just said above -- we've all sat here watching you play for the past few hours, for the past several tournaments, etc. We've been seeing the plays you've made. We know what you've been pushing and calling allins with. Even bloggers aren't fool enough to be tricked into forgetting how we've seen you play recently. How about a little fucking ownership, a little fucking personal responsibility here? Own your fucking lucksackery. You play like a monkey, you get rewarded with repeated lucksackery, and then you're going to go apeshit when that same lucksackery bites you in your own ass? I don't get it. And it tilts the shit out of me, at least it does lately anyways. Those of you who played the blonkaments with me this week will know, I donked myself out of them with idiotic cards for the most part, just because I was pissed. The only one I didn't do that in was the Mookie, and that's because I know my Mookie Curse was already in effect and would take care of that anyways -- even if someone flopping frigging quads on me when allin preflop with my higher pocket pair over their lower pocker pair hadn't happened when it did, it was only a matter of time in the Mook for me of course. But otherwise I've been playing like an abject shithead in these things, and for the most part it's because I am letting the luckshits get to me and especially letting the "dirty chatters" get to me.

Do us all a favor. Have all the personal battles you want with other bloggers. Enjoy yourselves. But do it in a more private forum. Yes I laugh my ass off sometimes at the shit I see in the chat, including in the Riverchasers last night which for whatever reason always seems to bring out the worst in some of the bloggers in the chat box. But it's not right, and it makes people who should never feel this way, feel like not playing with our ghey little group anymore when they themselves were the people who created these tournaments in the first place as a chance to get together, and most importantly to have fun. I need to try to remember that more myself, but so do a lot of us. Do what you can to keep the ridiculous hour-long post-elimination diatribes out of the chatbox, and keep the personal attacks and the personal issues away from everyone else who comes out to play and to try to win a few bucks from their friends and have a fun time. Every time I see this stuff, invariably from people who had never even heard of a poker blog when the rest of us were starting up the whole idea of these regular private games together a few years back, it concerns me. I foresee a world where some people might even want to do tournaments that are even more private than the ones we already run, where the password does not get out to the people who are perceived as negatively impacting the experience for the vast majority of everyone else.

So stop acting gheyly. Stop tilting me. Have some fuckin fun in these things guys. I promise I will do the same.

Donkament tonight, 9pm ET on full tilt. Not sure if I will make it there or not (who am I kidding, I will fucking be there for my weekly poker therapy), but the $1 rebuy is always a great time and hopefully something that won't get people too worked up to remain civil in the chat. And don't worry, no matter how nice people are to each other in the chat, I'm still gonna get trashed in the thing. I just wish Buddy would be on air getting trashed and broadcasting live with me.

The Four Stages To Dealing With Bad Beats

On the recommendation from a few people, mostly from the KOD himself who I really haven't seen have such a positive reaction to a poker book as this one in quite a while, I bought and started reading The Poker Mindset by two donkeys named Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger. I'm enjoying it, though perhaps not quite as much as KOD, because while some of its ideas, while not necessarily earth-shatteringly new, certainly are presented in a flat-out straightforward way that I think would be useful to many people who play the game of poker regularly. In particular, tiltmonkeys like myself, KOD and many of you out there could probably benefit from the authors' way of telling it like it is with respect to the required mindset to be a successful poker player, and that is something I wanted to focus on today.

In Chapter 4, the authors discuss bad beats and losing big pots, and go on to describe the four stages of dealing with such losses. These are presented in order from least useful (and perhaps most common) to the most useful approach and attitude one should have about losing a big pot and/or getting bad beat in poker, something every single one of us has to deal with all the time. Some of us (me) more than others (you) of course, as it is a simple fact that the better you play the game, the more often you will get in ahead and thus the more often you will get bad beat, while the worse you are, the more often you get in behind and thus the more often you will have the opportunity to lay a bad beat on someone. But the specter of getting bad beat is always present for all of us, and that's why I thought this approach in The Poker Mindset was worthy of mentioning here today.

