Warning: Whiny Content

Just trying to break even & run up VPPs to get this freaking Stars $2k bonus -> Nam-style flashbacks of my ill-fated SNE Run. Seriously, WTF?

No more tourneys, no more poker-related email, no 2+2, no Cake Gold Stack fun, no poker anything except PokerStars cash game VPP grind until I get this albatross of a 200k VPP bonus off my ass.

Oh, and SuperNova probably out for 2010. Why? Because fuck them and their 14-buyin below EV downticks in a week, that's why.

2009 in (way early) Review

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

tossing a bucket of water onto the donkament heater

Just in case i was starting to feel a little too good about myself or how i'm playing, luckily I played like an unreal donk the last 2 nights to come back to mediocre-to-lameass-playing earth.

- 3rd in chips out of 6 remaining in an uber-soft Cake satellite giving away 3 seats, decided to open-shove for 14BBs from the button with 43o. why, i cannot say, but I got what I deserved and busto.
- With a healthy above avg stack in Cake rebuy with 80/250 left, i check-raise shoved a button raiser on a QT4 board with 66 when I was pretty sure he had a decent hand Again, I don't know why, but justice was served and busto.
- I managed to get all my money in bad in PLO FTP donkament not 1 or 2x, but 3 by sucking out the 1st 2x before my suicide attempts finally worked.

Poker gods were obv punishing me for the latest series of brag posts, so I'll go nack to noticing how much I usually suck & maybe the upticks will resume.

Man was that fun to run like Harp in short-handed minbet for a week. I made more final tables over 7 days than I had all year.

Maybe online donkaments + live cash are the new staples, I dunno.

lol comebackaments

Email #1 - me to Pat 4pm
(he had 20% of me in a $55 Cake bounty tourney that started at 3pm)

seriously can i run any fking worse in these cake donkaments?

here's the grossness
Cake hand link
(started hand with above avg stack 8,527 in chips, 4-bet squeezed a smooth caller with AQ, he snappo-called for 7k with KJo, and I ended the hand with 319 in chips with blinds at 50-100 & all ramped up for my tilty air shove for 3BBs)


I made a little comeback in that same tourney though...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 8:50 PM
Subject: Tournament Prize Detail
To: jaypoker@coskie.com
Congratulations Sloppo,
Out of 310 players in Tournament 5787865 ($15,000 GUARANTEED BOUNTY!!), you came in 3rd and have won $1,085.00.
Best wishes,
The Cake Poker Team

nice sweat on coin flip for 350k pot (total of 900k in play in tourney)
Button opened for 40k, I 3-bet shoved with 66 into AdQd, flop 3 diamonds :( turn 6 : river brick, waah waah busto)

That was sick, sick fun

Heater uptick

Yeah, Splasher's a lock for the Cake rebuy Hall of Fame.

I have to say it does not suck to have friends who have entered some sort of Zen-like state of poker almost every night over an extended period, especially when they're generous enough to swap big pieces with you during the heater. Thanks, Pat- pressure's on now for me to make a deep run the WSOP ME with Horner at age 50 so I can fire a huge piece at you. I'll let him fill in details on his last run in his blog, but last night he put on a fun show.

Here's a visual representation of our chops this week

On the pro front, the results are in - I blow chunks at live poker in virtually every form. Ship the live poker win rate for 2009 of, wait for it, $3.75/hour. Sadly / pathetically, this is a huge improvement from the negative rate a couple of months ago. Also I cannot for the life of me avoid playing and/or running like crap in every bubble situation I climb my way into on Cake.

But apparently, if I swallow my ever-shrinking pro pride and plunge waaaaaaaay down into Donkey Stakes Land, it looks as though I crush the Omahaha-8 droolers. Think I'mam I running any good in my last dozen or so omahaha donkaments (at least the ones with buy-ins you can drum up shaking out in your couch cushions or returning SmarteCartes at the airport for 15 minutes) ?

Date Tournament Game Buy in Entries Rank Prize
23 Jul 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 218 2 $665 (2-way choppo)
20 Jul 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 178 7 $139
19 Jul 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 62 24 $0
19 Jul 09 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLPL $5.50+ 752 4 $812
19 Jul 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 276 14 $65
18 Jul 09 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLPL $5.50+ 635 57 $25
13 Jun 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 120 17 $56
13 Jun 09 No Limit Omaha OHNL $5.50+ 54 3 $209
06 Jun 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 126 22 $0
17 May 09 No Limit Omaha OHNL $5.50+ 70 22 $0
14 May 09 No Limit Omaha OHNL $5.50+ 57 14 $0
08 May 09 No Limit Omaha OHNL $5.50+ 61 1 $459

Heaterama

In today's beat the dead horse department, Cake donkaments are delicious. Pat has been absolutely crushing- cashing in 1/2 and hitting the final 1 or 2 tables a handful of times just this week. Sloppo & theSplasher vs. The Droolers $30 rebuy & bounty matches are playing nightly on Cake at 9 & 10pm, join in the LAGtardic fun.

