The Hammer Plays

I had a great time in the Blogger tournament.

I had just finished a marathon MTT in which I finished 12th out of 880 for a 10x payoff at Pacific Poker. KingLucky was in the tournament too, and we actually played at the same table when it got down to 4 tables. I managed to outlast him when he went out with pocket sixes in 18th place. He got 10x his buy-in too. I made a really weak call with A3 vs A6 to get crippled. Crippled isn't the word, I was all in on the small blind. Still, I got out with five minutes to spare until the blogger tourney.

My first table only lasted about two hands, but it was long enough for me to lose about T400 with the hammer when someone went all in on the river, just before I did. I couldn't even complain because as soon as the hand ended I got moved. On the next table I got shafted when some moron raised my big blind pre-flop in early position with 34s and caught a straight on the river to beat my top pair. I'm just lucky there was a flush possible and it kept Volcrazy (finished 140th) from going all in. So I was down to T800 and things looked really grim.

I got moved again, and I managed to nearly double up with a big hand when I flopped broadway. Then I knocked someone out when I raised pre-flop with AK and got put all in by QQ. Flop had a K and suddenly I was leading the tournament. Amazing how fortunes change.

My big problem was that I was already exhausted from the Pacific tournament, and it was already pushing my normal bed-time. I get up at 4:30am for work, so I was looking for ways to either get a huge lead or bust. I think I found it when someone went all in for T800 in front of me and I had THE HAMMER. I called of course, and was unhappy to see my opponent held 88. This is not like Pauly who went all in and got called, I CALLED an ALL IN with THE HAMMER. Those are guts even the stripper would be proud of. My spirits got a lift when the flop had three hearts and I had the 7h. My opponent had two black eights, so I suddenly had a 35% shot. The turn gave me a gutshot straight, so I still had a chance but the river was a blank and I doubled up someone. Not a huge deal as I still had T2100.

Things went downhill quickly as I checked my big blind against just the small blind and lost T1000 when he caught something huge. Then I went out when anisotropy caught a flush on his big blind to beat my straight on the small blind. It was the tightest group of pansies that could have POSSIBLY been collected at a blogger tournament table. We even had the tournament leader at the table who was afraid to raise. Rev something or other. I have NO respect for that guy. When I was the leader I was throwing chips around like Santa Clause from a Fire Truck on a Saturday morning in December.

According to http://www.wpbtonline.com/, I finished 108th out of 151. At least I beat Lifesagrind, who NAILED 151st.

I got what I wanted. I had the lead for a while, got to make a hilarious play with the hammer, and took a few readers OUT. I got to play with DankHank, anisotropy, DonkeyPuncher, and the winner, on_thg. (Only about 10 people came in and asked who on_thg was.) What more can you ask for a measly twenty bucks?