8
#334 – FTOPS Update – Not Your Slightly Older Brother’s FTOPS
I’m writing this as FTOPS VII Event #4 is about to begin. It’s PLHE and, of course, I’ve decided at the last minute to enter. My results so far look depressingly like the prevous FTOPSes, but everything looks a little different and maybe even better.
1. I’m not doing as bad as I appear. I busted right before the second break in Event #1, but I took out David Benyamine, so I broke even for the night. I didn’t play in Event #2, PLO-KO, but did play the big HORSE last night. I finished 85th out of 623. On the one hand, it was 5 hours work but nothing to show for it, made worse by the fact that I had a lot of chips. I was on the first page of the leader board as late as 160 to go. On the other, I was pretty pleased with how I played up to the end. I generally played conservative, saved bets when I was short, and got my chips by pushing good hands and being opportunistic. I don’t remember shoveling in a lot of chips in uncertain situations and not knowing until all the cards were out if I was any good. But that’s how I felt up to a certain point. Once I got chips, I played like a chump, checking and calling with second-best hands or draws. Matusow owes me a major chewing out for how I played OEOB once I built a stack. I’ve won my way into 6 events so, adding the bust-out bounty from Benyamine, I can run up a lot of zeroes at a relatively nominal cost.
2. The pros are starting to roar. Event #1 was a bad one for the pros, with only 1 out of 38 in the dough. But 5 pros made the money in the PLO-KO (out of 18) and Sigi Stockinger made the final table. In the HORSE last night 3 of 19 red pros made the money and Jens Voertmann finished 6th.
I’ve managed to bust out of the PLHE in a half hour, and that’s WITH taking 6 hands out to pick up Val at school. Still, I won my way into Event #5 tonight, so hope springs eternal.
Just gives me more time to write the rest of the accounts of Event #1 (the payoff for “Michael Craig is Giving it Away”) along with the stories about the contenders and other entries in that contest.
