Sunday, June 8, 2008

Bodonky Tournament of Champions

I'm back. Against my better judgment. After seeing the developments in blogger land over the life of the BBT, I made my last post and was basically done with the dorky little world of poker bloggers forever. This little experiment in creating a new bodog handle and trying to keep this blog going has been a failure, and not one that I wish to continue after getting a little bit inside the blogger world and seeing what many of the participants are like.

But then I crushed the bodonky, just like I said I would. And I know the rules require me to be a real-life blogger if Im going to win the 12k prize in the big tournament on Tuesday. So I figured I should post something again here, just in case I win.

When I started playing the bodonk a few months ago, it took me about an hour to realize how wrong I was in assuming I wouldnt be able to hang with the bloggers in no limit games. In my very first bodonky, I overcame yet another bad beat from smokee and ran all the way to heads up before a series of second-best hands took away my chip lead and left me with second place. I mean, this was the first time I had ever played in this thing or against these people, and boom, second place.

Then of course a few weeks in to the bodonky series, I won the tournament outright. That one was funny, I should have blogged about it but like so many others Im sure, I was just so turned off by the babyism and gaydorkness of the others in among the poker blogging group so I was discouraged from even blogging at all. The funniest part of course was smokee's description of my first win on his blog. I believe he described it as "blogger crusher ran into some good situations and woke up with some good hands" to take the tournament down. Ran into some good situations and woke up with some good hands. Um. Yeah. The TRUTH is that I crushed that field worse than any other bodonky of the year, and recorded exactly one suckout on my way to mowing down everything and everyone in my path. Listen to this -- with 18 players left in the tournament, I held over a third of the total chips in play. I was about 4 times the second place player's chip stack for the entire middle portion of the event. I lived up to my name and then some. I entered heads-up play with a massive chip lead, which I never came close to giving up and which eventually led me to quite the easy victory. I was in the top 18 of the series for the first time after that week, which I would never give up.

To top things off, in the second-to-last bodonky, with me sitting in the mid-teens on the leaderboard, I won the thing again. This time smokee literally could not even bring himself to mention my name or who won his tournament at all in his blog. It is a classic example of the problems with this group of people, although I have to admit to really loving watching smokee deal with my domineering presence in his tournament. And in that tournament win, not chonicled at all by smokee, I once again crushed the field badly, amassing about half the chips in play early at the final table. As with my first victory, the thing was never really in doubt, no one ever got even remotely close to me as the last players began dropping out, and I won easily, vaulting me in to the tournament of champions for sure and allowing me to just try to ruin someone's night in the final week without worrying about needing to win or anything. Of course I had aces cracked about 30 minutes in to that last tournament by some luckdog, but the damage had already been done. I crushed the bloggers and walked easily in to the tournament of champions of the bodonky to play the 2 table sng for the 12k wsop prize package.

So that's my story of how I ran to the tournament of champions in the bodonky. I had previously posted some untrue statements here which I have since deleted in the interest of promoting the integrity of the system. But it's been a fun ride and one which has been an eye opener if nothing else...

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 4:12 AM

Saturday, April 19, 2008

OMG Blogger Dorks

Where to begin....

So I am an IT professional and I work for a company that hires me out for short-term projects where I travel around the world and work full-time for a client for a period of a few days to several weeks. The past 6 weeks has seen me completely immersed in a migration project for a technology company in northern Virginia who is switching over their entire backbone and inrastructure from Microsoft to an open-source platform. And while I like the area, its not like Ive even been allowed out to see the sun since it got warm out. It has been a steady stream for a good month and a half of 16-hour days, in at 8 and out long after dark. In fact the only respite I have gotten was to convince the client that I had a standing engagement with family in the area on Tuesday nights. As a result, I have been able to make most of the bodonky tournaments during my absence as one of my only "social" activity during this assignment, one of the more extensive I have been involved in over the past few years as an independent contractor guy.

I have done well in the bodonky. Frankly with all the final tables I have scored in this thing I am honestly shocked I am not higher on the leaderboard than I am, but I believe right now I saw I am 1 or 2 spots out of the top 18. I would not be surprised if smokee was fixing that shit against me in fact given how hard Ive been crushing his tournament. I have actually also showed for one or two of the BBThree tournaments as well on nights when we have ended early, but for whatever reason the bodonky seems to be more or less easy money most weeks. The players are pretty bad and the structure lets me wait patiently for the big hands. Its a good time, and to tell the truth I haven't even seen smokee make too many dumb plays for a change. He has no clue how to amass a big stack, but he can tight his way to the points with the best of em. Someone should throw smokee, jeciimd and bayne_s into a 3-person sng with the top 2 making the money and see how long that thing takes. Get the popcorn, it could be a while.

