27
#325 – Even Chris Ferguson?
I used to maintain an informal list of the worst tournaments on Full Tilt. My criteria mostly concern personal courtesy. My evidence is anecdotal but a few tournaments in particular seem overloaded with jerks. Unfortunately, my beloved Turbo Hundo has joined that list. In that tournament, I learned on Saturday night that even Chris Ferguson isn’t immune from some dope’s complaints.
Not that Chris can’t handle it. It just boggles my mind that someone would pick HIM as the source of their ills.
I used to think the worst tournament was the $24 + $2 NLHE at 05:00 ET. I admit I played it just a couple times before reaching this conclusion. Full Tilt somehow gets 300+ players for this one, but god knows from where. It’s 3 AM local time, and I’m in the western part of the U.S. In fact, I don’t think there’s any place in the world where 05:00 ET is a good time to play poker.
I played it only when I was on some miserable losing jag and I suspected that was responsible for about 90% of the swollen field. Players were throwing around chips and complaining about the outcomes and each other. This is the tournament where I made the final table despite falling asleep for 20 minutes and where players’ insults included “gonna fist your mom” and “die of AIDS.” (I wrote about this at the beginning of last year’s WSOP; it happened right before that.)
After I gave up that tournament, two others competed for the title of Nastiest. The first is the Midnight Madness. I won that tournament one of the first nights they ever held it and have played it sporadically since. I was absent from the Madness for a long time and then started playing it almost nightly last fall. At first, I received a lot of attention from players and railers simply because few red pros play it. Over time, that attention went from appreciation to resentment.
I’ll still play the Midnight Madness occasionally but not enthusiastically. My table always seems to have (a) someone on the rail who makes fun of my avatar; (b) someone whose life’s goal is to bust me, no matter how bad he has to play to do it [This player persists even if I have him outchipped and crows about beating me out of a pot, even if – ESPECIALLY IF – he has to get lucky to do it]; and (c) someone I’ve busted earlier or in a past tournament who hangs around to grouse about it.
Even worse is a Full Tilt tournament so nasty that it doesn’t even have a name. I think they should strike it from the roster. They haven’t taken me up on the idea but it’s the only double-stack tournament I know of that has a buy-in over $5 that doesn’t have a guarantee. It’s $30 + $3, it’s NLHE, and it’s played at 02:30 ET. Even though it’s double-stack with 10-minute levels, it plays like a turbo. Players are triple-raising all-in with A-8 from jump street and complaining about each other and Full Tilt constantly. Losers complain about the luck of winners. Winners are even complaining in this one, on the theory (I guess) that pointing out someone’s bad play is a form of reverse psychology. And if the winner dragged the pot because he got lucky, he usually tosses in a “take that biyatch!”
A player from one of those tournaments wrote me an e-mail that started like this: “About 8 months ago I was in a poker tournament with you and you busted my JJ with 33 when you were all-in preflop. Well I am very sad and have not gotten over the fact that I lost that.”
I looked at my hand history and noticed I busted out of the tournament myself with JJ, after someone moved all-in preflop with 66. You could say I got what I deserved but I counted 20 hands out of the 70 I lasted where someone was all-in. I was already short-stacked and it was all-or-nothing in that tournament.
Et tu, Hundo? Et tu?
I love the Turbo Hundo. I’ve won the tournament 3 times since it debuted last summer. I’ve made the final table 9 times and cashed 17 times. In fact, the 17th time was Saturday night, when I finished 23rd out of 275.
I guess I’ve always known the tournament had the potential to turn foul. I’ve been the target of complaints and even long-term vendettas on many, many occasions. Maybe I’ve just become hardened to it. (My response, which just fuels more rancor, tends to be something like, “You’re right. I suck. You’ve probably won this tournament a lot more times than me. More than 3 times, that is.”)
I noticed that Chris Ferguson signed up for the tournament so I watched him while I played. One of the things I like about the Turbo Hundo is that it puts a premium on preflop play. You have to know what hands to play in what position and, especially after the first few levels, what stack sizes at which to play them. Ferguson is expert at this, in part because he worked out the math on this about 15 years ago. Because I’ve worked with him and Andy Bloch, who made similar studies in the early Nineties, I’m learning.
The biggest thing I’ve learned is that most people play too tight in the two-card game. Consequently, I get criticized a lot for my decisions. I’m sure Chris and Andy would tell you that I make some mistakes; I’m not saying they’d endorse my play. But my framework is generally like theirs, and generally unlike a great mass of players online.
Chris was playing like I expected: not playing many hands early, active in the blinds, mostly showing pairs and big cards. So when he lost a lot of his stack calling a reraise with A-T, I knew why he did it. What surprised me was the number of people on the rail who criticized it – mostly in dismissive ways. (E.g., “Jesus must not be trying”, “why do people act like he’s good?”)
Here’s my quandary: why are people watching Chris Ferguson play poker online in the middle of the night? I assumed it was generally because they wanted to learn. I know that watching is an inefficient learning method. Chris was, as always, friendly but he couldn’t conduct a tutorial. There are a lot of holes that an observer would have to fill in. Still, isn’t that why people are interested in seeing Ferguson play online?
If Chris makes a play people don’t understand, I expect them to be surprised. But I don’t expect them to be dismissive. Why watch to learn if you’re going to dismiss anything inconsistent with what you already know?
If the goal of the critics on the rail was to find fault with Chris’s play and complain to elevate themselves – a bizarre idea that makes no sense to me but I’m sure is true of some railers – it still defies explanation. Ferguson is far less likely to make a bad play than almost anyone in the field. If you want to make yourself feel better than someone who could afford the buy-in, pick a BAD player, not a GOOD one. The first time I saw Chris play this tournament, he made the final table. If you want to find fault with him, there’s a good chance you’re going to be disappointed.
Then there was one situation I can only conclude was borderline creepy. When Chris was short-stacked, the first player to act on his big blind made a big bet. It was folded around and Chris called all-in. He had Q-9. The raiser under the gun had J-3. (I think J-3 made a bad play but he was clearly bounty hunting, which was his prerogative. But he had to worry about anyone after him thinking the same thing with a better hand along with, of course, Chris doubling up.) I wasn’t aware there had even been a delay in Ferguson’s call but there must have been a short one, several seconds at most. If the “15 second” message had come on, it had JUST come on before Ferguson called. (It’s not unlikely Chris was playing another game or reading e-mail or something else. But it simply wasn’t a long enough delay to be noticeable.)
The player with J-3 had a fit. I don’t have a transcript of his comments but he accused Chris Ferguson of slowrolling him. He said something like “You were getting 3 to 1 to call. You’re either terrible at math or you’re a jerk. Either way you suck.” And he wouldn’t let it rest. He continued harping on it.
Long after Chris was out of the tournament, the guy came to my table as one of the tournament chip leaders. Within 3 hands, a player in the blind, with A-8, called a short-stacked player’s all-in. It didn’t even take him long enough for the “15 second” notice but The Complainer said “nice slowroll, just like ferguson.”
I’m not saying Chris Ferguson or any Full Tilt pro should be out of bounds. It comes with the territory. Chris and the other Full Tilt pros, myself included, are playing for our own accounts but also helping promote the site. A guy doesn’t have to be an adoring automaton to be a customer and it would be unreasonable to let people chat but only in adoring tones. I’m not even saying the guy should be censored. I’m saying he should be ashamed for not censoring himself. This had nothing to do with slowrolling. He obviously wanted to find something wrong with Chris and then make a point of getting it into the chat so Ferguson and/or the other players could see him doing it.
That’s sick when you think about it.
