Shooting bloggers in a barrel

Two things are quite noticeable about these blogger tournaments. The first that has been obvious for a while is there is a lot of dead money in these things. Several other bloggers have pointed this out so I know it's not just me with that point of view.

The second, and this seems to be growing, is the catty chirping that is taking place at the tables. Al noted this recently on his blog how people are bitching at each other. These are supposed to be fun little tournaments with some very nice extras thrown in, but you still get the standard online bitch slapping taking place. Some of the discussion at my O8 table on Wednesday night was hilarious with the "fish" and "donkey" names tossed about, and the irony was that all of the players who were doing the name calling were themselves terrible O8 players.

On one hand I held A-A-X-X and the board came K-J-3-10-4. I check called the river, but took my time doing so. One player scolded me for basically slowrolling aces and another said "don't tap on the glass." Sorry, I didn't realize that unimproved aces were the nuts on the river in Omaha, and I was calling for about 20 percent of my stack. Meanwhile, the don't tap on the glass guy risked his tournament life unneccessarily with K-J-7-7 or something similar. Of course, this pro went on to make the final table.

I withheld names to protect the innocent, but in Fuel55's case I will not since he particularly acted like a douche. In the hand that got him riled up last night in the PLHE tournament, we were both sitting with 19,000+ and he had me slightly covered. It was folded to Fuel in the SB and he raised my 800 BB to 2,400 with K-Q. I held jacks so I repotted to 7,200. Fuel calls off a third of his remaining chips (a play I wouldn't have made, but not terribly unreasonable I suppose) and we see a flop of K-3-3. He checks and I have to push hoping he didn't hit the flop. You can't check in this spot and let him steal it or catch up on the turn. So he calls and I spike a jack on the turn.

"Nice catch fish," he says. Fine, he outflopped me and I got lucky. I can live with a little whiny comment. That's part of online poker. I felt fine with the way I played the hand.

So Fuel busted shortly afterwards and we are soon off to the final two tables. I lost a couple of hands to shortstacked tilt away, who pushed on my BB and I had odds to call wiht 9-10 and his A-K won. Then he raised from the button and I repotted with A-9, but he had A-10 and it held. "Keep spewing chips" Fuel typed from the rail. OK, so now he's stalking me. LOL.

Then when we get down to 12 players, a player raises and I repot from the cutoff or button with 8-8. Tricky spot here. Not sure if you should repot or flat call in this spot, but with only six players at the table, I thought an aggressive re-raise was in order. He calls with A-K and spikes an ace on the river to win the flip. Up chirps Fuel again with some spewing comment. I bust shortly afterwards in 11th.

Pretty hilarious that Fuel stalks me after I crippled him. Word to the wise -- don't be that guy. Don't be the player who can't take a beat and sits on the rail chirping at the guy who busted him. It's just pathetic. Since Fuel thought I was so fishy I was curious where he stood on the blogger leaderboard. So I went to the page and I scrolled down, and scrolled down and scrolled down and FINALLY found him down there in 99th...one time making the points in 17 tournaments in March. How's the view from down there Fuel?