But now on to what has motivated me to post again. And by the way, how the hell you bloggers find the time and the interest to blog as often as you do is beyond me. I mean sure I am up for an hour or two at night before I go to bed these days, but to think that I would spend my time writnig in this silly blog during those precious minutes is really a crazy thought. I am just not nearly as big a dork as any of your blogger donkeys, what can I say.

Anyways, a strange thing has happened in the poker blogs since I've been gone. When I last read up regularly on things about a month ago or so, some of the older-school bloggers were really complaining about the attitude of the more recent entrants into the world of blogging. Complaining about what they said in the chat boxes - by the way can anyone think of anything more stupid than complaining about someone saying Boom? or "u r so bad"? Complaining about trashing others' bad plays on their blogs the next morning. Just complaining about the new-schoolers general attitude and taking these BBThree tournaments too seriously.

To be honest, I agreed with them. I thought this before anyone started posting about it. From the perspective of someone who has been an avid blog reader and follower of the private tournaments but not an active participant in the community, it is seriously funny (seriously) to think that people say rude shit to other bloggers in these private tournaments which are put together to award thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars to all of you. Trust me, it is funny. I laugh. Mostly everyone who sees it does Im sure. Its embarrassing to the offenders but the fact that they dont even care about being decent to other members of their same dorky group of blogger dorks just because some money is involved is well beyond embarrassing and into just plain funny. It is a poker game. Because of some business-minded people in your group your being given away thousands of dollars of free shit, but its still just a poker game. Among a bunch of people who know each other. At least you "know" each other.

Somewhere along the way some of you forgot (or never learned) that its just a fucking game. And the old school guys were trying to remind everyone of that a few weeks back, just like others have done before. Just shut up and play poker, they said.

But that's where the strange thing happened while I was away at my project. I come back just a month or so later from my last real solid blog read, and suddenly theres been a flip among the various factions. Of course I still think the exact same thing as I always did, which is that you bloggers are a nefarious bunch of misfit geeks, ALL of you, and that some of you take your silly private tournaments way too seriously, to the point of you being laughable to those of us on the outside who live in the real world. But now, its the old school guys who are embarrassing themselves, and the other 95% of the blogger world who cant believe what incredible tools the couple of old schoolers involved are acting like.

What happened? Was there some kind of nuclear holocaust in the rest of the coutnry while I was gone, one that switched everything over on its head and made the old school bloggers into a faction of dripping pussies? The whining about the BBThree. The complaining about the tournaments and who is winning them. The posting of purely negative posts attacking wide swathes of the entire blogging community, for no apparent purpose. A guy going off in his blog and then his friends from the inner circle chiming in in support about how they wish the live Vegas get togethers could go back to just being them and their 10 friends, followed up by having the audacity to complain about the presence of cliques in the group? What?!! You just used fucking Websters definition of a clique right there in your post! What is going on?

Frankie says R-E-L-A-X you dorks. Seriously.

I was much more comfortable when the old schoolers had it right. That just felt right. They started it all, they knew what they were doing, and they knew when the others were stepping out of line among the wider poker blogger audience. But now a couple of voices in the small crowd of the older line of bloggers have gone off their rocker, and it is everyone else who is obviously in the right.

Take your own advice. Its just a game. It always was and it always will be. This is YOUR advice, not mine. Read your OWN posts from a month ago you tools. Any time your getting as worked up about poker blogs as a few of you guys have since I last surfaced for air, you are in the wrong. Everybody knows it fellas, everybody.

Every time you publicly put down the large live get-togethers and croon for the days with just you and your 10 friends, the rest of the group cringes. Even half of your old school friends cringe. They might not tell you, but decrying togetherness and inclusion in favor of high school cliquism is not favored by 95% of members of the world of poker blogs. The group seems to me to be nothing if not inclusive. This group as a whole is simply not very tolerant of or interested in exclusive, cliquish juveniles unwilling to expand beyond their closed selves. Shit, take a look at the small handful of the original bloggers and let's see how many of their blogs are even relevant anymore. Anyone tried to read Guiness over the past year? Anyone see how successful the Evil Empire pokerworks was with its cast of only old schoolers writing there? Did you read pokerworks? Did I? Do you know anyone who did? I wonder why that is? The poker bloggers moreso than most other areas of life are an inclusive group, and the new people who have joined in over the past few years dont enjoy reading inside jokes and remiscient memoirs and now incessant complaining all related to the way it used to be and how the larger group and the more recent participants make it worse.

That is toolish behavior, take it from me. And I'm already an IT dork as it is. But you "old school" supergeek blogger dorks singling out the newer supergeek blogger dorks as an entire group like this, it is the height of comedy to the entire rest of the world what you must think of yourselves. Just so you know.

