Give'm the Heater, Ricky

Heater, I'm on one. Despite when ended up being an anticlimatic finish to the Blogger Big Game last night, I've been on a bit of a tear. But more on that in a bit. Surprisingly this has come about not from playing every minute that I can. Nope, since Thursday night I've played exactly four tournaments, a 3 dollar 90 man KO, a 6 dollar 90 man KO, PS Tour, and the Blogger Big Game. A Wise Goat posted a few days ago about the 90 mans and how he was doing quite well in them, he advocated a much tighter strategy early. I tried it and you know what the difference was this time? When I pushed with my big hands later they actually held up. I'm sure this is part of the strategy that the Goat leaves out, only to let young grassshopper find out for himself. This is very key however.

On Thursday night, I play tight, make little to no increase in my stack in the first hourish, pick up some hands. Play smart and win the mother fucker. Hot damn! Friday night, same story, ultimate luckboxing. Couldn't get a hand worth 2 shits, eventually shoved 45ss into QQ, river gutter. Booooom. My chip stack yo yo'd from there but eventually took the thing down. Double Boom. Yes Zooks, there was a slot of luckboxing in the middle there and there are some fine screenshots that I may post later this week, along with some of the HH's, just for fun. Yes I did get lucky alot, but MOST of the time my money went in with the best of it, it just happened to hold up......and I got a few uber suckouts when I needed them.

Fast forward to Sunday. Played nothing on Saturday or during the day Sunday, didn't want to tilt myself before the Big Game. Wii Karts almost did that right before but that's a different story alltogether. PS Tour, I get someone to hand over their chips with top pair Queen kicker against my KK, only to have them spike another 10 on the river to smack me down. Ended up pushing AQss a few hands later when button smooth called an UTG raise with AK then called me. To be honest I didn't care and was more focused on the Big Game anyway. At that point I wanted more chips or to get the hell out of there.

Big Game, first hour, play tighty donk style. Picked up a few hands, but nothing much of interest. Finish the first hour up about 400 chips. In the second hour I start to get some hands. I pick up AA and KK once each and win fairly nice pots with both. Chip up to around 7500, yo yo a bit from there. First big break comes when Hoy raises what I think was the 3rd hand in a row, could be wrong there, but something like that. One caller to me in the SB with 66, I call to set mine and see a flop. Flop is 1052hh, not a bad flop, but I really wanted to control pot size here and see what these other guys were going to do. All checks, intriguing. Turn is an offsuit 9, so I bet about 2/3 pot, I think about 850 into around 1250 if I can remember correctly. Hoy now calls and the other player folds. At this point I'm really not sure where I am in the hand, I don't think Hoy would float two overs with one to come, he could have the FD, I thinkn he raises if he hit the 9 there, maybe not, again confusion. River is an offsuit quuen. The pot is now 2000, I have about 5K behind, I decide to check, because honestly the hand was not making sense to me at this point. If I paid of a river value bet so be it, but I wasn't willing to risk my stack in this situation. Hoy checks behind and mucks 78os for a busted draw.

Into the 3rd hour I picked up a few more hands in key spots to really start to chip up. My QQ held against Goat's AK, when it got all in before the flop. Then a few hands later I just called a raise from Miami Don on the button with JJ. Flop came Jack high with all clubs, Miami Don bet out, I raised him all in and faded his KhQc to almost double my stack and knock out our gracious host. This was the story of the night, basically picking up big hands in key spots. You can't do much about it, sometimes you are on the right side of those hands, others not so much. After this hand, I went pretty dead for the next hour or so. Basically up into the final table. Once there I watched every short stack double up it seemed whenever they needed to. Bubble burst and I was about 6th in chips. Fold, fold, fold. Bleed, bleed, bleed. Still no one going out. 3 outer on the river, no problem. So when there is a raiser to me and I'm OTB with Fuel's Gold I think I can make a move here. And there's the problem people, I was thinking. Never think in a blogger tournament. It's like driving, assume everyone else is going to do the stupidest thing possible, then react. I shove and the oringal raiser insta-calls with 1010. Now, given the blinds where they were, I'm not saying I don't call with 1010 there. I just thought, (there's that word again), that my image might help me a little. No miracle for me and I go out on the bottom of the payscale, but on the payscale nonetheless.

Sorry this was a long post. I'm happy about how I'm playing right now. I guess I'll have to make more effort to play events but it's going to be tough given my schedule. Happy to cash, disappointed in the ending. C'est le vie I guess.