So here are the four stages of dealing with bad beats and big losses, according to the book (I am paraphrasing here). Ideally, you want to progress up between the stages such that, while most people start at Stage 1, you really want to be st Stage 4, or for sure at least at Stage 3. I find these to be a helpful way of evaluating your own game and your own approach to the lows associated with any regular poker playing:

1. Stage 1 -- Anger: "What a fonkey! How could he call with that shitty draw? How can I consistently be the unluckiest person in the world? I'm going to play every pot he is in from now on to get my chips back!"

2. Stage 2 -- Frustration: "What a bad beat! How am I going to win at poker when there's always some fonkey willing to chase an inside straight or 2nd pair shizzy kicker? I know over the long run that guy will lose all his money, but I really needed that pot. That loss really hurts."

3. Stage 3 -- Acceptance: "Ouch! Well that's just the way poker works some times. I know I'll get his money in the long run if he keeps playing like that, so I just have to be patient with this guy. Now I know he is a calling station, so I will label or note him accordingly and play him with that in mind in the future. I wonder if I could have played that hand any differently to increase my chances of winning the pot."

4. Stage 4 -- Indifference: "OK so now I know that the big blind will call down with pretty much anything, so I will take that into account in future hands with him. I wonder what the button had to have bet on the flop before folding to the raise on the turn. I should note that he continuation-bet in that spot for future hands. Maybe I should have raised on the flop in the hopes of pushing the big blind out of the hand at that point? But then again do I really want to push the big blind out if he's willing to pay off all those bets with such a weak draw."

Now, most of you may think I am a real tiltmonkey, and lord knows I tend to write pissay blog posts when someone sucks out on me after a horrible play. That said, I actually think I score fairly well on this scale. Let's take a look.

Obviously, I have some qualities of a few of these different stages. Clearly I get angry when I get bad beat, and to be honest I'm not quite sure I understand why I should not get angry. I mean, no way am I indifferent to a bad beat loss. That is like a very zen view of poker that, in my opinion, very very few people ever reach. Certainly there isn't a blogger in our group that I can think of who never gives a cripe at all when they lose to a bad beat following a horrible play by their opponent. Like I said, I'm simply not at a place where I care not at all about losing in a big spot to the world's worst player making the world's worst play.

That said, I do accept completely that bad beats are a part of this game. I don't know how many of you out there railbird me with any regularity, but if you do, you will see that I literally probably get bad beat out of 1 in every 3 tournaments I play. It may be more than that. I am constantly getting in ahead and ending up behind. It's the story of my effing life guys. Last night was a perfect example, where I lost one sng with my buddy buckhoya when my allin with AK was called by QT on a KQx flop, and then a Queen hit the turn to send me home on the bubble. How ghey. That suckout right there, based on a horrible, reckless play by my opponent, cost me at least $60 and probably more like $100 on average. Just like that. It bothered me when it happened, but I didn't flip out at the guy. I'm not saying I never, ever do that, but as a general statement, the fact is that I get bad beat out of one or two tournaments every single night, or I get recockusetup like the hand against cmitch in the MATH the other night when I turned trips but he had flopped the redickulous nut straight with his J9o, and I normally don't flip out at all. I know I'm not just the "angry" or "frustrated" reacter (Stage 1 or Stage 2) because I used to be just that. I used to flip out every single time I lost like this, and it used to ruin my night, I would go on tilt, yadda yadda yadda you guys know the routine. Well, I'm not even close to that anymore. A bad beat might pizz me off on occasion, but in general I actually tend to take these things in stride nowadays, a whole heck of a lot more than I once did. I do understand that bad beats are a part of the game, and in a good 95% or more of the cases, I take them in stride.

