The cards don’t care how much you think you deserve to win a
tournament.They don’t care if you’re
playing lights out, piss awful or somewhere in between.All that matters is what falls and the value
of the respective hands when all the cards are out.This is rather unfortunate for me, at least so
far.
First, the bad news: The series has not gone well for me
thus far.I’ve played seven tournaments
and have been out of all of them on day 1.I don’t recall much from the first three, but the last four have been
especially brutal.In hold’em, I’ve
busted AALast night, in No
Limit 2-7 Single Draw (a much lesser known but great, great poker game), I got
all in pre draw for an over double average pot with a made 9 and was beat out
by a two card draw to 2h3h5h.I’m not
quite certain of my equity on this hand, but I’d put it about 88-90%.The hold’em hands are frustrating, but there
are still hundreds and hundreds of players to wade through even if I win those
hands.The deuce hand is far more
frustrating, so please allow me a moment to vent.
Only 250 players signed up for the $1,500 NL Deuce event, and
at 1am last night there were around
100 players remaining.The table is
7-handed, and other than myself, there are two good players including Erick
Lindgren and an unknown player both on my right, three bad players, and a new
player with a pretty big stack who is a decent hold’em player but I’m not sure
about his deuce game.I’ll be more sure
in just a minute.I’ve been playing
extremely well all night, and opening a lot of pots, when the following hand
happens.I open the button to 750 at
blinds 150/300 and a 75 ante, with an 11k stack. The new player I described is in the big
blind, with 16k chips.He looks at his
hand, puts on his sunglasses, and fires out about 5000 chips.I move in, he calls, and draws two to beat my
pat 9.If you know anything about the
game, you know his play is bad, but it is especially piss awful for a few more
reasons.Since he is a good enough hold’em
player, he should have the mind to know some no limit tournament strategy.He should also have already spotted the three
marks at the table.He must also know
that he is two to my left, and will have position on me for five of every seven
hands.He may not know that I’m the best
player at the table (sorry Erick) and top 5 in the tournament, but he should
have a better idea of that now.So, this
player, who we’ll refer to as Mr. Piss Awful for now, decides to play a pot for
over 2/3 of his stack, almost 80 blinds total, in a somewhat rare out of
position pot, against the best player at the table, with about as bad a hand as
you can get in with.Maybe I made him
snap, maybe he snapped on his own, or maybe he thinks it’s a good play, I don’t
know.I just know that this tournament was
probably my best shot to win a bracelet, and with more than double average in a
100 man field full of people just looking to take a shot at a bracelet, I’m no
worse than a 10 or 15 to 1 dog to get one.Wiping the tears, moving on…
And now, the good news:The series is hardly a week old.I’m playing well.Only one buy in
was for $5k, with all the others $2,500 or below.I’m going to rehab today.Life is good.If you can keep things in perspective as a professional poker player,
especially if you’re a tournament player, you’ll be a lot more successful, and
more than that, live a much happier life.It’s easy to get tunnel vision and only see that you have bricked your
last seven events; but, in the big picture, it’s really only seven events.There are over 30 on my schedule for the
month, and that’s only this month.Now,
I just need to try to make a few day 2s.Because right now I’m on track to play all 30+, and that would be bad.
I’ll leave you with this week’s schedule.I really hope I don’t play all of them like I
did last week.I opted to skip the $1k
NLH yesterday for the NL Deuce, so I may play it today if rehab isn’t
amazing.But then again, what are the
odds of that?
This week’s schedule:
Sunday – Rehab at the Hard Rock, possibly a late reg for the
$1,000 No Limit Hold’em
Monday - $1,500 No Limit Hold’em (6-handed)
Tuesday - $5,000 No Limit Hold’em
Wednesday - $10,000 No Limit 2-7 Single Draw Championship
Thursday - $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha
Thursday - $1,500 Seven Card Stud
Friday - $2,500 Limit Hold’em (6-handed), or possibly a day
off since I despise limit hold’em