You see yourselves as stoic cowboys, sounding off in singular defense of the Creators Of The Poker Blog wherever inclusion threatens. We see a desperate, pathetic clown who would rather try to destroy others out of jealousy than just sit back and watch this wonderful institution of poker blogging grow into whatever comes next. You should get in my head for five minutes and see what I USED to think of guys like the luckbox, an old institution of the wwdn days, and what I think of him now after seeing some of his recent comments. I remember STB back from the days when I first started reading poker blogs and following along the private tournaments. STB has changed everyone's view of him over the past month or two now compared to then, and let me tell you it aint a good change. Ouch.

Shameful? Despicable? You have become the final circle of blogging hell yourselves, and it's all of your own doing.

While the rest of the bloggers are out having a blast in the BBThree, its got to hurt, at least a little bit, seeing whats become of you and your blogs that once had at least some relevance.

You should have followed the advice youve been writing in your own blogs for several weeks now. Shut up and play poker, its just a game.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 5:21 AM 15 comments

Friday, February 29, 2008

Bloggers Suck

OK so the third Battle of the Blogger Tournaments is slated to start this coming weekend on full tilt, and for the first time I might actually try to play a few of the events. In general I have stayed away from full tilt tournaments because overall they represent the worst value ofthe tournaments on all the major poker sites, and when it comes down to it things like rake and tournament structure end up meaning more to me than most people I know. But despite all that, what Al has come through with as prizes for the BBT this time around is just incredible. And if I ever want to play in the WSOP, this is going to be my best chance.

I am bummed though not to have seen any odds posts on blogs about on who will win the BBT. I guess with 50 events or whatever the number is it is a little hard to really make any solid predictions at this point. My only prediction is that I may play in an actual blogger tournament on full tilt one of these days, though you all will not know it is me, that is for sure. If you had any doubts about why I would not want to make my full tilt or pokerstars handle public, just look at the bullshit smokee gives me on his blog for crushing his weekly tournament on bodog. Heaven forbid I should state my opinion on an objectively terrible poker play and suckout he made against me, but then suddenly when I record my one and only bad finish in his tournament to a flopped set, suddenly THAT is front page news on his blog. My best ROI of anyone in the bodonky is conveniently ignored among all the used car salesman ads as Chad would put it, but when I am first out, that becomes front page news.

Along these same lines, I think it is pretty unbelievable how many warnings I am reading about people not being assholes during the upcoming BBT. Why is it that some people would become more dicks in the chat just because the BBT is going on? Does playing for a bigger prize pool really mean you have more license to be a little shit? I could not be happier reading poker blogs and generally staying out of things , and I am happy to know that my game has improved noticably from all the helpful ideas I have read on the more strategy-heavy blogs out there, but if there is one weakness to this whole community it is definitely that some of the bloggers can really be little shitheads. And the people I am thinking of are probably not the same people others have in mind.

Along these lines, I have to just mention one of the funnier things I have seen in quite a while in poker blogs. Basically hoyazo went on a sick tear in February, final tabling the fifty-fifty tournament on full tilt twice during the month -- a 1st and a 3rd place for nearly 16 grand between them -- plus also final tabling the 55k on pokerstars for another 4 grand plus. The last of these three cashes was the fifty fifty win last week, where hoy netted over 10 grand. That day or maybe the next, I am doing my daily blog reading and I end up at LJ's blog where the gist of her post is what a luckbox hoy is for winning. Now I read hoy's post and he definitey got lucky during that win. But how on earth do you take a guy who makes 3 major final tables in two weeks and claim he is a luckbox? Honestly, that was one of the funniest things I have seen in some time. How much success does someone have to have before you can admit they seem to know what they are doing better than some other people in poker tournaments? And is it me, or should LJ maybe not be talking about other people being poker luckboxes to begin with?

People should not need to be told not to be assholes in the chat box just because it is the BBT. That is a real condemnation of everything I think the group of bloggers stands for. And this is just as an outside observer, and someone who has never even participated in a single blogger tournament other than on bodog or other than as a silent observer. The whole thing is just a game people. Even if WSOP seats are at stake.

Anyways, starting next week with the BBT is back on, the next time you are sitting next to someone whose name you do not recognize on full tilt and whose chat appears not to be working, watch what you say. You may be sitting right next to the crusher of bloggers and not even know it. And dont worry, I will be keeping multiple tables up at all times in the BBT events whether I am playing or not, so I can blog here about plays I see across the board without outting myself so people can trash on me all day long like they do with so many other players.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 3:28 AM 4 comments

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Bodonkys is Right

So I played in the bodonky tournament last night, and once again I lived up to my name by crushing it. Despite what our little tiny friend smokee would have you believe from reading his selective-memory blog, in reality I have absolutely smushed this tournament the times I have played it. In my lifetime I have played the bodonky a total of four times, and in those 4 tries I have a 2nd place finish in my first try, I gigli'd in my second pushing allin with 12 outs against what turned out to be a flopped set, I finished 18th out of 50-some in my third try, and then this week I once again final tabled before coolering in 5th place overall. So to review, in 4 lifetime times playing the bodonky, I have final tabled and made the $T not once but TWICE, out of four total attempts. And then you go and read smokey's blog and you would think I somehow suck at poker or am embarrassing myself in this thing. Two top-5 finishes in four tries, stick that in your pipe and smokee it. Wudda donk.

