Dec 09, 2005 – 08:12AM
Soupie, a player I highly respect, has often told me two facts that kind of go hand in hand. I'd like to talk about those a little today in a couple of ways, partially because of a situation that came up last night. Poker is an emotional game. Between bad beats, suckouts, coin flips, bluffs, etc there is a wide range of emotions you often feel as a player during the course of an evening. Poker players are also often by their very nature ego-maniacs. In order to be successful you must have the attitude that you will be successful, and often that means feeling that you're the best player at the table.
So what do these two points have to do with anything?? Well, the most common example of emotion in poker is tilt. You *MUST* learn to control your emotions at the table. If you don't, you'll often find yourself spewing chips. But everyone knows that, and it's kind of like stating the obvious. What isn't always obvious is you must also be aware of other player's emotional states as the game progresses. Have they recently been picked off?? Sucked out on?? Have they been the one providing the bad beat?? Is their ego bruised?? All of these things have an impact on how the other players at your table will be playing, and you should be in tune to that if you want to get every edge you can. Players who have been sucked out on or otherwise had their ego bruised recently are often more often ready to take a stand, and sometimes players on heaters feel invincible. Some players, however, when running good tend to ease off the gas pedal and try and preserve their newfound stack. You must be observant enough to pick up on these things, even in online poker.
There are also a few stages in a poker game that can have long term emotional effects on you even after the tournament is over. I know very early in my 'poker career' just making it 'in the money' was a HUGE deal to me. Even though ITM is often just a fraction higher than your initial buy in, for a new player it was a big deal. The times when I made it very close to the money but busted near the bubble had a profound emotional impact on my play, and could affect me for days afterwards. A little later on in my poker career the times I would bubble near the final table would leave me scratching my head for hours as I try and convince myself I could have laid a good hand down and made it to the final table.
I'm at a point now, where I feel comfortable enough with myself and my game that I simply will always make the play that I feel will make me the most money long term. If I bubble the final table, I know I'll get another chance at it before too long. If I bubble the money, well I know my goal was to go deep anyways. It's an emotional state that over the course of many, MANY tournaments I've achieved. I always know they'll be a next tournament, and I have the long term results to know that I'm a winner, which allows me to not get too upset when I end up on the wrong side of things.
So why do I bring this stuff up today?? Well, last night I was railing two of my good online poker friends who were playing in the 45k on Stars, xTrACEy and WebGuySteve. They both played magnificent poker and deserved their deep finishes last night. The following hand came up and while I still believe xTrACEy made the right play, it was an emotionally devastating one that I hope she gets over quickly so she can continue her consistently deep finishes in tournaments lately.
There were 10 players left, and the tournament had just announced hand for hand, so everyone was aware they were on the bubble. Tracey had a little under 900k in chips with what I believe were 15k/30k blinds with a 3k ante. She had the unfortunate table placement of being at a table where almost all of the stacks that were ahead of her were there, while all of the short stacks were on WebGuySteve's table pretty much. Foshio, a player I highly respect who is very good was sitting in the cutoff seat when Tracey got 99 in the BB. Foshio, as a good player, knows that the FT bubble is a great place to pick up chips, as a lot of players become timid as they want to make the final table. Foshio made a pretty standard size raise (I don't remember the exact amount, but it was roughly 3x the BB) and it's folded around to Tracey. So there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 120k in the pot and after posting the BB Tracey has about 850k. Foshio could be raising any two on the bubble here I believe, and Tracey is WAY ahead of that and has a chance to take a pretty big pot. She raised all in here and Foshio woke up with JJ and called.
In hindsight the push might look marginal, or even bad to some people. But a good player knows that this play has a huge positive expectation. I'd say you get a fold here 95% of the time as Foshio will raise with a lot of hands, and will only call with a few for most of his chips on the bubble here, especially with Tracey being a fairly tight player who has been getting a lot of respect at the table. I believe he may have folded TT here and given how long he thought before calling I think he might have been considering folding JJ even. I also think there is a chance he calls with AK/AQ, hands that you are ahead of.
I still firmly believe that a push is correct here. Any raise less than a push is going to pot commit you on the flop anyways, and folding 99 against a likely stealer on the bubble certainly seems weak to me. It really sucks that she got unlucky here and ran into a hand, but I hope she still has the nerve to pull this move next time as I know it will make her money in the long run. Emotionally, I know this tournament had to be very hard on her. She's been consistently making runs into the money in this tournament finishing in the 70-100 range probably 5-6 times in the last 2-3 weeks. I've felt like she's 1-2 big breaks away from a huge payday, and I still firmly believe that. I'm sure she felt like this time should have been her big break though, and I really hope the emotional impact of this particular loss doesn't convince her to play weak poker near the FT next time.
The truth is, emotions cloud our judgement. When we win, we never analyze what we did wrong, only what we did right. In truth I've won more than a few tournaments while making mistakes, and I try and judge my tournament wins just as harshly in hindsight as my losses. When we lose though, we always look for the big mistake we made. Sometimes there is an obvious one, or even a subtle one. Often times in poker though, we can lose without making a big mistake, but simply by running into the wrong situation at the wrong time. Being able to look back and judge both our wins and our losses with scrutiny and honesty is a big part to growth as a poker player, and learning how to honestly evaluate your own game without clouding your judgement with results, is a huge step on the path to successful poker.
-Rizen
Dec 09, 2005 – 07:12AM
Well, after my long post on maintaining a consistently high level of play yesterday, I waited almost exactly 12 hrs to break my own rule. I played in about 8 tournaments last night, including the aforementioned Pocket 5s open. There were more tournaments I wanted to play in last night than I had desktop real estate to have open, so I did something I don't normally do. Rather than playing my 'A' game the first hour in my early tournaments, I played aggressively and tried to build some chips up. I figured I'd either be in great shape in those tournaments or I'd bust out early and could open up the other ones I wanted to play in.
