A Perfect Day
Intro
For many, poker is a boring game, for others is a sport, a strategy game, a patience game, even a lifestyle or career… for me it’s a recreational hobby, something I enjoy, a bit because I share some fun time with my friends and sometimes strangers who I’ve me for the first time, or seen many times but still can’t consider friends… in the end, it’s a fun way to socialize and have fun at the same time while only using your grey matter…
And in a way this is exactly how this started… joined a family friend to my first state tournament while visiting during a holiday abroad, learnt a different kind of card game from the classic poker my grandma use to play with me when I was a kid. The goal is the same, the cards are the same, you need to win with the best possible hand at the end of the round… with some variants such as being able to bet at any stage while the table is drawn with up to a total of 5 cards to add your 2 cards to complete a best possible 5 card set… you can bluff your way to win the hand, or just be patient and play your hand the best way you can… Lots of things in between those two basic facts but in a nutshell you want to win the hand against all 8 players on the table and ultimately against all 12+ tables full of recreational, semi pro or even pro players competing to get into the final table and eventually win the whole tournament….
Yesterday, I decided to play the regional end of season tournament which I qualified by reaching the final table of my local weekly tournament once or twice this season… (note that I although I have years I ve played on a quite regular occasion such as once or twice a week, lately I only had time to play only a handful of times, no more than 3-4 times all year long so far… By reaching a final table you automatically qualify to the end of season regional tournament. Missing the last one, I decided to give it a go, “just for fun” mainly…
Arriving already late, sat on a new table which was then populated by other players we draw a high card to decide who the dealer is… wasn’t me, but at least didn’t have to be in the blinds for a few turns… so its starts…
Stage one – Getting to know your opponents
The first few hands are probably as important as the last… you get to know your opponents, and ease into a positive start which will be then the ground for the rest of the tournament… The basic strategy still applies… which is… win more than what you lose, or, win more, loose less… whichever way you want to call it…
To do this, you need to get in a descent number of hands… get in, meaning, see the flop… after the flop is a completely different story… but let’s go in parts… I’d say in a full round, where the blinds get back to you, you would probably get into an average of 2 to 3 hands… having 8 players on the table, it all depends how strong your hand is, how many people are in the hand and which position you are in and how much $ you have compared to the blinds… there are a lot of calculations to be made based on these facts you decide if you want to just see the flop or raise pre flop and how much… These are part of any poker game and I’m sure you already know that… I guess the reason I mention it is not to teach how to play poker but to show what kind of player I am I suppose … I consider poker, although I’m a recreational player, a mind game…. This is why I think it’s important to study the game and the players in order to get the best possible outcome…
Many times, on a day or night mini-tournament, you might come to a game after work, tired, wanting to go home for dinner or just sleep… many factors that will not help develop your best game… I think this, my first big tournament win, was a perfect tournament to win. Being a weekend, no commitments all day, my mind was all in one place…
From the first moment, which set the rest of the day to the end, I had no worries but the game… I drank water regularly, went to the toilet as much as I could, chatted with others while staying concentrated on the one think I was there for, and just had fun while I tried the best I could to win…
Stage 2 – The thick of things
My pot didn’t look a lot bigger from the start, usually this would bother me, I would try to get more chips, as the blinds keep going up, but having still a healthy stack (way more than 10times the blinds) I was in no rush still… So the strategy stuck… You would think, after a while, you should change your strategy, if you are a passive solid player, who only calls with good hands, which everyone would “respect” and fold when raised to, since you only play these premium hands…. Then you should become a bit more loose and bluff a bit… or at least get in with “chasing cards” or even crap ones… at least every now and then… or the opposite, if you were loose, become a bit more like a rock….
Usually this works, and will get you a few more chips, but it is quite risky to change your strategy completely… so what worked for me was to actually “share the load”… meaning, be a bit of everything in different percentages at all times… something like… raise with premium hands maybe 90% of the time (leaving a bit for fishing chasers), call with medium/chasing hands (about 30% of the time) and see the flop with crap once in 10-20 times… depending on my position… This strategy was successful in making me see a good deal of flops, win some strong hands pre flop and occasionally win with shit… in conclusion this works if you want to go a long way in any tournament, it might not chip you up early, but you will almost always go all the way to the final table or best 2….
It’s always a relief to be chip leader at the end, but being in the middle, not just at the end but during the whole day, helps you in more ways than what having most chips do… by going under the radar until it’s too late and you take the big price for yourself!
Saying this, I was above average stack all the way, including at the final table. While you run into bullies, passive players, regular semi-pros, being above average will allow you to keep playing your game without losing much against better players and win the occasional pot… I know what you think, hearing words like, average, better players, losing, etc. etc., how the hell do I get to the final table and even less win it all!? Well this is the answer… or a few I came up throughout the tournament and even the many many tournments and games of poker I’ve been part of…
Stage Three – getting to the final table
Let’s start with some answers…
These are some of the most important points I can think of that lead me to the final table:
Patience
Stay patient and true to your game plan. My Game plan was as I mentioned earlier, have a passive aggressive stance which means, not much bluffing at all, play as many hands as I can without risk of losing much, raise and win little but win your premium hands, and maybe trap a bit as well with them… This is a solid strategy, one which will give you a possible exponential gain, slow but steady if you wish, but will guide you to any final table on many occasions…
Stay under the radar
Don’t get into unnecessary confrontations and take advantage of them as they will happen.