I especially liked smokee's wrapup this week on his blog. He mentions the winner, he mentions the second place finisher, and he mentions the third place finisher. And then he stops. Why? Because the almighty ICrushBloggers also cashed and also won yet another T$109 for his efforts, and poor smokey mcpot cannot bring himself to publicly post it on his blog. I haven't paid a damn cent of cash to play a poker tournament on bodog in a month, all thanks to the $T I cannot help but win whenever I sit down to play the bodonky, and I just love it the way smokee portrays me on his blog, all because I wrote here about what is still the worst play I have seen a blogger make in the bodog tournament.

But in this week's bodonky I saw some seriously bad poker plays. And that is what I am here to write about today.

First there is skidoo. This is not a guy that I have seen play very much, though he always seems to be referred to as an aggromonkey whenever people post about him. Now I know why. Sometime in the second hour of this week's bodonky, I raise with AJ offsuit from the buton, and skidoo calls my prefop raise from his small blind with king-five suited. Skidoo then proceeds to check it down the WHOLE way through the river on a raggy board that came jack high on the river, never even trying to make a move on any street despite my persistent checking when my AJ never hit any part of the board. In the end, skidoo checks the river and his king-high unimproved loses to my ace-high unimproved. Oh lordy do I love players like this. Why on earth would you bother calling my raise before the flop with king-high and then never even make a single move at a raggy board despite my persistent checking? Passive poker = losing poker. Thanks for the chips. In skidoo's defense, at least he realized how horrible his play was, admitting so in the chat, which is more than I can say for the rest of the players I will mention below.

The next person I have to mention here was raisydaisy, who a bunch of the players at the table claimed after the fact was LJ. But I highly doubt it was her because I have seen her play many times and she is if anything way over aggressive and raising every which way but sunday even with shit cards. Raisydaisy however was a really silly calling station. S/he call stationed me every single time I raised preflop during the first 40 or 45 minutes of the bpdonky this week, and you know what the result was? S/he slowly but surely saw his/her stack dwindle and dwindle and dwindle, until eventually she busted about 45 minutes in with a short stack and nota great hand. That is just what happens when you are a calling station at a poker table. Hold'em, in particular no limit hold'em, is simply not a calling game. If you call a lot, you lose a lot, it is just that simple, and raisydaisy just gave her stack away last night, much of it to me, one call after another. Sad.

Just short of the bodonky final table this week, someone named cbags who I do not know has 8000 chips, sort of a short stack at the time, and open-raises to 3600 chips from the button, I think the blinds were probaby 600-1200 at the time. This is basically half of his remaining stack, a short stack as it is, and unfortunately for cbags I had AQs at the time. As a result, I pushed for my last 10k or so, and when it got back around to cbags, he thought for a few moments and then folded, typing in "grrrrrrr" into the chat as he did. I love this. cbags open-steals for half of his remaining short stack, rather than just moving in, and then to add insult to injury he actually folds after putting in half of his stack, a short stack at that! That is just too funny. I mean, talk about not understanding basic concepts of tournament poker. Dag that is just bad.

I thought I would save the best for last, which was eventual tournament top finishers riggstad and Jl5 something, whoever that is. Again after the fact some of the players said it was jordan, but I know how jordan plays and that did not seem like him to me. Anyways, first with around 6 players left in the bodonky, riggstad called one of the somewhat short stacks' push from riggs' 37k stack when riggs was holding Q3 offsuit. Ahahahahahahaha. I have seen this countless times in blogger tournaments, where these guys get to the end game with some kind of a stack, and they start using the sheer number of chips they have in their possession as if it somehow changes the pot odds involved in the hand. I have seen bloggers obviously uncomfortable and nevous with big stacks call allins when shorthanded at the final table with literally any two, and it makes me chuckle every single time to tell the god's honest truth. I don't care if riggs' stack had been even bigger than it was at the time, that was still a horrible decision by him and, unsurprisingly, he lost the hand and made a short stack into a big stack in quite a hurry.

And lastly there was JL. My personal favorite move of the night saw JL put in a completely unnecessary raise from middle position and the table chip lead before the flop, bumping it up to 3600 chips. I reraised him all in to 12k in chips, and what does JL do? Call! With 75 off suit!! I love it. As bas of a final table big stack move as this was, I think the best part of all had to be in the chat afterwards where I got to watch JL justify his poker brilliance. He said he was getting 3 to 1 on his money -- an incorrect calculation, mind you -- and that he therefore had to call, also an incorrect conclusion. Both he and someone else around the table specifically cited hoy from a post he had made recently, stating that at 3 to 1 there is almost no hand worth laying down. I read that post. That ain't what hoy said. One of the things that hoy consistently does preach however is that when you get caught stealing, LAY IT DOWN! Why "force" yourself to lose twice, thrice or even more of a multiple of your steal raise just because you do not know how to admit defeat and live to fight another day?

