Even the best make mistakes.......

Finally, some poker talk. As far as my own game goes, I feel like I'm playing some good poker. Last Tuesday, I decided to take a break from Poker Stars. This is really hard for me since Stars is the best site for mtt's online, but I've been running horrific there and I've been allowing the beats to effect me in my tournaments on Fulltilt and UB. Two things happened because of this. First, I didn't find myself foolishly tilting out of my tournaments on FT and UB. Second, I found myself being able to concentrate more, since the most I was usually in was 5 or 6 games as opposed to my usual 8-10 games. I responded right away winning the 200+15 Tuesday night for 6.7k and and the 100 rebuy Wednesday night for 8k, both on UB. In addition I also find myself deep in many of the FTP tournies I was entering. Of course, no matter how much I hate stars right now, I cant pass up the action on Sunday. I thought the 4.5 day break did me well, as I had accumulated 65k in the sunday warm-up by the 750-1500 level, when I got all my chips in the middle with KK vs 66, and he nailed a 6 on the river. The rest of my sunday was the same ole, and again I let it effect me elsewhere.

Overall, I'm happy with how I am playing for the most part. Monday afternoon I took 3rd in the 28k on FTP for like 4k, and today I made 2 final tables after taking yesterday off. Unfortunately I took 9th in 22k guarantee on FTP when my AK was no match for QK, and took 6th in the UB 120+9 bounty. In the bounty, I lost a 190kish pot at 1500-3000 level with 44 vs A6hh. I raised to 8k pf from mp, and gboro780 called in the BB w/ A6hh. the flop was K42 w/ 2 hearts, and he check/called 10k. The turn was an offsuit Jack, and gboro led 16k, which I made 35k with about 35k behind. My goal of this bet worked, as I was trying to make it look like he had fold equity if he decided to push. He pushed, I called, and 10h on river, gg me in 6th for 1.6k. Congrats to gboro, at least he finished the job and took down over 7500 for his victory.

So, whats with the heading you ask? Seems like I didn't make a mistake in any of these tournaments I discussed. Well...I don't think I'm the best either. Right now, I don't think there is a player who is a bigger threat to win every tournament he enters then Imper1um, aka zangbezan24. This guy is a beast, and has learned to mix-in his bluffs so well with his nutted hands, and his extremely nuttso aggression causes most opponents to spew their chips to him.

So I'm watching him in the FTOPS 6-handed event tonight, and he was top 10 in chips when he busted out. In most cases, some hands play different then one would think because of how a table is playing. I understand this, but I also know that Imper1um had just been moved to this table, so for the most part his read was as good as any spectator. With 250-500 blinds, utg+1 who has 17k chips makes it 1,500, the button, who has 60k or so, flat calls on the button. Imper1um, who started the hand with 50k+ makes it 5500 from the BB. UTG+1 moves all-in for 17k, and once again the button SMOOTH CALLS. As Imper1um explained to me later, he's been playing with alot of euro-donks who are capable of flat-calling the 17k all-in despite the open action w/ any pair, AQ, etc just hoping to see a flop. Imper1um shoved, and the big stack had AA sending his TT to the rail along with the other guy's QQ.

I could probably put together an argument for a player with his skill to fold KK here. Not necessarily because his KK was losing, but because putting all the chips in pre-flop, he is now allowing his opponents to negate his significant edge talent wise. We play a very similar style, where we amass huge stacks throughout a tournament, winning a ton of pots with sheer aggression and not having to take our hands to showdown. It's the tournaments where you get to play deep stack poker from beginning to end where we are able to maxamize this advantage. A short handed full tilt tournament surely will be deep stacked the entire way, and he decided to try and isolate throwing 100+ BBs in the middle, along with his tournament life with 1010.

Afterwards, he told me on aim that he sucked. No Imper1um, you don't suck, you just made a mistake. Even the best make mistakes, how they learn from it is what makes them better then others.