It wasn't a particularly good idea. Instead of picking 5-6 tournaments and playing my best game I played 8 tournaments, 4 of which I didn't play my best in and then some later tournaments where I played my best game. Was a huge mistake. I busted out of the Pocket 5s open on a horrible play, and my play in the Stars 150+12 was super erratic. I did end up cashing in the UB 100+9 for a reasonable payday, but all in all it was a losing night.
I truly believe that to take it to the next level as a poker player you need to be able to play all styles of poker well (loose, tight, aggressive, conservative, etc) so you can always switch to the appropriate gear for the table and time in the tournament, but I took what I knew was a sub-optimal strategy for the sake of trying to fit in a few extra tournaments. I'm really going to go back to focusing on playing my solid 'A' game all night tonight, and if it means I stick to fewer tournaments then I'm just going to have to pick a few to sit out of.
In short, do as I say not as I do :) Hopefully I can get this behind me and maintain a high level of play this weekend.
-Rizen
Dec 07, 2005 – 07:12AM
I promise this post will have something to do with poker. In yesterday's post, I mentioned that I was going to take last night off so I could watch the KU game (we won't talk about that), spend some time with my family, and get some sleep. Well, Shauna (my wife for those of you that don't know) had a final in school last night and called to tell me it would be running later than she thought. This left me at home with the baby sleeping for a good amount of time, so I couldn't help but fire up the tables. I decided to make tonight my 'night off' and play last night.
I played in 6 tournaments last night with no cashes. I wasn't really upset with the way I played because minus a few small mistakes (bet sizes, and a continuation bet I felt was horrible) I played pretty well. I went out of the UB 100+9 pretty early when my flopped overpair ran into TP/TK and the river hit his Ace. I'll spare you all the bad beat stories (you know how I feel about those) but that was pretty much my tournament night. I bubbled in 2 tournaments, in one of those 20 paid and I went out 21st. Again though, I felt my play was fine so I wasn't too upset with myself, and since I busted early I was able to get a good night's sleep.
Since I busted out of most of my tournaments pretty quickly I was left in the Empire Happy Hour (the one I finished 21st in). I was at a VERY tough table with some of my poker friends: Soupie, scgolfer, and WebGuySteve. Some of the other players weren't too bad either, so I knew making the FT was going to be extremely hard. When the Happy Hour gets 100+ people though it goes hand for hand at 30 and doesn't stop until the final table. This can make this tournament VERY boring until you get down to 10, so I fired up two 15/30 cash tables on Party while I waited.
Well, I was catching REALLY well in my cash games for about the 90 minutes I played and just crushed them. At the end of the night, despite not cashing in any of the 6 tournaments, and 4 of the 6 having a $100 or greater buy in, I was a fair amount in the black for the night. I used to play almost exclusively cash games until I switched to more focus on MTTs about 4 months ago, so it's sometimes nice to get back to my bread and butter. Overall December has been a decent month so far. I've made 2 final tables (both last Saturday) and have a good run in my cash games for a decent profit so far.
-Rizen
Dec 05, 2005 – 11:12AM
Well, I'm jumping on the bandwagon per se and starting a blog. If you've arrived here, you're probably a family member/friend of mine, or someone who knows me through 2+2 or Pocket Fives. For those of you that don't know a lot about me, here's the quick version. I'm a 27 yr old software engineer from Kansas City, Kansas who also happens to spend a lot of time playing online poker.
This blog really serves two main purposes for me right now, although I reserve the right to turn it into something a bit more in the future should something come of it. The real goal and reason I first considered starting a poker blog though was because of my recent win in a PCA Double Shootout event. My family and friends all wanted a way to keep up with how I'll be doing as I play in the Bahamas Atlantis event this January, and I figured this would be the easiest (and most inexpensive) way to do so.
In addition, I'm also a person who truly loves the game of poker, and I have a lot of quasi-philosophical thoughts on the game. Since I'm creating the blog anyways, I'll probably update it 4-5 times a week after I play with some general thoughts on some play/situation that came up that night as well as perhaps a few generalisms on poker. I also may post 1 or 2 hands a day that I think are interesting in some form or another. They may or may not be hands I was actually involved in.
One thing that is NOT currently the goal of this blog is to attempt to make you, the reader, a better player. The site is strictly for entertainment purposes. That being said, I do truly hope that regular visits here will encourage the people who read this to more closely examine their own games. If that happens to make you a better player, then I am happy to have helped. There are a lot of sites already out there that are meant to improve your poker game (and quite likely do so better than I could), so I will leave the 'teaching' to them.
On top of all of that, I first and foremost consider myself a student of the game. I learn something new each and every day it seems, or at the very least encounter a situation that makes me re-evaluate something I thought I knew to be poker gospel. I don't think the day will ever come where I don't feel I'm improving as a player, and if it does that will probably be the day my game takes a turn for the worse. With that being said, I'm *ALWAYS* happy to discuss poker. I'm sure throughout my posts I will include various ways to contact me if you wish to discuss various poker related things. One of the easiest is to e-mail rizen@sneakybuffalo.com. As a disclaimer, I'm a busy person with a 'real job' and a family I take care of. I appreciate it if you try and respect that and realize that I may not always respond to e-mail in a timely fashion, especially in the evenings when I am concentrating mostly on playing my game.
I may update this from time to time if either the purpose of this blog changes or if I get feedback that leads me to believe it should be updated. I hope that everyone who reads this gets some sort of enjoyment out of it, and I look forward to seeing you all on the tables.
-Rizen
