I flopped the nuts!

Took second in a home tournament tonight (always with the rebuy tournaments that I don’t rebuy into: with a ton of extra entries, somehow I manage to keep my cool).  There was a hand that I’m pretty proud of:

We’re at 500/1000 blinds, and I’m big blind.  Button pushes all-in for 1050, and small blind reraises all-in for 500 more.  These are the smallest stacks at the table, and I’m well ahead of them (although first place has me well covered, he’s folded).  I don’t need to play the hand, unless I think I have something that plays well in a three-way pot.  And then I look down at… 7d 4d.

Gorgeous.  Live cards.  Getting 8-1 on my 500, I am jumping to get money in. 

Small blind shows me AKo and says "I have a bad feeling about this."

Button confirms his worst suspicions: AA.  One of them is the diamond, so I need three of those and not four.  And the board comes made to order: two diamonds on the flop, one on the turn, none on the river, and I’m set.  (Oddly enough, since the small blind started the hand with more money, his third-place AK got him paid, the AA went out in fourth.)

How could I be so confident?  Sure, AA had me a little nervous when I saw it (I’d be 32% against AKo and AQs, and I was only 21% against AKo and AA), but I’m having a hard time concocting a situation in Poker Stove where I don’t have the odds to call all-in.  I knew it was right, I did it, and it paid.

Oh, I should point out that I’m undefeated in heads-up tournaments that last two or fewer hands.  2-0!

The first was a few months ago: I was holding A2s in the first hand and flopped a flush draw.  The turn card gave me my flush, and doofus picked up two pair.  I brought him all-in, and he called.  Score!

The second was yesterday: hand 1, AKo in the BB, and since it took my opponent eight years to call, I pushed him all-in.  Fold.  Next hand: 66.  From the button, I pushed all-in.  He called with QTo, and my pair held up. 

Honestly, I think an all-in push has to be done three times before you say "this guy didn’t come to play poker, and I’m not going to let him get away with this anymore".  It happened in a SnG a few weeks back: he pushed his first hand preflop (from the BB), his second hand post-flop (from SB), and then reraised me all-in pre-flop with his third hand.  I called with AQo, and he turned over… QQ.  I still think it was a good call: we’ve all seen the type, and I decided to make my stand.  Someone had to, right?

But I caught an ace on the river to survive.  He still had a chunk of change from the blinds he’d picked up, but after a lot of loud braying about only playing solid hands, and how he guaranteed he’d finish in the money, he was out a few hands later in ninth.

Sick of the 800 chips Party gives you in a SnG (and the blinds bouncing up every 10 hands), I decided to give one of their $10 MTTs a try.  It was fun.

You know how on PokerStars, when people get close to the money, they tighten up, and it seems like nothing’s going to happen to the standings until you’re blinded out?  Some sites play hand-for-hand to make sure nobody stalls at each level, but since Party doesn’t have that kind of thing in place, I figured there’d be some goofy tight play.

No way!  It seemed like people weren’t changing their play at all as we got close to money time.  Players just continued to file out in a steady stream, both at the money cutoff and as levels went up.  I think it was at 82 people left that someone at my table was facing a deciding all-in.  80th place paid about four dollars more than 81st, so you might even use your time bank to see if 81 would die off… it’s sneaky, but legal.  This player stalled, and 81 left.  And then 80.  And then that player disconnected: s/he wasn’t even playing tactically!  Hilarious.

I finished somewhere in the top 50 of 2000.  That paid something like $65: great, until you consider that I was up at midnight on Sunday, playing for almost four hours. 

That’s only one experience, but if you hate Party or are wondering where the crazy money’s at, it would seem that you could do worse than the evening MTTs.  Just not the SnGs: those are basically coinflips.

Yesterday I failed to hit money in four PokerStars Sit N’ Gos.  That’s not typically worth mention, but my average for July, going into yesterday, was 12 for 16.  That’s 75%!

But twice yesterday, I went all-in with a full house, only to get called by a weaker hand (two pair or a set), only to have the weaker hand draw to a bigger full house.  That’s just spectacularly bad luck.

And the other one had a maniac who was raising every hand pre-flop, and then reraising post flop to steal pots.  He hit a few, too: he slowed down a little bit when he had to show down 63s and doubled up some short stacks, but when he started up again, I thought I’d trapped him with KK.  After getting his standard preflop raise, I let him bring me all-in, and he turns over AA.  How did I not see that coming?

July is still turning out to be a very good month, playing solid poker against some of the goofiest players.  I think I’m up about a hundred over the past two weeks.  And now there’s a deposit bonus!  All right!

Okay, I admit it: I have an awful attitude about satellites.

I think it started back at some crap site where they’d have a $5+0 single table satellite to a $50+5 tournament, and give away one seat.  That’s crap.  I understand the idea: give lower-stakes players a shot at the higher-stakes tournaments.  But if you just cough up the money in a regular 50/30/20 fashion, the winners can decide for themselves if they want to play in a higher stakes tournament, can’t they?

Party Poker’s new step system is the worst.  Obviously, the only point of playing satellites is to win two (or three, or more) tournaments in a row, and Party wants to lock you into a four-long chain of tougher and tougher tournaments before you see any money.  And even then, it’s less money than you’d expect, because losers don’t lose, they win seats at lower levels.  Come on!

This kind of business takes choice away from players.  If you want to take what you win at a $10+1 and go to a $50+5, then you can do that.  Having that chosen for you the house is a trap.