After a mind-numbingly scary month of nightmarish thoughts ala "ohmygodifidontstartwinningihavetoupdatemyresumeohgoditburnseshelphelphelp", I went on a nice donkament bender-heater combo Sunday.

Over 12 1/2 hours Amy's tiny laptop screen was filled with rotating tourney chaos. Some stats:
- Donkaments:20 (Cake - NL, FullTilt - PLO, PokerStars - PLO8, Bodog - NL)
- Plates of food + cups of coffee delivered to couch or counter by my folks: double digits (I think I owe my Mom a cut for the poker-friendly environment)
- Breaks over 10 seconds long: 0 (donkaments don't really care how many cups of coffee you had, ship the constant laptop companion in the bathroom)
- Cashes: 7, Final Tables: 4, $s: +$2,400 woohoo!


DonkaQuiz

1) Play along at home & test your Hellmuth factor

FTP, final 3 of PLO/8 tourney...

1st = $2,000
2nd = $1,300
3rd = $1,000

Villain who bets turn is pretty decent, but could show up with a lot of hands other than nuts/set

a) So what's your turn play, call or fold?
This assumes the best play is not available (i.e., go back in time to stop yourself from stuffing in chips with air on the flop).
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4490681

For those of you who are on some Big Brother at Work server and can't see poker stuff, Villain bet enough to put us all in on turn & we have between 11 to 15 nut outs, plus 6 more cards that improve our hand & could possibly win.

b) OK, let's pretend you somehow knew Villain holds T987 for one lame-ass pair plus a semi-wrap and 2 diamond blockers, now what do you do?

Turns out it doesn't matter at all what you do as far as EV goes, even with 19/40 cards on turn to win and take huge chip lead or 21/40 to bust out in 3rd.

When you stuff the payouts & chip stacks into this ICM calculator:
EV of Tourney Equity if fold: $1,355
EV of call if win (~48%) $1,760 + $1,000 payday if lose (52%) = EV of call $1,351

c) Now that you know you'd be paying $4 to participate in a $750 coin flip vs roughly comparably skilled opponents, would you fold or call? (Although Villain did call a flop pot-sized bet with ten high and a draw to a draw, wtf? How did I lose to this donk?)

Basically I think this question tests whether you're Phil HellMouth and would fold a draw with correct / 0 EV odds to dodge variance & play it out OR would you decide to leave it up to the gambool poker gods?

Shocker, but I tanked then did the Blackjack dealer clap-handwave combo, embraced the variance, & stuffed it in. I'd like to believe I called thinking it was a solid +$EV play but um, yeah, that's pretty much delusional. More like ship the wonkin' coin flip wheeeee....


2) Who's the bigger spewMonkey, me or Villain?
CakeSpewHand

LAGtard amylouwho, extra slices o' cake

My budding donkament prodigy wife Amylouwho took down the nooner at Mohegan today to bring home a stake for me to bring to AC tomorrow (about $1k) - woohoo!

I haven't gotten the full debrief yet, but based on early reports, it sounded like it was a giant non-stop pile of her grabbing free chips with naked aggression, with lots of grumpy people folding like beaten dogs and muttering about how many good hands she keeps hitting. I guess they look at her chips firing over & over, glance at her tidy little outfit & hand sanitizer and get a-scared she must have a hand every time (she didn't).

Oh Barney Frank, pave the way for Charlotte to win her college tuition at Harrah's Online Poker Emporium between baby-sitting jobs, she's got some gambool gene potential.

PSA - Cake tourney overlays have gotten pretty ridiculously good.

Since Lee Jones joined, they have shortened the late registration times but kept the same guarantees (at least for now). Satellites into these things are still way soft (both cash & gold card). As a benchmark, I'd say probably 2x the softness with way more people utterly clueless about bubble strategy vs. the FTP 1800 point 1-table SNGs for $26 tokens.

2 examples from tonight:
- $20k gtee with $100 buy-in -> 152 people = $5k overlay ($30 per entrant)
- $25k gtee $30 w/ R&A -> just 232 buyins, 250 rebuys with 180 left just before break, so likely a nice overlay there too