Feeling the Rush

After another ten hour day in the office, I was sadly unable to make it home in time for the Mookie (or, The Buddy, if you're so inclined).

Now, I wasn't necessarily setting to play any poker last night. It's been a long week already, and miles to go before I sleep. But the Good Doctor Mondo and her mom were watching American Idol, and I just. can't. get. into. that. The audition shows are fun, but once everyone gets to Hollywood and is fed through the inevitable makeover process through the course of a season...makes me wanna gack.

So instead, I thought I'd try my hand at Full Tilt's new Rush Tournaments. Yeah, Rush poker with a tournament twist. I found two levels of 135 man SNGs, at $4.40 and $11. And I promptly tried a $4.40. The same Rush poker mechanism, but in a tourney with 2k starting chips and three minute blinds. So it's also a super turbo. And almost as promptly, I went down in flamed, with my AQ going down to KT on a TT8 board. Raised PF from the button, both blinds called, and I couldn't lay down to the check-raise after my c-bet on the flop.

So I fired up another one, as these seem to go off every five minutes. And on the very first hand, my AQ 3-bet AIPF went down to QT (who'd called my all in) on yet another TTx flop. Gross. I could sense a pattern forming.

So I fired up another one, and AK went down to QQ (oh, so now a Q is good).

So I fired up another one, and KK went down in flames. At least my conqueror had no tens...

So I fired up another one. And came home fourth. Way to go.

Actually, I found myself very fortunate in this one. Twice I had to catch a turn or a river in a really tight spot to keep going. And even when the final table started, I was 9th in chips, and pretty much roached my way up five spots just from other players getting knocked out by one or two big stacks. I think I only managed to pull down two pots at the final table.

All in all, the most valuable lesson I learned in these last night is that one of these 135 rush tournaments will go from start to end in under 80 minutes or so. But the play, at least in the $4.40s, is pretty bad, at least given some of the preflop calls I saw. Variance will be high. Once down to 18 players or so, the short stacks will stall, to lesson the number of hands. I haven't yet decided whether the quick fold is a great idea at that stage. If you have a decent stack (which I did at that time, around 5th-6th in chips), you may be better served by playing along with the stallers, to force the levels to rise and help the blinds swallow them up.

Anyway, it was fun, and the whole shebang was done just a few minutes after the DVR'd AI festivities were over, so I'm definitely going to try this again.

Besides, given the massive 122 player Mookie turnout last night, the 12:30MT headsup, and my work schedule...gah...it's looking less likely that I'll end up in any of the BBT5 events this cycle, such is life.

May the chips fall your way....