2nd part first... oh never mind... We'll find out if I'm a donk a little later in the post...
Wow, has it really been over 2 months since I have posted? That is truly amazing as something I so thouroughly enjoyed just kind of fell by the way side. It's probably not so hard to figure out why. Going Bust!!!!! Let me tell that it sucks!!!!
Now, did I literally go busto and lose every cent that I had on poker.. nah... because as I have mentioned before, I took my original $60 that I first deposited on Poker Stars and turned into $14K by more less grinding my way up. I few big tourney scores of over 1.4K each helped. Probably the game that I enjoy the most is Limit Hold'em and not so surprisingly, it is probably the game I am the worst at as it rather astonishing to see the amounts of money that I have lost playing this game.
This year and the last half of last year is and was just utterly demorilizing. I also found something even worse... BlackJack... Why anybody would play online blackjack (other than the bonus chasing with a structured plan)... I found that you can go on even bigger tilt playing blackjack... Last week during one of infamous melt downs, I played blackjack. The good thing is that I hit 4 blackjacks... the bad thing is that the dealer also hit blackjacks on those exact hands... Add that up with many other things and you go bust..
So Am I bust... not really.. however, I've taken my bankroll from 14,000 to 2,500 which more or less feels like busto. I'm not looking for any pity. Actually, it may be a blessing in disguise as originally, I was playing this just as a hobby and the pure joy of playing. I can remember sitting down at the 10c/25c no limit tables with $5 and having a grand old time. Then the worst thing happened, I had success and had it early.
So anyway, I'm back to low stakes and will have to re-learn to enjoy poker for the game of it and not the money of it as it was never about the money. I never withdrew anything. For a real quick chuckle, head out to Sharkscope and punch it willwonka at Fulltilt and you will see a rather amusing graph.
Now onto the reason that I brought myself out of semi blog retirement...
Am I a Donk? The short of it is... yes, of course; but that is besides the point.
One of the truly enjoyable things that a like is playing in the weekly blogger tourney. This was at first only the Mook as I never did have any money over at Stars to play the MATH. Anyway, the battle of the blogs started and Hoy-man moved his tourney over to FullTilt.. Nice... now I can play in both... and so far have really enjoyed both the MATH and the MOOK. I sometimes don't chat it up as I have multiple tables going on; but I usually enjoy reading.
Speaking of Hoy, he is truly one of the truly gifted writers/bloggers and I really enjoy reading his stuff.... Especially when it comes to his rants... You know you have made it in the poker world when you become the subject of one of his rants and are called a donkey. Today, that was me.. WoooHoooo.. Not that I feel a need to defend myself; but what the heck.
He continues to berate the play of the poker bloggers as compared to the alleged much more sophisticated play of the normal MTT player. Of course, I whole-heartedly disagree with him; but whatever...
Let's get to the hand at question.... first as published on his blog.
"Yours truly managed to donk out early once again, thanks to a highly questionable call by another donkey blogger of my preflop raise, coupled with a flop that not only hit my hand very well, but miraculously hit the donkey's hand even better, creating the perfect storm of rediculousness"......
......"Similarly, last night in the Hoy, when I raised preflop very early in the event with my AJs and the flop came JT5, I just wasn't in a mindset to put the donkey blogger who played back at me on the flop on a hand like JTo. He called my preflop raise into a heads-up pot with that hand! The realization is really starting to sink in finally that if I expect to do well in these blogger tournaments, I need to adjust my play from the kind of play I am used to seeing in the larger events. Bloggers do call preflop raises heads-up with 5-high ("but it was sOOOOOooooted!" Ha!). They do it all the time. Bloggers do call preflop raises heads-up with easily and often dominatable hands like JTo (a hand which I in fact was dominating last night before the flop came down). Many bloggers' play is such that they would even defend these moves after the fact. These fuckers actually think this is the way to play the game. "
OK... I then replied and thought he might need to check his facts... he promptly said that he had screen shots... OK... I've now come back and looked at the hand history... Let's walk through the hand...
First the facts... We are playing the HOY where it is a double stacked tournament meaning that we are starting with 3,000 chips. A very fine addition to the tournament by the way...
