Decent Mookie Run, Avatar Races are Back, and Jec is Out

For starters today, congratulations out to Evil Wonka, Jordan and chitwood (whose blog I am not familiar with so if you have one please let me know in the comments and I will link you here) for being the three bloggers who won their $75 tokens in Wednesday night's token frenzy. In the end, a full 10% of this thing was bloggers at the start, including myself who lasted about 40 minutes before running into a higher Ace and heading home in the middle of the pack. So we had 12 runners in the frenzy from our group last night, but I know we can do better than that tonight. Many of you will already be on for the 9pm ET start of the latest Riverchasers tournament (password is "riverchasers"), so how about you all man up and multitable a li'l bit with the 9:45pm ET token frenzy as well? Get in there, take a stab at the top 19% finishers who all receive a $75 token, and then when you win it, I will blog about you in this spot on Friday morning. And more importantly, you can go and register for Sunday night's Big Game right away with your win. You wanna make an instant name for yourself among the blogging crew? Win the monthly Big Game. You'll not only take home hundreds in cash for the win, but the recognition for your greatness will be hard to even put a dollar value on. So get in there and make it happen, starting with tonight's token frenzy at 9:45pm ET on full tilt. $14 gives you basically a 1-in-5 shot of winning $75. Lezdoit.

And speaking of congratulations, let's not forget Numbbono who took it all down last night for his second Mookie win in the past 51 weeks. Now I'm not sure what is wrong with this guy to have only won two Mookie's in his career, but whatever it is he played very well on Wednesday night, got some good cards and played them aggressively in a few key spots, and stole a huge chiplead away from Jestocost shortly into the heads-up session to put himself in a position to win.

This week's Mookie was good times as both Mookie and myself final tabled for I think only the second time in history -- looking at my own personal Mookie history, there can't have been that many opportunities for the dual-final-tables for Mookie and myself, that is for sure. But with us having just finalized our prop bet, this made for some interesting possibilities as we headed into the final table, with me in 7th or 8th place out of 9 and Mookie closer to 3rd or 4th as I recall. But the funny thing is, Mookie and I took very different paths to get to the final table, even though we both ended up at the same place. Me, I played pretty poorly overall on the night. I've said this before when I've run deep in a blonkament from time to time, and this week's Mookie definitely fits the bill, as surely as I have sat here and talked about how great I played on many a night when I got donked out by some uberjackass early. Well, last night I started off running bad even before the Mookie started, and by the time that I ran AK into 66 on a K6x flop with two suits maybe 30 minutes in to the tournament, I was hardly surprised. That hand, which doubled up CK early after I reraised her allin with tptk -- something I almost never try to call an allin with early in any tournament but which my style often has me raising allin with -- dropped me down to below 700 chips and it was just another standard Mookie for me right from the earlygoing. Shortly after this point, I recorded my first of two ghey suckouts on the night when I moved in with KTs on a short stack and got called by loretta's AKo, only to see me turn a flush and then dodge the redraw to loretta's nut flush on the river. What can you do. Not too long after this, I picked up pocket Aces for the first time in two years in the Mookie, and I played these things to perfection. Utg+1, himself on a short stack, had raised the 60-chip blinds up to 180, so I just smooth called that raise from early middle position, hoping my slowplay would enable me to checkraise the flop allin in a heads-up pot. Instead, someone else also smooth called the 180 behind me from MP, and then the flop came King high. The first guy led out strong and quick, and I immediately put him on AK given his lack of thought despite two players who had called his preflop raise behind him. I figured with one pair I wanted the guy behind me outta there, so I put in a standard but not huge raise. The third guy folded and the first play instantly pushed. At this point I knew he had to have AK, so I called, he flipped up the big slick and I had doubled up again to 3520, my first time back over my starting stack of 3000 chips since the first few hands on the night.

Unfortunately, that was really the highlight of my night though. As I said I really didn't play very well, it took a suckout to even be alive at that point to receive the pocket Aces, and I don't believe I was dealt one other big hand all through the night. I did suck out on someone one more time when we were down to 3 tables left, and, being the Mookie, I of course got sucked out on 3 times on the night for various sized pots, including one double up somewhere around the middle thanks to a river 3-outer that would have put me in second place with around 25 players remaining. So overall I played pretty bad poker and could never get a dam thing going, despite lasting all the way to the final table. Despite my good finishiing position, let me tell you it was basically all stealing and restealing for me. I stole about 25 pots preflop (when I was finally eliminated in 5th place I had won a full 10% of the hands I had seen all night before the flop -- think about that stat!), and I had a few nice resteals to boot, one with 82o from DubSpoke (don't know him) and once at the final table with AQ against Mookie who had been a major card rack and I really figured probably had another big pair. So as I mentioned, in the end I busted in 5th place after sitting on a short stack all through the final two hours including the entire final table, and I stayed up for a bit to see if Mookie could end our prop bet early with a big win. In the end the other two stacks kept growing, and Mookie's earlier run of good cards came to an abrupt halt, with him busting in 3rd place by running the Mookie -- T8o -- into jestocost's pocket Kings. What can ya do. So it was a valiant effort by both Mookie and myself, but once again this week it was just not meant to be. I mean, obviously winning the Riverchasers and the donkament this week will take the sting out of this for me, but you really have to wonder if I ever am going to win the Mookie, for real. But hey at least I got back on to the Mookie 2008 stat board early on this year just like I did in the MATH earlier this week, and I'll take a 5th place finish in the Mook any day of the week given my usual performance and especially given my TPTK vs flopset in the first half hour last night.

