Incivility and one other irritation addressed...aka opposite sides of the same wooden nickel...aka Why is it we play these things exactly?

Don likes to give me shit about being too political with other bloggers. He shouldn’t have that problem with this. There are two issues floating around that I want to get off my chest with no deference to propriety.

People tilt over losing. Fine. But just because you lose does not make everyone else a donkey. You know better. Personally I find the play in blogger MTTs to be a good prep for the large field MTTs. I don’t think the occasional donk play therein (including most of my own play in the last three appearances) even begins to approach the ill-conceived moves you will find in fields of 200 or more. I will specifically say I watched the end of MATH this week and thought cc played the bubble better than our boy steve-o. Yes, he caught aces twice in a row, but what saved him is that he went into aggro overdrive and began to push like a mothafuckah. The blinds he stole came directly out of slb’s stack and sealed his fate. I personally made Steve’s error in the 12k and gave up my shot at 2nd because I couldn’t bring myself to push with crap – which cc was obviously doing.

BTW, cc: yet again tried to comment to this effect on your site to no avail. It is depressing you felt you had to post that defense – those of us who “know” you also know it was unnecessary.

There is always something to be learned in defeat. And the lesson is rarely that your opponents are fucking morons, or that you should take your glove and balls and go home. I try not to focus on the luck element or my opponents’ questionable moves simply because I have no fucking control over it. Instead I try to ask myself, “How and where did I fuck this up?” Rare is the game I have played where the answers are “I didn’t” and “Nowhere, my play was ideal start to finish.”

And by rare I mean nonexistent.

Edit: Please see this guy, who was used quite roughly in the 20k yesterday, for a lesson in how to take a beat like a man. A very funny man.

People are also coming out of the woodwork to insist that they don’t even try to win these things - it’s all about droppin’ hammers and putting people on tilt, the tournaments are just an extended joke. Now most of the guys saying this are Old Schoolers, and since they started all this, who the fuck am I to call them on it? If that’s truly why you play, that’s cool.

Personally that’s not why I play. By nature I am so competitive that I can’t help but want to win everything I sign up for. And I mean everything, from a $6 token race, to Crash Tag Team Racing with my four year-old son, to the FT 20k, which I vow I will bend over my knee one day soon and paddle until she’s bright red. Well, maybe not so much the video game…but all the rest holds up.

Yes, I have a good, good time shootin’ the shit with the boyz & girls, breaking out my signature hand A7s (The Accidental Tourist) whenever I can. But I still want to win. Every single time. Playing 27o or low suited connectors from LP doesn’t mean you don’t want to win. It means you are making plays. That’s no different for any other MTT I’ve played.

I am guessing, but I would bet Don, Hoy, Smokkee and the rest of the guys I normally run with feel the same. And no, it ain’t about the score: everyone on the list I’m thinking of is rolled to where the score is nice evening-out money, but not going to change the levels we play. It’s about the bragging rights.

To routinely sign-up on a weekly basis, and claim you aren’t playing to win is a fascile, if perfect, alibi. If you never win – hey you weren’t trying. If through some miracle you do win – hey you could’ve won any time you wanted. That’s ingenious, but also pretty ingenuous, and I for one don’t believe it for a second. Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.

Edit: Duggles feel I have misinterpreted him. Here is his post following last week's Mookie without alteration. Posted Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006

"A lot of people seem to be getting their panties twisted up into their twats over the quality of play in the Mookie.

I think we need to remind ourselves that it's a lousy $10 tournament that probably costs most of us more money to play based on what we would win by playing some other games. The thing takes like 3.5 hours to finish, and you stand to make like $150 for first place? My time is better spent at the PLO8 tables, if I'm in it for the money.

The point is to have fun, put the worst, tilt-inducing beat or bluff past your opponents, and drop a lot of hammers.

I heard about one player saying he "needed to win" the Mookie last night. If this was true, you really shouldn't be playing."

Well feel free to tell me I misinterpreted this, but for those who haven't noticed, I've read a book or two, and feel pretty good about my reading comprehension. I'll just say that a "lousy $10 tournament" looks a lot better to some people once they win it. I thought Mookie showed a lot of class (as always) overlooking that description of his online homegame. I'll try to follow his example. Congratulations on the win: as far as I'm concerned, that's a tough field to beat.

Anyway, I screwed the pooch bigtime in my attempt to repeat at the Mookie, and I don’t feel bad in the least that I was trying my best to kick all your asses. I always am. The only thing I regret is how rarely that happens.

Laytah.

In the thick of it again...aka the MWGB delivers the FT 12k (almost)...aka blogger final table dominance

Hoy, you called it.

I say it all the time, but I am reminded of it every time I have success in deep-field MTTs. Your blog has had a big impact on how I play NLHE MTTs. In addition, you are the loudest voice encouraging the bloggers to get off their butts and attack the big payout MTTs. So you were definitely on my mind as I played the FT 12k.

As for my stated goal of final tabling the 20k? It was just one of those things last night; nothing terrible, but not my turn. I could’ve gone to bed, but I felt very clear-headed. Perhaps the MWGB was just getting warmed up a little slowly tonight?

Thus I fired up ye old computah and took a shot at Smokkee’s favorite haunt, the FT 12k Guaranteed. She was a live game from start to finish. It was a $75 buy-in, which I thought I used a token on, but since I still have that token, I guess I bought in direct. I am now officially superstitious about buying in direct. All five of my big cashes have been direct buy-ins. Plus I am fucking terrible at token races. Tuh-Hear-Eye-Bull.

It was money well spent as it turned out. And it was nearly a blogger 1-2 finish.

That's right - none other than Troublecat himself ended up to my immediate left (of course!) when I managed to final table the FT 12k. That light blue background was a sight I wasn't sure I'd find again. As a welcome change I made it to the final table with chips to spare, as kings were delivered to me 4 times over the course of the run, and amazingly held up each time. So, just like the HammerPlayah has been predicting, two bloggers final tabled one of the large- field tournaments.

