Online Poker... Lessons learned (1 of 4)
Rule number 1, the next time I play an online multi-table Texas Holdem poker tournament it will not be with a one year old freshly off a nap, bored and wanting attention within range of my laptop. Despite the babies pictured one year olds, at least mine, aren't the most Internet savvy people in the world. Though he does know banging the space bar scrolls the screen down when websurfing.
Rule number 2, the next time I play an online multi-table poker tournament I will go with my instincts and play like I play regardless of the size of the buy-in, that should always be my online poker strategy.
Let's start with Rule number 1. I love my son. Probably more than anything I've loved before, but I need to remember that sometimes combining two loves does not necessarily always produce say Reese Peanut Butter Cups when you mix chocolate and peanut butter. I also love soccer and Frappacinos, but that doesn't mean I should make Frappacinos a pre-game or during game drink. Probably would have dire results. Especially if I were to go out and try and play these days after about a half-decade of atrophy in every muscle and organ important to playing soccer.
Little ones and online poker are not Reese Peanut Butter Cups no they are more like the fun of skipping across a road that just happens to be the home stretch of the Daytona 500. Both are fun activities, but you don't want to combine them.
How did I get to that point and trying to manage a one year old and a multi-table tournament? Let me set the scene a little better. Last week, I played DEEP in a massive low buy-in tournament. In fact, I got to 10 left second in chips. I was looking at 300+x my buy-in for first and about to put it on cruise control. I had the day before dealt with the disappointment of going out 89th in an over 6k field, when some moron snap called my shove (both of us sitting 30 bbs deep) with pocket deuces to hit a set and break off my overpair.
Still, I was playing great, aggressive, and exploiting the weak fields that populate those low buy-ins, and not letting the previous tilt set in. As I studied the chip counts and we went to break, I thought back to a conversation I had with Gene D about the Main Event, where he said if he came in the chipleader he wouldn't play a hand until it was three left or just might blind out of the Main Event by sitting in the stands with his friends having a party until he had to come back to play.
I thought no way you could make the final table with that attitude, but... I could see his point perhaps an attitude adjustment was required in that situation. Suddenly, this final table looked like much that situation. If I didn't do anything too dangerous, I could cruise to the final three and then flip there for the tournament.
Hmmm... The two tables were playing for the final table, tightly, and nobody was busting and the short-stacks were winning. Fairly gruesome, but I was in no hurry. Anyway, to keep myself occupied I constantly had one, two or three other tournaments going at the same time. Inadvertently, I entered a super-turbo satellite. You might notice a theme over the course of this blog, that I'm not the most careful into buying into other tournaments when I'm playing one already. I've nipped the leak of misreading the buy-ins but I still discover I'm in weird tournaments once the window opens.
In the satellite I chipped up, and chipped up. Suddenly, I had two parallel situations going on. In both I could sit on my hands and profit. The satellite made the most sense because first place was going to 10 of us, while the rest got nothing or something close to nothing in cash.
Rule number 2, the next time I play an online multi-table poker tournament I will go with my instincts and play like I play regardless of the size of the buy-in, that should always be my online poker strategy.
Let's start with Rule number 1. I love my son. Probably more than anything I've loved before, but I need to remember that sometimes combining two loves does not necessarily always produce say Reese Peanut Butter Cups when you mix chocolate and peanut butter. I also love soccer and Frappacinos, but that doesn't mean I should make Frappacinos a pre-game or during game drink. Probably would have dire results. Especially if I were to go out and try and play these days after about a half-decade of atrophy in every muscle and organ important to playing soccer.
Little ones and online poker are not Reese Peanut Butter Cups no they are more like the fun of skipping across a road that just happens to be the home stretch of the Daytona 500. Both are fun activities, but you don't want to combine them.
How did I get to that point and trying to manage a one year old and a multi-table tournament? Let me set the scene a little better. Last week, I played DEEP in a massive low buy-in tournament. In fact, I got to 10 left second in chips. I was looking at 300+x my buy-in for first and about to put it on cruise control. I had the day before dealt with the disappointment of going out 89th in an over 6k field, when some moron snap called my shove (both of us sitting 30 bbs deep) with pocket deuces to hit a set and break off my overpair.
Still, I was playing great, aggressive, and exploiting the weak fields that populate those low buy-ins, and not letting the previous tilt set in. As I studied the chip counts and we went to break, I thought back to a conversation I had with Gene D about the Main Event, where he said if he came in the chipleader he wouldn't play a hand until it was three left or just might blind out of the Main Event by sitting in the stands with his friends having a party until he had to come back to play.
I thought no way you could make the final table with that attitude, but... I could see his point perhaps an attitude adjustment was required in that situation. Suddenly, this final table looked like much that situation. If I didn't do anything too dangerous, I could cruise to the final three and then flip there for the tournament.
Hmmm... The two tables were playing for the final table, tightly, and nobody was busting and the short-stacks were winning. Fairly gruesome, but I was in no hurry. Anyway, to keep myself occupied I constantly had one, two or three other tournaments going at the same time. Inadvertently, I entered a super-turbo satellite. You might notice a theme over the course of this blog, that I'm not the most careful into buying into other tournaments when I'm playing one already. I've nipped the leak of misreading the buy-ins but I still discover I'm in weird tournaments once the window opens.
In the satellite I chipped up, and chipped up. Suddenly, I had two parallel situations going on. In both I could sit on my hands and profit. The satellite made the most sense because first place was going to 10 of us, while the rest got nothing or something close to nothing in cash.
To be continued...
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