Btw, did anyone else think CK did an awesome job on buddydank radio last night? I don't know about you guys, but I am having a great time finding out which of you donkeys make good radio personalities, and which of you don't. Personally, I could listen to Don, Chad and CK all night on that thing as far the guest hosts go. And meanwhile some others of our group that I was sure would be great radio personalities have ended up either being too shy to really talk, or just plain sucking in general. Weird. But hopefully CK makes another appearance soon as to me she was a real highlight in her first ever BDR appearance.

Before I go today, Chad turned me on to the startup again of the Avatar Races on full tilt, which begin with the Limit Avatar race tonight at 9pm ET. This is a $216 buyin tournament that pays out prize packages worth $1505 apiece comprised of buyins to all the limit events on the FTOPS VII schedule -- FTOPS #3 ($535 HORSE), FTOPS #5 ($216 LHE), FTOPS #11 ($216 Limit O8), FTOPS #14 ($322 razz) and FTOPS #16 ($216 stud). And the best part about this Limit Avatar Race? It is HORSE, which makes perfect sense considering it awards seats to HORSE, limit holdem, O8, razz and stud tournaments. That is awesome. It's been a few FTOPS series now that full tilt has been running these avatar races to award several FTOPS seats in one fell swoop, but this marks the first time for a limit avatar race dealing with just the limit events, begging the question of whether or not full tilt plans to run a no-limit avatar race as well this time around. Guess we'll have to wait and see on that one, but in the meantime I would love to win myself one of these limit avatar races. No I won't consider buying in to one for $216 cash, but of course knowing me there are three cool satellites already scheduled to play our way into tonight's $216 limit avatar race at 9pm ET. The first is a regular HORSE tournament with a $26 buyin at 5:35pm ET. No way I am online anywhere near that time, and in fact only dudes who play poker at work or those of you lucky enough not to have day jobs would ever be able to play that badboy. Next there is a turbo HORSE sat at 6:55pm ET, also with a $26 buyin. Still too early for me. My only shot at satelliting in, and it's still a pretty long shot time at that, is the final sat of the night, a $40 turbo HORSE sat at 7:20pm ET. I might possibly be able to get into this thing once in a long while, but as it is probably not tonight as I am once again getting crushed at work, mostly due to the fact that my two fuckbaggy coworkers more or less come and go as they please and rarely even come into the office anymore, while I do all their work and my jackboss just sits around in his self-imposed obliviion and lets it all happen under the guise of trying to be "accomodating". And while I suppose bending over and smearing his anus with vaseline before spreading his cheeks can be considered "accomodating", I guess I just have a different view than he does of what a manager's role is really supposed to be. But I digress.

OK that's all for today. I'm sure most of you heard this already on BDR last night, but BBTwo champion jeciimd was in fact eliminated on Wednesday evening ET from the Aussie Millions when his AA lost to 53s after a guy called a preflop raise, called a 2/3 pot sized bet on the flop with just the naked flush draw, and then hit on the turn. What can ya do. A great job and a great run by jec, who received more pocket Aces now in just about 11 hours of live casino play than I have received in my entire lifetime of playing holdem in any casino, but still that is a tough way to go. Hard to put a guy on a flush draw after he calls your preflop raise and calls a decent sized bet on the flop, with the flush draw filling once a good portion of your stack is already in the pot. Congratulations again to jec for a job well done and for representing well by making it through the first day of play in his first ever live casino tournament. For those of you who have played a big-buyin tournament live in a casino, you know that is quite an accomplishment for a first-timer.

Now go read Don's post from Wednesday. This is gonna be good, I can tell already.

See you tonight at the Riverchasers at 9pm ET, and at the token frenzy at 9:45!

Oh What a Night

Oh what a night is right! By far the biggest prize ever won by a poker blogger in a poker blogger tournament was awarded last night to the winner of the series-ending BBTwo Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions, and that prize went to none other than BBT killer jeciimd. Although I was not privy to his hole cards other than what he told me a few times on the IM, from watching it was clear that jec won the incredible 18k prize package for two to the Aussie Millions in January by playing the exact same way he has played all of the BBT tournaments that occurred in both tournament series that we ran this year: by being patient, and by getting paid when he made his moves.