Now, I don’t know Absinthe personally, but his blog has had an undeniable effect on what passes for my style herein. He’s a great MTT player, and his WSOP run this year (which I was lucky to get a piece of) was a clinic in how to manage the shortstack. True to form, I watched him mow through the field and climb from mid 40’s when he stopped by my table, to run as high as second when we were down to 18. He busted 5th with QQ v AQ when the big stack who called everything in sight made a straight. Sick. It was very cool to final table this tournament with someone whose writing and game I am an admirer of. Lasting slightly longer was also nice, but I had the important advantage of twice as many chips when we sat down together.

This next part may sound excessively self-involved, but when has that ever stayed the blade? After I hit the inevitable drought following those four final tables in late July, I strongly began to suspect luck had been the sole source of those good results. I began to listen to the tales of people joining sites and suddenly winning, only to never return to that form again. Despite possessing a love of critical reasoning and a modicum of common sense, during my fruitless experiments with cash games and the subsequent loss of anything resembling a decent MTT run, I began to wonder if online poker might actually be rigged.

Now if that isn’t a product of a desperate imagination, I’m not sure what one would look like.

To try and fix things, I gave up completely on cash games. Let’s face it: it’s a complicated animal with a different set of rules, and I am just not any good at it. I can only be that truthful because there is a small part of this game that I like and that I have some feel for – the MTT. Since I made my peace with this, things have come back together quickly.

And did I win the FT 12k?

Nope.

But I did okay. I lasted down to the final three, with one huge stack who played it well, and two of us tied for second. A deal never came up, and I felt good that I was at least as solid as number 3 – so liked my chances of getting heads up. Then I went completely card dead for three orbits when the blinds were 2500/5000. A deal looked great at that point, but it was too late. The two times I tried position steals, the big stack was waiting to call me down. When I finally pushed with JTs and 4 BB, he had an Ace which didn’t need to improve to do me in. Overall, I was happy with my play - I avoided those mental lapses, and was better at sitting on my pitch than I have been in a month.

222 runners. 3rd place. $2k for me. Not too shabby. As I couldn’t be at the Bash, this was a nice consolation prize. Don and JJ stuck with me to keep me honest and provide good advice when things got close. Appreciated gents - this community we’ve got going is a good, good thing.

So I’m running well these days with two top 20 finishes in the FT 20k, each with fields over a thousand, and now a 3rd in the 12k. I thought that might be enough to put me somewhere on the FT leaderboard, but nothing doin – at least not yet. I still feel good, so who knows, perhaps I'll get my genie working on that next?

There is a hand I will post in a day or so and get some feedback on. I liked my play, but the guy I busted with it was none to happy with me. Ah well, can’t please everyone. Just ask James.

Edit: There were actually three bloggers at that final table, though one was still pupating during final table play. Sleech, a guy with a very short stack who I doubled up when we were down to 15, managed to play that stack strong and final tabled as well. He was also the third guy I've met while playing an MTT to tell me he's stopped by this waystation and didn't hate it - thus clearly a man of discriminating tastes. How did he celebrate his significant cash? That's right; he released his inner blogger and set up shop. Stop by and say hi if you get a chance.

Laytah.

Impressions of a Battlefield...aka Henceforth I am Your Mookieness...aka I valiantly try blowing a foot off again, but the feet are getting smarter

Important Edit at bottom of post. Well, ok...not important enough to put up here, but important enough I didn't want it totally missed by the mouth breathers and bottom feeders who might skim by here on their way to a fungokake site. [If you want the ultrasecret definition to that particular fetishism, it's gonna cost ya a dollar. Be warned, if you live to be 90, I doubt you'll get the soul properly cleansed after you hear it.] Now back to my well earned self-adulation.


And there we have it.

More evidence, if any was needed, that all this blog has to do is hear a wish and it will labour nonstop to make it a reality.

Yes kids, after writing about how The Mookie was the tournament I felt entitled too, the MWGB kicked it into high gear and took it down for me. Jo gets a lot of credit too – that girl is the Anti-Eric: she rails and I win shit. Simple. E, on the other hand, is like a mug of battery acid angrily thown on the face of my game to get even with it for dumping him. [Simile too long and complicated? Yeah…occupational hazard. If being me could be considered an occupation.]

Kudos, blog. Kudos. If it really is happening, let the rest of them die off unceremoniously, but thy eternal summer shall not fade. Indeed. As long lives this [ie. my higher cognitive functions] and this gives live to thee.

Signs it is Your Day:

1: You final table with guys you count among your inner poker-blogging circle.

I have to say, and all there agreed, Fuel got screwed by the deal when his reasonable JTs push met AA and JJ four-handed. Still mah boy actually predicted tonight was my night when I eked back from being down to 900 and doubled up a couple of times. I know you weren’t impressed with the A6s calling A2s, but I thought I knew what you were up to, I could afford it, and I was hoping you were playing mid-level suited connectors (I was close!). I can understand why that call smells, but like the title says, "signs it is your day"…BTW if anyone missed Fuel’s post on the Overbet For Value, you should read it…the added joke is that dummy’s name just happens to be Ike. Coincidence? You be the Judge. [Jordan sent a threatening letter, so I am not allowed to use the phrase You Decide anymore – that guy’s good!]

Two: Play KQo into AJ three-handed and live to tell.

How? Find both a Q and J on the flop. Next grimace uncomfortably when an A makes the turn. Squeal like a girl with you hit trips on 5th. I will say this was the only beat I am aware of during this run, but I could be wrong. Sorry ski – and again, apologies for venting frustration on you. Chacun son gout, the French like to say [although they annotate it better]. And no, that does not translate to, “suck on some goop.” Anyway, I was a jerk to say what I did. Having just spent the afternoon watching Molina on ESPN, all I can say is maybe that douchebag rubbed off on me transiently. You play your game, I’ll play mine. Heads up was enjoyable [man, am I results oriented].

Chapter Tres: This is how you kill off your closest friend in the blogosphere:

Goddamit blogger wont post the shot! Goot news! Don has it up - fuck it's pretty. He pushes 99 three-handed and short. I call with QQ. Flop? QQ9. Yeeeesh D. What can I say?