You will lose $ but luck will come with patience… basically it’s a stats game, the more hands you play the more chances to get good hands you have. The rest is how you apply your luck, and how the others react to you, plus the luck they might have against you… Remember, you can always minimize damage by knowing your opponent, how much he plays, and how you choose to play against him or her.
Enjoy and make friends
Enjoy the game, this will help you relax, don’t show tells, pic some yourself, don’t make mistakes, stay awake and concentrated which will allow you to play better and win more (or lose less), and basically keep going which is the main goal…
Breaks
Use the breaks, staying hydrated is important, same as using the toilet, while if you have little extra time learn and research about the game more… I know it’s not the ideal to do this during the tournament, but when better than then really? I checked in this case, how to play against a bully with chips… many times, I ran into one, It made me change my game, either by feeling trapped, not able to play as much or little as I wanted, or just by feeling angry at someone who plays like a donkey to get as many chips as he can as fast as possible… what I learnt on the first of 2 breaks was one great piece of advice: Raise less, and call more… by doing this I got the bullies respect, while I kept playing almost the same number of hands I was until then, keeping my tactic active… Eventually the bully tilted against a better player and lost it all.
Luck
You will have to have luck to win, some say its 60% skills 40% luck, but my view is that the more you play, and the more experienced you are compared to the rest, the less luck you need. Given an even tournament, when most are at the same level as you are, at certain stage of the tournament, most certainly at the end, or second half, you will be in a position where your chips will be lower than 10 blinds, time goes by, the games gets slower and slower, as more and more people start losing their stacks, they take longer to decide and you will be playing less hands, while at the same time, the blinds are getting higher and your stack remains the same… You are not going to risk a huge portion to maybe gain the same, as you will end up very low on chips with no chance but get really lucky against more than one player… What to do when this happens? First you want to avoid this to happen, but how? I just said you will be low stack against 2 or 3 or more!? Well. This is when you want to reduce your chances of losing. How? By changing your strategy once more, from passive caller, you are going to be a little more active, there is a risk to it of course, but the risk to lose lots against 2 or 3 or more is far less than against 1. PLUS, if you raise / go on top one player, there is a BIG chance he will fold to you reducing the earnings of course, but the risk is gone and you leave the hand with twice the chips you went in with or more. Makes sense? Let’s rewind, you are changing to a more aggressive stance, yes, but your long term strategy remains the same, you move from passive to aggressive on one or two hands where you are getting low on chips… If you do this when you are very low you’ll be fighting against many and most probably be out of the tournament by then… happy to make the top half of a pro regional tournament, playing solid average poker… BUT if you do this a bit earlier, when you can do some damage still to a big stack, the chances run more in your favour than his… he will try to protect his big stack, and you will survive yet another pivotal moment and regroup for another round of cards…
Luck is relative, you might not get the same amount of luck every time, but like all, the longer you play, if it’s on the same day, hours, or if you count multiple tournaments, days or months, luck stretches evenly and you will get the same across the board… it depends when you get it, against who, and so on… just don’t despair, every hand you play you learn something new.
Final Stage – The final table
So here we are… 15 tables of 8 ppl per table, over 100+ players, or 1 in 100 odds to win… 7-8 hours of poker non-stop… well 2 15 minute breaks, and you made it to the final 8…. With a medium stack… lol.
You still consider yourself average? Guess I did… maybe my humble side was, but a little pride told me I could still do it, I was not average and could win it all, at least now its 1 in 8 chances (or more as I was mid stack) so you get a bit extra motivation to keep going…
Luck takes part of many stages of a poker tournament, one important moment is in the final table position draw… where you pick a card to see which seat is yours thus how long till you are big blind… or how many free hands you get to play… again, mid table, not bad…
First one gone… then a second, then I’m in the blinds… apparently the logic applied earlier when being medium stack to push against high stacks applies perfectly on the final table… a mix of protecting my blinds, and mostly protecting my stack while patiently folding my shit hands, let others risk more than me, drop their seats, and keep me in the game a bit longer…
Two times, I had to put myself in an almost irreversible position of calling or blinding myself out of the game, which luckily didn’t happen. Showdowns vs the second best kept me in the game, and made me second larger stack against other 3 players… Eventually one was gone, and between the three of us luck ran out on the chip leader making me second stack against the last remaining player… going hard when necessary worked perfect one more time, it’s amazing how protective one can be when there is so much at stake… this gave me the edge, maybe I was a bit lucky he was not super aggressive and made me fold more than I wanted, but I ended up with the same or more than him on a final hand.
The final hand.
Almost the same stack as my opponent, it was a matter of going all in with a solid hand. Whoever gets it first will take the price and win.
Of course there’s luck as usual, but it’s about odds, always the odds, any strong ace is a winner unless you face pockets… on a showdown, pockets are extremely rare, so the moment you get an ace your heart will start pounding, you know you are almost certainly ahead… so you make your move.
To cut it short, once this happens, and your opponent has a decent hand there is not much to add but draw the board… I have Ace Nine (suited) he has King Ten… he will not fold it, if he does I’m ahead and it’s again, row till you can dominate and win… no point he calls.
No luck just a hand… no one hits. I win.
Relief, pride, humility, cheers, handshakes, and the money… this moment will stay in time, you will try to repeat it, you’ve learn from it, and you might, just repeat it, win again, but the first big win is so special, so sweet, you will almost cry of joy.
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