Understanding frustration

Recently I've been reading other blogs about the wonderful donkerific play that is out there and seemingly more common now. After reading those posts, I've started to notice more of what these bloggers have been talking ranting about and am now starting to understand their frustration. It's no longer about trying to out play your opponent but rather get all your chips in there with just a coin flip opportunity. 'Come on in and let the gods of chance take over and leave skill at the door, donkeys welcome!' (Hey I think I just found a title and tag line for my blog)... Now I totally understand that at times there is the need to push and times when you need to chase because of the odds, but pushing all-in with AJo when you have an M value of over 10? Where's the skill?

Last night I decided I would play in the $20K guarantee on FTP to see what kinda chops I had for a large MTT and after playing in this tourney I now know why bloggers get so peeved. Luckily I wasn't on the bad end of any of these bad plays that where out there this time, but I witnessed so many of those plays that it astounded me. So many coin flip pushes it made my head spin, or maybe it was the beer, hard to tell sometimes. I had a lot of good hands last night that are worth showing here but I'm not very coordinated at that yet so I only have one right now, and I only got that one because I was so blown away by it. I was in the SB with two MP limpers and I had AA so I raised it to 5x the big blind, both players call. The flop comes out Kh 9c 3c and I immediately fire out 80% of the pot hoping that one of them had KQ/KJ and maybe get the other out. I was surprised to see both of them call, so I guess one had TPHK and the other had a flush draw. Turn comes out and is the 3h, now I'm pretty sure none of these guys have a 3 so having them both covered, I decided to push the rest of my stack and just try to take it down. I was surprised to see them both call and then horrified to see both of them had nothing and were chasing two different flush draws, one for the clubs, the other for the hearts. And then the river came...


Thank the poker gods! I dodged a double flush draw bullet that helped me to nearly triple up in one hand and help me get deep into the tourney. Now I'm not the greatest poker player, which I've said before, but was it really beneficial for them to call my bets? I know no one reads this blog but if anyone has some comments on this hand I'd appreciate it. Were these guys total donks or where they making decent calls based on value? Oh well, I guess it doesn't really matter, I went on to place 81st out of over 1400 players and getting about $70 for my time.

Well it's Wednesday and you know what that means, Mookie time! I hope my play continues from yesterday and I can at least make the final table tonight, maybe even get into the money. Even tho stud isn't my game, maybe I'll even play in the Dookie tonight if I'm feeling a little squirrelly.