What a Monday At The Hoy!

I probably won't see another good hand for at least a week. I was on fire last night at hoyazo's Monday tournament at PokerStars. I did my usual patient waiting bit, holding out for good cards before making a move. In "normal" tournaments I like to play more speculative hands early in the hope I can catch a big hand and stack one of those guys who are looking for any chance to push all-in. But the blogger tournaments are generally too aggro to play many cheap hands, so I prefer to wait for the cards.

Wrybagel had been pushing the table around for some time, taking advantage of his significant chip lead (at least over our table). He'd already suffered a major setback when he bluffed into hoyazo's queens, but just a few hands later he was doing it again. This time I pushed back. Surprisingly, he called and turned up Q7o. My A9o held, actually improving to a pair of nines, and I had a healthy stack.

The whole table seemed to run into connection problems and we had several players who were disconnected for quite a while. Oddly, I had no connection problems at all for a change, except for when my connection did its nightly timeout and I had to log in again. That is such a pain. Anyway, I was in position to take advantage of the disconnects, and I did, eventually taking the chip lead.

From there on I either got great cards or used my stack to bully the table, building to where, at one point, I had more than three times as many chips as the next closest player. It appeared a foregone conclusion that I'd walk away with this one.

Then the luck went cold. I got hit with a couple suckouts that brought my stack back down out of the stratosphere. Ultimately, however, I have only myself to blame for my slide from sure victory. I fell prey once again to assuming other players willing to push with the same kind of crap that I would. Twice I made that same mistake. I really need to make that one Harrington phrase my mantra -- bets usually mean what they seem to mean.

Congratulations to NewinNov on the win and to Wannstache for taking second. We played a long time with the three of us and they continued to play heads up for quite some time. Well played both of you.

Tonight is the WWdN, PokerStars, 20:30 EST, password monkey. Wednesday is the Mookie at Full Tilt, 22:00 EST, password vegas1. Thursday is WWdNot, PokerStars, 22:00 EST, password monkey. Note the time on the WWdNot has moved up 30 minutes from its previous starting time. This is a permanent time change (assuming there isn't a revolt).