Saturday, November 18, 2006

208 Slick Mittens

After a few unsuccessful attempts at satelliting my way in to the FTOPS $216 PLO event, I decided to buy in directly. I'm not a tournament person anymore, so it's strange that I've been playing so much this past week. I guess I needed a change of pace and couldn't pass up the chance to play in a PLO event on Full Tilt.

With 517 entrants, only the top 81 places plaid prize money with $20K going to first place. The field included pros such as Stuart "Donator" Patterson, E-Fro, Andy Bloch, Rafe Furst, Steve Z, and Lee Watkinson. I outlasted all of them when I finished in 208/517.

I won the first pot I played ten minutes in, which is essential to any tournament you play in. The last thing you want to be doing is chasing a loss early on in a tourney.

In the first hour, the always herb-friendly Shaniac jumped out to an early lead as Steve Z and Andy Bloch exited early. I lost a pot with A-A-K-4. The flop had a King with two Jacks and there was a bet and raise in front of me. I missed the flop so I quickly mucked.

Later that orbit, I flopped a set with K-K-10-9 and it held up but that would be the only hand I'd win for a while. I had a bitter stretch of dead cards as I attracted amazing Omaha 8 hands like four Wheel cards and could do nothing aside from hit the fold button.

By the break, my stack was an unhealthy T2135 and 295/352 overall. The DonkeyPuncher was struggling too and busted out in 270th right after the break.

I folded quads after mucking 3-4-5-6 and the flop came down 4-4-4 and eventually got blinded down to one of the severe short stacks. I found Ax-Ax-Kd-4d on the button and won a good sized pot after a flopped a set. I moved up as high as 180/230, but I could not get any higher. There was no heroic comeback. There were no drastic bad beats to talk about or dastardly villians to blame. I busted out when I moved all in on the turn with two flush draws and an overpair. I got there on the river, but my opponent had a bigger flush.

Wrong flush. Eliminated in 208th place.

At the cash game tables, I suffered a losing session at the 5/10 tables during and after the PLO tournament. My demise began shortly after I lost two juicy pots after flopping sets with 9-9 and A-A. Rivered both times by my opponents. Of course.

I write about bad beats from time to time because they happen. A lot. Grubby told me that he rarely writes about bad beats despite the fact he's gotten more than anyone I know. His reasoning is that he writes about things he wants to read about. Reading about bad beats is something that is unappealing to him. And me for that matter.

But sometimes, you have to write about it to let it out, otherwise it eats you up inside and you let it build up so much that you snap one day and freak out and don't realize that you're standing in the middle of the subway with an old Croatian lady in a headlock and screaming at the top of your lungs, "How can you call off all your stack with just a fucking gutshot you slick mittened wench!"

On the sports betting front, I took a wicked testicle-numbing bad beat from the referee in the Michigan/Ohio St. game. Late in the 4th quarter, there was a questionable pass interference call. BG described it a horrible play and I agreed. That misfortune allowed Michigan to keep their drive going and an ensuing TD killed the spread for me. Ohio St. won by 3 when I was giving 6.5. Kansas State lost too as I sunk to 0-2 for the day betting on college football.

I'm stuck 1K for the day and it's not even even dinner time.

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By the way, the only positive aspect about Saturday's fugly session was winning a $75 token on my first try. I had not played a peep since they started running those. Anyway, now I don't have to buy in directly to Miami Don's Big Game.

Bigger buy in. Bigger prize pool. Bigger stacks. Bigger donkeys. The Big Game...

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