Friday, February 13, 2009

It happened (Razz)

I won a razz tournament. Holy crap. 

Yes, the competition was incredibly soft, but being that I don't live in Vegas, that's most razz tournaments for me. I'm a little bit in shock, more so than if it was horse or stud8. 

Granted it was only an online event, but since playing razz is usually the worst experience on Earth, I feel pretty decent. I had a maniac stealer to my right all day, but that actually worked out to my advantage, and apparently no one else in the tournament ever put him on a steal. The heads up portion was against him, but somehow he was kind enough  not to raise me every time I had the bring in, even though he was the most aggressive razz player I've ever seen in a MTT. Thanks, bud. I play a lot of razz heads up sngs against these two maniacs from Russia, so I got enough practice to school him pretty hard heads up. I only sucked out once all tournament, and it was in the final two. 

Some notes:

I smell terrible. 
Fuck Razz.
I have carpal tunnel from excessive shuffling of some chips I have laying around. Good anti-tilt remedy though.

And now the obligatory complaining about FullTilt:

1. The structure is balls. The ante is constantly 1/12th or less of the upper betting limit, and out of all the mixed games heads up and multi table tournments I play, the highest I ever see the ante at is 1/10th of the big bet, and that's only for like one level out of every two or three hourse.

2. Conversely, the limits move at an insane pace (of course), and I assume it's in FullTilt's interest to move games along as quickly as possible. People play like hyper aggressive maniacs or loose calling stations in razz tourneys, so why not at least have the ante be 10% or more of the big bet at least a few levels in the tournament? People seem to have no problem making thin steal attempts (even in a razz online event, like anyone will fold), and I myself had to steal to stay afloat at the final table full of tight players. I am positive raising the ante will improve the game and add a level of texture which I believe would make the game more skill dependent, as players would be forced to shift gears back and forth. As it is now, I rarely see players attempt to adapt at all within the course of one event, and maybe they don't have to, with these gawful structures. GAWFUL.

3. Full Tilt has H.O.R.S.E., H.O.S.E., and H.E.R.O.S. cash tables (thought the latter two see absolutely NO action beneath the 1000/2000 levels it seems), and the games change every ten hands. A reasonable approach, I think. Meanwhile, ever single mixed game tournament I've ever witnessed on FullTilt changes the games and levels based on time, whether it be 3, 6, 10, 12, or 15 minutes (the latter constituting what full tilt believes is a "deep" structure I guess. As it is, the hands take forever, and with players generally being clueless, the problem is excasberated. Plus, players are so loose, and pots have so many people in them, that the two split pot games have hands that take REALLY LONG. It's not rare to see a Stud8 portion have about three hands played. As such, I truly believe these mixed game tournaments and sit and goes become limit holdem tournaments, with a few hands of other games splashed in. This irks me to no end. I don't see how it's unreasonable to have like one horse tournament a week or something miniscule like that change levels and games by # of hands, as the cash games are run. 

Hopefully my next rant will be about something meaningful, like Judd Gregg or Chris Brown. 

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