More than that, I always note everybody when they make a shit play to bad beat me like this. I take very detailed notes, to the degree that I will make sure to remind myself for the next time of what they did by saying "will call with 2nd pair shitty kicker on flop on sng bubble". I want to know this in detail -- as opposed to just saying "UBER FONKEY" in my note or something like that -- because the next time I play with this dinkledonk, I want to be able to use their specific weakness against them. And I do it, too. There's nothing better than sitting down at the table with a guy who I've played with and noted with specificity in the past, and and being able to take direct advantage of exactly what that opponent does poorly at the game of poker. And it happens all the time.

So, despite the impression that some of you might get from reading here every day, the vast majority of the time I get bad beat, I take it in stride, I don't go nuts, and I make specific note of my opponent's bad play such that I can take advantage of the guy at a later date. That is my MO when I get bad beat, plain and simple. And I'm always thinking about what I could have done or can do differently the next time to win these pots. In all, this makes me think I am closer to Stage 3 than anything else. No way I am at Stage 4 -- like I said, not only am I not "indifferent" to taking bad beats, but I'm not even at the point where I think I should be indifferent to a bad beat. I don't even really understand that frame of mind, and I don't see true indifference as even a goal that I ought to be striving for, let alone something I actually attain. So I'm definitely not at Stage 4. But I would classify myself as Stage 3, with some angry/frustrated tendencies still from Stage 1 or 2. Not sure if I'll ever truly not be frustrated or angry at a given bad beat, though believe me when I say I have more than accepted that these are just a part of the game.

If only the poor players didn't get rewarded so often for their poor play against me, I could see true Stage 3 as a real possibility. It's still a constant struggle for me, that is for sure, but I think I am doing ok from this perspective overall after a few years of consistent, solid and regular online and live poker play.

Which stage of dealing with bad beats do you think your game is at?

MATH Recap, and Improving Your Game

First off, thank you for all the encouragement from the commenters to yesterday's...uh...interesting post. Normally I might apologize to my readers for having to see that kind of rantage, but it seems that the overall reaction was one of enjoyment to read my honest thoughts, and to that extent then I am happy I could help brighten some of your days as I brightened my own just by writing that crap down. But I really do appreciate the kind words and the encouragement, and the suggestions for me to help address my poker issues these days. Who knows where this crazy game of ours will take me next, but I am truly appreciative of all you guys and the thoughts and suggestions that I have constantly been peppered with over these past couple of years. In fact that's a perfect segue into what I plan to write about today, but first let me update with what happened at the Hoy last night on full tilt.

It seems like only yesterday when I read on Daddy's blog -- in actuality about six months ago -- that he would be playing in his first Mondays at the Hoy tournament as part of the original BBT. I was honored, as I was with my regular weekly tournament's first visit by the likes of Iggy, Pauly, Al, Speaker, Change and all those guys I consider to be my literal idols and the idols of the blogiverse in general. A visit from the sickest man alive to my own private tournament was quite an honor, but I was also impressed by the quality of Daddy's play, and this week it all finally came to fruition when he took down his first Hoy title, winning the latest BBTwo Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions freeroll seat in the process after outlasting 61 of his closest fake internet friends in the most skill-based of all the Hoy tournaments we've ever run.

