More Mooook Action

Another Wednesday Night, another Mook. Truly, my favorite of all blogger tournaments. I think mostly because it has the highest turnout due to the $10 buyin. How did I fare? I'll tell you... but first...



The paper check cash from the small site that I cashed out and cleared so I guess I am good. By the way, it came Fedex in less than a week so kudos for the quick turnaround. I opened the Fedex package and all there was in there was a plain white envelope with no writing. You know the rest as there was a hand written check in there. Anyway, I couldn't resist anymore and I started to play a little no limit (1/2 and 2/4) with the almost $1,200 in there. I think Karma had something to do it with as I lost buyins with QQ against 89 on a 8 high flop. Chips go in.. next card.. an 8. Next day... JJ gets all the chips in against AT on a T high board... next card... T. Next day... QQ gets all chips in against Q9s.. Flushed out on turn. Yesterday... Hit my Broadway Straight on turn only to get boated on River. I think you get the point. Anyway, I think I am a little under $900 on there now with a good session after the first lost buyin yesterday.



I finally set up an ePassporte account and got it verified. Pretty painless so we will see how they work. Now, if I could only get my Neteller money released to me.



Onto the Mook. Surprisingly, my starting table had a lot of names that I didn't recognize as about half of them were in their first or second Mook. That, of course, didn't change anything for me as I am typically pretty conservative early on while waiting for the right time to take a chance since it was a deep stack.



I folded my first 11 hands and then picked up a fairly nice hand (AsAh)... 1 caller to my raise; but folded to c-bet. On had 23, I decided to take my chance and raised with J9d from Middle position. Flop comes AJT with 2 hearts. I through out a c-bet and get raised pretty big by Bornlate55. Again, I don't know this person, so I give him the benefit of the doubt and throw my hand away. This hand got me to thinking about something Alan wrote about regarding continuation bets and I vowed from there to change things up a little. Nothing original, mind you, but the delayed contiuation bet would be my new theme. It seemed to work pretty well in position or out. Out of position, I would check the flop and check/raise the turn and I got my needed laydowns as I'm sure that I was behind. Of course, you have to be careful anytime you give people free cards and I did fold to turn bets when I felt that I couldn't get a fold.



I'm down to about 2,500 now and pick Aces again on Hand 31. No action. I did get one call; but again they folded to my c-bet. I try not to get too fancy with Aces... especially on a 456 board. I then win a small pot with 99. 99 would be huge for me in the tourney; both good and bad. I slowly build my stack to about 3,200 when the first big hand happened.



I get one of my favorite hands... JTs.. Blinds are 40/80 and I am on the button. SmackBob in middle position makes it 200 to go and of course I call with JTs (diamonds). Flop comes K44 (1 diamond). Check Check.. hmmm.. is he weak or trapping? Turn brings another 4. SmackBob leads out for 201. I pause; but knowing that I am raising and raise to 670 which he calls. The river brings a T for a board of Ks4d4c4sTs. SmackBob checks. What do you do? I'm reasonably sure that I just won it on the river; but what is he going to call that doesn't beat me? Not much. I check and win. He had AQo. I doubt that he is calling that. Who value bets there? That was hand 53.



Fast forward to Hand 68 and it is showdown #2 with SmackBob. Blinds are now 50/100 and I'm sitting in the BB with A40. I have around 4100 chips and Smackbob has 3400. We get two limpers and I check to see a flop which is 2h4cJs giving me bottom pair. Check Check Check. Turn comes my Ace. I check raise SmackBob after he bets 100 to 300. He makes it 700... meanwhile he is saying that he is on tilt (although I'm not sure why as I am playing multiple tables and didn't catch anything unusual). I make the call as I'm thinking this is a little revenge from earlier; but pretty sure I'm ahead. I actually thought he might have JTs. Q comes on river and I check (pot control???). SmackBob bets out 1200. Now, I'm beginning to think he has JackAce; but make the call based on original read and he shows Q8s. Nice!!! Does Anybody push there? One of my main thoughts every tournament is do NOT go busto with Ace Rag. That hands puts me at 6220 and among the leaders.



Now, on to Hand 94. One which I'm pretty sure that I played pretty badly all around. I Would appreciate any comments here. Blinds 80/160 and I'm sitting on a 6000 stack. The villain in this hand is another unknown to me (AdrewaOlaf) who has me out chipped. I get JdJh in the small blind. Andrew puts in 3x from MP. I just call????? Flop comes 4s8c5s . I check raise his 660 bet to 1660. he calls. Turn.. Qs which of course is a terrible card for me. Instead of checking or pushing, I decide to bet 2750 (of my 3900). Comments????? He folds and I take down a pretty big pot.



