Runner-Runner-Rebuy

I know there are some people out there that talk a lot about finally getting their first Mookie win. Well, until last night, I've never even cashed in the thing. I've won the MATH a few times, won the Big Game, won the Bodonkey, won the Riverchasers, cashed in the Skill game I think....but never in the Mookie. Never even close to a cash in the Mookie for that matter. After 2 years.

So, one of my goals or 2008, was not to win the Mookie, but just to friggin cash in it. 3rd place last night accomplished the goal. I guess now I have to win the damn thing.

My game has been turning around the past few weeks and I think I am getting out of the slump I was in. I've buckled down a bit and re-focused. I think the slump would have been shorter if I stuck to my game instead of trying to adjust it to deal with the variance I was seeing. I'm still down a ton in online play so far for 2008, but my live game play has been moderately successful so I'm only down a few K overall and feel like I have turned a corner.

I went into the Mookie last night thinking the only way to win it was to play fast and loose and get lucky. That seems to be the way people win it. But when I sat down, I just couldn't do it. I have been working on playing tighter and using position better and I just couldn't bring myself to playing crazy.

A great thing I have done in the past a few times, and have done about 4 times in the past week is to play a tourney blind. Cover your cards with a piece of paper on the screen and only look at them if you are put into a position to call off all your chips. It does wonders for your game, reminds you of the importance of image, and really makes you pay attention to what the rest of the table is doing. Most importantly, it truly demonstrates how vital positional play is. Until I did this the first time about 2 years ago, I don't think I truly understood that. And in fact, I need to play a game blind from time to time to remind me. Playing these blind tourney's last week has gotten me back on track I hope. By the way, I won the Big Game last fall playing blind.

Back to the Mookie- I couldn't bring myself to play really loose-aggro, so I didn't. I played a very tight, pretty aggressive game, and finally cashed. I was under T1000 by the first break, and barley over T1000 at the second break. I was definitely getting worried. But a few mini-rushes kept me alive, mixed in with an occasional well times steal. I went from T1500 to T11000 in 3 or 4 hands with AA, AK, AA, and 99. And rolled into the final table.

When it was down to 11 players I noticed that all the remaining players were known players, and damn good ones. I made a regrettable comment in the chat -
"Wow, besides Waffles, the last 11 players are a really tough field." My regret has nothing to do with the current "chat controversy" going on, because it was not meant as ill will towards Waffles, just a funny barb because he has had a history of blowing it at the final table. Also, I know he can take a joke, just as I have taken it it from him in the past and see it as nothing more than camaraderie. My regret was because as soon as I typed it, I was terrified that I had just reverse coolered him.

In any case, I think my tight image really worked for me, and I made some steals and re-steals when I needed to at the final table and generally got respect from the other players. I only saw 8% of the flops, won about 70% of flops seen, and took down another 8% pre-flop. The combination of tight positional play and, lets be honest, getting some good cards at the right time, saw me through to the final 3 players. Down to LJ, Waffles, and myself, with LJ about a 2:1 stack over Waffles and I. I got into a bad spot with K10. I raise, Waffles re-raises, and in a serious lapse of judgment, I push my stack into his KK.

I have to give Waffles a ton of credit for his performance. My connection might have been timing out, but it looked like he actually considered folding the KK. He called of course, and won, but the fact hat he considered what to do is a testament to how well he played last night. The heads up battle between him and LJ when on for a while before Waffles was victorious. LJ is just someone I can't figure out. Most of the time I think LJ is a terrible poker player, but considering the cashes she has made recently and that fact that I can never put her on a hand makes me think she is actually really, really good.

All in all, it was a fun night, I hope I'm back on track, and congrats to both Waffles and LJ for a great HU battle. GL to Waffles in the TOC.

Rakebrain is hooking some of us bloggers up tonight with a little $1000 freeroll on FT. Should be fun. The LeCheese Challenge II is goin' off at 6PM tonight Hold Em/Omaha Hi game.

Looks like there will be some tough competition now that I can see which other bloggers are in it. I look to avenge myself tonight on BuddyDank for his bad call that knocked me out of the BoDonkey on Tuesday. With AA and a few limpers, I pop it to 4x BB and it folds around to Buddy who calls with 77. He of course flops the set and checks. With around $1000 in the pot, I push my last 1K and get insta-called. He sort of admitted on BDR that it was a questionable call but that he got lucky and it paid off. I think it was close, but with 300 to call and 7.5:1 chances of flopping the set, he needs to get paid $2250 for it to be a good call. I simply didn't have enough behind to give him the payoff he needed if he hits.

I often wonder about this kind of situation. In a cash game, if I limp with a small pocket pair, and I am raised by a small stack that can't offer me the right odds, I will almost always through away the hand. In a tourney I sometimes wonder if it is ok to make a call like Buddy's. He was a big stack at the time and the call could pay off 6:1. Now, this isn't the 7.5:1 you would want, but there is the added value of eliminating someone from the tourney. Late in a tourney, I can see that you might want to do this because eliminating one player while you have a big stack can have a large effect on the average chip stack.

