Poppin the BBT cherry!!!

Finally... With a lot of pleading, begging, and soul selling with the poker gods, I took down the Mookie!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!! For most, this won't be all that exciting. But I've never taken down a multi table tournament and I knew that my BBT experience will not be complete without at least taking down one tournament (regardless of the top 10 standings on the leaderboard) so this was especially satisfying. Admittedly though, I had to do A LOT of sucking out. Before I go into the details, thank you for all those that supported me and railing me. Now, somewhere in the midst of what could potentially be the longest heads up match in the BBT history (38 minutes according to the live blog), Wes and I decided to chop the cash. But we both wanted the points so we decided to play it out for the points. I actually figured that by chopping the cash, the heads up match won't last too long... well, either we were both getting really shitty cards or we both suck at heads up... well, actually, I can tell you now that I suck at heads up. I just don't have any experience in it. I am always playing a full ring or 6 max cash tables. Heads up never happens. So, I pretty much had no clue what I was doing and I'm sure it showed. Nonetheless, big props to Wes for taking two bad beats in a row with class. Sorry it had to end that way.

Generally, I would focus my hand recaps and analysis to cash games because that is what I primarily play but even though I actually had a very good night on the cash tables, the poker gods decided to show me that the MTT's can be fun too so I'm just gonna run through those tonight.

I got my two friends (Inigomontoya76 and Pouringreign) to come out for the Mookie and as usual, I was listening to the great BuddyDank Radio show hosted by BuddyDonk, er I mean BuddyDank and InstantTragedy. Buddy, of course I kid - that's for all the trash talk over the radio. :)

Well, meanwhile, I was successfully chipping up in the Fifty Fifty on FullTilt. 30 minutes into the Mookie, we were on the 1st break of the Fifty Fifty and I was doing fairly well.



I had built up a pretty big stack but unfortunately, I didn't put them to good use. It didn't help that an even bigger stack was sitting to my left. So, instead, I decided to try to conserve my chips in the middle stages as suggested on this great post on MTT by the K.O.D. himself. I was doing fine, occasionally stealing but not doing anything crazy until this hand came up...

I was in MP and so I raised it up to T$700 (blinds at T$100/$200). Button calls and we go into the flop heads up. Flop comes K-K-2. So, I thought about checking but that seems fishy so I bet out T$1000. The button smooth calls my bet and so now I'm wondering if he has a pocket pair. I check the turn which was a blank for deception. I bet T$1000 on the river to induce a call and then a funny thing happened. The button raised to T$2850. Something didn't seem right so I call. This is what I see.



I'm still shocked that I didn't go busto on that hand. Well, thank goodness because I was able to climb back up by playing the short stack fairly well and so I was one big hand away from having a big stack to potentially do some damage in this tournament. And right on cue, I get dealt pocket aces. So, as I start to wonder how to play this, this is the action I see...

FullTiltPoker Game #2790628538: The Fifty-Fifty (21080837), Table 19 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:18:30 ET - 2007/06/28
Seat 1: gunthy2 (7,067)
Seat 2: RecessRampage (10,085)
Seat 3: mostbluntedd (32,985)
Seat 4: cmitch (6,685)
Seat 5: sammy1260 (9,251)
Seat 6: Flush_Edges (5,377)
Seat 7: UGGs (26,501)
Seat 8: cheese625 (8,572)
Seat 9: MattSuspect (8,510)
gunthy2 antes 50
RecessRampage antes 50
mostbluntedd antes 50
cmitch antes 50
sammy1260 antes 50
Flush_Edges antes 50
UGGs antes 50
cheese625 antes 50
MattSuspect antes 50
cmitch posts the small blind of 200
sammy1260 posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ad Ac]
Flush_Edges has 15 seconds left to act
Flush_Edges folds
UGGs folds
cheese625 raises to 8,522, and is all in
MattSuspect folds
gunthy2 calls 7,017, and is all in

WOW. The only problem is, I sensed a bad beat coming. I really did. And alas, I push all my chips in but when it's all said and done, this is what happened...



Once again, I'm crippled. At this point, the bloggers are staying strong in this tournament as I notice Hoy, Astin, and Cmitch are still in the tourney. As a matter of fact, after the above hand, I'm shortstacked again but I find a way to double through Cmitch when I jam my AQ sooooooted into his JJ and I win the race. That made my stack healthy enough to survive the cash bubble but eventually, I find myself shoving KJo and get called by pocket tens. I don't win the race this time and unfortunately, I see this message.



Well, the good news was, at that point, the Mookie was winding down and I was still in the hunt. I'm not even gonna list out all the suckouts I needed on the final table in order for me to survive and to eventually win. For those of you that had to witness the heads up match, I'm sorry. I actually took down the pot with the "Hammer" 3 times even though I only showed it once. Shoulda showed more just to keep everyone moderately entertained since I'm sure the last 30 minutes of our heads up match, all everyone wanted was for it to end...

I also thought I was gonna do a better job of recapping the hands but it's 2:42am right now and I have to get up in about 5 hrs... so, sorry for the abrupt ending, once again, thanks to all that railed me and supported me, either through the chat boxes or through girly chats. And I wish I coulda joined the blogger cash games but I had to focus on the tourneys tonight. Good night now!!!!