So with 62 runners on the night, it made for a sweet $1488 prize pool for the latest MATH event, a turbo 6-max extravaganza that I knew was designed to ensure that the most skilled player took it down and got into the Aussie Millions ToC. The action was fast and furious like only a turbo event can be, with several players busting out in the first 5 or 10 minutes just the way I like to see. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance at all to suck out on anyone, making this just like the last 85 tournaments I've played in. My starting table must read my blog, because for the first 45 minutes or so nobody would play a dam pot with me, except for one where I got 99% of the way towards being sucked out on again. Basically I had top pair, I think maybe with the sooted jackace or something, on a board of J32 with the 3 and the 2 both in my soot. Long story short, he bet the flop, I raised allin, and he called me with? 88. My Jacks were ahead and could only be beaten by two outs. Unfortunately, as we have seen recently with me, two outs twice is far more than it takes to beat me in a blonkament, and the river brought one of those two 8s to give my opponent a reflockulous set against my top pair. It wasn't until the chips slid my way that I realized it was the 8 of my soot, giving me the flush and reminding me that he actually only had one out, not the two I had thought. Still, the momentary laugh that welled up within me was worth the price of admission right there. And don't worry, about 30 minutes later I found myself allin against Loretta with two overcards and a flush draw, 15 outs total, and lost with the favored hand to knock me out of 2nd place overall. Not a suckout by any means, but worth noting. I also got recockusetup against Blinders when he was dealt pocket Aces (who the fug gets pocket Aces during a turbo? Luckbox!), following that up by flopping a set of Aces on the AKx flop, and then of course I made two pairs with KT on the river, costing me half my stack once again in the unavoidable setup hand. And then the piece de resistance, when I reraised my college buddy buckhoya allin while back in 3rd place when down to 20 players remaining with my 99, and he told me in the girly that he was calling just so he could go to bed, which he did and flipped up A9. Ace on the flop of course, and I was in last place and gone two hands later. How fun.

So, in the end I recorded no suckouts of my own and in fact never even came close, and got beat from behind once, recockulously and unavoidably set up once, and sucked out on horribly once. Chalk another one up for the bad guys. I just cannot get out of my own way in these blonkaments no matter what I do or how well or bad I play or how hard I try to get in behind and suck out. One thing I will say though is that, at least for now, I think the turbo experiement is over with the Hoy. I know, I know that's going to upset most of you, for sure. But we had some much earlier-ending tournaments for the past two weeks and hopefully that's been helpful for some of you wimps or west coasters out there, and I figure I must have been doing something right when I was switched to a new table for the first time, and sitting there in the chat from just before I showed up at the new table was this comment from NumbBono: "F Hoy and his turbo tournaments." So that's always a good sign that the public is happy with what you're doing :).

Seriously though, no more turbo for now although personally I thoroughly enjoy a good old-fashioned luckdonk fest. In fact, next week's MATH tournament is already set up on full tilt, and it is another brand new style of tournament for the Hoy: a $10 rebuy event. I've been looking forward to this one for a long time, and in fact have been talking with a few other bloggers about setting up a regular $10 rebuy blogger event, so I'm excited to move away from turbo for now and on to something else new and exciting. Now, after two early weeks for the MATH, next Monday is gonna be a late one with an hour long rebuy period starting at 10pm ET, but I remain steadfast in not changing the start time so the west coast donkeys can still get in there and contribute to the prize pool. And I picked $10 instead of the normal $26 buyin so as to keep the total buyin costs roughly the same at least for the normal non-donkified players -- you can still buy in, rebuy once and add on at the end of monkey hour all for roughly the same cost as one normal Hoy buyin. Hopefully you will all enjoy this latest variation on a common theme, and I know I for one already cannot wait until next Monday for that one. As I mentioned in my comments yesterday, I only wish I could pick my starting table next week, and stick all the luckboxes and all the suckout artists on there so I could get my revenge again and again and again against you clowns. Oh well, you can't have everything I guess.

So back to this week's MATH results. Here are your 8 cashers for the event:

1. Daddy $491.04
2. buckhoya $312.48
3. Gary Cox $215.76
4. columbo $163.68
5. cardgrrl $119.04
6. mattazuma $81.84
7. cracknaces $52.08
8. emptyman $52.08

And here is the updated 2007 MATH moneyboard, including the results of this week's tournament:

