How's That For My Resume

I made a deep run last night in the MATH. I would end up in a ridiculously tough 3-way battle for the title, holding my own for about 1/2 hour, and the chip lead a good portion of the way before finally dropping out in third when my flopped two-pair ran into turned trips. It would be nice to get this deep and run into some random bloggers and not the powerhouses cmitch or Surflexus. I was a bit outclassed late, as I am simply not in enough of these types of events to get good late stage practice that is probably routine for these two. Congrats to cmitch for the title and Aussie Millions TOC seat.

I was feeling pretty good going into the Math rebuy. I love rebuy MTTs because the rake is lower (I actually care about these things) and it is a deeper stacks MTT than normal. Even if all goes wrong in the 1st hour you should still have 3500 in chips if you take the double buy and add-on. With the redonkulous play in these things you should be looking at a much deeper stack by the break. Since my MTT strategy relies on deepstacks, this would be a good structure for me.

I would start at a very tough table with Hoy, Chad, LJ and others. Chad was trying to play the rebuy properly with lots of preflop shoving, but the table was too tight, and were just calling him down for value. I called him down for value a bunch, and was always spot-on and I guess it got to him, because he started ripping me in the chat because I don't have a good enough "poker resume" which by his very specific definition is a massive MTT win or lots of 5 figure cashes. Sorry, I don't waste my time playing lots of massive MTTs so I should not be compared to the people who play 3-6 MTTs a day. If I played that many, I would have a very impressive "resume" by now, but I am more impressed with my bankroll anyway. I would love to see a website that did a proper job of calculating all entry fees and prizes as well as time spent in all MTTs so we could get the $/hr win rate for some of these impressive MTT resumes. I doubt I would be very impressed.

So again, as normal my game is ridiculed by all, yet I have success so often. I was one of the few who was profitable through the BBT1 and if you throw in my cash in the freeroll, I was decently profitable in that. I will also be profitable thought the BBT2 now as well, as I am just playing a few of these. But people act like my system can't work. There are times where even I start questioning the system, but you can't. You stick with it, and see what happens. Few would have got to where I did in last nights MATH with my cards because they would have made some moves that I did not make, and got eliminated long before the FT.

In the first hour, I nearly tripled up overcalling Chads all-in and a 1/2 stacks call with 88 and surviving the three overs. I then doubled through LJ twice (QQ then AA). After calling down a few more Chad pushes, I was up over 12k, and in the chip lead. I would go very card dead after that, and was pretty much not involved during the second hour. Fuel, Chad, Smokkee and others, actively questioning my game. I would not give in though. Short and desperate, I reraised all-in with KQo over emptymans open, and would run into AQ. I would suckout a K and double through. A few orbits later, I would jam AK over another emptyman open and double through again up to 20k.

With 18 people left, I made what I thought was a nice laydown of 33 preflop. Emptyman had opened and thought about isolating with a push, but I did not have set mining odds, and there were too many people behind. I folded preflop. I also folded 99 and AK preflop in the late stages which I doubt many of you could do to avoid a coinflip or worse. In this case I was kicking myself as I would have flopped Quads, and empty would have pushed into me on the flop.


I would arrive at the final table with about the 6th or 7th most chips. I would win some big pots off SellTheKids. One was when I jammed ATs from the cutoff, and he woke up with JJ but I flushed. One was a huge coinflip with AK vs. TT, and below I eliminated him with Quad Aces busting the bubble.

We got down to 4 handed by the third break. On the first hand after the break, I picked up TT in the BB and if folded to Surf's SB. He made a typical raise to 9.5k. I just went ahead and jammed. I did not want to play TT post flop, so I am taking the safe approach by Jamming. This is often misinterpreted by my opponent as weak, so Surf, thought and called with 44. I doubled though and took a big chip lead at this point. We would get down to three-handed for about 1/2 hour. I was getting decent cards, and holding my own, but was clearly being outplayed by my two opponents. Still I did hang on that long, and if I catch a decent set-up hand or slightly better cards, I could have won. Not my night though. The $340 will be a nice consolation prize, and a MATH 3rd can add to my impressive MTT resume.