Oh yeah – Dems Quads Beetches! If that had been High Stakes Poker, you’d owe me like 1 million clams now.

~ Part the Fourth ~ Acts of Fate (God has better things to Do than watch me play poker) may Slash but for a change they don’t Burn.

I called Don’s 10k push with 92o. With a 24k stack. Not even I am that suicidal in the endgame. The arrow was on fold, and it was bizarre – as I went to click I could see the arrow sliding in slo-mo to Call. He made it just in time to drive those hapless lemmings into the sea: think Mutual of Omaha “documentary” circa 1976. Jebus I was tilted. Positive I had blown my chance right then and there. But as I said, not even that was going to stop the MWGB from flexing its unholy muscles. You guys should be very happy I am not using these powers for evil. Just selfish results-oriented id satisfaction.


Scene Five, Act Five: Not even the nut flush can touch you.

[Again thank blogger for the lack of visuals]
HeadsUp, I go Tourist with A7o (rapidly becoming my signature hand, eh Haley?) when i call ski's push on the flop. He's holding K5 spades and we're looking at an Ac9s3s flop. Turn sheds another 3, but last man out is the Ace of Spades to give our boy the nut flush. This was one of those hands, like the one that bounced me from the 20k about a month ago, where it took me a second to figure what went down. All hail the twice-paired board.

And that’s pretty much that. It’s been a good week at the blogger tables. Other places too. Bankroll growing steadily with my MTT-only strategy (yeah, I know it won’t last, but that’s cool – at the levels I play I can tolerate the loss of sunshine every once in a while).

I‘ve come to understand something fundamental to playing MTTs: losing should not surprise you. Winning (or hitting the big payoff spots) is what should surprise you. Even while you have to approach it with an expectation of success, actually attaining success in a given MTT should still surprise the shit out of you because a lot of fairly iffy propositions have to work out perfectly for you to get from A to Z in one piece. For me, I think the most realistic goal is to try to make the best decisions I can based on holdings, position and read – then hope that I am correct and that I have minimized the role of luck. After that, you just need to be able to stomach the brutal truth underlying poker and life – usually you’re screwed before you even begin.

Finally, I tried 3-tabling last night and didn’t find it nearly as confusing as I used to. I just couldn’t get it going in the 20k and the 40k, but I am certainly not blown away by the mad skillz in evidence over on Party. I am praying that smokkee took the 20k down, cause he was looking beautiful early. As for me, from the perspective of my ability to play poker, it really does feel like progress is being made on a number of fronts. Like I am wont to note: Yay Me - the secret agenda of every upstanding weblog, no?

Laytah.

EDIT: I made a new friend through Waffles' Blog. Scroll down to the bottom. Have I gone off the deep end? I was pretty loosey-goosey out of control in the (K)Not and the 20k tonight. Perhaps winning has gone to my head? Still, this little exchange with my new pet poodle James might be the weirdest road I've taken my vocab down in a while. Full points for using the word quiche as an active pejorative!

In Between Days...aka WWdN Final Table Idiocy Redux...aka Bonus Code Iggy of course

Brevity will direct the hand today. As always, of course.

I’m getting somewhat rundown as Mr. Mom (I relinquished my title with this new gig). Are all you women feeling incredibly vindicated out there? Fair enough. Oh bearers of the mighty Y chromosome, I am taking one for the team, but am no longer man enough not to bitch about it. Me sleepy.

My MTT downtime is an undulating mobius strip of incomplete slumber, a 4 year-old existentialist who wants to debate each morsel I numbly shove at him, and a defiant 2 year-old who calmly recites back to me my entire speech on the benefit of being potty trained, while I wipe away the evidence of her refusal to get on the program. She is stubborn in that way that fills me with a mixture of irritation and admiration. Mostly admiration. She’s the kind of girl who’ll find the world presents a near immediate solution to any problem it throws her way. You know the type: beautiful and intelligent, unfairly optimistic with a ready laugh and a smile that says, “Who’s kidding who? You’re gonna do what I want, and be happy to do it.” Sheesh. The baby is mostly cruise-control, but these two jokers keep me hopping about without time to do anything remotely Manly-Mannish, like fart or tell lewd jokes. Gone indeed are the Halcyon days of youth. And those of wearing 15 lbs of lead and bathing in cancer-causing radiation for 3 to 7 hours at a time.

In poker news, I final tabled WWdN for the second week in a row - finishing a distant fourth behind Haley, Aaron and the mysterious aebooth. Congrats to all three, well-deserved. I have clearly identified a critical late-game exuberance that results in very low EV moves at a time when I can not afford to be playing stupid. I am going to exorcise this demon or go down swinging. I almost stopped myself last night, but blew my toes off anyway. Last night’s landmine occurred when we were 5 handed and I was looking good with 30k. I then doubled up KentAllard (my WWdN final table twin) when I called his 77’s holding 33’s. How bad a move was this? It had the disagreeable odour of a thing unnecessary. It was not easily affordable, as it killed half my stack and it forced me to change my game. It was the exact same error as the AQo c-bet in the 20k. Not terrible plays in general, but in context they move you further from the goal line. In case any wonder, I post about the dumber things I do in the hopes these words will find their way back into my head the Next Time.

On a positive spin front, I am now certain that abandoning cash games and SNG’s has clearly been a good move for me. Jules gave me this advice months ago, and had I heeded it I would not have torpedoed a sizable chunk of change. Woulda, shoulda, coulda…Thankfully, the bankroll is growing playing MTT’s again, which seems amazing, but I guess this is the one part of poker I have some vague comfort with. I final tabled MATH (no cash though) and WWdN this week. I am from the school that finds the blogger competition much tougher than the shallow gene pool that is most of the 20k. So when I am doing well in these I feel verah confident in the 1000+ MTTs. To wit, I am following my MTT mentor’s advice and loading up Party today. I will now be assaulting the 40k precinct in shameless parody of Hoy. You guys should too, you’re better than a sizable chunk of the competition out there.

