Thursday, March 11, 2004

I'm way behind on my journal. I'm actually writing this post on Monday, March 15. I'm pretty much in a rotten mood. I don' t know why. I'd blame it on women's problems, but I don't have those anymore. So basically it is because I'm just ME, which is synonymous with something that usually ends in -itch.

I wasn't in the mood to play Omaha 8. I wasn't in the mood to play in an Omaha 8 tourney. I wasn't in the mood to be in the poker room. This same mood is still being carried over to Monday, five days later. So if you don't like sarcastic, biting posts, feel free to skip this one. After all, Iggy made me take some personality test only so that I could find out what I already knew:

"Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing."

I never thought I would do well in the O8 tourney. Not for a minute. Basically I've gone back to playing a lot more passively than right after I'd read Ciaffone's book. Ciaffone wasn't doing me any favors with the Belle crowd, I can tell you that. Sure, I was busting out rather quickly, but the opposite never happened. I never got a good lead, I never built up enough chips to win. I just busted out. Waste of $45. Not that I am criticizing Ciaffone. His book is marvelous, but I'm just not up against decent players. I'm up against people who have no understanding of O8. They are not going to lay any four cards down BTF. No way, not even for an all-in raise. Their theory of O8 is that no combination of any four cards is worse than another combination. So with ten people seeing every flop, I was doomed. Yeah, sure, I doubled up lots of times, but with such low starting chips to begin with, and the blinds doubling for four levels in a row, I never really became a force to be reckoned with.

So I went back to the more passive, trapping play that had gotten me into the money before. Granted, I never won a tourney during those times, but I had lots of 4th-10th place finishes, without taking too many risks. So call me Betty, I don't really give a flying frig.

Basically I would passively limp in, passively call a bet on the flop if I caught solidly. Passively bet or call on the turn if I improved or didn't get counterfeited. Then if I was leading one way or another, and knew I'd get at least 1/2 the pot, I'd pop them on the river. Sometimes I would pop on the turn, if there was no way I could be beat.

So I've been doing lots better in Omaha than HE. I hate passive play. Blah!

There was this tourist guy sitting at my first table. He was chewing on a toothpick the whole tourney. Same toothpick? Probably, he looks that sleazy. Anyway, he hated women, he hated women players, he was mean and creepy. He should have known better. He was no spring chicken, but wasn't elderly either. He was condescending and rude. Have fun in Hell with Hitler and Satan, dude.

Our table got broken, and I started getting blinded down. I wasn't really getting anything to shove in with. I think I had about 700 left. I kept staying afloat by winning the blinds here and there, when we were close to 20, and the WPT participants were trying to hang on to get points.

Soon we were down to the final two tables. I was assigned to table one, but all of the maniacs had busted out, so the table was pretty passive. After paying the BB, I was down to my final two chips. I shoved all-in, I probably didn't even look at my hand. I survived somehow, I think I sucked out on a better hand.

I kept shoving all-in until I was the chip lead at my table. My table was extremely passive, and hated all-in's. So I just kept going all-in and making everyone fold. Hand after hand, all-in. Sometimes I didn't even look. I stole from them round after round, until I had about 7000 in chips, lol.

I was sitting next to OA, who is about 75 or so, and the nicest guy. He lives in Montana, but is down in Laughlin quite a bit. He is hilarious, and is always cracking jokes in a good, clean way. He never bothers other players or gets out of line. He is just having a great time in his retirement, and seems to love everyone. We chatted it up quite a bit. He also took advantage of the super-passive play, and went from almost zero to hero, before we got to the final table.

All of these railbirds kept coming up to the rail (table one is on the rail), and saying, "What a comeback, she was down to two chips!" They kept telling all of the new railbirds how great a player I was, etc, etc. I was LOL, because I really suck.

All of the women who had busted out of the tourney came up to me and were doing thumb's up, and high fives. If they only knew. I'm glad I could represent that ladies, but I am certainly no "lady," in the strict sense of the term.

Glenn busted out and was sweating me. At one point, he came up and patted my back, because I had so many chips. Doug asked him not to pat my back, because more allegations of cheating had been made by some of the locals, and they might misconstrue Glenn's patting of my back as some kind of Morse code that he'd peeked at other players' cards and was giving me a signal of how to play.

PUKE!

The problem with some of the elders at the Belle is that they think poker is pure luck. So they get this idea in their heads that if one person has won "more than their fair share" of tourneys or cash in ring play, they must be cheating. Especially if they have a "partner." I hear them talk about it all the time, how poker is all luck, and we all get our fair share of wins/losses. Despite the fact that I have not made even ONE final table appearance in two months, since Glenn made fourth in the last Hold'em tourney, and here I was as the chip lead, people were gossiping again that we MUST be cheating. Two words: Blow me.

We got to the final table. Mr. Know-it-All or "I hate women," drew a seat to my left. Just spectacular! A maniac to my left, just what I wanted. He and I were in the lead. I might have had a few more chips, but it was close.

The dynamics of the final table were atrocious. I was moved from the two seat to the three, a break for me, not having to move lots of heavy clay chips far, lol. Felicia=lazy.

I completely choked and blew it. Waiting for some extremely short stacks to bust out (people with less than one BB), I ended up getting blinded down, while Mr. Maniac got all of my chips by constantly going all-in and stealing everyone's blinds. I'm a stupid monkey, I should have taken him on at least ten times, but I kept waiting for a "good" hand. I kept waiting for the tiny stacks to bust out. I figured it would be stupid to blow $1300 taking on a maniac while someone else snuck in with 400 in chips. So round after round, I let this idiot steal my blinds. And believe me, he raised my blinds EVERY round. If I'd been closer to him, I'd have kicked his shins under the table, lol.

Finally we got down to five, and (big surprise), now I was the short stack. From over 7000 chips to nothing. So I went all-in without looking, when my blinds were raised again. And that's all she wrote. I gave up $1300 to win $168. What a winner (not). I'm as stupid as they come.