All I can do is just laugh at these people, because it really is true what everyone says, just because someone has a blog about poker, it is not like there is some kind of a poker exam that is administered before someone can start up a poker blog. I just get a kick out of reading these people's daily thoughts about the game, and then seeing how they try to apply good poker to the actual games. Last night's bodonky was more or less as bad as it gets, and as a result I was able to perform well again. Eventually that JL donkey just called ahead of me before the flop, and then I pushed behind him with AJ at our 5-handed table, and he insta-called and showed the tricky AK. Well played I suppose, but frankly those cards played themselves. I call his all in there regardless of what he does ahead of me with my AJ suited at the 5-handed table.

Like I said, in the end I finished in 5th place, again my 2nd $T109 out of 4 tries in this thing. Flame away and make me look bad all you want, smokee. Just keep dishing up the $T into my account, and I will play for free on bodog forever thanks to you. I see I am in 21st place already on the leaderboard, and frankly I am exactly one spot last week from being in more like 15th place. With the play I have seen so far in four weeks of the bodonkey and what seems like a lifetime of reading blogs, I think it is pretty obvious that I will be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to that WSOP Main Event freeroll at the end of the bodonkey series.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 5:00 PM 3 comments

Monday, February 18, 2008

Banned

So like a number of the posts I have enjoyed reading of late from the poker bloggers, my chat has been banned on fulltilt. I'm not going to be divulging my fulltilt handle here, but I am one of the people who has gotten fucked by fulltilt and their bullcrap chat ban policies. Some monkey played his hand in Midnight Madness about as badly as anyone possibly could (I'm talking smokee-bad here), and then the river rewarded him with his two-out suckout and I lost my shit. I called him every word I could think of in the chat, and he told me he was reporting me to fulltilt. Then I told him that I work for fulltilt (untrue) and I would have his ass removed from the site forever. Apparently fulltilt does not appreciate people treating their players in this way, nor threatening them with permanent removal from the site, and they banned my chat for 3 months.

Fuck them. That is a load of crap. I saw on Chad's blog today that he wrote them to complain about Mike Matusow's abusive chat on the site, and did you see their response? It basically amounts to "use the mute button if you cannot handle his chat." Use the mute button? Are you fucking serious? You are banning people for saying things like "sfjkfhadshfdauifha" and for typing in non poker related quotes from Caddyshack or whatever it was, but people can just use their mute buttons if they don't like Matusow's chat? What the fuck is that? And while we're at it, why is my shit worth 90 days of chat ban when everyone else seems limited to 30 days?

Personally, I think it is because I is black.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 1:14 PM 1 comments

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Update

So yeah, I did go out first from the Bodonkey this week. Great, I have played this thing three times and I've come in second in one of them and am up about $150 overall in three weeks. I feel terrible about that. I ran into flopped trips in a blind vs blind situation and still had a solid draw to beat it, but it did not come. I guess smokee never goes out first from a tournament, right? No that's right, smokee just goes out first from ALL OF FULL TILT. Nice.

By the way, I went back and reviewed the hand history from the hand a couple of weeks ago when smokee eliminated me so incredibly donkishly from the bodonkey. As I had suspected, smokee is what we at the farm call "full of crap" about me having T3o. That kind of lying shit is so annoying to me, and from what I see it is one of the worst things about the bloggers as a whole. Just like smokee knows he is lying about me making a small weak-looking bet on the flop, when in reality I bet a little under 2/3 the size of the pot, just like I had said. Damn smokee that is really sad is all I have to say.

Fact: I flopped top pair.

Fact: I bet out a normal-sized flop bet with my top pair.

Fact: smokee called me instantaneously with just a fricken INSIDE straight draw.

Fact: I am laughing right now at smokee for doing this.

Additional new fact: smokee is now lying to try to hide his bad poker play that will lose him chips 92% of the time he makes it.

Fact: I am laughing again just thinking about smokee feeling the need to lie about his play.

And let me tell you something else, there is no way anyone out there laughs any harder than I do when I read smokee talking about floating on the flop and planning to steal the pot from me on the turn no matter what happens. Smokee is proven terrible and anytime he starts thinking like that, he is about to be depleted of his chips. It is not even true at ALL that I bet weak on the flop. I bet strong with a strong hand on the flop, and smokee just wants us to THINK he was "floating" or however he put it. In reality, the only place smokee ever floats is a fricken kiddie pool. In this case, he was not floating jack squat. He was autocalling a before-the-flop raiser and flop bettor with only an inside straight draw. Do you think smokee even knows poker math? Do you think he knows he has an 8.5% chance of hitting his inside straight on the turn, or he's likely going to face another nearly pot-sized bet on the turn and presumably have to fold? Or, I guess he might as well call there too and chase his 4 outs to the river. Why not. If 8% is good enough to autocall with once, why not twice, right? Yeah smokee, you're the float the flop then steal the turn kind of guy aren't you. Uhuh.