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? I mean, I saw jec get a lot of good cards in the BBTwo, which of course makes this strategy work so well and makes it something that renders it impossible for a guy like me to just patiently wait for the good cards. That said, jec's good fortune did not even approach that of some of the other well-known bloggers who played in the BBTwo, and that doesn't even get in to the first BBT where I would not say jec got good cards at all. The guy ended BBT1 in 3rd place overall on the leaderboard, where I kind of screwed him although I bet most people don't know this. As you may recall I ended up winning or getting to the final two in three tournaments in the last couple of weeks of the first BBT, rocketing myself in the last week to a fourth-place finish, one behind jec, such that jec won something like $340 in cash while I won the Nintendo Wii that I've written so much about for fourth place. Being a good 15 years beyond my video gamer days (there was a time when I could take Jeremy Roenick and kick any of your asses in Sega Hockey 1993), jec had already expressed an interest in the Wii and I basically agreed then and there to just sell it to him once I received it. Long story short, I got the thing in the mail, and I just wanted to hook it up once, you know, just to see what all the hubbub was about. Fast forward about two days later of nonstop playing, and I had to give jec the bad news that I was keeping the Wii. It's something I have felt bad about ever since that day, but not that bad as I continually beat the tar out of Sarah and that fucker Elisa every night in Wii Tennis. Anyways, now I officially don't feel bad about it anymore.

So jec also ran his way through the field in the BBTwo, crushing everyone in his path, and making over $2700 in the process of systemaically demolishing every last one of us by all standards. I mean, to be honest I don't put a lot of stock in the leaderboard to the first BBT, and that's even including my own 4th place finish. That leaderboard scoring system was so bad that I think I actually turned ghey for a little while, awarding points every time someone finished in the top half of the field. I'm dreaming about Brad Pitt here just thinking about that. Jec took advantage of that scoring system better than anyone, ending in 3rd place despite losing a nice chunk o' cash in the series, and like I said that just does not mean much of anything to me in genuine poker skills terms. But the BBTwo was the Real Deal without a doubt. With a scoring system that clearly rewarded actual tournament success play and awarded points based not on people playing like tightydonks but rather on people lasting far, making final tables, and winning the dam things, jec totally shined. He crushed us all, and as Goat and I were discussing this morning on the girly chat, the guy has clearly figured out the System for beating the blonkaments. He is without a doubt one of the most patient players on the blogger circuit, and it clearly pays off for him.

And you know what I love most of all about jec winning this whole shebang here? Jec works his ass off at his poker game, moreso than just about anyone. The guy reads almost as many poker books as me, and you can literally always count on him currently being in the middle of some poker text or another. In my opinion jec's no-limit holdem game basically blew anus when I first got to know him, which was I guess around a year ago or so online (we've never met in person) through an introduction from a mutual friend over a girly chat room. I literally remember jec not knowing how to steal the blinds -- when, who or how -- and spending a lot of time chatting with him about that (little did he know he had come to the Master on that particular topic). His game was soft, passive, and just generally nowhere near sufficient to succeed in this game. Even during the first BBT I think jec improved dramatically through the competition and the repetition with the same players and playing the same game again and again in a setting where we all had a real incentive to improve and suceed. Although, the real improvement in jec's nlh game I think has come since the BBT1 ended, where jec had a real Man's reaction to his BBT1 performance. Instead of yukking it up about finishing in 3rd place on the TLB, instead jec was well aware that something was wrong with his game to have lost as much money and not final tabled hardly at all. Since then I know jec has read at least 5 or 10 poker books (maybe more) because we chat about them just about every night, and dam if the guy is not out there practicing what he's reading and what he's learning almost every single night on the virtual or live felt. As I said, he is one of those guys who really takes the game, and his game, totally seriously, and I for one have to say that it is a fucking pleasure to see someone like that winning a prize like this. I don't plan to write any more about jec's incredible performance last night here today -- hopefully a certain someone who won 18 thousand samolians last night will actually make a blog post about it hint hint -- but again, congratulations out to jec who waited patiently all through the aggro and the pushing and the bluffing and everything that everyone who sat and watched the whole tournament saw, and when he made his moves near the end it was when he had cards and was ahead for the most part. Just. Incredible.