Should I just two table tonight? It’s funny, but two-tabling MTTS is now what one tabling used to be – my standard mode. I don’t know how or when exactly it happened, but when I get locked in on just one I become impatient. Still 3-tabling continues to elude me. Since my choice is to dump the Mookie or the FT20k, both of which I love (in a decidedly masculine and very Religious Right acceptable way) I guess it’s three tables for my 40k debut. Yeah, I’ll likely be a little short on talk time, but being the Chatty Kathy you all know me to be – invite me to a conference and I undoubtedly will come a-callin’.

Laytah.

Intemperate Fortune Abandons Me Again...aka I blow my own foot off just miles from home...aka Sigh with A Capital 'S'

Twice in one seven day stretch I get within firing distance. Which means it will be a short aeon or two before the Fates align themselves for me again. Many thanks to Mookie and Joanne for railing me - wish I could have put on a better show at the end. Shortstacked it was 55 Preflop into 88 and KK sequentially. Online poker being what it is [no, not illegal (at least not yet) - I meant "rigged" in the tinfoil hat sense of the word], we all flop an 8 to teach my friend to my right a lesson in open-limping monsters.

Although I am sure there were many, a single critical error in the endgame stands out.

I over-played AQ0 to an all low flop and c-bet 15k (65% pot) I could ill afford to lose. His likely range certainly included overpairs, but for some reason I fixated only on hands I could beat. I ended up calling his value bet on the river in order to meet bullets. I can't describe how disappointed I am in this one hand - I have made this mistake enough times to know better. My 4 year-old son would have check-folded there. OK, it's true he's gifted, and could read at 3, but you get my meaning I think. That misfire dropped me from floating in the middle of the pack (my favourite spot to strike) to having to play catch up from the last of 20 players. Eventually it forced my weak push with Presto (Dammit Fuel, share the Mojo!) and that was that.

There was one read I did like, though it also empoverished me. I 4x'd 16k from UTG with 99 (I may stop doing that forever with these lousy fucking semitough pairs.) The player to my immediate left pushed with 55k. I had 35k behind, it folds around. He has watched me play some big hands, but not show any. I did win two hands early on nice plays, but who knows if he was paying attention. He is a solid player and has made only made big moves with big pairs as long as I have been at the table. Would you call off the rest of your stack here?

I didn't - I felt certain I was WAY behind - a race would have been welcome, but for some reason (monsters under the bed?) I didn't think I was racing. He didn't show so who knows? I lay it down and between those two hands I say good bye to about 39k in total. They did me in. One definitely feels like an error. One I'm not so sure of. Poker, like life, likes to give you the beating and leave it up to you to learn the lesson. In this particular example (eerily similar to my dilemna with Jacks last time - well, maybe not all that eerie, really) I am still a little unclear on the lesson. Ah well, not the first time.

And that's that.

The good news is I did some math - for my five cashes in the 20k, over many, many attempts - I am still slightly positive for this Fool's Errand. Assuming you place no value on my time, frustration and nascent need of anti-hypertension meds. I clearly don't.

But all this should inspire you guys and dolls. There are puh-lenty of better MTT-playing bloggers than me. If I can finish top 20 in this biotch twice in four days, one of us could take this thing down within a few weeks if we were all making conscientious stabs at it.

For my own part, as dumbly results-oriented as it is - I am not done with this windmill just yet.

Wish me luck.

Laytah.

Intercepting the Phage...aka 'Cause we're Union Dagnabbit...aka 5 is a Magic Number (or is that Phi?)

Housecleaning Edit too important to risk putting at bottom of post:

cc: I can't comment on your site. WTF? It's eaten comments for about a week and I am sick of being the pigeon who keeps getting shocked while trying to get the peanut. I tried doing all the stuff I did to get to comment on Absinthetics, still no love. You are missin' out brotha - ask around! I await your solution.

Drizz: In the course of adding a link to you I noticed you spell Nickel as Nickle. Wiki taught me it isn't wrong, it's listed as an alternative in both OED and Webster's, but it's rare. What gives? Is it an oblique reference to a Japanese robotics programming language? Enquiring minds etc. etc.

Felicia: I naively changed my link to you to your livejournal site thinking this would let me comment. Unfortunately, your ultramax commenting security won't give me the time of day. You too are missing out on my important ruminations, and that doesn't seem right. Add me to your goddamned list of friends (whatever the hell that means) already!


Now back to the usual waste of space that passes for a post here.


And without further ado, a new segment here at Flights:

Monday Morning Mysteries of the Poker Blogosphere
- Five discontented musings based on posts and play encountered over the last week

1. Why is everyone hellbent on spreading the contagion that poker blogs are dying/should die?

Isn't it enough for someone who is mildly [and very understandably] fed up with the painful act of maintaining a hectic rate of posts, to take a break? Or if needed, just fess up and note that they are a little tired of their blog and everyone else's too. No Harm/No Foul to that, I say. Must it be that instead of a self-limited malaise, the 'sphere is experiencing a pandemic?

Well being a clinician by trade, I've given the current distemper some thought and come up with a possible cure. Anti-viral therapy, so to speak. I propose a writer's strike. Across the entire Poker Blogosphere. Next Monday, Sept. 27th 2006 should be No Post Day...aka Brief Respite to Recharge The Battery Day...aka A Perpindicular Turn in that Otherwise Long & Winding Road Known as Our Collective Poker Experience. [I could go on, but they just get longer, and you may have work to do.] Regardless of what unbelievable turn of events occurs next weekend, take Monday off. All of you. No post, and in its place a deep breath, perhaps an Om or two and a renewal of chi, if that's yer thing.

Then we all straighten our shirts and get back to the gritty business of complaining about the imbecile who killed our stack in the 30k by calling preflop with an unsuited one gapper and calling each pot-sized bet from our two pair until his gutshot completed on the river. Fucker. What? No, no...that was a hypothetical.

So that's the plan. The next time someone tells you there are no new ideas out there, you can send them my URL gratis. No Post Day: It's about bloody time.