1. Columbo $1526
2. Bayne_s $1400
3. Hoyazo $1162
4. RaisingCayne $1110
5. Daddy $999
6. cmitch $840
7. Kajagugu $806
8. Astin $793
9. Pirate Wes $792
10. VinNay $775
11. Tripjax $759
12. Iggy $745
13. Gary Cox $734
14. NewinNov $677
15. Fuel55 $666
16. Lucko21 $665
17. Waffles $650
18. IslandBum1 $642
19. XxMagiciaNxX $630
19. JJ $630
21. Surflexus $608
22. Jamyhawk $576
23. Buddydank $553
24. Numbbono $549
25. swimmom95 $545
26. Chad $537
27. Emptyman $513
28. Byron $510
29. Julius Goat $507
30. bartonf $492
30. mtnrider81 $492
32. PokerBrian322 $490
33. riggstad $487
34. wormmsu $475
35. scots_chris $474
36. LJ $470
37. Mike_Maloney $456
38. RecessRampage $434
39. Otis $429
40. twoblackaces $426
41. Miami Don $402
42. Zeem $389
43. Joe Speaker $384
44. jeciimd $382
44. Jordan $382
46. Blinders $379
47. leftylu $374
48. cardgrrl $371
48. lightning36 $371
50. ChapelncHill $353
51. OMGitsPokerFool $324
52. buckhoya $312
52. oossuuu754 $312
54. Wigginx $288
55. ScottMc $282
56. Fishy McDonk $277
57. actyper $276
58. Irongirl $252
58. Manik79 $252
60. Wippy1313 $248
61. Easycure $244
62. Garthmeister $216
62. wwonka69 $216
64. Omega_man_99 $210
65. katiemother $209
66. Pushmonkey72 $208
67. Thepokergrind $198
68. Mookie $191
69. StatikKling $180
70. 23Skidoo $176
71. Santa Clauss $170
72. jimdniacc $166
73. Iakaris $162
73. Smokkee $162
75. cemfredmd $156
76. lester000 $147
77. Heffmike $145
78. Julkeus $144
79. brdweb $143
80. DDionysus $137
81. Patchmaster $135
82. InstantTragedy $129
83. NinaW $120
84. UnTiltable $118
85. Fluxer $110
86. -o-LuckTruck-o- $103
87. hoops15mt $95
88. Gracie $94
88. Scurvydog $94
90. Shag0103 $84
91. mattazuma $82
92. crazdgamer $82
93. PhinCity $80
94. Presidentdave $79
95. maf212 $78
96. evy35 $72
97. Alceste $71
97. dbirider $71
99. kevin-with-AK $66
100. Rake Feeder $53

So this turned out to be a large week for the Hoy moneyboard, as we got two big moves in the top 5. First, this week's winner, Daddy, moves into 5th place thanks to his $491 windfall in addition to his ToC seat today, an impressive performance given such a small number of MATH events he has played in. But the biggest news of all is that Columbo busted out with a big cash this week as well, propelling him above BBT1 winner Bayne and into first place for the year in total MATH winnings! This is the first time columbo has led the leaderboard all year, now with a $126 lead over Bayne in second place and nearly $400 over myself in 3rd, so congratulations out to columbo in addition to Daddy for their big moves this week in Mondays at the Hoy.

So, I struggled a lot about what to write about today, poker strategy wise. I've got tons of ideas swirling around my head as always, much of which is affected by current events in the world of poker and bloggers. In the end, I have decided that today I would write a little about improving your game. It's something that I referred to in yesterday's post and for whatever reason it's still on my mind today. I'll put it this way: anyone who is truly serious about their poker game -- anyone, with no exceptions at all -- must make constant improvement a constant focus. Period. You must. And don't get me wrong -- you can play poker all you want, and not give a crap about improving your game. I'm not trying to tell you that you have to do anything. But, if you're serious about your game, then you have no choice but to work to improve. Constantly. And it's hard work, don't get me wrong. But it has to be done, if you really, truly care about getting better. Nobody is going to deny this either.