And while I am on the topic of fools who come on MY blog and tell MORE lies to cover the lies they already tell, I am simply not even going to dignify waffles with a response. I told only the truth here. Waffles has no reason to lie to inflate his poker results, right? Why would anyone ever do that, right? No one ever lies about their gambling results to make them sound better than they actually are, right? So what if waffles goes busto by his own admission now going on 30 different times. He'll still be playing regularly in the 4-8 blogger cash game by the end of the year.

Everyone shout out loud if you think waffles will regularly be playing 4-8 ANYTHING with ANYBODY at ANYTIME in 2008.

*dead silence*.

I make it a point not to waste my time with guys not secure enough in themselves to tell the truth. Just like the bloggers out there who only post when they're winning, and either claim to be winning when they are actually losing (I could name names, you would be surprised what you can find from regularly searching through the online poker databases), or better yet, just don't blog at all for two months while they're losing. Yeah, thanks for the realistic look at things.

Why do so many bloggers have obvious problems just stepping up and being men? Why do so many bloggers resort to lying rather than just own up to making a bad play? I like the guys who never pull that shit. There are plenty of them out there. You just have to know where to look.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 4:02 AM 6 comments

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Smokee is a Donkey

Last night I played in Smokee's Bodonkey tournament on Bodog, my online poker site of choice, and I was eliminated by a play so bad, so unthinkably horrible, that I just had to write about it here to talk it out. And here I am.

So here's what I have to say. Smokee, absoultey SUCKS at poker! I cannot even believe all these bloggers talk about how tight this guy plays, and then he goes and make what has got to be one of the ten worst poker plays by a blogger in this milennium. And I read a lot of blogs, so believe me when I say that I understand all that that bold statement I just made entails. But I finished in 2nd place in my first ever blogger tournament in last week's Bodonkey, only losing to Drizz after a series of dumb hands where I had an Ace but he had a higher Ace, I had KJ and he had an Ace, etc. But I know what I am talking about and let me tell you last night smokee took the cake, what a jackass move he made.

Basically, I raised it up before the flop from late position with KQo, and smokee called behind me from the blinds. The flop comes 6TK. I have top pair and a Queen kicker. Smokee checks and I bet my top pair on the flop for just under the size of the pot, which smokee calls without a second's hesitation. I mean there was not any chance in the world that this guy considered anything like the size of my bet, his pot odds, anything. Now sure he'll tell you that he thought this and reasoned that and counted these odds and whatnot, but we all know the truth since he called completely instantaneously. Smokee is a donkey.

Anyways, the flop comes a 9, making the board now 6TK9. This time smokee leads out with a small bet, which I raise allin and he quickly calls, showing 87 for the turned straight. I believe this donkey actually had the gall to type in "nighty night" in the chat too when he did this.

So let me see. I bet just under the size of the pot on the 6TK board, and smokee immediately called me with just 87. Yes my friends that is not one but TWO overcards on the board, with absolutely nothing but a gutshot.

And that, my friends, is why smokee sucks at poker. This might be the worst play I have seen or read about in a blogger tournament in my entire lifetime of reading poker blogs. Calling almost a pot-sized bet on the flop with just 87, a gutterball draw and with two of three overcards on the board as well. What a retard.

Thank you and goodnight.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 11:08 AM 3 comments

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Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Good All-Around Bloggers

One thing I like to look at as I railbird the blogger games and read my poker blogs is who are the best all-around players. And when I say all-around, I am talking about the players who are the best at all the different kinds of poker. Personally I have never played anything but no limit holdem online, but I have played in enough home games to know how to play all the major poker games. But there are a few bloggers who seem to really know their stuff about several different games.

For example, Chad. I have seen chad win several no limit holdem tournaments over a long period of time. I read in his blog that he just missed the final table in a World Series of Poker razz tournament a few years ago. I also recall from his blog that he had a very good run in the stud high low tournament after midnight every night on full tilt a year or two ago. Clearly, chad knows all the games and knows them well. I have a lot of respect for people who know all the different kinds of poker well enough to do well like that.

Hoy also seems to know all the games pretty well. I know from his self-aggrandizing comments on his blog that he has won a lot of satellite tournaments ranging from no limit holdem to limit holdem to razz to stud high low as well. Just this year he won the riverchasers Omaha 8 or better tournament outright, and I have actually watched him winning in both tournaments and cash games in pot limit Omaha high. While he does not have the results that a guy like Chad has, it seems pretty clear that hoy knows how to play all the games pretty well.

