FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#003 – Clonie Gowen’s Hammer Time

Posted by Editor | Filed under Clonie Gowen, Gavin Smith

Deep Thoughts and the Art of Hammer Maintenance

You can get, on your Google home page, the streaming Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey. I was sold instantly by this bit of wisdom:

”If you go through a lot of hammers each month, I don’t think it necessarily means you’re a hard worker. It may just mean that you have a lot to learn about proper hammer maintenance.”

On Wednesday night I entered, as I frequently do, the Full Tilt Poker $35,000 Guarantee tournament. I noticed that Clonie Gowen had also entered, so I was watching how she was doing. (It would be a nice fantasy to believe she kept similar tabs on my progress, but that’s delusional even for me. She has asked me on multiple occasions for my screen name. It’s Michael Craig.)

Gowen Plays Poker with – but not in – a Vacuum

I went out early but occasionally looked to see how Clonie was doing. She plays, to the extent I know about it, a pretty solid game. Her stack wasn’t moving much. In fact, by the time the average was about 10,000, Clonie had 4,000. I left my computer for a few minutes to visit with my family – see, I truly am a loving husband and father – and when I returned, Clonie had 28,000.

On AOL, I instant-messaged her.

Mike: 28,000? I looked at your total 15 minutes ago and you had 4,000.
Clonie: Patience paid off.

I watched intermittently while I busted out of another tournament or two. Every time I looked, her stack was bigger. She was active, but whenever a lot of chips were being thrown around, she was showing down big hands.

When she got to 70,000 and the chip lead, I asked if it was too late to buy a piece of her action.

Clonie: A little too late, just a little. Say, about 66,000 chips too late.

And as is inevitably the case when you are active – even when you are a solid and careful player – you sometimes get lucky. With a board of 3-4-T, she raised a player with a good-sized, though smaller, stack. He pushed all-in, putting Clonie to a decision. She called with 6-5, an open-ended straight-draw. He had 4-4, for a set. Nearly half her chips were in the pot but the last call, though she was likely a 2-to-1 dog, was justified by the pot odds. She caught a seven on the river to make her straight.

Gavin Smith Can Teach Me Only So Much

She went to the final table with more than 30% of the chips. I was looking forward to seeing how she played this, especially because she was being nice about answering my IMs and not telling me to leave her the hell alone. What you do when you have a lot of chips late in a tournament is of particular interest to me these days. I worked with Gavin Smith on the Big-Stack chapter of the Full Tilt Poker book, but it would be nice to see another approach, especially because what I’ve been doing hasn’t worked.

I have been playing very well the last several days … until it counts. After another good Sunday in the big tournaments on Full Tilt Poker, I decided to focus on the bigger buy-in events, trying to break myself of my addiction to the $26 and $75 tourneys. On Monday afternoon, in the $163 buy-in $20,000 Guarantee, I was near the chip lead for most of the first three hours and finished twenty-eighth. The tournament paid twenty-seven places. After making an early exit from the $163 buy-in $35,000 Guarantee and the $1,060 buy-in $50,000 Guarantee early that evening, I broke down and played the $75 buy-in $16,000 Guarantee.

I have never dominated a tournament like this one. I spent more than an hour with DOUBLE the chips of anyone else. The tournament paid eighteen places and it was still like that when we made it into the money. I finished twelfth in that one.

On Tuesday, after again botching the big-buy-in events of the day, I played the late night $75 buy-in double-stack tournament. I got lucky several times early on, but I had a huge stack again and kept it for a long time. But once again, twelfth place.

Unfortunately, what I learned from watching Clonie is that even a pro playing the proper strategy can get abused at one of these final tables. Every time she made a reasonable raise, she would get re-raised. Every time she had any kind of hand, someone else would push all-in. She had lost more than half her chips when someone re-raised her A-Ks. She pushed all-in. After the other player said “uh-oh,” he called. (He had priced himself in with the re-raise.) His 2-2 held up, and Clonie, once with nearly 400,000 in chips, she was down to 25,000.

I felt a little bad about telling her, in effect, “Now I’ll get to learn how to really play a final table,” and then nothing went right for her. I didn’t know what her cards were most of the time, but I thought she played excellent.

I started giving The Concession Speech, more for my benefit than hers, because I felt bad attaching this importance to watching her play the final table.

Mike: You played it real solid, but every time you raised, someone re-raised. You didn’t get cards very often, and when you did, it didn’t work.

That’s When Clonie Gowen Blew My Mind

With blinds at 4,000-8,000 and a 1,000 ante, she was in the small blind and completely out of options. It was folded around to her and she pushed all-in for a total of 25,006. The big blind, McGuiler, an excellent player I’ve played with many times, had no choice but to call. He had 4h-2h.

Clonie had The Hammer: 7d-2s.

The board was 5d-Kd-Ad-Jd-As.

She made a flush off The Hammer, though her seven-high would have played without the flush.

Mike: Incredibly awesome! I’m definitely writing about THAT!
Clonie: OMG

I jotted down the details of the hand very quickly. When I looked back at the table two hands later, she was gone.

Granted, she was still the short stack, and still by a wide margin, but what happened?

Clonie must have flunked hammer maintenance. The Poker Gods gave her K-J, with which she pushed all-in, and gave the big blind Q-J, who called. The flop was Q-J-6 and that was all she/I wrote.

It seemed strange after what was a relatively long final table for her to go out so quickly after throwing The Hammer. Seven hands later, the tournament was heads-up, and that lasted less than five hands.

But the important thing – well, there was no important thing. Clonie played well and it just didn’t go right for her. And then it did, but then it didn’t. I made one last desperate attempt at learning something by playing the $16,000 Guarantee tournament again, after again swearing I was done with $75-non-double-stack tournaments. With 200 to go, I was 200th. But I rebounded, spent some time near the chip lead, and was the chip leader when we made it into the money.

The Student Becomes the Pupil

I wasn’t going to finish twelfth for the third night in a row. I played solid, bobbing and weaving, picking on weakness, disguising strength. Knowing when to drop a hand and when to push. I put on a clinic.

I finished tenth.

The Immediate Future

I decided to stick around Scottsdale for the weekend instead of going to Caesars to qualify for the Heads-Up Championship. Here are my plans:

1. I’m going to play in most or all of the FTOPS events. I’m also going to write about them. Details to come.

2. I’m writing about my experience in the Rebuy tournaments. I hope to post that in the next day or so.

3. I’m going to take the money I saved by skipping Caesars and play some events at the Wynn Classic in late February. Deborah Giardina runs a terrific room and Tournament Director Dave Eglseder does a great job on the daily tournaments so I expect this will be a very professional operation. Jo Anne and I are going to Hawaii during the Main Event so I’ll have to skip that but I’ll play some of the preliminary events, which start on February 22. I’ll definitely be in Vegas that weekend, so give me a holler. I can be reached at suicideking@fulltiltpoker.com.

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