So Close, So Far, But A Token For My Trouble

Last night being my bloggerment night of the week, it seemed like a good night to sit down for some serious internet pokerz, and things got off to a good start.

Won a $75 token in the Token Frenzy, in what was probably only my 3rd or 4th time playing this event. The interesting thing about this tourney was that I pretty much quintupled up during the first two orbits, and damn near folded my way to the token from there, even folding JJ and AQs preflop when out of position to known pushmonkeys, when down to the last 10-12 eliminations. Aside from one or two preflop steals, I didn't play another hand.

Now, I know conventional wisdom amongst bloggers is to use these $75 tokens in Don's Big Game, but I generally cannot play poker on Sunday nights. I'd like to play in this, but assuming I can't, I'd like to hear from you guys on the best way to utilize this. I'm not a SNG stud, but the Tier 2s that reward 1st through 5th with $216 in tournament dollars, and $162 cash for 6th, are inviting. Or, do I use it in a random $69+6 guarantee event? Or in a satellite for something else?

Anyway, this would turn out to be my best hit of the night.

I was crippled in the Bodog $10k when my AKs got four-flushed on the river to lose to AKo.

I went out of the Blogger Skillz event on the money bubble (well, bubble +1) to this kick in the junk:



Winning the hand was worth a 2nd or 3rd place stack at the time. Do any of you get away from rolled up 9s here, especially rivering the boat? (Betting on every street, but it took the river to be all-in.) You could even say I was HOSE'd.

The Bodonkey seemed to show a lot more promise. The deck slapped me hard in the face early, where I picked up AA twice, KK twice, and QQ, all in the first 2-3 orbits. Unfortunately, virtually all of my standard pf raises (3-3.5x, depending on position) were folded to, and after all those early premium cards, I was up to a grand total of about 3200 chips.

Then, came this:



DQB!

Yeah, I think I might just check a couple streets here, and let TFG do my work for me:



After that, it was a long slow grind, lots of straight ahead TAG, lots of pf folding, until the bitter end, where I got it all in with what I think was KK, and got called by two unders who flopped a straight, and IGHN...yup, you guessed it, on the final table bubble. At least I picked up points and a $T11 return of my buyin, and I'm now up to about 27th in the standings, but this one hurt, as I felt primed to run much further. Still, congrats to TripJax and especially to RedKoi (who came back from a very short stack), on your top finishes.

Every other Bodog guarantee I was in last night started off with me chipping up nicely early, then going card dead in Hour 2, and then getting turned or rivered for all my chips in the last 1/3 or so of the field. I probably should have never blogged about my hands holding up there, because they sure haven't since.

Oh yeah, one other fun event, a late nite $3.30 KO MTT over at FullTilt, which saw me in early double-or-go-home mode. Second hand, I have a couple smallish clubs in the BB, and the flop is Q97, 2 clubs. Blinds check, and cutoff or button bets pot. SB calls, I shove. Cutoff calls, SB folds. Cutoff turns up bottom pair no kicker (no club) and berates me for the club turn that takes most of his chips. He proceeds to be an asshole all night, even after he went out just in the money. What really pissed him off was the table learning of his amazing -47% ROI. ;-)

Anyway, after about 10-12 knockouts, I was again poised for a nice-sized cash (which I could use, after running badly ever since my hit last week). Late in the game, there's a player on my right who has open shoved my last three big blinds from an unopened small blind. I know he's playing ETC (every two cards), and I'm just waiting to pounce. Next orbit, he shoves, and I've got KK baby, KK. Call, duh. He flips 97o (obviously), and flops T86. Gack. The only showdown I lose in the whole tourney, and I go home...yup, you guessed it, on the final table bubble. Aaaaagain.

Two final table bubbles and one money bubble in one night, and an evening that began with so much promise, with a quick big token win, ended up breakeven (at best). I do feel like I'm playing really strong poker the last week or so, but I just can't avoid that one gross late suckout when I'm way ahead at a crucial time. At least I can ponder how to use the token...

Oh yeah, thanks for tagging me, Peaker -- I'll put up my random junk later this week, as long as I can.