Let's Go Crazy

"'Colonel Sanders'! OOH how I hate that bastard, with his wee, beady eyes, 'Oh you're gonna eat my chicken.'"
"Dad, How can you hate the Colonel?"
"Because he puts a secret ingredient in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly, smartass!"

My sincere thanks to The Human Head and April for getting the "So I Married an Axe Murderer" reference. Because, if an obscure reference falls in the forest, does the Pope really shit there?

So, I led off with another quote from that film, which is particularly appropriate since I played that MTT like a big fat chicken last night (less said about that, the better). And it has the added bonus of containing "fortnightly," that word being another peculiar fetish of mine.

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Enough with the jocularity, let's get down to serious business, i.e. fucking cheaters. You may recall I mentioned how there were some nefarious dealings in last week's attempt at a Round 1 WSOP satellite (and subsequently found out I'm not the only one to have this happen). Basically, what happened was, when we got down to 10 players, the table I wasn't playing on had a few conversations in chat regarding "folding around" until the short stack at the other table gets knocked out, that short stack being me. I copied the chat and fired off an e-mail to Poker Stars. Didn't really think anything would come of it.

Well, I received an answer, much to my surprise. Furthermore, the e-mail was damn thorough, expressly laying out hands that occurred. The conclusion was, that while the chat suggestions were "highly inappropriate," the manner of play remained acceptable (which I can grudglingly agree with after perusing the included hand histories). In conclusion, the offending players were warned, and I was refunded my buy-in (400 FPPs, baby! WOOOOOOOO!). Regardless, nice work Poker Stars.

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I teased a coming post about the Crazy $11 Re-Buy MTT on Stars, specifically my adaptation to its structure. Not sure I have the requisite insight such a tease portends, but here goes anyway. In fact, I don't think there IS any great insight here. It's more a case of me adjusting to different game conditions. Much of which seems to contradict the generally accepted poker rule: Tighen up when the game is loose, loosen up when the game is tight.

The first time I played that thing, I could not believe the level of primal idiocy in the first hour. It offended my poker tastes. It also left me feeling helpless. My thinking always was to get in cheap, survive the first hour by playing my standard tight/weak style and move on from there. At the very least, I'd be getting a huge overlay on the prize pool. I soon realized this is a bunk strategy unless you get a huge rush of cards early. So I upped what I'd spend, setting a limit of 3 re-buys/add-ons for a total investment of $41. I'd still not re-buy at the start, but use my starting chips to get into more pots than usual. If I ended up dumping them, I could still spend $30 to have near T5000 at the first break.

That didn't really seem to do the trick, either. Though I did begin to loosen up quite a bit more. It's a tightrope, though. Not only because caling pre-flop raises with suited one-gappers is an express lane to the re-buy line, but also because YOU CAN STILL GET PAID OFF WITH A HUGE HAND.

Yes, you need to play more hands in the first hour, but you don't need to be a total nincompoop (there are already plenty of those) because, when you DO flop a monster, you'll win a big pot (suckouts notwithstanding) and you want to have available chips when those instances arrive.

So, finally, the last adjustment I made was to re-buy off the top. If I lose that (like I did in both my attempts last weekend), I re-buy twice again. No reason to sit around at Level 3 or 4 with T1000 because you're protecting that first stack/buy-in. Too many big stacks await in the second hour and they are not shy about calling with crap that hits. So, if you're sitting in a position where you have to push and pray, you're gonna get called, likely in more than one place. You need chips to compete regularly.

If you're smart and the cards are reasonably kind, you can double up once or even twice at Levels 3 and 4 and take a nice chunk to the second hour. Again, something I managed to do in both attempts this weekend. A major adjustment in that regard is my willingness to risk my stack on coin flips or good drawing hands, actions I am loathe to take early in freeze-outs.

Now, I think I'm comfortable playing like this. Certainly more comfortable. It's most definitely a crapshoot and I've come to accept I'm going to dump some cash into this thing.

The other adjustment is playing big stacks in the second hour, where the blinds are relatively tiny compared to the number of chips out. Yes, you get smaller stacks who are forced to push, but most of the players at a given table will be in five figures with blinds only at 200/400 (plus 25 ante) at the end of the hour. This means there will be a lot more play after the flop. There's still a relatively high aggression factor, probably a residual effect of the hormonal orgy of the re-buy period, but, in general, the pots will be comparably smaller. Most realize it's folly to risk their entire stack of T15000 at this point. So you get minimum bet-calls through the river, even some check-check. Good time to have Ax-suited and the like. Have to be prepared to contest a lot of pots here and pick up chips where you can.

During the third hour, things return pretty much to "normal" poker play. Play the stacks, stealing blinds is more lucrative, try to trap with your monsters.

For my part, I've worked a lot more variety of play into this tourney lately, especially in regards to the last, using deceptive bets more often when holding a big hand.

So why do I think I'm ready for a big cash in one of these things? Because it's always one. One hand that has prevented me from going on to riches. And one of these days, that hand is gonna go my way.

The most painful one--not in a whining bad beat way--was on Sunday night after the WPBT satellite. We were down to about 220 people (135 paid) and I was in the top 15 in chips (approx T75K). Everything was going perfectly. I get pocket 6s in LP and, first in, raise 4x. The button calls and the flop comes down Ad9c6h. Well shiver me fucking timbers. I check (DECEPTION!) and button bets 2K. I raise to 6K. He raises to 10K. I put him all-in and he calls with AcTc. I have him covered by T30K. I win, and I'm up over 100K rapidly aproaching the bubble. And I'm a playa. Naturally, I lose to runner-runner clubs. Now, the beat sucked. But the closeness, the mirage of being a huge stack, an aggressive hurler of chips...to have that snatched away...that was painful. Because I'm looking at big-time contention, which just disappeared, putting me back in the foothills. To my credit I didn't tilt. Thanks in part to the dear and patient wife's suggestion: "Don't tilt."

I managed to hang onto roughly that stack by stealing blinds and got to the bubble expecting to fold my way to some cash. Of course, I get AcKc on the button and call a smaller stack's all-in. He has QcJc and flops a jack. I still have T8000 and fold to the money.

Same deal with the other tourney. Just ran into bad luck/big cards. Had a very nice stack early in the 3rd hour and flopped top two with AJs. Got into a war with a bigger stack who flopped a set of 6s (yes, the sets of 6s were bad this weekend). No cash in that one, but again, I did a good job of building an early stack. Just need that one crucial decision to go my way. Just once. If I can keep playing my way into good position late, it'll happen.

I hope.