2. How much work would it take for me to be able to participate in fantasy football?

I have to be honest; I like the game (Bills fan - it's a Toronto thing) and can still throw one with reasonable accuracy - but just don't follow it closely enough to make drafting anything less than intimidating. No big deal, but I didn't realize how closely poker/pokerblogging were intertwined with this other deviant subset of the American psyche. Isn't enough that we Canucks indulge one degeneracy after another of yours without it coming to this? Ah well, maybe next year...

3. Why does my overbet for value ALWAYS induce a fold?

I like the idea of this move in principle, but can't seem to pull it off. What magic mojo makes this goddamned thing work? Everytime I read one of Fuel's all-in's get called by the most suicidal holdings, I have to quell the desire to tear the hair out. Yeah, I'm talking about the short and curly's - not my fault if you eat while you read this tripe.

4. How long has waffles been a member here?

Yes, I stole this from Mookie, but it's so good it needs a nudge to get a life of its own going... Seriously dude. Weren't poker bloggers ghey enough fer ya?

5. How is it that Matt Maroon has written some of the best advice on blogging I've read?

No real beef with Maroon, but some of his stuff over the last year came across as pretty uncivil. So to read his thoughts on poker blogging and find them insightful and encouraging was a little surprising. The Black Adder in me can't help but wonder if he wrote it, or better if he was indulging a sense of irony that would have me standing and clapping. But even taken on face value, the post is worth the read. The careful addition of the word "Really" in the title gives a sly nod to the post a while back that some took notice of, and issue to.

Also, a big thanks to everyone for sharing their take on that hand last post. I have a long way to go before I am where I want to be as a player, but significant improvements have been made since I started blogging. As good a reason as any to keep this site (and all of yours) going.

Lastly, a quick but sincere tip of the cap to the Hobbit King.

See ya at MATH.


Laytah

I turn out to be a die on my feet kind of guy...aka FT 20k final table (almost)...aka You Decide (Jordan don't sue me!)

Openly stated goals for the evening of poker that was last night.

1. Win The Mookie.


2. Final Table the Full Tilt 20k

I failed in both attempts, but it’s up to you to decide which was a more spectacular failure.

Let me begin by saying I am back in the zone. I took Smokkee and Hoy’s recent return to winning ways as a major inspiration. Somehow I felt I was due for my next final table run very soon, given that chronologically I got hot the first time right after Hoy and Smokkee started demolishing every MTT that got in their way. Superstitious nonsense perhaps, but this week I feel fucking lucky: dialed in and dangerous.

Sadly, The Mookie didn't give a shit about any of my Daily Affirmation mumbo jumbo.

Jacks hurt me last night. Nah - that’s too blame-avoiding. I fucked myself up pretty bad playing Jacks last night. That’s closer to the bone and to the truth. Because JJ is one of mah boyz, I will refrain from using my (considerable? awe-inspiring?) intellect to come up with a devasting new way to disparage his signature hand.

The Mookie: Why is it I think I should have won this tournament by now? It certainly isn’t that I think I am a better MTT player than the brethren (or sistren – Joanne, Jules and Maudie routinely pick my bones clean. Kitty has bounced me a lot too!). Is it because I consider Mookie a friend? If anyone hangs with Mookie and doesn’t consider him a friend, they pretty much qualify for sociopathy. The dude is likable, whadya want? So it can’t simply be that. Plus I like Hoy a lot too (in a secure, comfortable with my masculinity kind of way), but have never considered myself entitled to a MATH award. I just kind of think/believe the Mookie’s the blogger tournament I am gonna win one of these days. Technically I won The (K)Not once long ago, but it was a low turnout day, with most of the heavy hitters absent, so I don’t really count it.

Yesterday was not the day. WillWonka, a man whose kings I mercilessly deposed last time out, got his pound of flesh from me, heedless of the fact he was illegally taking my blood, connective tissue, and a couple of vital organs. As I mentioned last post, it would behoove some of you to revisit The Bard for edumacation on just such niceties. Anyway, I raised my Jacks into his kings preflop and when he pushed at me post flop, cleverly joking I better not kill his kings this game, I decided to see what kings look like when the computer turns them over.

Same as always it turns out.

Yes, kids, I call and I am second out of the Mookie. How the fuck someone beat me out of the tourney is a genuine mystery considering this was hand number 3! Patience, people. Patience.

So one down, one to go, but that good vibe is going strong. And the 20k begins to feel very familiar. I make small moves here and there, play very tight early on and chip up steadily, without actually busting anyone. Until none other than the HammerPlayer himself shows up in my big blind.

The following opinion may be completely false, but I have played a lot of hands with Hoy, and certainly watched him for a long time. I have read his blog daily for months now. If there is one blogger I think I have some intuitive sense of, it would be Hoy. Thus, when I 3x’d him with AJo and he pushed at me, I asked myself – Which of the two things that Hoy is capable of doing is this? Is it a resteal, with him giving me credit for a +/- hand but one I will fold to pressure? Or is it the overbet for value, being made specifically to me, with him knowing I will interpret it as a resteal?

I did not instacall. I mulled. But there was not much in the way of information outside this. I had two high cards. I could afford either move – the call would leave me with 3k (I think), and it was early enough I could rebound. If I won, I would be at 8k and able to try playing some real poker. So I did a gutcheck, and put my boy on a resteal with one of those ineffable certainties you can't adequately explain, and I called his push.

His Q8d found an 8 on the flop, but I got all Greenstein on him and hit an A on the river. The money went in preflop, and I was okay with losing given that my read was dead on. That I won was helpful, although I shit you not - I took no pleasure in bouncing a guy I consider a friend and a teacher. All I can say is that I show my respect for my friends by playing as hard as I possibly can against them. On the bright side, he needed his sleep, given his late night win the other day. For those of you who would point to Hoy’s mantra – which I generally live by too – about calling all-ins with AJ and AT, I would just say that this particular call was contextual and I believe correct, but not because I won the hand. Your thoughts are always appreciated, so feel free, but spare some energy for the big question of the day, which follows.

