Return to the Wheatie
16th Nov 2006, 16:43 GMT
Filed under: Bloggers, Tournaments, Online Games, No Limit Texas Hold'em So I haven't had much time for poker over the last month or so. After the WCOOP was over, I think I was a little burned out, anyway, and needed a break, so I didn't make it much of a priority, and got busy geeking out with various forms of geey geekery. But I was scheduled to play the TLB match on PokerStars on Sunday, and if I lost, I would drop below .500 lifetime, so I put down the graphic novels and walked away from the Internets for a few days, and tuned up my game. I reviewed all the notes I've made over the last year or so, and had long conversations with myself about being patient and playing smart. I sat down for the match on Sunday afternoon, ready to play the best poker of my life as we battled it out, and promptly turned into a cardrack, and lucked my way into a victory in less than 15 minutes when I flopped a set vs. TPTK. While I'm happy to get a check in the W column for Team PokerStars, I honestly felt like my cards played themselves, and it's a technical win, more than a personal victory. Well, I did successfully drop the hammer, so that was pretty cool. After I was done, I felt that poker buzz, and started to look forward to playing the WWdN tourney last night. In fact, I was so excited about it, I made two tourneys this week: the main one and a second chance / West coast tourney a few hours later and I made a rare announcement about the tourneys on my blog, hoping to draw in more players. (No luck; small turnouts for both, but extremely good play. Goddamn these tourneys have gotten tough!) I played okay in the main tourney. I lost a lot of chips early on with unimproved big aces where I folded after getting repopped on continuation bets, and making good-but-tough laydowns with TPBK and one busted hammer bluff. (Question: When you make a good laydown, but it cost you a significant amount of chips to get the information, do you feel smart that you made the good fold? I feel smart, but I'd rather have the chips; how do you get the information for less, do you think?) I ended up making it to the break, but my M was 4ish, so I switched to the shortstack strategy I love (and unfortunately know all too well.) I picked up a lot of dead money in pots by jamming with good blackjack hands, cards that looked to be live if I got called, and a couple of pairs. I got back up to 10ish, and found AK in MP. I figured this was a good time to race and double up before the blinds went up again and dropped me to 5ish, so I pulled a Hoy against SoxLover. It was awesome, as I goaded him into putting me all-in with Q4o . . . until the flop paired his four. All I could do was laugh as I missed my outs (I had a flush draw that didn't come in) and waited for the second chance to begin. We drew a very small field, just 4 tables, IIRC, and I donked off about 1/3 of my stack early on, trying to be way too aggressive. So I settled down, became a cardrack, and got dealt aces four times in less than twenty hands. I am not kidding; at one point, I was dealt AA 55 AA AK JJ. In a row. Yeah, probability, suck it, bitch! I pwn you! I worked my way up to fourth in chips, again just by letting my cards play themselves (this is not satisfying to me, at all. Anyone can play big cards, but it's the really good players who can extract maximum value from them, and of course make the big moves without them.) and found myself at the final table. Through a confluence of great luck for me and bad luck for everyone else, I got to 3-handed with Sweet Chuck (who liveblogged the whole thing) and sloshr. We battled for what seemed like a long time, before sloshr busted Chuck, and we started heads up. Sloshr had a 3-1 chip advantage over me, but I offered the even chop I always offer when I'm a thousand miles behind in chips. I expected sloshr to laugh at me, but he agreed, and we played out for bragging and naming rights. I was really happy with the way I played heads-up, even bluffing with The Wheaton (93o) to take a significant pot down, and get within striking distance. On the last hand, I jammed with JJ and sloshr woke up with QQ. There was no miracle luckbox suckout for me, and IGHN in 2nd. It's the highest I've ever finished in one of my own tourneys, and it was the most fun I've had in ages playing poker. Sure, it's easy to have fun when you're winning, but the company really makes a difference for me, and as usual, the players in this week's WWdNs did not disappoint. Thanks to everyone who came out to play! Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
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