For example, there are 7 players left, the average chip stack is T10000, and the blinds are 200-400, and a player in the BB with T5000 makes a raise to T1600. You have a stack of T20000, and have limped with a small pocket pair, out of position. It folds around to you and you have to call T800. Your odds of hitting the set are 7.5:1, so you need to get paid T6000 on your T800 call. With T2200 in the pot already, and the raiser having only T3400 behind, he most you could make if all the money goes in is T5600.

Suppose you hit and all the money gets in, your stack is now T25600, and the average stack is now T10833. I'm not going to brake out the ICM calculator, but this most certainly has a measurable effect on your ICM equity.

But the same exact situation with say, 30-40 players left, just doesn't seem to justify making a call that cannot pay you off directly with T$. It has almost no effect on your ICM equity.

In essence, I say it was a bad call by Buddy. Forgive me if I have the numbers slightly wrong and it was a good call. More important to me than this particular hand is what people think about making calls that can't be paid off directly in T$ but potentially have some other kind of chip equity depending on the stage of the tourney. Any other opinions out there?

Texas Hold'em

Poker is a game with many different variations.  And one of the most popular variations over time has been 7 Card Stud as it was the most widely played at US casinos.  However, Texas Hold’em would gradually creep up on 7 Card Stud until the turn of the new millennium when TV pushed it to the top.

Now Texas Hold’em is everywhere and it’s hard to find an area where the game isn’t prevalent.  Turn on your television at any moment and flip through if you don’t believe me.  There is World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker Circuit events, Poker After Dark, and many other shows all dedicated to bringing people coverage of Texas Hold’em.  For those who aren’t familiar with how to play Texas Hold’em in an online poker room, each person is dealt two cards and they wait until bets are made before the flop is turned up. The flop is three cards being dealt in the center of the table which are community cards (everyone uses them to make their hand). Poker hand rankings guideis a very good place to start if you are just beginning to learn poker.



After bets are made, the next step of Texas Hold’em is for players to go through another round of betting and when they are finished the turn (fourth card being turned up) happens.  The final step of a Texas Hold’em hand is for another round of betting to occur and then the river is dealt.  This is the final card and it determines who will be able to make the best five card hand out of the five on the table and the two cards in one’s hand.

Once the hand is over, the process happens all over again.  Texas Hold’em is a very difficult game to master but if one can consistently make good hands over and over again, then maybe one day they will be lucky enough to appear on TV. 

Finished 2nd in Bodonkey tonight, which should put me into the top 10 in points and come close to solidifying a spot in the TOC.

Got heads up with the fake Donkette for the second time in the Bodonkey. I took the first one, she took it this time using her 5:1 chiplead to stomp me pretty quickly.

I also managed to knock out BoDog pro David Williams along the way. He raised my BB from the cutoff. I only had K6, but the $100 bounty on his head enticed me to push and he called with A4. River K, DWGH, and I collect $100. Hat tip Blinders.

Early exit from the Skillz Game on FT. Don't even remember what I had. Oh wait, it was JJ cracking my QQ i think. Runner-runner flush I believe. Oh well.

Shit is hectic around here, and I'm surprised I did as well as I did tonight. I'm busy packing for a move from apartment to first home on Saturday, and I don't know how shit is going to get done in time.

I'll prob play the Mookie tomorrow, but I think I'm going to play blind. So for the small amount of readers I have, there's a little edge for you. Expect me to raise and re-raise from late position with air. Seems to be the way to win a Mookie.

Missed the riverchasers last night due to packing for the big move, but hopped on later and got involved in one of the blogger cash games while I played some 55+5 SNG's.

I folded my way down to 4 players in the 3 SNG's, and got a 1st, 2nd, and 4th place. I don't know what was going on last night in the 55+5's but the players were crazy, 3 or 4 going all in at a time. Normally, I'm pretty aggro in the turbo SNG's, but sitting back and folding into the $$$ seemed to be the way to go last night and it worked out pretty good for me.

In the cash game, I never really got any cards, or traction. Also, it was kinda hard to pay attention while playing some SNG's and .15/.30 just can't keep me focused. Lost about $30 in the cash game.

The real fun of the night was losing my Pushfest virginity. I heard rumbling of the pushfest over the past few days, but didn't really know exactly what peeps were talking about. In case your late to the party too, here's the scoop. Listen to BDR, and at some point they will call for a pushfest. Typically a 90 player $3 tourney, or a 50 FTP tourney is chosen. As many bloggers as possible sign up. Everyone pushes all in EVERY HAND (plays just like the Mookie). Last man standing wins, and everyone else ships him/her some agreed upon amount ($5 or $7). It is insanely fun. The reactions from the "normals" at the tables are hilarious.

RecessRampage ended up winning one of the tourney outright. I came close in one, but Donkette ended up taking it down. To be honest, even if I outlasted her, I think I would have been disqualified, because I accidentally folded a bad hand out of habit, instead of pushing all-in. Its actually tough to play a pushfest while multi-tabling, because of the auto-pilot mode I tend to go into while playing 3-6 tables.

Hmmmmm.....thinking back on the crazy 55+5 SNG's I was playing, I wonder if it was really some more advanced level of pushfest going on. Maybe a bunch of guys normally playing $500 SNGs decided to slum it in the 55+5's and have a pushfest of their own.

Big move tomorrow. Lots of shit to finish tonight. Good luck at the tables, and see you all on Sunday for the Big Game (provided my internet gets set up in time).