Emptyman is another blogger whose blog I enjoy reading and who is fairly accomplished at all the games. Empty has run deep several times in the nightly Horse tournaments on full tilt poker, including winning that tournament outright at least once or twice. Winning the $26 Horse tournament is something that is not easy to do, and he has run deep several times. There is just no way to do that without being good at all of holdem, omaha, razz and stud. One final table or something, maybe. But all those deep runs and even a couple of wins? No way without really knowing how to play those games.

These are the guys that I would like to be like someday. Winning a major score in a no limit holdem tournament would be awesome, but when I am routinely successful playing a bunch of different poker games in a limit format, that is when I will know I have really arrived.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 3:05 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Blogger Math

So I have been thinking about something and I wanted to write it out to see if I can work through it.

Waffles, another famous poker blogger, has gone busto a good 15 or 20 times just in the past year or so that I have been following poker blogs. Waffles going busto has become something of a favorite obsession of much of the bloggers, so I get to read about it on any number of other sites whenever this happens. I guess waffles is a favorite topic of a great many bloggers it seems, which is nice since he appears to be able to handle it, unlike so many of these other bloggers out there who can get really whiny really quicky when someone says something that is less than complimentary about them.

Anyways, here's the thing I just do not get about waffles. How can a guy go busto 25, 30 times over a few years, and yet still be a "break even" player?

Answer: it is not possible. Anyone who reads waffles blog regularly knows that he is not egularly, if EVER, making withdrawals from any poker site. And so I ask again, when you are constantly going busto in your account, and you neve withdraw any money, is there any escaping the obvious? The man loses money consistently playing poker. There is nothing wrong with this at all. But it is a fact, and I would argue that consistently lying about his string of losing is where the wrongness starts.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 9:55 AM 5 comments

Monday, January 21, 2008

How to Win an MTT

The secret to winning MTTs is easy: win races! That's all it takes in my opinion. I have run in a million holdem tournaments in my day, and somehow or other whenever it ends, it ends because I lose a race. For some reason my record in race situations late in mtt's is just awful. I would have won several tournaments by now online if I could only win with AK or QQ when it counts.

I know I am being a bit tongue in cheek here when I say that it all comes down to races, but in a lot of ways it's really true. I have read a lot of blogs after someone wins a tournament, and they all are full of the same races that the writers are winning to get there. In the big online tournaments, once you are down to the last 50 or 100 people or something, the blinds are so high that it is basically push and pray poker for everyone involved. That is how you know it just comes down to races. When every hand is all in before the flop, you are going to have to beat 88 with A9, and you are going to have to beat AQ with 77. It is just the way it goes.

While I am on the topic, I love reading some of these blogs where people won tournaments making horrible plays that you can really tell they think are good plays. People calling bets the size of the pot on the turn with just an inside straight draw, people calling preflop all in bets with JT suited in heads-up pots, stuf like that. Again it just shows how much of actual winning mtts comes down to luck. There are just an incredible amount of bad plays and bad players even at the very end of these tournaments, among the blogger group and in the world at large.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 11:53 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Lucky Bloggers

I know I am not probing any new or original ground here, but it really is pretty funny how some of the same poker bloggers get the same kind of luck basically week in and week out. This past week I railbirded the friday night donkarama, which is a $1 rebuy silly joke of a tournament, and I have to say, for the third straight time I have watched this tournament it was basically the same guys sucking out again and again and again. The biggest luckbox of all of the bloggers in this thing has got to be Jordan, who you can tell is really trying to win and yet just routinely gets his chips in behind. He can not help it, I swear the man is really trying to get in ahead. He is just off somehow, just about every time he slides a chip into the middle in this thing, most weeks.

And yet, most weeks, Jordan manages to suck out some donkey hand again and again and get off to a massive chip stack by the end of the rebuy period. It happens like clockwork, and yet he must get it all in from behind more than anybody I have seen in these things.

Fishiswa is another one. This player will be dealt pocket Aces against someone else's pocket pair at least two or three times during the rebuy period almost every week it seems. He gets himself off to a 5:1 chip lead over everyone else in the tournament within 30 minutes, and then people are surprised four hours later when he wins the thing outright? Why? I can not explain it, but believe it when you hear that some of these guys are just luckier than others.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 10:46 AM 1 comments

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Luck in the Various Poker Games

Obviously there is skill required to succeed in all of the normal poker variations. I have no doubt about this But at the same time, some of these games, especially when played in tournament format, are based a lot more on luck than some of the other games. Today I was thinking about this as I have begun to learn my way around some of the non-holdem poker options out there, and here is what I have been thinking.

First, I have to agree with what most of the bloggers seem to think that razz is, at its heart, the most luck-based of all the major poker games out there. Sure there is plenty of strategy as far as seeing what cards are duplicated in other hands, betting out and calling when you are ahead even with a worse "made" hand on 4th and 5th street and things like that. But in the end, you can be the best razz player in the world and if you get bad bad cards, you are not going to win. Unlike no limit games, where theoretically you can keep betting people out of pots without showing down a hand for hours, in a limit game like raz is usually played, you are more at the mercy of the cards than anything else.

