Fold, Hope, and Mookie

I have been trying to think of a better name for my tournament strategy besides “the Black and White Strategy”.  Last night during the Mookie, I came up with “Fold and Hope”.  It seems kind of perfect in a way.  Long term stock investment used to be the norm.  You would buy some stock, and hold it indefinitely.  You were not sure exactly when it was going to go up in value, you just know that given time eventually the right factors will stack up in the economy for your stock and you will get your gains.  This strategy was ridiculed during the dot com market collapse in 2000.  The term “Hold and Hope” was used to make fun of long term stock investors.  It was more about timing the market now.  Tactically jumping in and out at the right moments, and always looking for any edge you can find and leveraging that edge to the max.  So think about “Fold and Hope”.  What you are dong is like long term stock investing.  You are holding on to your capital for some unknown time in the future when you will get your gains.  You have no idea when they are coming, you just know that you have picked some good stocks (your over all poker strategy), and that holding them will work given enough time.  So in an MTT, you do a lot of folding early and in the middle, and you hope that you will get some goods cards and good situations at some point in the future to make your patience pay off.  The early aggressive players are more like day traders. They don’t trust the market long term. They are active and jumping in and out of pots.  They might make a big score, or they might go bust early on.  They are more about timing the market for a big score now then trusting the market over time.  The Fold and Hoper trusts his stocks (game), and the market (mathematics of MTTs) and lets the chips fall where they may. 

My run through the Mookie this time was a bit tougher.  I did not get an early double-up to go into cruise control.  I stayed around +/-800 of my starting stack for the first 90 minutes or so.  By that point I was way short of the average stack and near the bottom of the leader board.  I was folding and hoping for better times in the future.

I finally started catching a few cards and built my stack up to 8-9k and then was gifted the chip lead in the hand below.  I had really not been stealing at all up to this point, and made a standard 3x "steal" raise from the button with QQ.  The table chip leader shoved from the SB, and I thought briefly before calling.  No way I can put him on AA or KK there, yet I may actually have something.  I had to dodge a flopped gutshot, but did for the chip lead with about 20k and 15 people left.    

Fast forward to the Final Table and we are 5 handed, and I pick up AA UTG.

Full Tilt Poker Game #10580755891: The Mookie (78916851), Table 2 - 800/1600 Ante 200 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:11:38 ET - 2009/02/12
Seat 4: lightning36 (42,743)
Seat 5: BuddyDank (9,531)
Seat 6: NYRambler (43,344)
Seat 8: JoeSpeaker (22,758)
Seat 9: Blinders (25,624)
NYRambler posts the small blind of 800
JoeSpeaker posts the big blind of 1,600
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Blinders [Ah Ac]
Blinders calls 1,600

Don't try this one at home.  5 handed is a bit dangerous for this move, but whenever I pick up AA late in an MTT I am looking for a full double-up if that is what's needed at the time.  I am willing to roll the dice a bit to get there if it will improve my chances enough.  Here as tight as I had been playing the UTG limp seems OK.  I figure worst case both blinds call.  Best case someone raises.

lightning36 folds
BuddyDank folds
NYRambler calls 800
JoeSpeaker checks

worst case senario

*** FLOP *** [Kc 4d 5d]
NYRambler checks
JoeSpeaker checks
Blinders bets 3,200

I can't screw around any more here

NYRambler calls 3,200
JoeSpeaker has 15 seconds left to act
JoeSpeaker raises to 20,958, and is all in

This was a bit scary.  I figure I have Rambler beat, but Speaker would need something strong to check raise shove there over a bet and a call.  I figured it was just a strong K or a draw.

  

Blinders calls 17,758
NYRambler folds
JoeSpeaker shows [Js Kh]
Blinders shows [Ah Ac]
*** TURN *** [Kc 4d 5d] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [Kc 4d 5d 9h] [5s]
JoeSpeaker shows two pair, Kings and Fives
Blinders shows two pair, Aces and Fives
Blinders wins the pot (50,916) with two pair, Aces and Fives

After that I knocked out Buddy, and eventually got heads up with NYRambler.  I had a nice chip lead to start heads-up, and was playing hyper-aggressive which was probably a shock to anyone who had watched me early on.  I lost the chip lead briefly at one point, but rallied right back to the lead before looking down at QQ.  We would get it all in preflop, and if I could fade an Ace the Mookie was mine.

That hurt, but I was still in decent shape.  A few hands later I would get AJs, and again we would get it all in preflop.

This time I would survive the flop, but get out turned on a 119k pot.  IGHN.  GG NYRambler.