On the 22nd hand of the tourny... in other words.. very, very early.. my table looked like this... (sorry no screen shots)...
FullTiltPoker Game #2175700494: Mondays at the Hoy (16336999),
Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:17:45 ET - 2007/04/09
Seat 1: HighOnPoker (4,564)
Seat 2: katitude (2,680)
Seat 3: willwonka (2,775)
Seat 4: wwonka69 (3,070)
Seat 5: hoyazo (2,510)
Seat 6: Zeem (2,675)
Seat 7: Wippy1313 (2,696)
Seat 8: lucko21 (3,030)
Wippy1313 posts the small blind of 20
lucko21 posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #6
Very nice table... don't you think...
I'm sitting at T 2,755 and Hoy is at T2,510 as The Devil's Advocate is running over the table early on as chronicled on his blog..
I look down and have JTs (yes they were indeed suited and yes they were indeed hearts)
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Th Jh]
Jorden and Kat both fold.. OK.. yes, I'm in early position; but I'd love to see a flop with JTs for cheap so I call the 40... yes... early on... blinds are small.. I have over 68BBs
Anything out of the oridinary yet? Anything donkified yet?
The wannabe wonka folds and Hoy raises it up to 240 from the cutoff spot. Everybody else folds including the blinds leaving me with a decision to call T200 into a T340 pot. What do you do?
Obviously, if you are Hoy, you fold; but let's think about it a bit more... Now, I'm not even getting 2-1 (about 1.7 to 1) but it is close. JTs is not really a hand that you want to see heads up. On the other hand, what is Hoy have in his bag of tricks... Do I put him on big hand... Not really but could be, as I have seen him make moves with less (perhaps not so early in a tourney.. who knows).. Put it all together and a 200 chip call is not out of the question with JTs... even heads up and out of position... although not ideal. If I miss the flop and have to fold, I still have over 63BB.
So, let's recap with the hand history up to this point..
** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Th Jh]
HighOnPoker folds
katitude folds
willwonka calls 40
wwonka69 folds
hoyazo raises to 240
Zeem folds
Wippy1313 folds
lucko21 folds
willwonka calls 200
Now for the all important flop...
*** FLOP *** [Td Jc 7c]
Nice.... Of course, I'm checking to the raiser... who gladly puts out a pot sized bet:
willwonka checks
hoyazo bets 540
What does a donkey do next? Slowplay... Raise... or fold...
hmmmm... not folding... at this stage... no need to slow play... I'm happy to show my strength and call it a day...
willwonka raises to 1,440
OK... I get to take home a nice pot... I'm telling Hoy that I have him beat... so what does he do?
hoyazo raises to 2,270, and is all in
oops.... let's think back... he showed strength preflop.... followed it up on the flop... and now is re-raising me...
What do you do?
Well... only 830 to call so it really is a no brainer... but what do you put him on??? Does he have over cards or over pair... did he hit a set?
As it turns out:
willwonka calls 830
hoyazo shows [Ts As]
Wow... 2nd pair with really no draws...
willwonka shows [Th Jh]
*** TURN *** [Td Jc 7c] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [Td Jc 7c 2d] [9h]
hoyazo shows a pair of Tens
willwonka shows two pair, Jacks and Tens
willwonka wins the pot (5,080) with two pair, Jacks and Tens
wwonka69: boom
hoyazo stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5,080 Rake 0Board: [Td Jc 7c 2d 9h]
Seat 3: willwonka showed [Th Jh] and won (5,080) with two pair, Jacks and Tens
Seat 5: hoyazo showed [Ts As] and lost with a pair of Tens
Now, for the record, who is the donkey..... Not only was his play post flop questionable (which he admits), his documented recap of the hand was way off.
He said that I had JTo.... Obviously I had JTs
He said that he had AJs... He obviously had ATs
So for what it is worth... after looking back at the hand, I wouldn't have played any differently... Does that make me a Donkey... probably...
Anyway, I look forward to continue to playing in these blogger tourneys and look forward to continuing to read the Hoy man's blog which are among the best out there in poker blog land. I just hope he checks the facts before he posts again on something like this. It sucks to lose when you hold a dominating hand... but my guess is that he is not the first player to lose with this...
