Sooo Yesterday and You can't have it both ways and Sick Hand

Yet Another Wednesday and yet another Mook. Of course, there was another nice turnout as we are right in the middle of BBT3. My starting table was pretty tough:

Emptyman - 57th in BBT standings
DNasty
Hoy - 30th

I finished 67th out of 106 tonight; but that is not the point of my post today.

There are many things that are funny or cute at first; but then really get old after a while. Kind of like other fads, they just need to go away. What I am talking about in particular is the use of "the hammer" in blogger donkaments; but here is the thing. You can't have it both ways and I address this statement to myself.

The tourney was going fine and we are close to the first break. I am well above average. I look down and see the old 72o while I am UTG and as any blogger might (I stress might) do, I raise it up and steal the blinds. Of course I show it and boast about nothing better than an UTG hammer steal; but my sentiments changed drastically a few hands later. And to be fair, I have definitely grown tired of it and do not raise with it much anymore. The exception being that if it is early in a tournament or I have some chips to try and push around shorter stacks. While we were fairly early in the tournament and I had above average chips, neither one of those conditions apply to me raising the hammer from UTG. Seems more like poker suicide.

Well, a few hands later (8 to be exact), I am again in early position and see AQo. Again, I do have some chips and I feel OK with raising from EP with AQ where I can fold to pressure, if need be. It folds around to none other than Hoyazo himself. Hoy waits a bit and I know what is coming. A rereaise for sure as he is the big blind and I have just showed that I can raise from EP with nothing. He not only raised; but pushed all in after eating up most of the clock. While he was thinking, I was already deciding what my play would be if he re-raised. Now, Hoy may or may not admit this; but a reraise from him here does not necessarily show strength. Anyway, while he was doing the obligatory wait; I was ready to commit all my chips on this hand. I thought it was going to be a re-raise to 3 bet; but since he pushed, I pretty much insta-called. Again, it wasn't really an insta-call as I had been thinking about my move throughout the hand. Of course, the rest is history and he turns over 72o, spikes a 7 on the flop and IGHN. BTW, this is NOT the sick hand that I reference in Subject Title. Although I was a big favorite preflop, anytime you have 2 live cards you can easily win the hand. I believe it is something like 60/40. OK, it was a little more as it was about 67/33 or basically 2 to 1 after checking it out.

OK, I know that this is his hand of choice of many bloggers; but this is really getting old. Especially from someone who loves to rant on all the alleged donkeys playing blogger poker (myself being included on one of his rants). I can say with fairly high certainty that pushing is never the right move here. If he thinks he can get me off of the hand, then a re-raise would do the trick. Again, it is just getting old and it needs to stop. Of course, it never will; but as of today, I vow to never raise with the hammer just for the sake of raising with the hammer. There will be times, however, when it is necessary to raise with ATC which of course could include 72o. Anybody that knows me (which aren't too many that read this blog), I can be pretty stubborn about these things. For example, I still have not watched a Major League Baseball game since I boycotted them around 8 years ago.

So there you have it. It is what it is. Bloggers will continue to boast about playing the hammer; but this here blogger has put his foot down and won't do it anymore.

Finally, I at least thought that Hoy could then take those chips and make a run at winning his FIRST Mook; but of course that would never happen as he went out not too much later in 54th. I'm sure that he will go off on some blogger for playing some hand badly etc... etc... And of course we know that he just needs to look in the mirror.

BTW, for the record. No hard feelings. I didn't even throw anything or yell at my monitor. I'm making progress ;-)

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That's enough of that. I had a couple of tables of Micro NL open again while playing the Mook. There was one guy 2 seats to my left that was constantly calling preflop only to raise on later streets. There is nothing wrong with this if you have position and you can sometimes showdown a winning hand. I guess that doesn't even really matter. I caught him a couple of times; but never pushed. I always ended up just calling him down. I think this is from my Limit game as that can be standard operating procedure on those type things. I even wrote a note on this guy to start pushing back more on this guy when need be.

This guy, who wasn't a maniac or anything as his stats were only something like 37/6/2.2 with his aggression factor being higher as the hand moved along. Anyway, he was involved in just a sick, sick hand. Someone finally pushed back. I think I am just going to paste the HH:

FullTiltPoker Game #5705327021: Table Stardust (6 max) - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:18:32 ET - 2008/03/19
Seat 1: chuunk ($52.40)
Seat 2: fluoro ($56.40) ...
Seat 3: ChrichriB ($49.35) ... VILLIAN
Seat 4: bobbymacs ($4.50)
Seat 5: willwonka ($87.95)
Seat 6: Runner60 ($47.45)
fluoro posts the small blind of $0.25
ChrichriB posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Th 8d]
bobbymacs folds
willwonka folds
Runner60 folds
chuunk folds
fluoro calls $0.25
ChrichriB checks
*** FLOP *** [2d 7c 6h]
fluoro has 15 seconds left to act
fluoro bets $1
ChrichriB raises to $3.50
fluoro raises to $11.50
ChrichriB raises to $19.50
fluoro raises to $27.50
ChrichriB raises to $48.85, and is all in
fluoro calls $21.35
ChrichriB shows [8h 3s] .... HE DID ALL OF THAT WITH 83o.. YIKES... MAN, I WANTED THOSE CHIPS
fluoro shows [6d 7d]
*** TURN *** [2d 7c 6h] [4h]
*** RIVER *** [2d 7c 6h 4h] [5d] OUCH!!!!!!!! RUNNER RUNNER
ChrichriB shows a straight, Eight high
fluoro shows two pair, Sevens and Sixes
ChrichriB wins the pot ($95.70) with a straight, Eight high

Man oh man. Something is definitely wrong when the RNG Master pays off a guy who plays the hand that way.

I was just aching to get in a pot with this guy. I got my opportunity a few hands later. The guy between us was sitting out so it ended up being a blind vs blind hand. He min raises from SB. I look down and have AQ. Our stacks are both about equal at about $95 in this 25c/50c NL game. OK, this may be the hand and I reraise it to 2.75 and he immediately raises to $10.50.

What do you do? Obviously, this guy has shown that he will push with nothing as witnessed above. He has pushed all in many, many times and usually has not got called.

I decided I wanted to see a flop. I don't think this is a bad move; especially against a guy like this. The flop comes Js7cQh and I know that I am ready to get the chips in. He immediately bets $66 into me and don't waste too much time pushing all in and of course he had to call the $16. Any guess as to what he had?

He actually had a hand this time and turned over AKo. He had 7 outs twice so I was a little worried; especially after what I had seen earlier with him and with my hand with Hoy. The turn was the 3s and the river was 4h and I scooped a pretty big pot for these stakes. So, yes, I sucked out on him; but I can't feel too bad.

He sat out for a while and then bought back in; but it was already 10:45 here and I was already calling it a night. I still need to watch some basketball yet tonight. Go Illinois State. BTW, did anybody watch that incredible comeback by Creighton last night. 17 points down in second half and about 11 points down with 4 minutes. They hit a 3 at the buzzer to win. Anyway, it was not a hit and run as I had played almost 200 hands at that table.

I know that I will be on the short end of those type things in the future. Lord knows that I have been in the past. In fact, tonight with AK, I rivered the nut flush or should I say the Ace high flush only to find out that the river card gave my opponent the card he needed to fill his gut shot straight flush. That one hurt so I took my bumps this evening as well.

There you have it and there you are.

Have a nice day!!!!