Not WWdN Tonight

I skipped playing the WWdN tonight. No particular reason. Well, I was playing a tournament at Full Tilt and didn't want to strain my fragile internet connection with the incredible demands of two poker sessions going at once. I've bitched about the internet here in my hotel before, but the horribleness of the connection just keeps on keeping on. It was particularly bad with Full Tilt tonight, though I gather I wasn't the only one having problems.

Having read Mookie's piece about Iak's Full Tilt tournament token strategy, I had to give it a go myself. I played in a number of qualifiers at Interpoker trying to win my way into their $500k guaranteed tournament, back when $500k was a big thing and not less than half the prize pool Stars and Party offer every week.

I knew from those qualifiers that a different strategy was called for, particularly when it starts getting close to "the money". That was a lesson I stupidly learned the hard way. We were on the bubble, I had the second biggest stack and could have sat out and gotten a ticket to the big show, but I got involved in a hand with the chip leader. I don't recall all the details, but it goes to the river and I've got the second nut hand. He needs two specific cards to beat me. He pushes all-in. I think for a long while and finally decide the odds of him having those two cards are slim, so I call. Of course, he's got the nuts, and I give one of the short stacks a free ride to the $500k.

I finally got my ticket to the $500k, though it cost me a lot more than it should have. And I finished the big tournament well out of the money. But I learned a lot, so it wasn't time or money completely wasted.

So tonight I jumped into a 2-table $6+$0.60 Tier One SnG. I got one decent hand the whole time, AA, and everyone folded to my wimp-ass min-raise. I guess they all know that trick. I finished in 8th, which is nothing to write home about, but considering the cards I was dealt I was reasonably happy with my play. Plus, again considering the crap cards, the overall strategy showed promise. One or two decent hands and I would have been able to cruise into the final four.

Next I tried a $8+$0.80 turbo. Same basic format, but the blinds go up every two minutes and there are five tournament tokens awarded instead of four. I again didn't get much in the way of cards until I was getting rather seriously short stacked. I caught a couple decent hands and was able to ride those into the winners' circle. It's pretty stupid considering all the prizes are the same, but Full Tilt plays the tournament all the way out. I took second, though everybody realized it was dumb and there were lots of all-ins with garbage once we'd made it past the bubble.

Then I went back to the $6+$0.60 because nobody was signing up for the $8+$0.80. I bubbled, mostly due to a couple other players getting lucky on desperate all-ins. I wasn't in much better shape, but I had a slightly larger stack. My stupid bloody connection also crapped out on me right in the middle of one big hand. I didn't get to see the board so I have no idea how it would have played out. I gather I was folded because my chip stack was somewhat smaller when I re-connected.

So, one for three applying the Iakaris Token Hunt strategy, with one bubble. Not terrible and I'm just slightly ahead money-wise. If I'd gotten any kind of cards at all in that first tournament I'm sure I could have gotten a lot further.

Now I'm debating whether I should use my $26 token for a Tier Two SnG or if I should play it for money. I'll probably go for Tier Two in the hope of getting in to Miami Don's Big Game this Sunday. Though I'm sure I'll be thoroughly outclassed there.