Better to be Lucky than Good - MOOOOOOOOK

I wrote something a few weeks ago about Tourney success being about luck or good play. Read it here , if interested. I believe I finally concluded that it is both. There are obvious great tourney players such Rizen or the like; but man luck has to be part of it... after all , it is gambling.

I've also been watching the tourney hand histories that are posted on 2+2 and this re-assured my theory because there were plenty of suck outs on almost every tourney that I watched. I definitely encourage anybody to take a look at them as they are very interesting.

Well, my FTP balance was on life supports. I was prepared to head back to Walgreens to reload. I had enough for the MOOK and 3 $6 Turbo SNGs... Instead I opted for the Mook and 2 SNGs.. Things weren't too promising as I finished 4th in both SNGs... All you can do is get your money in good... which turned out to be a little ironical when talking about the Mook..

So without further adieu, let's talk business. Anybody who is anybody was playing the Mook tonight... minus a few Lost viewers. We still had 66 people turn out which ain't bad.

As usual with this things, there were many recognizable faces... My table had:

Lifesagrind
pvanharibo
Mattazuma
chitwood
leftylu
cracknaces
bayne_s

Things started off well.. Pkt 9s on second hand... stole blinds

8th hand I get KK in EP and I put a 3x raise and get called by lifesagrind. Flop comes TQ8 (2 spades). He then puts about a 3/4 pot bet out there and I immediately raise. No slowplaying this early in the action.. LAG folds.

2 hands latter, what do I see... KK in the BB. LAG (on the button) puts a 3x raise / steal and I just call. Flop comes 636.. I check and he puts out a pot sized bet. I know he doesn't want to be called... so I call... Turn comes T.. and goes all in... Unfortunatley for LAG, it is a easy call for me and he doesn't improve so I have doubled up in the first 10 hands. Just like the doctor ordered. He had A5o, by the way.

7 hands later, I get another pocket pair, although this time it is only 77 this time. I am in early position with plenty of chips (top 3) so I want to see a flop cheaply and just call. Everybody else folds until it gets to bayne who raises to 135 (15/30 are the blinds). Everybody folds and I have my first real decision. With my chips, I go ahead and make call. So far, everything is going my way (is that lucky?) as the flop is KQ7 (2 diamonds). I check and Bayne throws out 210 into a 310 pot. Board is scary enough to me that I'm not slow playing... again early in tourney.. no need to get fancy... I raise to 510 and he folds.

I then fold 15 hands and low and behold the rockets come my way. I raise it up and Cracknaces lives up to his name and calls with 88 and flops a set and doubles up threw me. His smooth calls obviously should have been a warning sign but I was feeling pretty indestrutable. That quickly changed as I drop down to 1800 chips and the middle of the pack.

I then go pretty card dead... picking up blinds here and there... losing blinds also... I have to wait 44 hands for my next confrontation.. albeit minor. I'm in the BB with AQo.. JoeSpeaker puts a EP raise and I'm not doing anything fancy at this point.... I call. Flop is J high and he bets out I fold... He shows AJ... It is simply amazing how dominated hands are winning these days. That puts me about 1700.

Nothing major and I chip up to about 2500; but the blinds are catching up to me.... I catch MikeMaloney in a steal and get some chips... from there is was just blind stealing... and chipped up to 6140 so a little breathing room but no much.. This leads me to my worse played hand probably...

I'd be interested in your thoughts...

FullTiltPoker Game #2496131697: The Mookie - Katie's Mom (18851745), Table 7 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:03:37 ET - 2007/05/24
Seat 1: leftylu (8,436)
Seat 2: AlCantHang (4,725)
Seat 3: DDionysus (4,625)
Seat 4: willwonka (6,140)
Seat 5: NightRanger (2,947)
Seat 6: Drizztdj (3,800)
Seat 7: MiamiDon (3,946)
Seat 8: InstantTragedy (4,673)
Seat 9: BuddyDank (1,331)
leftylu antes 50
AlCantHang antes 50
DDionysus antes 50
willwonka antes 50
NightRanger antes 50
Drizztdj antes 50
MiamiDon antes 50
InstantTragedy antes 50
BuddyDank antes 50
BuddyDank posts the small blind of 200
leftylu posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Js Jh] ... Good hand... but obviously dangerous.
AlCantHang folds
DDionysus calls 400





Do you raise to isolate.. do you want to see a flop... I got a lille fancy play syndrome in my head and just called... planning to raise anybody all in if they raised.. The table had plenty of preflop raises so it would not have been unusual.



willwonka calls 400
NightRanger folds
Drizztdj folds
MiamiDon folds
InstantTragedy folds
BuddyDank folds
leftylu checks





Dang!!! not only did nobody raise... but nobody else even played...