A couple hands later I take out the immortal Al when I woke up with KK against his AJ. Only one question here as it is an obvious call or raise. When it was my turn to act from MP, I waited before I called as there were 3 people yet to act. They ended up folded and there was no love for Al and he promptly asked if I just slowrolled. First, let me say, that I can't think of anything I hate more in poker than slow rollers. More specifically, when they are the last person to act and know that are going to call. I told him no that I had other tables open which was only partly true. I did have 2 other tables open and it did take me a few seconds before I saw this hand; but I did intentionally pause before calling. My question to you is this really slow rolling? I don't think so as I am trying to get other people involved in the hand. If this is truly regarded as a slow roll, I apologize... as it was not intended as such.



Hand 112 sees me using my delayed cbet with a check raise with KQ on a 7cAhKc2h board. My check on flop induced a bet on the turn which I raised and took it down. More than likely, I was ahead; but I got some chips out of the deal. From here, I take advantage of my stack. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't; but that is the luxury of a big stack. Nobody seems to be better than Astin as I saw him raise pot after pot after pot.

So by Hand 199, I have worked my way up to 11804 with blinds of 300/600 75ante. We'll call this Race decision #1. Jordan (20,155) did a typical big stack steal attempt and raises to 1800. I have 7h7s and just call in SB. Riggstad (7215) in BB then seemingly pulls a squeeze play and goes all in. The Devil's Advocate folds and now it is up to me. Getting a little over 2-1 do I call hoping for a race (at best)? It felt like a squeeze and I called and won the race against AQ. I will say it again and again. You HAVE to win races or coin tosses... or should I say that I HAVE to win races in order to win. Sure you can accumulate chips with raises and re-raises.. but somewhere along the way you have to go to showdown. Of course, it is much easier to push knowing the best you can do is race; but calling is a much tougher decision.

A couple hands later, a delayed continuation bet again got some more chips. This time against an aggressive Astin. I raised with JTo and hit 2 pair on flop. This put my chip count over 30K.

Hand 204... Race Decision #2 or really just decision as I didn't know it was going to be a race. Blinds 300/600 ante75. I raise with my big stack (30K) from EP with T9s (diamonds). Weak_player goes (6646) goes all in from BB. Again, getting right about 2-1, I think for a while and take most of my time before I call. He shows 88 and the flop of 969 pretty much seals the deal. He obviously didn't like the call. Any thoughts? This puts me at 37K.

I continue to put pressure on people and work stack up to 43K but get pushed back a few and stack back down to 36K. We're in the money by now and everybody is pretty healthy. Of course, winning at showdown is huge; but making the tough laydowns is also tough. For example:
Hand 256: Blinds 600/1200 ate 150 (7 handed). I look down in EP and have QcQh and raise to 3650. Dr J (35K) pushes back for 12K. Push or Call? I wimp and call hoping not to see an Ace or King on flop. Flop is 2K4 and I check/fold to Jeciimd 12K bet. I'm not sure what to think of this one. His range is fairly tight and that is why I went that way. That takes me down to 24K.

Hand 275. Race#3. I don't have a problem with how I played this hand. It's just poker. Blinds 800/1600 ante200 (7 handed still). I (22400) look down to AKs (hearts). and raise from EP to 4850. DrJ (33k) calls. Flop of 336 and I push my remaining 17K. Jeciimd tanks and then calls with Presto (55). Well, Presto isn't gold as I luckbox an Ace on the turn. Stack now 48K and 2nd place.

Hand 294. Another 99 dilemma. Blinds 1000/2000 ate 250. I have dwindled down to 35K. I get 99 and raise to 6150. Crazdgamer calls. Flop 7K7 and he immediately pushes. Stop and Go? I think not and take my losses. Stack 29K 4th place (of 7).

Hand 298. Back in Business. Blinds 1000/2000 ante 250 (6 handed). I (25K) get pocket Jacks and raise to 6150 again from EP. OOSSUUU754 calls. Flop TT2 and OSU bets out 14800. If I'm beat, I'm beat and push and of course he calls the 4K K8. I get a J on turn to seal the deal. Stack up to 52K 2nd place.

Hand 302. Crushing Blow with 99. Blinds 1000/2000 ante 250 (6 handed). I am now chip leader with 49K. 2nd place crazdgamer has 46K and raises from MP to 8000. I call with 99. Flop of 265 and he c-bets 7500. What do you do? I took my full time and raised to 22K. He then pushed for another 17K. Is there anyway you get away from this now? I made the crying call and he showed JJ and won a huge pot of 94K taking me down to 3K and obviously last place.

