Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Tournaments...sigh
nclwiueght;ajbs;giu9238...tournaments are frustrating.
I played the $100 tournament at RiverRock tonight. It has a decent structure with 2500 starting chips with 20 minute levels. First hand I'm dealt AKs raise, get two callers, make a continuation bet on a 10 high flop and then give up on the hand. I also lost pocket 10s on the fifth hand or so in and was down to 1500. I finally hit a few hands getting my stack up to 6000 at the 75/150 level. From there it was pretty basic poker, playing my position and opponents. I had three weak players to my left to I picked on mainly. The only other interesting hand was when I was dealt AJ UTG+2 with UTG+1 limping in in front of me. I chose to limp with my 7K stack and see how the action progressed behind me. A weak player to my left also limped in and I had seen him limp in with hands as weak as 10 2s, so I wasn't worried about him. It folded around to the big blind who went all in for an additional 550. The UTG+1 player called and I made a simple isolation play pushing all in for 7K. The UTG+1 player and the player to my left both folded leaving me heads up in a 2600 pot. The big blind turned over A8 and I won the hand. I got a few looks from the table for puching all in with AJ but to me it seems like a pretty simple isolation play against a hand I could have easily nominated. From there I played well and chipped up each level to stay above 10 times the big blind. With 21 people left the blinds were raised to 500/1000 with a 150 ante and I was dealt AKo UTG at a 7 handed table. I pushed and it folded around to the big blind who called with his 15K stack and 10 10. Obviously the door card was an A but a 10 was two cards below it and I was out. I lasted 3 hours 45 minutes and finished somewhere around 21, 22. With 1st place being $4.4K. Tournaments and especially live tournaments are very frustrating near the final table. The blinds and antes get so huge you are forced to play preflop poker. There's certainly no sophisticated plays being made on the turn or river and rarely on the flop. It basically comes down to you picking up a big hand and getting called or pushing on someone's raise you feel is weak.
I really struggle with whether I enjoy playing tournaments. I played for almost 4 hours and made nothing, but was one coin flip away from making the money with a decent stack. I just get frustrated because I make it deep in a lot of these live and online tournaments only to lose my first all in situation which I try to avoid in the first place. I give props to anyone who can play live tournaments day in and day out as they honestly make me want to break something every time I get knocked out.
I'm not one to complain about my luck, but I truly believe that I am on the unlucky side of the bell curve that is luck. It seems like I can make it deep in a good percentage of tournaments only to lose that first crucial all in. The other day I played in two Stars tournaments and lost pots that would put me in the top five with 50 people left to a two outer and one outer. But life goes on and I will continue to play tournaments even though I don't think they're good for my health.
For now I'm not going to put tournaments into my hourly wage and treat them as a fun break form the cash games.
:-):
-Kirk
I played the $100 tournament at RiverRock tonight. It has a decent structure with 2500 starting chips with 20 minute levels. First hand I'm dealt AKs raise, get two callers, make a continuation bet on a 10 high flop and then give up on the hand. I also lost pocket 10s on the fifth hand or so in and was down to 1500. I finally hit a few hands getting my stack up to 6000 at the 75/150 level. From there it was pretty basic poker, playing my position and opponents. I had three weak players to my left to I picked on mainly. The only other interesting hand was when I was dealt AJ UTG+2 with UTG+1 limping in in front of me. I chose to limp with my 7K stack and see how the action progressed behind me. A weak player to my left also limped in and I had seen him limp in with hands as weak as 10 2s, so I wasn't worried about him. It folded around to the big blind who went all in for an additional 550. The UTG+1 player called and I made a simple isolation play pushing all in for 7K. The UTG+1 player and the player to my left both folded leaving me heads up in a 2600 pot. The big blind turned over A8 and I won the hand. I got a few looks from the table for puching all in with AJ but to me it seems like a pretty simple isolation play against a hand I could have easily nominated. From there I played well and chipped up each level to stay above 10 times the big blind. With 21 people left the blinds were raised to 500/1000 with a 150 ante and I was dealt AKo UTG at a 7 handed table. I pushed and it folded around to the big blind who called with his 15K stack and 10 10. Obviously the door card was an A but a 10 was two cards below it and I was out. I lasted 3 hours 45 minutes and finished somewhere around 21, 22. With 1st place being $4.4K. Tournaments and especially live tournaments are very frustrating near the final table. The blinds and antes get so huge you are forced to play preflop poker. There's certainly no sophisticated plays being made on the turn or river and rarely on the flop. It basically comes down to you picking up a big hand and getting called or pushing on someone's raise you feel is weak.
I really struggle with whether I enjoy playing tournaments. I played for almost 4 hours and made nothing, but was one coin flip away from making the money with a decent stack. I just get frustrated because I make it deep in a lot of these live and online tournaments only to lose my first all in situation which I try to avoid in the first place. I give props to anyone who can play live tournaments day in and day out as they honestly make me want to break something every time I get knocked out.
I'm not one to complain about my luck, but I truly believe that I am on the unlucky side of the bell curve that is luck. It seems like I can make it deep in a good percentage of tournaments only to lose that first crucial all in. The other day I played in two Stars tournaments and lost pots that would put me in the top five with 50 people left to a two outer and one outer. But life goes on and I will continue to play tournaments even though I don't think they're good for my health.
For now I'm not going to put tournaments into my hourly wage and treat them as a fun break form the cash games.
:-):
Good luck at the tables.
-Kirk
# posted by idareyouAA @ 11:42 PM 
