Run-Good: Dominating the Also-Rans

It's 70 degrees and sunny outside right now. A sparkling Southern California day. Just like the one before it. And I've spent the majority of the weekend indoors, hunkered down writing. The rest of the country can collectively give me the finger right now.

The majority of yesterday, however was spent on the virtual felt, first playing in the second week of the Poker Listings Run-Good Challenge 2, followed by my weekly $11 PLO donation at Saturdays with Dr. Pauly.

Last week, in the first Run-Good tournament, I was clawed by the Cougar, her A-K brutally cracking my A-A with runner-runner Broadway to bounce me out in 9th. She went on to cash in third place, behind Matusow biographers Poker Shrink and Amy Calistri, who went 1-2 respectively. When I checked out the recap on Listings, I was surprised to see I'd picked up one point-- at least I was on the board.

I started off this week's event pretty strong. I flopped good, hitting a set of sevens against Michalski for a nice early pot, then flopped sevens full against him only a few hands later to claim the rest of his stack. Now armed with one of the larger stacks at my table, I started raising a lot of hands, but didn't get much action, save for Luckbox re-popping me from the button when I opened J-T suited in the cutoff. I folded and was really card dead after that, save for picking up A-Q suited and whiffing the flop. Ultimately I open-shoved about 10BB from the cutoff with A-9 suited, Luckbox re-shoved on the button with tens, and I couldn't improve, despite picking up a flush draw on the turn. I was out in 6th, but picked up a few more points.

After I was eliminated, we were left with four short stacks and Benjo, the Eurodonk chip vacuum. The voice of French poker mowed down the field after getting off to a roaring start when his Q-Q snapped off Kid Dynamite's A-A with a two-outer on the river. As Benjo reported on his blog, his friend Davidi Kitai, a Belgian poker pro, was standing behind him and summoned all his infamous luckdonk powers to conjure up that Queen on the river. Congrats to everyone's favorite Frenchman on a spectacular victory. That $600 USD should be able to buy him two baguettes, a pack of cigarettes, and a lap dance.

With Week 1 point heavies Poker Shrink, Amy, Michele, and Luckbox going deep again and Benjo's win, the five of them have essentially locked up five of the six seats in the Grand Final. As the Poker Shrink wrote on his blog:

"There will be a wild scramble for the remaining three open spots with Change100 holding a dominating position among the also-rans."

I like dominating the also-rans. I guess it worked for me last time.

After the Run Good, it was on to Saturdays with Dr. Pauly. It's no secret I totally suck at PLO and I'm usually a lock to be one of the first 10 players out. This week, though I actually made some hands early and even held the chip lead for a while, but ended up bubbling. I think it was like the fourth or fifth time I've bubbled this tournament. Boooooooooooo.

I looked up at the clock and it was nearly 4:00. The sky was already darkening, the day having nearly slipped away. Which is when I decided to hunker down and spend the rest of the evening writing as movies I've seen a thousand times like Speed and Juno played out in the background. Lately I've been working on an old project like my life depends on it. Well, actually it kind of does.

I'll leave it at that.