On the other end of the spectrum is no-limit holdem. As I mentioned above, there is less luck involved in winning these tournaments in my opinion because the ability to move all your chips into the middle at any time means that you can use that skill far more than any availability of good cards to you in most cases. Sure there is a lot of luck in no limit holdem as well as all the other poker games, but in the end no limit means more skill (and therefore less luck) is required to succeed.

Another game that I do not see as mostly luck is omaha. I am no expert in omaha games, but I do think, going along with my argument above, that pot-limit games in general require more skill and less luck than their straight limit counterparts. Limit games, especially the ones with many betting streets, simply allow for more chasing, and therefore mean that luck will play a more significant role in the outcome of most hands. But in pot-limit games like omaha, the players are again going to rely more on their betting skills than any cards they are dealt as a general rule. Plus, specifically with omaha, there is more math involved since there are so many complicated draws available, which again tends to increase the level of skill among the most successful players.

And this bring me lastly to stud, which I will have to say requires more luck and less skill than the omaha or no limit holdem poker games mostly due to my reasoning above. For me the bottom line is that when you are playing a limit game, and where you have 5 betting streets as opposed to four in holdem, again the game will allow for, if not require, more chasing opportunities for opponents who correctly understand pot odds and implied odds. Thus, the outcome of most limit stud (both straight and high-low varieties) games is simply going to be dictated by the cards that fall on the last few streets much more than in almost any pot-limit or no-limit game. And this fact means that luck will play a bigger role than in the other games.

So for skill games, I go for no-limit holdem and then the pot-limit varieties of holdem and omaha. For the more luck-based games, it has to be the stud format games, with razz at the absolute bottom of the list.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 8:47 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Poker Peaker is a Massive Tight Wad

Poker Peaker. There is a reason he has the reputation that he has among the poker blogger crew. This guy is so tight that he squeezes eats coal and farts diamonds. Last night at the blogger tournament I played in, on three separate occasions just during the hour or so I was watching his table, he raised before the flop and got flat called by someone acting after him. On all three occasions, some megalomaniac in the blinds went and moved allin on him, knowing in each case that the squeeze play would work because peaker would simply not call in that spot without Aces or Kings. They knew it, and they were right.



When are these people going to learn? If you play poker at one extreme of the spectrum all the time, you are going to regularly get taken advantage of by stronger, more aggressive players. It's just the way it goes. Not that peaker is the only one, but he is absolutely at the top of everyone's short list of the tightest players among the bloggers. I must have railbirded a hundred of these tournaments by now, and kept detailed stats from each on my pokertracker. Reraising peaker is about as sure of a fold as you can get, as he will literally not ever call without an absolutely premium hand. To a reraise, peaker will fold AK preflop fairly easily. He'll do it all the time. He is just so tight, and although I think I've seen him win one blogger tournament in his life, as far as I can recall, that is it. And yet no connection is made there between the balls-crunching tightness and the lack of tournament wins. I understand that he is mostly a cash game guy, but if you are going to come out to play with the bloggers, why not make a real attempt, right? If and when I ever start playing with the bloggers, you can be sure I will be bringing my A game that gives me the best chance to actually win the tournament.



Sometimes I just do not get these guys that are so "famous" for their poker exploits.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 8:35 AM 1 comments

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

It Begins

For a while now I've been reading a lot of poker blogs, and today I am finally making my first post. I did not know for sure if I would ever actually start up my own blog, but then last night iced it for me. I was catching up on a bunch of blog reading and I came across a bunch of talk about haters and stuff. And here is what I do not get. Why would someone act all proud to have left a bunch of negative comments on another person's blog? Doesn't that just mean you were basically a jerkoff for an entire year?

I really struggled to understand this. But so many people seem to be truly proud to be mentioned as someone's hater. Then you look them up and they are bragging hard about what a dick they acted like for the better part of a year. What am I missing? Is being a dick really what makes you so proud about being a blogger? That to me takes "pathetic" to a whole new level. I really hope somebody will help these people to open their eyes and check themselves, because what kind of person loves acting like a dick just for being a dick's sake? It is not a good thing whether some blogger realizes it or not.

And another thing -- when are these hater people going to realize how lame it is that they are so short on content for their own blogs, that they have to spend tens, and in some cases many many tens of posts talking about someone else's content. There are actually a lot the poker bloggers out there like this. I mean, I am all for someone linking an interesting post they found at another bloggers site, and adding their own two cents to the discussion maybe even. But when I find a blog that has a whole mess of posts just about someone else's posts, or what a jerk soandso is, I really start to wonder if they actually have anything interesting to say themselves, or if they just like to hear / read themselves talk / write.

Something to think about as I embark on this blogging adventure.

Posted by Blogger Crusher at 3:14 PM 0 comments