After this, the 20k went great. I made a sneaky check-call to successfully induce an all-in when I flopped two pair - only to have him runner-runner a Q and an A for a better two pair. “Slow-playing Moron” I guess would be a fair criticism, but I did get all the money in WAY ahead, and that is all I really care about in these things. Because I had been up to my usual blinds pilfering ways, I survived that botched slickness and continued up the ladder. Along the way Don, Kitty, slb and JJ stopped by to rail me via IM. Can’t say it enough, I appreciate it. Makes it more fun without doubt. Smokkee also stuck around long enough to see that Ya Can’t Always Get What Ya Want is about as true an observation as any. In addition to going deep in the 20k, the dude comes in second in the Mookie. I truly chuckle when people minimize the skill involved in MTTs.

But now to my moment of truth, and an honest question. Many of you who stop by here are very accomplished players. So here is someone at the beginning of the game with limited final table experience (four non-blogger deep field MTTs and about as many at blogger tourneys) asking for your opinion. Smokkee, Hoy, Fuel, Ryan and Wes in particular I’d appreciate your thoughts, but in general I’m putting this scenario out there because I am ambivalent about both the decision and the result. Edit: I hope it's abundantly clear these are not the only people whose game I have a deep respect for. It was early morning, these are the names that came to mind - so take no offense, ye unwashed but highly lethal masses.

There are 11 players left. Fucking cool, no? I agree – I tied my previous FT 20k best finish. the final table is in sight. Blinds are 4000/8000 + 500 I believe. I have roughly 65k and am UTG+1 when dealt JJ. There are 6 players at my table. I truly believe I have a tight image. My raises have generally been respected, and I have shown enough hands when raising with the goods that I’ve been able to steal blinds even short stacked. My VP$IP at this late stage is still 22/14. UTG limps for 8k. I bet 32000 aka half my stack. It folds around to UTG who mulls and then calls me. Flop is K6T rainbow. He thinks about it again and then puts me all-in. I am down to 32k, but the kicker is that someone else just busted on the other table and now we are one bustout from the final table, with a micro stack of 14k on the other table. If I lay it down, I have a decent shot of making the final table as another microshorty with an M=2ish. The other piece of information relates to the player in question. He had a stack of 120,000+ when he called me. His bet of 32k still leaves him 60k+ behind. And he bullied me off a pot two orbits ago with a similar move. What range do I put him on? It’s possible he has a king. He’s been aggressive preflop mostly, so if he had QQ through AA he would have put me allin preflop. AK, KQ, KJ, KT – all possible. Pocket pair? Possible. Any mid powered A is also possible as are mid-pairs which I have seen him limp. He’s looser than I, with a VP$IP around 35/20.

So those were my considerations and the factors I tried to weigh. What would you do? Do you call with Jacks facing an overcard? Do you laydown and try to make the Final Table, which I said was stated goal tonight. Openly stated – ask slb or Don. I called this as my goal before I stepped up to bat tonight. Do I risk it so close to the end?

Well, obviously I did. He had pocket sixes and flopped a set which he then bet at me. He could afford the preflop raise easily and looked at the implied odds if he hit I guess, although I'm not sure calling off 25% of your stack there to the tightest guy at the table was advisable. [Edit: got to add this for clarity's sake since two guys I respect alluded to it. I was entirely kidding about villain having implied odds to call here; unless he thinks I am bluffing or playing 22-55 this call with 66 is dumb. In the context of my likely range, this move deserved to get torched.] I don’t improve and I am out in 10th. Out of 1054.

I guess deep down, I didn’t want to pussy my way into the Final Table. At the end, I badly (perhaps too badly) wanted to win and for 30k I had the chance to win 120k and be a final table factor. I checked my read and thought I was ahead (deluded myself so?) and that he was bullying me with a midpair. [I was close!] So on the whole, I like (or at least can live with) this call, but am very curious to know what you guys think.

At this point I will go out on a limb and say I believe I am becoming a pretty good MTT player. Yay Me. That said, the caveat is I also had a huge suckout in the midgame to keep me alive. It was balanced by the runnah-runnah I mentioned earlier, and although the money went in late, JJ v 66 has got to clear my karmic slate too I think.

Lastly, congrats to Lifesagrind who made the final table and was looking excellent when I left. Hope you took it down brotha. Would’ve been cool to have two bloggers final table this baby together. Next time.

Laytah.

Imposter Alert: does anybody actually read this thing?...aka Scared Straight: a look at my personal life...aka the play's the thing

Well, I’m a little disappointed slash disturbed.

Turns out, I’m not as unique as I might have hoped.

The last post was actually written by Eric, everyone’s favorite blog-deleting Bone-Daddy. I made a few minor edits, but 99.5% of that opus was ghost written. I figured someone might notice that pale imitation of my singular style, but Nay! Nary a murmur from anyone out there. I would have laughed my ass off if my anonymous fan had left that comment on E’s post, but sadly I do not have that shield to hide behind.

If anything, that post got the best reviews I’ve seen in weeks. Bastards. Waffles came closest when he noted “Wow. Actual poker content.” That fact alone I thought would be a dead giveaway.

Anyhow, E will occasionally post here – he’s too lazy to start another blog, so he’ll just play squatter over here. Since I blog about once a week, that leaves plenty of time for any other people out there who have something to say but are too smart to nurse this particular addiction. How’s this for a contest. If you spot one of his posts I’ll give the first correct guess a buck, but if you’re wrong ya owe me one. Any takers? Let’s see.

On other fronts - after God knows how many attempts dating back to late December last year, I final tabled WWdN. As this tournament is where my interest in MTTs and poker bloggers began, that was very cool. I ended up busting out third after playing reasonably well, but also getting very lucky three times, so no complaints on my end. Except perhaps for the uberboo move I made on the way out.

Want to know what people mean when they say “don’t make bets that will only be called by hands that can beat you?” Well…just hypothetically…don’t push your entire 25k stack at a 5x raise holding A7s (The Accidental Tourist) even if you are shorthanded. The only person who is going to call that fucker is ahead or racing. AA-Joshman-AA, holding the non-eponymous but equally effective AK, was decidedly ahead. No pressure at all to make that move. Amusingly I suppose, it came seconds after R-gee kindly opined I was improving as a player. Would that it were so, but I still appreciate the sentiment. After being so paranoid about busting out early for so long, somehow a gasket blew in my head and I wanted to win the whole thing immediately.