I could tell you about.... oh never mind... you get the point... maybe another day...
Hopefully, I can post more often...
Final level 4
4 months ago
7 comments:
If you can build $60 into 14K. Just think what you can do with 2K - turn that into $100K. The only fault for losing that much is that you should be cashing out a little every so often - so that even if you go totally busto - you took enough out over time that you're still way ahead. Really need that much kept online anyway?
As far as discrepancies in other blogger's coverage - expect them to have a bit of artistic interpretation - but ya - if you catch them posting inaccuracies - then call them on it. Don't crucify him for jazzing it up a bit for his own purposes unless of course it demeans you.
Nice response.
I almost never do hand histories or commentary on specifics hands cause I would told mess up between what I remember and what really happened.
I really don't like open limping pretty much anything. Limp-calling suited connectors against a solid opp out of position is going to be a losing play long term IMO. I don't really like your preflop line very much at all. Its by no means donkified though. I have seen some good players do it too. I don't like it and I don't think its winning poker, but that's just me. Post flop your play is obviously fine.
As far as his play, I maintain that he was drunk and I stand by it. It was probably the worst hand I have ever seen him play. It happens though, we all screw up hands.
Thanks Chipper...
3Jacks.. Me too.. that is why I had to wait until I got home to verify.
Lucko.. I totally see your point and will mix up calling and raising with the nice drawing hands. To me, the only thing to me that justified limp calling here was the stack sizes and the wide range that I thought Hoy would do this with.
Glad to see you back posting again.
"willwonka calls 200" - This is a pretty loose call IMO especially OOP, but I can understand your logic. You are deep stacked and if the flop hits you just right you could bust him. The only problem is you could be totally dominated even if you hit the flop and have to play a tough hand OOP.
I gotta agree with you and Lucko that hoy could have/should have gotten away from this hand.
My lord did I play this hand on the flop like a donkey, no doubt. I have tried and tried to make that point over and over again in my post and the comments. I wish Lucko was right and it was the worst hand I've ever played -- sadly, it's not -- but it's a bad hand and very indicative of the level of play I've been coming up with lately. What can I do.
I think plenty of players who understand have already made the point about calling the preflop raise with JT in that spot. The only thing I would add to it is that, other than the Hammer which I undoubtedly would have raised with preflop, there is literally no other hand I would raise with here that you are ahead of, and with a great number of them you are dominated by me. For some reason people like to say I have a wide range of raising hands to justify making questionable calls against me, but other than the Hammer or obvious stealing / shortstacked type of situations (none of which apply in this hand), I don't think I've ever raised with a bad hand before the flop in my entire life.
Anyways Wonka, I wish I could go back and get every fact exactly right when I made this post. The discrepancies don't change my analysis of the hand one bit, but I hate not having had every detail right. I just don't care quite enough sometimes to go and double check everything, and in this case I wish I had.
For the record I point out again here that I never, ever used your name in my post nor linked to you. I literally cringe every time I read someone saying how they dread reading what I have to say about them the morning after, and a long time ago now I stopped using anyone's name or identifying anyone when I have something to rant about. I just hope you remember that when you think about my post, which clearly is not intended in any way to embarrass you since I didn't even want anyone to know I was referring to you. And I enjoyed playing with you and I give you credit for obviously outplaying me on the flop, how could I deny that.
Please keep calling my preflop raises with JT though. Soooooted or otherwise. :)
Thanks Cmitch and Hoy.. I agree with you..
Again, I knew I was probably behind preflop... That's what drawing hands do... they outdraw... and I was willing to take that gamble given the stack sizes.. luckily and yes I agree it is luckily.. I did better than draw...
Oh, I certainly didn't take it personally, I enjoyed it emensely.. This post doesn't take anything away from the way I feel you play and write.. you are still one of the top MTTers and bloggers in my humble opinion. I play the way I play and have to live with it. If I can't handle criticism, then I'm in the wrong game.
And yes.. given those exact same circumstances, I will call with JT suited in that case. ;-)
According to a little chart I have, ATs is the 10th best 9 handed hand.. JTs is the 12th best.. so yes you had me dominated.. but I had the draws.. and they are both good hands.
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