6
#477 – FTOPSaholics, Unite!
The regular readers of this blog should know this but I’ll state the obvious for those of you just tuning in: (1) I’ve played most FTOPS events; (2) I have an uncharacteristically – defined by the rest of my online tournament record – awful record in FTOPS events; (3) I keep promising/swearing/threatening to sit out the FTOPS altogether, just to keep my ever-more-fragile bankroll and sanity together; and (4) It is my long-hopeless dream to host an FTOPS event.
The 9th series of FTOPS starts tonight, August 6, and runs to August 18, with 25 events in all. Where does my twisted history in these tournaments leave me at the beginning of this series?
I simply cannot follow through and abandon FTOPS, even though the foul beast has me stuck about twenty dimes. I’m an FTOPSaholic, dammit!
For several reasons, I can’t follow through on my wish/threat to make FTOPS VIII my last.
First, I’m hot. After a Sunday in which nothing went right and I busted on the bubble of the HORSE, I broke my commandment against playing the late tournaments on Sunday. I usually figure that, after playing 10 hours and having nothing to show for it, and usually being pissed off on top of that, I’m really not in position to play my best poker. I usually stop after the Sunday HORSE and don’t play much until at least Tuesday.
But this time I signed up for the $69 + $6 NLHE $18,000 Guarantee at 11 PM local time. My “day” ended 5 hours later at 4 AM with a second-place finish and about $3k. Granted, my family wasn’t happy that I was now out of commission for both Sunday and Monday, and not a lot of that $3k was profit due to all my earlier losses, but it felt good. Instead of not being able to sleep because I was angry, I wasn’t able to sleep because I was excited.
In fact, I was so excited that I slept only about 2 1/2 hours, waking up with Jo Anne as she got ready for school. (I forget sometimes that other people have jobs and Jo Anne has started her teaching year already.) It being nearly 9 AM, I decided to enter the $100 + $9 NLHE $12,500 Guarantee.
After an hour, I regretted it. I was suddenly dog tired and hoping to bust so I could get a nap. After three hours, I was near the chip lead. It came down to heads-up between me and Nikolay Evdakov, who cashed 10 times at the 2008 World Series and is now a Full Tilt pro.
It’s hard to say in a relatively short series of hands, but I felt, at least for that day, I had Nikolay’s number. I knew his raising range; I knew his calling range (when he started calling); I knew when he made a bet after hitting a flop; I knew when he made a bet after missing a flop; I knew when he had a monster or when he had a marginal hand that was too good to abandon cheap. And when he started shifting gears, I felt I knew when he was doing that.
He started with more chips than me heads-up but I evened things and eventually got a lead. With a pretty big lead, I had him all-in after a flop of 7-7-5. He had pushed in and I called with A-K, thinking it was good. It was, because he had A-9, but we split the pot after the next two cards came 5-5.
I lost the lead after a hand where I feel pretty comfortable I played correctly, with overcards and a threatening board, but he called down (after limping and calling a preflop raise) with a weak hand that made a small pair. I probably could have saved the bet on the turn, as I correctly put him on a weak hand (I think it was 9-6o) that hit a piece of the flop but thought I could bully him out based on that board. Because I had seen him call down – and even get aggressive, though he didn’t do that here, which threw me – with second or third pair, I could have given up.
After that, I was short enough where there was a good chance we’d get it all-in with roughly equivalent hands. I think I had Q-9 and he had K-6, and it was over.
Evdakov played superb, both throughout the tournament (when we were at the same table) and heads-up. I’m not criticizing his play – just patting myself on the back for feeling I was keeping up with a truly world-class player. Second place was worth another $3k, just ten hours after the tournament ended on Sunday night.
Then I finished third in a Razz tournament on Tuesday night, not worth a fortune but leaving me feeling like my limit-poker skills are sharp.
So I gotta play. I’m hot.
Second, I’m due. Eventually, I figure I have to catch lightning in the bottle in one of these events. I’ve had too many where I’ve played uncharacteristically bad, meaning I can correct that by playing better. And I’ve had too many where I’ve played really well and gotten unlucky, meaning if I keep playing well, that won’t always be the result. I figure, even if I was an awful player, I’ve played enough of these friggin’ events where my number should come up.
I gotta play because I’m due.
Third, they granted my wish.
Yes, it’s taken a year of pleading but they’re finally letting me host an FTOPS event. I’ll be hosting Event #15, $200 + $16 NLHE-Turbo, at 21:00 on August 12. Not that I want to be a Complaining Craig or anything, but I’m probably even a better player in Full Tilt’s HORSE tournaments than I am in Tilt’s Turbos, but what am I gonna do?
They let Jens Voertmann host the $500 + $35 HORSE, probably because he’s from Germany and Full Tilt is so hot in Germany. And maybe also because he won the bracelet in the $3,000 HORSE at the World Series this year. I know my pair of wins, a second, and a pile of final tables in the Sunday HORSE don’t beat that, but what about how Jens, Mr. HORSE apparently, doubled me up in the very event where he won the bracelet? Or that I bubbled the $1,500 HORSE, also winning chips from Voertmann when we were at a table together, and cruelly taking a pair of bad beats from John Juanda?
OK, maybe one hand at Full Tilt doesn’t know what the other hand’s doing. I guess I should be grateful just for the opportunity to host an event, and I am. And they put it at the same time as Jen’s HORSE so it’s almost like I’m hosting them both.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I have just two reservations about the upcoming events, which kick off with $200 + $16 NLHE this evening. (The guarantee is $1 million, which means they are expecting 5,000 players, huge for a week-night.)
My first reservation is that I didn’t present an FTOPS contest. My apologies. The time to prepare that would have been during the WSOP and I was too busy being miserable to think this far ahead. I’m trying to get something ready that I think you’ll really enjoy, though, based on some stuff people are talking about concerning the Main Event final table.
My second reservation is my teeth. I went for a dental check-up last week, and I knew it had been awhile. The dentist’s assistant – who used to seem like a very nice lady but who has somehow morphed into Igor – made some comment about my “Clintonesque smile.” I thought that was a compliment comparing my charisma to the former President.
Turns out what she meant was that my last check-up was while Bill Clinton was in the White House.
I don’t want to say they were jumping up and down with excitement of the prospect of all the dental work they were about to do, but I swear I heard Dr. Lovato ask the receptionist to patch him through to his realtor in Maui. That can’t be good.
So I may have to pull out of some of the 12 events I’ve entered due to conflicting dental appointments, pain, or crippling poverty. On the positive side, though, with enough novacaine, maybe the pain of my FTOPS performance won’t register so deep on my psyche.
The bottom line is that I’m an FTOPSaholic, and I need FTOPSahol. Starting tonight, I’m gonna get my fill.