What I really learned from this is that I need a better air conditioner. My study is fucking boiling after four hours of poker and results in me doing mercurial things like this. Mo-Ho-Ron.

But still! Third. With a hell of a lot of good players in this thing. So that’s yet another goal the MWGB has pulled off for me. And given this finish, and a couple of reasonably deep 20k runs where I got my money in way ahead but got sent home anyway, I am feeling like I am playing better. Still puh-lenty of room for improvement [see above for details], but I am liking a good chunk of my decisions again.

No, not that last one. Yecchhh! Super-gross, ya might say, depending entirely on how insufferable I come off at any given moment.

What else?

In the mood for some non-poker stuff? Fair warning – this will be me bitching about my life, despite clearly understanding I have it pretty fucking good and should be constantly looking for ways to pay the universe back for the ridiculous good fortune I have enjoyed my whole life. Sheesh. Now I don’t even want to go on.

But like the Sam Beckett fan that I am, I guess I must.

My New York medical license has been held up for bureaucratic reasons at several levels, and though I know eventually everything will be ok, right now I am pretty stressed and upset about not being able to start my new job on time at the beginning of October. As totally self-serving as this sounds, I really value being a reliable guy. If I promise something, I will bust my considerable backside to deliver. One of the first sentences I taught my son was, “a deal is a deal”. And no, it wasn’t a poker reference that time.
When it comes to work, I like being that guy who wants the ball. So the fact that I signed a contract promising to start Oct 1, and now cannot is really eating me up. I’ve become cranky as I’ve tried to charm, cajole and harangue the administrations at my hospital and my medical school to help me out.

At home I think I am bordering on intolerable. I’ve loved being home for the last three months as a housedad. I am a fairly neat guy, so I don’t mind doing the stuff that keeps the house running, and I truly love hanging with the kids all day. You guys know how it is – these space-invading creatures - who moved into your once somewhat spacious house and now eat all your food and destroy your valuables - have this way of making your backyard seem like it’s positively extraterrestrial. And your life seem like it’s positively enchanted. It has been a cyclical joy and occasionally sublime. In particular, it’s been amazing getting to know my big girl (the two-year old) better. This is nothing any of you don’t know, but just the act of loving people this deeply while we go about our daily lives is enriching. I feel like I am penciling in the detail on my kids that I missed while in fellowship, and that makes me feel great.

But coming up on 8 weeks, I am beginning to miss doing what I know I am supposed to be doing with my life. I feel kind of lazy because I feel underused. Perhaps this is proof that people (by which I mean me) are fundamentally stupid, and incapable of taking the foot off the accelerator long enough to appreciate the lulls life affords them every once in a while. Or maybe it’s that someone as controlling as me is having major issues with the fact an important step in his career is being delayed by forces beyond his meager control. That certainly has the ring of truth. Fuck. I know I should just chill, and eventually this will work itself out. But the uncertainty has put the house hunting on hold and forced us to change our plans to sell our house in Cleveland. Now we’re going to keep this house and U and the kids will stay here while I start work and rent an apartment for a month or so, just so we have all the finances and other crap aligned properly before pulling the trigger on a monster mortgage.

I know, I know. As far as problems go these are pretty bourgeois, especially if you pay any attention to what’s going on all over the world. Guilty as charged. Still. It’s been bothering me.

And somehow, putting that down and admitting it does make it easier to think about. So that’s something.

What else? On a brighter note:

I tried to take a vacation this weekend. Took the wife and kids to Toronto, dropped the kids off with my Mom & Dad, and then whisked my girl off to Stratford, Ontario for the annual Shakespeare Festival. We had a suite at Langdon Hall, an estate right out of Jane Austen, about forty minutes from the theatre. In all I did about 16 hours of driving in the 48 hours of the weekend, and am still recovering, but on the whole it was worth it.

We saw Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing. Now I love watching live theatre, and in particular I love Shakespeare. Right after Writer on the List of Roads I wish I had had the Talent & Balls to Take When I was Younger, would come Actor. I love the look and sound of words, and the act of creating new ways to combine them and deliver them. All you ever need to do to appreciate the genius of good performances is to try performing yourself, or watch a bunch of terrible performers mangle something beautifully written. Having drank deep of both of those dubious experiences, I am left in the enjoyable, but wistful position of informed, appreciative audience member.

So Stratford was a lot of fun, especially since I was introducing U to it, and hopeful that this could be something we do together. She had a blast and given that English is her second language, it underscores my strongly held conviction that Shakespeare is for all of us. Done well, it’s not about stuffy British accents and language that makes no sense. Done well, the language breathes through the genius of the performers interpreting it, and in finding this life, the play becomes something easy to reach and relate to. I personally think the comedies prove this much better than the tragedies, because you would think the jokes shouldn’t work unless you are easy with the lingo. But once the performers set the scene, the logic of the comedy transcends the particulars of the language. I watched school kids laugh hysterically at the antics of Malvolio as he pranced around in “yellow stockings, cross-gartered!” and Constable Dogberry continually proves funny without any explanation (although, having seen three productions of Much Ado, I still give Michael Keaton my vote for nailing this redoubtable idiot perfectly – see the movie with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson as leads, it is terrific).

Naturally, I too wish all my tediousnesses upon all of you. Hence my blog.

If you haven’t seen a play of Shakespeare’s before, look for one – ideally by a professional troupe; in Canada, nothing beats the Stratford Festival. Or if the last time you saw one was in high school, go again now. As an adult it just makes more sense. By now, we are all bereft of our innocences. By this point in our journey, we have loved unrequitedly, had desires, hopes and ambitions dashed, and felt the darkest emotions we’re likely to ever know. The emotional table is set for us to be an audience able to grasp Shakespeare on an intuitive level far better than the bored sixteen year-olds on an Honours English class trip.

Okay, now I am tired.

Did I mention I finished third in the WWdN? I did? Oh. Okay.

