Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Hitting The Snooze Button

The BBT will be the death of me purely due to exhaustion. It doesn't help that I'm a night owl anyway, which makes it feel odd to force myself to go to bed after watching the MATH close out.

Regardless, after a night of inadequate sleep, the tilt is gone. Congrats to XxMagiciaNxX for taking a TOC seat, and Wormmsu for making him work for it.

I haven't changed my opinion that after Fuel was knocked out in 9th that the table was the biggest display of weak-tight "poker" I've ever seen. I'm somewhat guilty myself, but my rationale is that I had an above-average stack with 3 very short stacks there and figured there'd be some mutual destruction happening before I had to turn up the aggression. Not that I was playing for the money, but for the improved odds of a smaller table.

Unfortunately, my stack dwindled as the table passed around blinds, unless I tried to get some. So with my rank and chips dropping, I told Tragedy that I was cranking it up the next orbit. I pushed with ATC in position, and then decided that T9o was good from the hijack. I got called by the jackace and the board beat me further. Fine, I hope my pushes get called by jackace all day long. I was actually glad to get away from that bingo game at that point.

One last thing to clarify how I feel about that FT - Not a single one of you was playing to win, you were playing to not lose. Keep waiting for an ace or paint, you'll go far. Maybe I should stop tapping.

Anyway, on to my play. I got sickly lucky once that I can recall - I ran 77 into a flopped set of aces, only to river the 8-high straight. It was fugly. Other than that, I had a reason for every seemingly bad call I made, which I won't really get into. There was twice where I made a call figuring I was either behind (but had a large chip lead and pot odds) or facing a strong drawing hand. I was wrong both times in my reads and was in better shape that I hoped. I'm not sure if that makes me a complete donkey or not, but in the end, I called when ahead.

I also had one call I didn't make that was pure idiocy. I had just doubled-up early on and was sitting in the top 5 with 7k in chips. I got to the turn vs two players (Columbo and somone else), and EP pushed for his last 1k or so into a 4k pot. I had an OESD and flush draw with one card to come, on a paired board with Columbo to act behind me, covered by that 1k bet. Should I be afraid of the boat with 5:1 odds and probably 6:1 implied with 15 outs to a hand that will beat a set? I think not. I practically automucked and instantly smacked myself. I lose that hand, I have 5k early on, I win and I have 12k. Naturally my flush filled on the river and would have beat the trip tens EP had and Columbo's cowboys. I mucked because for a second I didn't pay attention. I didn't look at the pot size, or the stack size behind me, or my stack size, just the all-in, and laid down my draw.

In the long run, does it make a difference? I think so. That early, with that deep a stack, I can push around a table, keep building, and be even stronger later on. The power of compound interest if you will. Yes, I took the chip lead later with a monster stack, but I could have been steamrolling far earlier, and it would have likely made a difference at the final table.

Mookie is tomorrow, and 21 more chances after that.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another good run man, so close.

Yes that final table was, nicely put, weak-tight at it's finest. I couldn't even watch after you and Fuel went out.

GL in the upcoming events.

Riggstad said...

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