The Goat Speaks for Me

http://jgoat.blogspot.com/2008/04/viva-la-bbt3.html

Julius Goat fast became one of the reads I look forward to most when I fire up Bloglines. I have him categorized in the LOST section, but it is very hard to pigeonhole a talking goat so that was more a selection of convenience. If you are not up on his Table Profiles and Stupid System you owe it to yourself to browse his archives.

The Goat's latest post struck a chord. I think he nailed it on the head. I am happy to play the blogger tournaments now and then and appreciate all the people who play, set up the games, and do the really special stuff like BBT3. It is kind of weird how catty and dramatic a lot of the poker blogosphere has become lately. The name calling and other bashing is nothing new, nor is the calling out and comment wars.... but the amount of people that have allowed themselves to get caught up in the pseudo-drama seems new to me. If nothing else, it makes the morning read slightly more interesting... but overall seems pretty silly.

On a poker note, I played the first blogger event in awhile with the Mookie this week and managed a 3rd place finish for my efforts. Overall I was happy with my performance. I played very tight:

and I had two notable suckouts. One kicked off my final table run, the other ended it. I was ITM and I misread BuddyDank's hand when he limped with Kings in the highjack. I raised 3x from the BB and BD called. The flop came 8 high with one over to my pocket sixes and two diamonds. BD bet out the size of the pot and I put him on a flush draw. I jammed and he had me covered and called. I nailed the 6 on the river to cripple him and had a couple chip lead over PureProphet. It was a tough beat and BuddyDank took it well.

The last suckout occurred at my elimination. Memphis00 had been running very well and single handedly took out most of the final table. He was playing his big stack well and getting the cards he needed. He made a standard steal raise from the button and I went all in over top with my pocket 8s. He called with 35d. The flop seemed harmless enough with only one diamond. When the 4c hit on the turn I knew I was in trouble. The Ace on the river sealed my fate and I was out. I snapped a screenshot and watched the end as it only took a few more minutes for Memphis00 to make a flush on the river to eliminate Astin. I was happy with my performance and think that I could have given Memphis00 or Astin a run for 1st if those 8's stand up.

I wish Memphis00 all the luck in the TOC and might try the Mookie again next week. It was as fun as I remembered it... and maybe a little less chatty than I recall. Perhaps my expectations were too high from reading all the complaining or I never sat at the worst poker player's table. Either way, the chat seemed pretty tame and it was a lot of fun.