Still HORSE'ing around

I decided to blow off the MATH last night. No particular reason. Just didn't feel like it.

Instead I watched some TV. I've been trying to catch the end of the $50k HORSE tournament if ESP-freakin'-N will ever broadcast the final table. I've recorded about 92 instances of every episode leading up to the final 8, but haven't seen the ending. As there was little else on the DVR that caught my interest -- and SciFi preempted my usual Monday fare of back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes of "Enterprise" -- I was watching the 93rd broadcast of the final two tables of $50k HORSE.

All this, of course, is leading up to me getting the urge to play HORSE. I found a $10 SnG HORSE tournament on Stars with six people already signed up, so I joined in.

I tried to play ultra-tight during the first round of hold'em. I took stabs at a couple pots but it never amounted to anything. O8 wasn't much better. I tried playing a few hands, but mostly watched as the other 7 players would each toss chips into the pot pre-flop and then shoot craps on the flop. For a while I thought I was watching the play money tables. I did scoop one quite nice pot that got me back to even.

Then came Razz. I've written about this a number of times before, but it still surprises me to see it unfold in front of my own eyes. I am far, far from an expert in Razz. I know how the game's played and I've spent a good fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes reading up on strategy. You want three low cards to start. There, I've given you the benefit of my half-vast knowledge of Razz. The reality of Razz at this level, however, is that I have the rough equivalent of Phil Ivey type skills at this game.

In other words, the vast majority of players in the cheap HORSE tournaments ($10 SnG) are bad at Razz. Really bad. So bad it makes horrible look good. So bad there's no word that adequately describes it.

Hand after hand I'm watching in utter amazement at the sheer stupidity of my opponents in this game. I do the bring-in with a K showing. It folds to the player at my right who's showing a 3. He folds. I've already got my finger hovering over the fold button awaiting his raise. And he folds. I don't care if I've rolled up a set of 3's, in his position that's an automatic insta-raise. All I see is 3 v K. I'm raising that every single time. I'd raise it twice if they'd let me.

I don't know, maybe some of these guys didn't even know the rules. That's the only explanation that fits some of the stupidity I witnessed.

Admittedly, I got a nice string of decent cards. Not great, but decent enough, especially considering the competition. But when they're also throwing chips my way when I'm showing a K, I mean, how can you lose in a situation like that? I went from mediocre stack to chip leader in the Razz round.

Sadly, my usual luck/skill with stud and stud-eight struck again, and I just barely made it out of those rounds alive. Last time I played HORSE I swore my stud strategy in the future would be to play as slow as humanly possible so as to minimize the damage that was bound to be inflicted in these rounds. I forgot to implement this strategy until I'd already given away most of my chips. I tried my best to survive to Razz again, but the blinds got too high and I couldn't make it. I bubbled in 4th to a horrible suckout from the chip leader.

The Bodog Blogger Tournament is tonight. Great overlay, so join in if you can.