PhantomMut

Waiting for round two of a Heads-Up tourney right now, my first round having lasted 3 hands. But how the first ended was kind of amusing:

Well, since I played in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!, I feel pretty much obligated to write up a performance evaluation.

One word: eh.

Only played four significant hands. Early in the tourney a player who got himself short-stacked raised it up on my big blind with a four-times-the-blind bet, which I called with 8T suited on principal. The flop was something like King Ten Nine, and I bet half-pot, he goes over-the-top all-in, and I call assuming he's missed. Well, he hadn't missed; he had KJ, the Jack on the turn gave him two pair, and the Seven on the river gave DonkeyMut a healthy stack early and the other guy a pretty good bad-beat story.

I was soon shortstacked again when someone pushed their pocket Sevens into my pocket Queens. I went all in when the flop came 67T with two spades, he instacalls, and I'm a saaaaaad rottweiler.

After stealing some blinds and smacking down some would-be stealers of mine, I was back up to nearly my starting stack (but seriously short-stacked relative to average) when a shorter stack pushed into my pocket Kings (which was only the second quality hand I during the entire tourney) with AK. I fade the remaining Aces and make it past the second break.

Busted out after being massively card dead for, like, forever, when some new guy to my table raised big his fourth hand in a row in front of me, and I pushed back, going all-in with KQ off. By that point I had 17k in chips, average stack was around 40k, blinds and antes were 1000/500/75, and I figured I was probably up against an average hand and he'd fold, because no one had challenged him to that point. If he didn't fold, I figured I was favored or in a coinflip situation.

But no. Push monkey had caught pocket Aces. Mut goes down! Mut goes down!

Bottom line, out of 1337 entrants, I finished at 395. Besides for an inexcusable donkey moment early on (which worked out well for me, of course) I was pretty happy with my play considering the cards I was getting. I might have picked a better hand on which to make my stand, and I might have noticed that instead of his usual raise of 4000 chips PushMonkey had raised 5000 on the last hand (but even then, that could be read as a sign of weakness relative to his other, uncontested hands) but, as they say, I was playing to win and was getting to the point where I was running out of fold equity. Just picked a bad hand on which to semi-bluff.

A final note: I recognized exactly one player I played with as a poker blogger I actually read. Nice to meet you Drizz, and someday when I have money and the attention span of at least a lower primate I hope to play with you again.

Okay, finished second in a 45 player play-money tourney a bit ago (twins very placid today, and on a staggered feeding schedule, which is nice) and all-in-all I was happy with my play. Got to heads-up by playing smart, aggressive poker, didn't suck-out on anyone, didn't go busto on the two occasions I was sucked-out-upon. At the beginning of heads-up I was outchipped by about 3:1, and had gotten it down to a 2:1 deficit when the following hand occured:

PokerStars Game #11886184443: Tournament #60314038, 2000+110 Hold'em No Limit - Level X (400/800) - 2007/09/05 - 12:40:34 (ET)
Table '60314038 3' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: phantommut (21560 in chips)
Seat 7: mdmccormick (45940 in chips)
phantommut: posts the ante 50
mdmccormick: posts the ante 50
phantommut: posts small blind 400
mdmccormick: posts big blind 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to phantommut [Ah 4d]
phantommut: calls 400
mdmccormick: checks
*** FLOP *** [Ac 4h 5s]
mdmccormick: checks
phantommut: bets 800
mdmccormick: calls 800
*** TURN *** [Ac 4h 5s] [7s]
mdmccormick: checks
phantommut: bets 3800
mdmccormick: raises 3800 to 7600
phantommut: raises 12310 to 19910 and is all-in
mdmccormick: calls 12310
*** RIVER *** [Ac 4h 5s 7s] [9h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mdmccormick: shows [Ad As] (three of a kind, Aces)
phantommut: shows [Ah 4d] (two pair, Aces and Fours)
phantommut said, "gack"
mdmccormick collected 43120 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 43120 | Rake 0
Board [Ac 4h 5s 7s 9h]
Seat 1: phantommut (button) (small blind) showed [Ah 4d] and lost with two pair, Aces and Fours
Seat 7: mdmccormick (big blind) showed [Ad As] and won (43120) with three of a kind, Aces

So cold you don't want to stick your tongue on it, that's for sure.

Flop Aces-up, you don't expect your opponent to flop a set of aces, that's for sure.

Earlier in the tourney, I maybe get away from that hand. As is, I think this has to qualify as a "whatchoogonnado?" situation.

Quick status update, and a few notes:

• The Dime tourneys at PokerStars are like crack.
• In one of said Dime/Crack tourneys:
  • Holding pocket 10s, stack size at roughly 4000, blinds at 50/100, in early position, I open betting with 400.
  • Folds around to a late position caller with something like 2200 in chips, who calls.
  • blinds fold.
  • Flop is QQ2 rainbow.
  • I go all in.
  • Insta-call -- Mut has just bet into trip Queens, Ace kicker!
  • ...which evolves into Queens full of Aces!
    
    I still don't know whether my play was awesome but unlucky or simply stupid. (Numbers may be wildly innacurate, but ratios are correct.)
    
    
• After that, my tourney life was exciting and brief.
• $.01/.02 cash tables are tight.
• $.01/.02 cash players are either weak fish, or absolute sharks.
• If it isn't clear by now, I prefer the $.05/.10 tables.
• It's good to take a bad beat from a fish sitting directly to your right. Call his crap with good cards, and benefit from the entire table trying to cash in.
• Quads still stalk me; Les Deux Orangs dropped quads on my boat last night, and another player hit them in a hand I got away from on the turn.
• Oh, and I had a hand in an early PSD session where my 7c 9c turned into a straight flush on the flop, and I earned bubkus. Played it as slow as I could, and the designated donator still folded on the river -- only won about 4000 with it.

Bankroll status: 3.94M PSD, 50.75 USD