Almost Springtime

Which means it's time for more bad beats. Okay, I keeeed, I keeeed...sorta.

But seriously, I've been limiting my online poker play lately to Sundays, and I've been getting seriously kicked in the junk by some of the worst play around. As such, my meager roll's down another 10-15% or so. Usually, the beats come just before breaking the bubble. Without belaboring the point, there's really two examples that sum up the last three weeks.

JokerStars $10+1 $200k guarantee....getting semi sorta close to the money bubble. I pick up AQ or AK on the button and open raise about 3x. BB repops. I shove. BB calls. With 63o. Yeah, he calls off almost his entire stack with 63, and the call was at least 20BB. We each pair the flop, but the three on the river seals my fate, for a pot that would nearly assure me surviving the bubble. But really, who calls off 15BB with 63o just to protect a botched re-steal? At the very best, you're no better than 40% to win, and at worst, you're hopelessly behind.

Bodog $12r, about two tables from the bubble. Late position raises about 3x, I overshove with AK. He snapcalls....with A7o. Of course, the seven on the river takes me out.

If you want to knock me out of a tournament, the best way to go about doing it is clearly to get it all in as a 2.5:1 dog or worse. If you're way behind, you're guaranteed to win.

I've lost another 1/3 of my dwindling Bodog roll, by going out a bit before the bubble in a variety of $10, $10r and $12 tourneys, nearly every time as a huge favorite on the turn, only to get three outed or five outed on the river. I'd pull my remaining $$$ off of there, but it's only a couple hundo and hardly worth waiting the godawful 40-60 day wait for. But I'm almost looking forward to being able to uninstall Bodog at this point, as it has really exceeded JokerStars for the combination of atrociously bad play that has been rewarded by catching miracle cards against me time and again. I'm choosing to look at it this way...I've already pulled off 4x the $$$ from Bodog than I ever deposited there, so I can exit a lifetime winner. At this point, I have zero intention of redepositing, not when there are sites with a greater volume of tournaments and players, and where the beats don't seem to come in such bad spots quite as often.

Yeah, that's whining -- deal with it. I'm okay with Bodog's software, but the inability to transfer to/from players on that site, the relative paucity of MTTs, combined with the level of abusive three outers, and my recent loss of ad sponsorship of my blog by that site, has just drained my desire to play there. If you're doing well there, I hope you continue to do so.

I did manage to mincash in a $20+2 PLO8 tourney on Stars, but again, missed a chance to run truly deep, when what appeared to be a likely chop turned into a scoop of all my chips, when a river trey counterfeited my low and worse, filled in villian's 7-high straight. Ugh. But that's Omatard, and that's not going to change. When he called, he was drawing OESD on a non-flushing board, and had a decent (if non-nut) low. Oh well. I did pick up a pocket of JJJJ. That was kinda funny.

So yeah, I don't write about poker much these days, because I have nothing of interest to write about. The story remains the same. I continue playing good tight smart poker early, chipping up (but not really getting to the top of the leaderboard). Eventually, when close to the money, I'm correctly reading someone for making a move with air, and then when they call off most or all of their chips way behind, they're getting inordinately lucky. It's always the same....AK can't beat A7, JJ can't beat 86s, KK can't beat 44 on a K-high flop, flopped two pair go down to runner runner trips or runner runner gutterballs...it goes on. Frankly, I don't see how reading about that would be of interest to anyone.

But really, I'm just tired of playing smart poker for three hours only to get kicked in the balls again for making the correct play. I'd just as soon it happen in the first few minutes, so I can go off and do something else. Or even at least a few minutes later when I've at least recovered my buy-in. But to have it happen the same way every time, at or near the bubble, just fucking sucks ass. It's more the timing of the beats than the beats themselves, as we're all pretty used to horrible poker players by now. Hell, most of us feed off of them, as do I. Except on the bubble, I guess.

Back to your regularly scheduled grinding.