January turns sour
by huge on Jan.31, 2010, under Poker
After a stellar first half of January it’s been a dismal slide for the second half. I’ve continued to play a lot of “Steps” tournaments in hopes of winning another $7000 NAPT package, which, because I’ve already won one, would translate into cash for me … but not only have I failed to secure another $7000 package, I’ve been pummeled by several nasty bad beats in the attempt, to the point where January is now basically a wash. I’ve still got one more day to salvage the month, but it doesn’t look good. Disappointing.
I like to think that I’m not a chronic bad-beat complainer. I don’t believe that I “run bad” at poker the way some people claim. Sometimes I run very well indeed, and sometimes I’m on the wrong side of variance for a while, but in the long run I believe that I run just about average, the same way every other poker player runs if they play enough poker to reach anything resembling “the long run”. When people at or away from a poker table say “I run sooooo bad” I immediately lose a bit of respect for them, and my eyes roll back into my head for the rest of whatever story they’re about to tell. So I’m not saying I run bad, OK? But what I’ve run into in the last couple of weeks has become a bit comical, and I felt a desire to present it in some entertaining form, so here it is…
In a good-news-bad-news development, a few days ago I managed what might be my best finish ever in a big field tournament, and unquestionably my biggest comeback ever – taking a 95-chip stack (with the blinds at 50-100) up to over 350,000 chips, finishing 6th out of 1900 players. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it was in the World Blogger Championship of Online Poker, a freeroll tournament open only to “verified bloggers” in which finishing 6th out of 1900 earned me less money than in just about any tournament I’m ever likely to play … my prize was a $215 tournament ticket. [I just did the research to confirm that that is in fact my best finish in a 1000+ player tournament – I have some 4th-6th place finishes in various 800-ish player tournaments, and my best online cash was a 3rd place finish in a 780 player tournament, but I’ve never made the final table of a (non-free) tournament with over a thousand players in it, which seems like a pretty bad monkey to have on my back … add that to the list of 2010 goals]
Just to add some EXTRA icing on the cake (that would be poop-flavored icing on the cake of despair), in the most recent Team-Huge home game, which we played for higher stakes than we ever have (TEN DOLLAR rebuys, omg), I took more rebuys than anyone else, then got all-in with AA against Dan’s stupid AJ … almost the best matchup I could possibly have … and the flop came KQT for the nut straight, taking me from 11:1 favorite to 10:1 underdog with one chop of Dan’s stupid, ugly, fat (or should I say “tubby”) axe. No reverse-a-miracle full house for me and I was out in 7th place, while everyone’s old thieving pal Dan went on to win … great job Dan (NOT).
Some small consolation can be taken in the fact that I did win the weight-loss bet I had with Dan, so he will have to use all the money he won in that tournament to buy me the Rossini Burger the next time we’re in Vegas, and he’ll have to dip into his savings account to buy himself that veggie burger.
[After writing the bulk of this post, I did have one piece of unadulterated good news … I won a satellite into today’s $1050 buyin “Ultimatebet Online Poker Championship” with a $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool, which will have Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, and the other UB pros in it. So that’s my shot at redeeming January – 1PM Pacific Time – I’ll let you know if anything exciting happens.]
January 31st, 2010 on 11:19 pm
OMG, that was painful to watch. A slow motion train wreck? Not even close. More like a double nerve canal without anesthesia. Yikes. I think that series of hands would cause me to take up pinocle.
Good luck in the Ultimatebet Championship!