More on the Moooook

So last night was pretty crazy. My kids have been sick, so luckily football practice got cancelled. We hung out for a while, they went to sleep, and my wife was reading a book. I was watching the Sox but decided to pull up Full Tilt and see what was going on. I didn’t have any money in FT, but had to itch to play and figured I might see a few degenerate throwbacks out there somewhere. Sure enough, I search Waffles name and he is already bought into the Mookie. How could I forget that was tonight? Maybe because I haven’t played online poker in about 2 years?

Well, that is probably a little bit of an exaggeration but pretty close. A game here or there, but nothing big. What the hell, I say. I used the instant check option to deposit some dead money and off I went. I blew through a few SNGs and didn’t come close. Just trying to do too much and all that. Out of practice.

Anyway, at about 10:01, I asked my wife what the evening plan was? Should I jump into this tourney or not. Sure, go for it she said.

I jumped in to the Mookie during the newly introduced late registration and I was promptly sat at a table where I didn’t really know anyone too well. A little bit later, my boy Don was moved to the table and that got my attention. I respect the way Don plays, and how he lives his life his way. Every time I am out in Vegas, we hook up for a game, a meal, some booze, or to shoot some dice. Back when I played all the time, and Don showed up on the blogging scene, we hit it off. There was a “crew” that developed and it was a lot of fun(I could go on for a while with these links). I was a little bit too hooked on the game, but good friends were made. People that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to meet other than through poker.

Anyway, enough about my wistful musings of the past. I was getting hit with the deck early and getting paid off in most cases. I was playing pretty tight, while picking my spots. Hardly any calling, raise or fold was the game of the night for me. These blogger tournaments are tough, and you take pride in showing well. Not that I have to tell anyone reading this (well, at least the one or two of you that have me in bloglines still because you forgot to delete me…).

Anyway, I got the final table while knocking out a total of 1 person. I was pretty healthy throughout though. At the final table, I had to suck out twice. Once when I was a shorty trying to grab chips, and the second time to win the thing against Waffles. I had been super aggressive while I was the short stack and it continued until I had a nice lead and it was just us heads up. Waffles is another one that I really respect. That won’t win me points with most people but it is true. Btw, I don’t write this for people’s respect. I enjoy the guy, especially when he rants on and on about what a shitty play something was or whatever. A long time ago, he railed me for hours in a big tourney for me and he really helped me learn in those couple hours. Helped me learn the thought process. Go ahead, leave me the comments about kissing his ass and all that crap, I don’t care. Just speaking the truth. Like anything, you learn in everything you do. You take the things you want to take from them, and discard the things you don’t. I, personally, don’t bother putting anything derogatory into the chat window anymore, regardless of good or bad play. The thought process is different for everyone and most of the time, the player has their reasons for doing what they do. Like it or not, you win some and you lose some. You just have to stick to what you think is the right play, and hope for the best.

That leads me to the end of the tourney. I had a pretty good lead. I think it was something like 80k to 40k to start heads up. Again, I don’t sweat the details as much as I used to, but basically, we both put in about 10k preflop, and when I hit the middle pair on the flop, and he checked it to me, I instantly threw out a 15k bet. He check raised all-in, and I made a crying call of about 15k more. I was committed in my mind and he just got unlucky with the river hitting me for my 2 outer.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to be at a final table with Surf, Mookie, and Waffles again. It has been a long time. The last time I won the Mookie was in April of 2006! That’s gotta be a record for longest time between Mookie wins. I was also the guinea pig for the first winner profile, that is still going strong to this day. I may have been LLL last night, but I will take it. I never know when the next time is that I will make this tourney. Keep it going Mook! One of these days, we will be in Vegas at the same time.

Btw, I will be in Vegas exactly 1 month from today! Can’t wait.

That’s it.