Posted by Dr Fro 8:52 PM

Yesterday's tournament was the most fun I've had in a really long time. Of course, I don't play $5-$10 NL with Phil Laak, so that isn't much of a stretch.

KTL will (possibly) have a more complete post on this, but here is my take.

Twenty six guys showed up. Ultimately, there were 7 re-buys, so there were 33 buy-ins in the pot.

I sat down with the best guy in the tournament to my left. It is in the nature of a poker player to overestimate his ability, so it shouldn't surprise you to know that I fancied myself the 2nd best player in the tournament. Feather was happy to have me at his right, and I was disappointed to have him on my left.

I love home tournaments. I think the strategy is simple: play small pots, avoid trouble. There are enough bad players that will eventually make a monumental mistake that there is no point in trying to eke out tiny amounts of positive EV at every opportunity. Time is your friend. Wait, and the fish will bite.

About 2 hours in, I quadrupled up with Jack-King-off (hee hee) when I flopped top two pair and three people that had no business in calling called.

In the next 4 hours, I won 8 hands. At one point, I *only* called when holding 99 looking at a board of K3389. That was the best decision I made all day, as Feather had KK. I still can't believe I did that. Sure, the best decision would have been a fold, but dude, I had a boat. The lack of a raise was my finest moment. My inner audience clapped loudly.

We were down to 12 people and for the first time, my M was single digits (on a side note, one guy at my table couldn't spell "M" if you spotted him two letters). Time to find an opportunity to push. Now? no. Now? no. Now? no. Now? hmmmmm...Fatboy Slim just came over the iPod and weighed in:

Right about now, funk soul brutha

Good point, what do I have? Pocket sevens. Hmmmm. What would Fatboy do?

Right about now, funk soul brutha

Oh yeah.

"Your turn, Fro"

Let me think.

Right about now, funk soul brutha

Crap. One of my major points of strategy in tournaments is to avoid "races" and especially to avoid situations where the best I can hope for is a race. Fuuuuuug. Let me consult the voice in my head:

Right about now, funk soul brutha

"All in"

"Call. Pocket 10's"

I had him covered. After losing, my M was 2.1, and I had learned the valuable lesson of not consulting with Fatboy Slim on poker hands. I was in the big blind, which put my stack at 1.1x the BB. With four callers, I made a great "move" by saying "all in" and then fiddling around with my chips for a while and watching two people fold. Only one limper was left, and he had the presence of mind to ask me how much I had left. When I counted my chips, both folders let out profanity of frustration over their (now apparent) stupid fold. His presence of mind paid off, as I got eliminated right there. 12th place and out $50.

My biggest takeaway from the tournament was how many chips I saved by making big folds. This is my biggest strength in a tournament: applying the adage, "he who turns and walks away, lives to fight another day."

Then came the cash game. I was myself: quiet, polite, courteous and humble.

And then monkeys flew out of my butt.

I bought in for $40 and quadupruled up in the short time span from the buy-in to 3a.m. I was able to exercise my greatest strength in a cash game: talking people into doing what I want them to do. I don't know why, but this skill increases in the wee hours of the night. When the alcohol flows, the fatigue sets in, the adrenaline (over)compensates and the smack goes into overdrive, I actually become Obi Wan Kenobe.

"These aren't the droids you are looking for. Fold your top pair with the slightly better kicker than mine. Good boy."

Although blogs are inherently here for the purpose of the bloggers to stroke their ego, I do not offer the above for the (sole) purpose of stroking my ego on my success last night.

No, I am reflecting on the night because it gets me so damn excited about going to Vegas in 3 weeks. You see, in Vegas, it isn't hard to find poker players swimming in a pool of alcohol, adrenaline, fatigue and susceptibility to Jedi mind tricks. It's like finding Cheetos in Junell's pantry. The opportunities are everywhere.

And I will be all over them.

1 Comment(s):

Posted by  Junelli, at 2:19 PM, April 17, 2007  

The song on your ipod, telling you to move all in, wasn't by Fat Boy Slim.

It was Frank Sinatra's "I Did It My Way."

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