Now, to different people, this constant focus on improving your game to prevent it from stagnating or even moving backwards can take different forms and mean different things. To some it can mean constantly reading poker books. To others it can mean regularly discussing hands and hand histories with their poker friends. Some people may join ghey forums like pokerxfactor or cardrunners and pay their hard-earned money to hear other people's strategies and thoughts on the game. Maybe others will prefer to work alone, setting aside an hour a day to review their own hand histories and take an honest look at their game and at what has been working and what hasn't been working for them. Personally, as I've said previously, I do pretty much all of the above. I've had some nice success playing this game we all know and hate love, but I go through these phases where I basically suck. I can't tell you how many times I have realized yet another weakness in my game over the past few years (and longer, really), and adjusted the way I play in those situations as a result. I remember when I was raising too much preflop. I remember when I was betting too big on the flop. I remember when I was continuation-betting too much and too indiscriminately. I remember when I was playing too loose preflop. I could go on and on. But I figured these things out about my own game, through a combination of reading, studying, talking with others and spending a huge amount of time reviewing my own hand histories, screen shots, and shit I've done at the virtual felt, both with myself and with other people whose game I respect.

What can you do to improve your game? Here are five general ideas I have used and do use regularly, not that any of these are anything revolutionary:

1. Read. I know it's hard for many people to find time to read poker books, but there simply is no other better resource for building your poker knowledge than poker books, articles and similar materials. I've mentioned this stuff several times in the past here, but to recap, following is a list of poker texts that I have personally read and that I personally will say are completely essential to anyone serious about improving:

a. Super/System. The nlh section written by Doyle was the first real poker strategy book I ever read, and to this day it remains the foundation for my style of aggressive play, truly the only strategy for playing consistently winning poker. Tournaments or cash.

b. Harrington on Holdem. As I've mentioned, I found Volume 3 to be pretty much worthless and in fact to detract overall from the value of his books, but Volume 1 is really essential for any tournament beginner, and Volume 2 is perhaps the single best book ever written about poker tournament play. I've said it here before and I'll say it again, but if you haven't read Super/System and Harrington, then I'm better than you in poker tournaments, period. 'Nuff said.

c. Caro's Book of Poker Tells. More applicable to live poker, but frankly the concepts listed here can apply more broadly to poker in general. To me this is essential reading for any serious poker player.

d. You might as well pick up the Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide as well. This is not quite as awesome as the first three books above, but any time you can get that much accomplished, proven greatness together in one place to write about play before the flop and after the flop all in one place, it's a solid read.

e. Phil Hellmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros. If you're into learning about Limit holdem as well as the other HORSE games, and you can get around some of the worst writing style ever including massive! overuse! of! apostrophes!, then this is a great primer of those games from one of the world's indisputably best tournament poker players.

f. Theory of Poker and Holdem Poker for Advanced Players by Sklansky/Malmuth/Miller. This stuff is key for any limit holdem poker player, and you can't help but improve your no-limit game as well just from reading these classic poker texts. Period.

g. No-Limit Holdem Theory and Practice by Sklansky. A recent text but it's one that I have read and re-read at this point probably four or five times. Lots of great stuff for any nlh cash player.

The other thing I would say about reading poker books is just to say that me, personally, I tend to read these things 3 or 4 times at least before I feel like I've actually "read" them. I mean, I have without a doubt read Super/System cover to cover at least 20 times. You read that right. My copy of the book is so worn that I had to buy a new one just to be able to keep it all together. I've read those other books on the list at least 3 or 4 times, every single one of them. That's the only way to really absorb all that material, no matter how great your reading comprehension is. These aren't like novels, and it takes tons of repetition for this stuff to really sink in.

2. Practice what you read. Along with reading and re-reading the seminal poker texts out there, you have got to practice. Practice by playing while you're reading these books, and make yourself apply the techniques and strategies you're learning. If you just sit and read all day without any practice involved, you are not going to be able to "get it". There's just no way, no matter how much you read and how much you want to improve. You have to read, then practice, then read again, and then practice again. It's the only way.

