Made of Honor
Thursday, April 30, 2009
I don't mean to brag, but even in my recent live downswing, there has been one bright spot in my poker schedule, ironically, the blogger tournaments that have historically been a ripe opportunity to donate money. Over the course of the BBT4, a series of tournaments at FullTilt with a league-like leader board and prizes, I've been playing sporadically, merely a fraction of my contemporaries, but my results have put me within the top 20 players.
Last night, I decided to play the Mookie on a whim. I signed up at about 9:15pm. Lately, I've been exhausted by the end of the day, so I had mixed feelings about playing the Mookie. On one hand, it's a damn fun tourney and if you win it, it's probably amongst the (if not THE) most prestigious blogger tournament games you can win. I had been chasing the Mookie on and off for years, but finally caught first place for the second time, along with a seat in the BBT4 TOC a couple of weeks ago when I won the damn thing on a whim.
On the other hand, the Mook starts at 10pm EST, and easily can last until 2pm or beyond if you are playing for first place....and I always play for first place. Since I had been so tired lately, it seemed like playing would be a bad idea. There is nothing worse than playing a tournament under perceived time pressures. I don't care if its pressure from another responsibility, your wife catching you playing poker again, or the need for bed rest; when you play with time constraints, it is way to easy to fall into awfukit plays or justify bad poker.
Thank god for the Hills, though. If it weren't for wifey Kim's insistence that she watch that claptrap, I might've spent the evening doing something different. But once I heard the vapidness that is fake reality TV, I had to go to the computer. HAD TO.
And so, I played the Mookie. And, as per usual, I did about 8 other things at the same time. And frankly, I got a shit load of luck. I must've had AA about 5 or 6 times during the tourney. In most instances, it just netted me the blinds, but I felted one or two players with my AA and won decent pots uncontested on other occasions. Once I had an abnormally large stack, I just put pressure on, where appropriate, and hung back where convenient. I was first place from probably 60+ people (out of 80+) down to the last 12 or so, and just let the momentum take me to the final table.
The final table was a good one. The caliber of players in these tourneys are undoubtedly better than the average online tourney and the final table had its share of quality players. I played the ladder game, keeping out of the way while others knocked each other out. Eventually, it was down to three, me, the BBT4 host AlCantHang, and drome, a player who, from my keen observation skills, seemed to be a pal of LJ. Drome was actually playing a very loose aggressive game, and it had worked for him, amassing him well over 100k in chps when we were down to 5 or so, with the next nearest stack hovering between 70 and 50k at the most. It seemed his luck had run out, though, as he ended up going head to head with Al while I sat back with my significantly depleted stack and watched the fireworks. When it was done, Al had the upper hand, both literally and figuratively, and it was just Al and I for the trophy.
All it took was one hand. I had 33 and less than 40k in chips. Al had AK (I think, but no less than AJ) and about a kabillion in chips. He raised preflop, I pushed and he called. He hit one of his cards and that was it.
If I were to lose to anyone, I'm glad it is Al. But winning 2nd place is no brag post, so I'll brag, instead, about some other statistic. I have easily the highest points per tourneys played in the BBT4.
Last night's game has not been incorporated into the leaderboard yet, but as it now stands, I am in 21st place out of hundreds of players after playing 14 events. No one above me has played less than 22 events, with 14 of my betters having played 2x or more (i.e., 28+) events than I have played. It takes until player 40 to find a player with less tourneys played than me, and only one player in that interim had played less than 20 games (but still more than my 14).
So, there you have it. I'm the most consisitent player in the BBT4, given my relative small sample of games played. It's no $2,000 bonus for being a monthly leaderboard champion, but I'll take what I can get.
Until next time, make mine poker!
posted by Jordan @ 9:29 AM,
4 Comments:
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At 5:02 PM,
Shrike said...
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Congrats on the deep run. I admit to tossing a curse at the screen when your AQ got there vs. my kings.
-PL -
At 5:12 PM,
BWoP said...
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Nice job last night. I was rooting for JordAlCantPoker all the way :-)
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At 9:38 PM,
Gugel said...
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You ranked 55th for the top 100 poker blogs. Congrats :)
http://www.anskypoker.com/2009/04/top-100-poker-blogs-of-2009/ -
At 11:24 PM,
lightning36 said...
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Six final tables in 15 events is your other impressive stat, sir.
