Break time & MATH

I am getting increasingly frustrated with poker lately. Well, maybe not poker but rather the environment in which I get to play poker. Get is a good word there because I sometimes feel like I have to sneak it in or get permission. And it's pissing me the fuck off. And playing pissed the fuck off is not a good thing.

Last night I predicted that the MATH would be a weird format. Not because a rebuy is such a crazy format, but rather that a $10 rebuy will not fit the audience that is the MATH and the BBT2. The reason the MATH always has less players than the Mookie or RiverChasers is the buy-in. Don't tell me it's because it's a Monday or some other bullshit excuse. It's the buy-in. So it comes down to a bankroll management issue.

So when you set up a $10 rebuy, people with limited rolls will not show up, hence the smallest field in the MATH history in the BBT2 - 54 players with only 6 spots paying. A quick calculation would show that a double rebuy plus add-on would be $31 and a second double rebuy brings you to $51. So you are going to have four types of players:

1) People who will chose not to play.
2) People who will limit themselves to $31 buy-in.
3) People who will limit themselves to $51 buy-in.
4) People with no bankroll issues (who I erroneously called "high-rollers" yesterday) who will shove any hand and double rebuy several times.

And that's exactly what happened. By the time the rebuy period was over 7 players chose not to rebuy and add-on and we were left with 47 players. One of these players was CK who even told us in the chat that her limit was $30. On the other end of the spectrum was KOD who was probably in for 10 or more buy-ins and complained about how tight everyone was playing and what a crap rebuy this turned out to be.

Anyway, who cares about all that. We eventually ended up with 130 rebuys and 43 add-ons for a total prize pool of $2,270 paid to only the top 6 spots.

I played extremely tight during the rebuy for two reasons. I don't have the bankroll to go crazy and I got no cards for the first hour. Nothing. I pushed twice. Once with KQo which lost to ATo and JTo (which won). Then I pushed again with 99 vs. KJo (and almost JJ which Hoy says he folded) and won on a K9xxx board:



I then did the add-on and was sitting somewhere in the top half of the field at the break.

Then the real game started, although you wouldn't know it because people were just shoving right and left with very marginal hands. My VP$IP was around 8% at this point. I truly got nothing playable. I decided to get stupid with A&s on the button and ran into KillinKegz AKo in the SB. He jammed for the umpteenth time and I figured he was making a move so I made a bad call and got rewarded with a 7 on the flop:



Then I got Aces in EP and I knew I was doomed.

The blinds were 120/240/25 and I raised to 580 which may have been a little low. I thought My table image and position would have helped thin the field but I got Bayne and Fuel to flat call along with TwoBlackAces in the BB. The flop was Qd5dX and when TBA checked it to me I bet almost the size of the pot which was around 2400. Bayne folded and Fuel in LP jammed. TBA thought for a long time and folded. And there I was left with a very difficult decision.

I held the Ace of diamonds so I could not put Fuel on a flush draw. Whenever there's a 5 on the board you might have run into one of his beware-my-presto moves. But I just didn't buy it. Why would he jam a set of 5s here, unless he wanted to me to think he had a set of 5s. I ended up thinking he had AQ or maybe KQs and so I called. I was right and he had AQs in clubs and was only left with 2 outs. Of course RNG has to fuck with me again and deliver the Q on the river. So gross:



I was left with less than a BB and I think quadrupled up then folded my SB. Then on the button I find TT and jam my 580 and get called by K2o which hits his three outer on the river:



So I get screwed by the river with a 2 outer and then a 3 outer to send me packing. Nice.

While all this was going on KajaWife decided to pick a fight with me about my poker "obsession" and put me on some life tilt. Very nice.

I probably will take the rest of this week off. I think I can take the rest of the BBT2 off and still be in the freeroll as I am atop the leaderboard with 9 games left. I am not sure what the overall leader gets at the end of the series, so I am not sure if it's worth fighting for. And since I probably won't take down the weekly leaderboard I see no sense in throwing away more money at the BBT2 at this point.

Blah!