3. Discuss. Find people whose poker game you respect, and talk to them. Discuss hand histories. Would they have called or folded with QQ in that spot? Would they have folded or reraised with AQ in that spot? Do they like to value bet 1/3 of the pot, 2/3 of the pot or allin in that particular situation. Run this shit by other people. And please, find people who actually have game and who actually understand how poker works. That part is up to you, but discussion with other living, breathing human beings has been a major, major reason I ever started this blog in the first place, and it has without a doubt been the single biggest reason I have had whatever successes I've had in this game.

4. Listen. To me, this really goes without saying and goes right along with item #3 above, but along with discussing poker strategy with other experienced and skilled players, you also have to listen to what these people fucking tell you. Believe me, there's no point to talking poker with other good players if you're just going to disregard what they tell you. Sadly I know a lot of people who do just this. I guess they think it sounds good or looks good or something to say to anyone who will listen how much they're working with so-and-so or whatshisname on their game, but in reality, they simply don't change their game at all as a result. The only reason to talk poker strategy with other players is to have an open mind about rethinking some of the thoughts and ideas you yourself bring to the game. Otherwise, seriously, don't waste their time or yours doing this shit. No point to talking with someone else about poker only to refuse to apply anything you hear or anything you think you're "learning".

5. Be quick to identify leaks in your game, and then react to them. Just like I mentioned in point #4 above, it does you no good to continually identify the same weakness over and over and over and over and over again, and then just keep making the same exact mistake that you know exists, over and over and over and over and over again. That is insanity. If you realize that you have been c-betting too regularly and need to pay more attention to the texture of the flop, then start paying more fucking attention to the texture of the flop. If you find you have been misplaying middle pocket pairs, then try something new the next time you're dealt a pocket pair. Play it less aggressively, or even fold them more preflop if you have to if you've been continually busting with these hands from tournaments of late. If you wake up one day and realize that you've been putting everyone else on a bluff every single time they raise from late position preflop and losing a lot of big pots as a result, then stop assuming these people are always bluffing so much. In some ways you're a damn fool if you keep identifying the same problems again and again, but you just keep reacting in the exact same way every next time you're placed in that situation. Identify, and react. Don't just identify and identify and identify the same problems without attempting to fix them.

6. Don't make instantaneous decisions at the table. I can't stress how important this one is, especially to some people, and invariably it seems to be tied up very well with item #5 above. You can't imagine what I feel when I see someone who I know claims has been working on a particular leak in his game, just go and do the same dumb, indefensibly -EV instacall the very next time they're faced with the same situation. Instacalling has its time and its place, and I'm not trying to condemn the entire practice of instacalling as an activity here. But what I am saying is, there is nothing wrong at all with taking a few seconds, or even several seconds, any time you are faced with a situation at the poker table where you might have an opportunity to make a smarter, better-thought-out play. So, back to our examples above, if you've been calling off too much bullshit with shitty medium pocket pairs for a long time, you cannot allow yourself to be the person instacalling two big preflop allin reraises with pocket 6s early in a tournament and with one guy still to act behind you who has already called one preflop raise in the hand. That is indefensible and it is the definition of not getting better. Instacalling has a time and a place, but most of the time it's a bad idea in most poker situations. If you could get just that idea into your head, your game will improve right there, without a doubt.

And next time you instacall two allins ahead of you even with a hand like pocket 9s, you just fucked up. You might go on to win the hand. You might actually make the call and turn out to be up against pocket 8s and pocket 7s. But if you instacalled there, that is bad tournament poker and you just fucked up. Indisputably. Accept it.

OK that's all for today. Tonight will be my first night at the virtual felt without a blonkament (no bodog for this donkey) and without FTOPS to focus on for better than a month now, so it will be interesting to see where I end up sitting in my nightly tribulations at full tilt. If you have any fun ideas, hit me up on the girly chat and I'll get in there with you.

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".