I Got Skillz

I played the Skillz Series and Bodonkey on Tuesday. Tuesday night is now the only night that I play poker, and just these two MTTs. My desire to play cash games does not exist anymore. As a result I just don't have a bunch to post about pokerwise anymore. It would help if the Hand Histories were better at bodog, but they are not. So today I thought I would write briefly about the two MTTs on Tuesday, and let you know that I will be switching directions a bit on this blog. I always have tried to keep the content exclusively poker based here, but I will be dropping that requirement. I will try to bring the depths of analysis that I bring to hand histories to the problems of the world today. Not sure what people will think, but we will see what kind of comments that I get. Now on to Tuesdays MTTs.

Skill Series PLO

I am not a big expert on PLO, and I like pushing big edges in poker, so this would not be my strongest event. I did flop quads eights on the first hand (see above), and take an ever so short overall chip lead. From that point I started waiting for good PLO starting hands which were not really there for me at all. I ran into Quad Aces once, and also paid off too many people on the river when I was obviously beat. I was down to about 1800 after the break, and was looking to get back into contention. I figured I would just force the issue with the first good PLO starting hand that I found. When I got AKQT with two of one suit I figured that was it. I potted preflop which basically pot committed me. I flopped top pair, a gutshot, and a runner runner flush draw. Wawfuls opened and I jammed. He had a nut flush draw that got there on the river, and IGHN. I Felt that I played pretty bad thoughout this one. I told peaker later in the bodonkey that I felt I had "underplayed my lack of starting hands to elimination". Now that's a nice spin.

Bodonkey Event 6

The Bodonkey has always been good to me, and Event 6 was no exception. I made to top 30% for valuable points for the 4th time now in 6 tries. This time I picked up QQ very early with the blinds at 10/20. There was an open to 65 and two smooth calls before me. I figured that nobody in there right mind would smooth call preflop with AA or KK this early and with stacks this deep, so I decided to go for the overbet push and hope the initial raiser did not have a monster. Initial raiser thought and folded, but a smoothcaller called with 99 and I doubled up to 6k in chips. As I have said before, this is enough chips to get the points, so I just went into lockdown mode, where I only play hands where I am a huge favorite, and try to play small ball as much as possible. The points bubble breaks like clockwork 2 1/2 hours in, so you know where you need to get to. This can get pretty annoying. I folded AK preflop once after a huge preflop raise. I did not want to risk the chips. Later, I picked up TT and a shorty jammed for about 1800. I was going to call that, but then there was a smooth call by someone with a bunch of chips before me. Again, I have enough chips to get the points, and the points are really worth more than improving your shot at a winning this individual MTT. I did not want to coinflip with the smooth caller at this point so I folded. Smooth caller had AQo, pusher had 99, the flop was low, and I would have beat both of them for a nice pot. This is not the way to play a normal MTT, but seems correct to me for the bodonkey. So I made it past the points bubble, and started looking for a hand to get back into it with. Ducks would be the ticket. Newinnov raised 3x from the button, and I jammed my BB figuring it could be a steal, and I would have some fold equity. Newinnov had AK and called for most of his stack. He would river a K and send me to the rail in 13th/47. I don't mind my play there at all as my M was pretty low. The points were enough for me to maintain 9th place over all in the standings with 1/3 of the Bodonkey series complete.