I get AQ a couple hands later and double up. Fold QT from BB a little later. Double up next hand with K6o. Steal blinds with KJ. Double up with QQ and just like that I'm back to 33K and in 3rd place out of 4.

Hand 339. Final. Nothing major.. I push with JackAce and get called with KT. King on flop and I am out in 3rd place. Close but no cigar to my 3rd Mookie Title.

Congrats to Crazdgamer on his win.!!!!

Have a nice day!!!!

Main Event 2007

The Main Event is upon us once again. I have still yet to hear a number that they think they will have; however they are planning for bigger numbers as they have Day 1 split into 4 days. It would kind of stink to play on Day 1 and make it through it and then have to wait 4 or 5 days to play again. Day 3 seems like the optimal day to play.

Well wishes to all the bloggers that are playing in this thing.

Being the stats geek that I am, I have been recording all the events in a spreadsheet to get some stats. The WSOP through 53 events has almost reached the 100 million dollar mark in prizes ($98,076,732). They have had 3710 different people cash in the respective tournaments. No surprise that Freddy Deeb is on top of the money list with his big 50K HORSE victory netting him over 2.2 Million dollars. He had a small score in event 45 ($1,500 PL Holdem) finishing 45th for about 5K.

Now, let's focus more on the Main Event and who is looking good going into this thing. It would hard not to start the list off with the poker brat himself who made it through a huge field to claim his 11th bracelet. He has cashed a total of 6 times (all in Holdem events). So let's focus on who has done well in Holdem Events this WSOP. The following people have had 6 cashes (Phil Hellmuth ($743,564), Michael Binger ($367,299) and Arnold Spee ($140,208). Next on the list are people with 5 cashes which include Joe Sebok ($50,496), Jordan Smith ($31,571), Marco Johnson ($62,670), Steve Billirakis ($593,745), Scott Bohlman ($90,931), Greg Mueller ($417,402), Eugene Todd ($40,480) and Eric 'Rizen' Lynch ($191,626).

Let's shuffle up and deal!!!

BTW, I got my check from the small poker site that I previously mentioned in an earlier post. The funny thing was that it was a hand written check (not computer generated). The $1,200 is also still on my online account. Very funky indeed.

Have a good weekend!!!!

Blogger Challenge - Final

Well, the 39 event Blogger Championship Series has come to an end. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I finished a little worse then midway through the field at 29th playing in 23 events. That sounds about right when you sort the standings by other numbers.

Here are some others Rankings (using the field of people that qualified for the freeroll):

Points: 29th
Money: 30th
Points per event: 31st
In the Money: 23rd (tied)

Overall average from above: 28th

I want to echo the sentiments of most people in thanking Al, Mook and Hoy for organizing this thing. It definitely put more people in the tourneys which of course made for great fun. I definitely need to work on my MTT game to be able to hang with the top half.

It seems that there are plenty of people that had a problem with the points structure. I, personally, didn't have any problems with it; although, I fully understand where the arguments come from. One point of contention is that they thought people were folding to the points. Do you really think so? Maybe those players play normal tournaments like that which I assume means waiting on the premium hands. I knew that I, for one, didn't really care about the points and tried to play the same as if I were playing a normal tournament and everything would take care of itself (rankings wise). I would like to think that most people did that. Maybe at points bubble time, things were played differently. I mean, I even called with JTs against a raise? Does that sound like somebody that folds to the points?

It is definitely hard to argue with net money earned being a part of the equation as I'm sure that I was a net negavtive with only making $331 over the 23 events. The only thing about putting credence in these numbers is can you really get a good net earnings number? I'm sure that almost everybody got a token for "The Big Game" as well as plenty of people getting tokens for the MATH.

I guess we will see how things go in the next few weeks as we are back to the normal schedule. I hope the attendence stays up. I would be surprised if it did; but we can all hope. Giving this thought, I hope we do follow this up in a month or two with another blogger challenge with a modified scoring system, I'm sure.

That's about it. Not much going on these days.

I did play in the Harrah's month end tournament of champions; but was totally card dead. AK once which just stole the blinds. Right before the 1st break, I ended up throwing my 5BB in at MP with A9o in hopes of stealing the blinds; but was called by AQ. Definitely gambleing; but I had sat on my hands too long as it was and I didn't want to go the way of being blinded out.