Joe Speaker

The title refers to how AJ pronounces “headache” and I’m sporting a substantial one right now. Because my return from work on Wednesdays roughly coincides with the kickoff of The Mookie (graciously hosted by Full Tilt), I have to be creative as far as the evening meal is concerned.

Last night, I went straight for Liquid Dinner.

Previously, I’ve tried to prepare something quick and easy to eat while playing, but even that diverted my attention from the proceedings enough that I have made some questionable plays and early exits. So yesterday, I ate a large late lunch, hoping it would provide some ballast for the tourney–and beer–hijinks.

Er…not so much.

I was feeling pretty good by the time I drained the third Boddington’s. We were in the second hour by then and I’d managed to survive gifting better than half my stack to Bone Daddy in a battle of the blinds. It’s best not to take The Hammer to war against QQ. There’s today’s Poker Tip #1. That unfortunate incident took me below T1400, but I managed to double that just before the first break in a manner that escapes my muddled memory. I’m sure it was impressive, though.

So, with the beer kicking in, my aggression level rose parallel with my BAC. I was chipping up bit by bit with steals and continuation bets. Then, about the time the antes kicked in, I became a card rack. This circumstance, combined with my aggro image, sent me flying up the leaderboard as several people looked me up to their ultimate dismay. Hey, sometimes I have cards. Everything I touched turned to gold and I assumed the chip lead with the one tricky play I made all night.

I’d been open-raising any two in late position for the better part of a half hour and stole the BB with SB raises on three straight orbits. Finally, I just open-completed from the SB with The Shocker. The BB checked and we saw a flop of A98. I check-raised him and he pushed, which is a sensible play there. With all the raising I’d been doing, it would be hard for him to believe I had an ace in the SB and simply completed. Which was sorta the plan. I called and my ace held up against his 8. Suddenly I had 22K in chips, twice what second place was packing.

I think it was ’round this point that Mook compared the effects of my consumption of beer to that of Popeye and spinach. True, except that if Popeye has nine cans of spinach, he doesn’t become stupid. Fortunately, I had yet to reach that dangerous level.

Shortly after, I went for broke with pocket 9s on an 8-high, all heart flop. I had the 9 of hearts. It was InstantTragedy (I believe) who had AhQx for 13 outs twice. I was marginally ahead, but only ’til the 10 of hearts fell on the turn. Tough call for me, but the difference between 30K and 15K chips. The loss pulled me back to the pack a bit with about two tables left.

My rush of cards ended, but I kept picking the right spots to add to my stack and coasted to the Final Table. Some of the combatants there dropped pretty quick due to small stacks and I was mostly a spectator due to The Fat Guy (congrats on the win, sir) being two to my left with 40% of the chips in play, chips he was rightfully willing to play with pre-flop. Still, down to four, I was in pretty good shape. Then I pussified right out.

The most glaring example was calling TFG’s re-raise pre-flop with pocket 2s and then checking the K63 flop and then checking the Q turn after he had also checked the flop, allowing his AT to catch the ace on the river. Ick.

Without doing any stealing, I was soon in Push Monkey mode. I survived the first, chopping a pot with TFG when out-kicked (runner-runner chop!), but not the second against Bone Daddy who had a bigger ace.

Despite the leaderboard over at Mookie’s site, this is NOT my first cash or Final Table in his tournament (I also finished 4th in one back in November). But it is certainly as well as I’ve played tournament poker lately. I’d like to think it wasn’t ALL due to the evening’s refreshment, but realistically, it probably was. Good thing for me they sell beer in Southern California. Aspirin, too.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.