In other news, lucko took down the BBTwo TLB freeroll, which was a $1000 freeroll put up by full tilt for the top 50 players on the BBTwo leaderboard. So the competition was tough in that one, and it was roughly twice the size of the ToC, and lucko took it down. I'm sure he played his typical strong game to get 'er done, though I have to admit to not watching the TLB freeroll at all during the night due to the ToC, and of course to the regular Riverchasers tournament running at the same time. In that Riverchasers event, in light of events this week I decided I was going to play like an abject moron, which is exactly what I did. And amazingly, it worked out for me again and again and again, leading me eventually to a 4th place finish out of 30 runners and another cash in the RC as a result. It's incredible to me that I lasted this far, given the way I played the game and the number of apologies I probably owe people who actually came out to try on this night.

In case you're wondering exactly what I mean or think I'm in some way exaggerating when I say this, allow me to show you the fifth hand of the entire tournament. This could not have been more than 2 minutes after the thing started. Utg limps for the 40-chip big blind, with everyone's stack still right around the starting level of 3000, so we're talking about 75 big blinds as the effective stack here. So utg limps for 40, and utg+1 limps as well for 40 chips. Two players fold, and then Riverchasers Rich raises it up, I think to 80 chips for the minraise. I took this as an aggressive move, minraising two limpers with still four players left to act before the flop, probably indicative of KK, AA, or AK, and probably nothing other than that. I look down on the button to find T8s. A soooooted one-gap connector. How could I not play this against such a tight range, right? I can bust this guy right here and now if I nail this flop. But of course I'm not just going to call this guy with the strong hand, no way, I'm going to reraise. And what's the dumbest thing I can think of?

A small reraise. Why the phuck not, right? So I put in the reraise to a still small 340 chips with my T8s. Everyone else folds back to Rich, who pauses momentarily and then minrereraises again, this time to a 600 chips (these numbers may be a little bit off for you hand history whores, but as always the point is still crystal clear right there). At this point, yet another minraise from Rich could only mean one thing and one thing alone -- pocket Astins. And yet I was not deterred. Determined to play this thing out the way I was, I minrerereraised his ass right back, for the dreaded fourth raise in the hand up to 860 chips. Rich responds by min rererereraising again, putting in the fifth raise of the hand and bringing it up to 1120 chips to play as seen here:



At this point you could bet your life that he has pocket Astins, and he must be putting me on pocket Kings or even another pair of Astins. Absolutely hell bent on playing as donkishly as possible with so many big blinds in our stacks and me so obviously behind his clear as day pocket Astins, there was only one move for me at this point:



Yup. Another minraise, this one a rerererereraise to 1380 chips. Sure I knew I was behind his Astins, but with so many BBs in play I knew I could stack him completely if I hit my hand, and it was a soooooted one-gapper after all. Well, I was saddened at this point when Rich put in the seventh and final raise of the hand, just bumping it up to allin. I was bummed we couldn't go back and forth minraising our entire 75-BB stacks into the pot, but of course I insta-called the allin. And wouldn't ya know it, you know what they say about the 7th raise in a hand, right?



So this is how I started off my Riverchasers run last night:



Again, to Rich, I am truly sorry. And those of you who read here often will note that you will not hear me saying that very often. But I played just like this, pushing allin against obvious made hands for huge stacks with just naked flush draws and hitting (sorry Dabag!), and just generally pushing allin every time I raised preflop throughout the entire middle portion of the tournament, whether it was utg with A9o, in middle position with 98s, you name it and I pushed allin with it. It was actually incredibly fun, seeing how the other half lives for the first time in my entire life, although I have to say that I could never, ever play like that regularly. It took ten times more effort to keep playing uberdonkishly, and it was about 100 times more stressful as far as trying to preserve any chips that I had left, had I actually given a shizznot about that. Anyways, I played like this basically all the way through, cashing in the tournament in 4th place overall and ruining a lot of people's nights who actually came to play in the Riverchasers in the process, and I guess it felt good. If nothing else, as I said above just getting to see how the other half runs in these things for one night was a really fun and I think useful experience for me as far as putting things into perspective and being able to get into other people's heads. And I mean hey, how many times go you get to put in the sixth raise in a hand with T8s preflop, right? Heh heh heh.

OK I guess that's all for today. I look forward to putting some actual fucking poker hands back up on this site next week, but today it really should be all about jeciimd, his incredible performance not just in winning the Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions but really all throughout the BBTwo, and now in his chance to represent himself and represent all of us in the land down undah in January in what will easily be the largest buyin tournament he has ever played in, by, oh, about 12,000 USD. Good times. For those of you who have played live in the big buyin events before, I think that anything we can do to give jec advice on playing in his first big one like this will be a good thing, something which I plan to focus on at some point before jec leaves for Oz next month. For now, to jec, I say live it, love it, revel in it and let it burn an indelible mark into your brain what you have done to the competition all throughout this year. Coming from where you started just a short time ago, and knowing the work that you put into your game and into playing well and always improving, I literally could not be any happier for you, and for us as a group to have such a serious player representing us in the Aussie Millions.