*** FLOP *** [7d Qc Ks] HATE that flop...
leftylu checks
DDionysus checks
willwonka checks
*** TURN *** [7d Qc Ks] [5s]
leftylu checks
DDionysus checks
willwonka checks
*** RIVER *** [7d Qc Ks 5s] [9c]
leftylu checks
DDionysus checks
willwonka checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
leftylu shows [6s 4d] (King Queen high)
DDionysus shows [Tc Ts] (a pair of Tens)
willwonka shows [Js Jh] (a pair of Jacks)
willwonka wins the pot (1,850) with a pair of Jacks

So it gets checked down... I think my biggest misstake was preflop where I could have probably got DDionysus. all in preflop..





Thoughts?





From there, I was able to make it to the final table... I was probably around 5th at the start of the final table... Top 8 paid with Zeem a huge leader (especially after 2 fortunate rivers before the final table). I played it pretty tight. It didn't take too long to break the bubble; but once we were down to 7... it stayed that way for awhile.





I'm able to knock out the man, the myth, the legend in a battle of the blinds... He tried to steal with 96o or should I say 69o and I was lucky enough to have AK and have it hold up. I then got AK on the very next hand; but only called a preflop raise and folded to c-bet on a 482 board. Very tight here; but AK has just killed me late in tourneys as of late. I have plenty of chips so I am not desperate so I will wait to fight another battle.





So at this point.. the chip counts are:





Zeem 33K


Night Ranger 20K


WW 18K


BoneDaddy 15K


leftlylu 8K


a10419 6K





Night Ranger then slow plays his Aces and loses to BoneDaddy's flopped set of sixes. He goes out next hand. We also lose a10419 so we are down to 4.. AGain with Zeem a big leader.





I get AJ and raise it up and leftylu raises 13K all in and I make the call. He turns over A7s and AJ miracously holds up and we are down to 3.





Zeem 41K


WW 30K


BoneDaddy 28K





So anybody's game.





A few hands latter I get KK (again.. 5 times in this tourney) in the BB... Zeem raies about 3x... and this time I just call as Zeem is plenty aggressive.. as long as an Ace doesn't fall, I'm ready to go stack with it. Flop comes Qs7h7c... I do fear the hammer a bit; but check... Zeem puts out a c-bet.. which I go ahead and do the raise here... he re-reraises all in and now I am really fearing the hammer... I have to call and he turns over KQ and my hand holds up. So now we have a new leader..





WW 62K


BD 28K


Z 9K





Zeem lasts about 10 more hands and his J5s loses to my J9s.. so we are now heads up.





You always hear about long heads up battles in these things. My HU battles are not usually that way. As a matter of fact our heads up battle lasted 5 hands.





Before we get to it... I always say to win a tourney.. you need to win the races... play AK well ... and most importantly .... GET LUCKY!!!!





I'm sure I had my share of luck in this game... and the biggest one other than the last hand which we will see in a minute was when I was on life support was way early when I get TT. I have 1600 chips and the blinds are 60/120. I'm in middle position and decide to just to raise all in and call it a day... well, unfortunatley cracknaces had QQ... while it took him a while to call, he did call and I thought I was on my way down to watch Lost... Full Tilt did not let me down and the board flushed and neither of us had the flush card so we chopped and that gave me the life line that I needed.





Now onto the last hand...





Chips stacks are 73K vs 25K in my favor. I get A4s in the small blind. Bone Daddy has been doing plenty of raising so I decide to try a trap here and call - reraise... So I called... and as expected BoneDaddy raised... and then (again as planned) I re-raised him almost all in (about 7K shy). Unexpectantly, he re-raised me back all in.. I obviously have to call here now.. and things are looking bleak when he turns over TT... even worse after a flop of JKT.. so now an ace does me no good... I need a Queen... Turn... 4d.. DOH!!!!.... River QUEEN QUEEN QUEEN QUEEN. I couldn't believe my eyes... In case you don't believe yours, here is the screenshot..

So there you have it and there you are... My second Mookie win. I do feel bad winning it that way as I have been on the other side of that too many times. BoneDaddy played great and probably deserved to win. He especially loved the re-steal from the BB.