Laytah.

In Rome, do as the Parisians would do…aka Head-butts and Cold Calls are for the developmentally delayed…aka Now for Something Completely Different…

Renaissance author Francis Bacon wrote in 1597 that “Knowledge is Power”, I wonder how his pansy ass would hold up in a 4 hour marathon MTT and if he would still have the same opinion. Or would he change his mind and state that Mental Stamina and Toughness is Power.

Indulge me, and allow me this pontification:
I find I have discovered a hole in my game, one that maybe some of you have encountered. It is the moment where for a split second, after 4 hours/240 minutes/14,400 seconds of focused, digested, discerned, calculated, manipulated, aggressive, mean-spirited and otherwise perfect poker play, I Cold Call an All-In bet towards the end of the tournament. Why? To be the table hero, to take the bullet for the team, to potentially knock one more meatball out of the tournament, to move up, or closer towards the money. And what is my reward for this valiant, nay selfless, effort? I lose about 10 to 20% of my hard earned stack, and my table mates get very “Et Tu, Brute” on me, pushing harder to steal my blinds, now that I have too, become somewhat weakened.

In this year’s World Cup Final (for you Americans, imagine a bunch of true athletes kicking a black and white sphere over all over God’s creation for hours on end, without commercials, For no discernable reason, while a mob of foreigners are doing their best impression of Yankee fans on acid) when Marco Materazzi exclaimed “I could have been your bone-daddy but the dog beat me over the fence”, it unleashed a primordial involuntary response from Zinedine Zidane in the form of a Cold Call – by which I mean one savage head butt. Fortunately no one noticed, or it might have been an issue. I myself might have resorted to a Stoogesque two-finger eye poke - head butts are so extreme and run the risk of damaging the hallowed vault that is my cranium.
So my observation of the week is this: All-In Cold Calls are Head Butts: they give you a headache, they mortally wound your pride, they prevent you from achieving your goals, and generally make you look like an all around ass (curmudgeon doesn’t work here).

Did you know that triumphant Roman Generals would be treated to a ticker-tape-like parade after victories against their rivals? The Crowd would cheer “carpe diem” towards the victorious general, while a little servant would sit behind the general and repeat “Respice post te! Hominem te memento mori!" which loosely translates into “Look behind you! Remember that you are but a mortal man!”

I need one of these little fidgets to sit on my shoulder during a 4 hour MTT. Waffles has applied for the position, but is unfortunately overqualified. Why? To tell me when to switch gears, when I’m no longer the short stack and to pull back the aggression, to tell me not to be the table hero, and to point out who is Caesar, so I can finish off his mortally wounded ass. I think we could call this fictitious Fidget “Hacker”, just picking a name out of the ether. Speaking of mah boy, it was great meeting him and stuff, but that high screeching, pre-pubescence voice coming out of a six foot with change man continues to haunt me in my sleep. Talk about a voice ruining an image, the movie Trans-America came to mind for some reason… Think Tom Cruise in biker tights a size too small. You’re welcome.

But I digress, and talk of high screeching voices and death harkens me back to my medical school and the residency days of my long lost youth. I did my residency at the Ak Chim Indian Reservation in Arizona. For those you that don’t know, you can’t do, or learn jack shit in an American based hospital (too many rules, lawsuits, regulations, liability), so most medical studies migrate to the Caribbean or an Indian reservation where basically you can perform brain surgery on your first day of work. Successful brain surgery? Nope. But you do get to work the rotary saw, and the simple joy of shaving an unsuspecting head cannot be overstated.

I was sewing a guy up one day - I can’t recall what he did, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty, and I see two hot Asian nurses eyeing me up out of the corner of my eye. Asian chicks have the greatest back sides. As Ron Burgundy would say, “It is a Scientific Fact, Look it up”. The young ladies approached me later during my rounds to ask if I was, indeed, Robbie Benson. I couldn’t resist, I noticed my name tag had turned inside out; I slickly removed it and put it in my pocket. “Why, yes I am”. I went on to explain that Hollywood was so fake, that I gave up acting for a more noble profession. Shortly thereafter, the screeching began. Ah, that wonderful memory of high pitched resonance lasted for years, until now, it sadly has been replaced with Hacker’s mug.

BTW, people have always said I look like the Robster. I personally am pretty ticked at him for never hitting it huge so that I in my youth could also have hit it huge, so to speak. Of course I pray that at 35, people mean I look like the 22-30 year old RB. Have you seen that guy lately (at 50-something)? Not even Dr. Rey could make much of that. As Waffles or Steve-o might note - Ick.

Laytah.

EDIT:

Just received the funniest/truest/briefest comment evah on this blog and wanted to make sure it did not go unheralded. Last post, comment 23 reads:

"Good LORD you are a selfrighteous bastard. I can't believe anybody reads this shit and takes it seriously. "

The only shame is this was anonymous, so that I can't properly address the object of my admirations. He or she (or heshe perhaps) raises a couple of points I wholeheartedly concur with: most of what I put down is pointless drivel, and that it is frankly astonishing anyone reads it. Not only this, through the judicious use of capitalization I am left feeling that the task of reading my dreck actually pained this person. I understand completely. Imagine being the one creating it! A few small bones of contention (think hamate and lunate, not femur or humerus):

1. Self-righteous? I politely dispute (I'm Canadian - that's how we roll). Self-centered, self-serving, self-aggrandizing, sure. No debate. But in general, I rarely consider myself the final arbiter of anything, and when it comes to poker I don't even consider myself to be carrying a properly equipped pencil case. As I said, I dispute.
2. Bastard? Oh yeah? I have documents. And I was recently genotyped. So there.
3. No one, and I mean NO ONE takes this shit seriously. Beginning and ending with me. You shouldn't either.

Anyhow, thanks for stopping by, and if it's any consolation I too am deeply concerned about the perpetrator of this blog. Rumour has it he's an egomaniac. Let's both keep an eye on him. Next time leave your name, blog, etc. Also feel free to share your views on having internet friends stay at your house rent free for extended periods of time while on vacation. I'm making a list.