Poker Tournaments

So recently I've been on the tournament scene to try and change up the type of action I'm seeing at the tables. I learned the hard way that the limit games are very fickle. Good hands don't often win when you are trying avoid to many land mines. Raising a hand by a small increment doesn't get people to drop out of the hand. So Skalansky's book on limit holdem is very true. He states that you basically need to build big pots when you are the favorite in a hand so the extra cash will cover those suckouts you will invariably suffer at the limit game. What he doesn't tell you is that when you build pot after pot but loose runner runner or on the river to two outs you also loose a lot of money. So my story goes that I went on a two month downhill slide that bared witness to some horrendous beats. I could only limit damage so much over the long haul. I had finally hit my first significant loosing streak in two years. I don't know how the pros can handle these types of runs. It makes me understand Mike Matasow's type of behavior I see on TV. Luckily I only do this for recreation and don't depend on paying bills this way.

So I made a conscious effort to move to the No Limit game. However, this by no means guarantees better play just a better chance at defending a good hand against draws and such. So this leads me into why I started playing tournaments. This was a good way for me to limit my risk while gaining some much needed No Limit play experience against players I have never met before. Now I play a friendly No Limit home game with my friends but I know all of them and have learned poker with them for the last two years. Reading them is much easier than reading new people in the casino environment. Also I wanted to get comfortable with the large bets and all in moves you are susceptible to in the game. The tournament play also allows me to practice new strategies and recognize new tactics used against me as well. In short I felt the the tournaments would help me transition into the No Limit cash game. I do however know full well that tournament play is far different from the cash game. But I think that any No Limit experience is good to get comfortable with the money swings.

So my local poker spot is Barona here in east San Diego. It's not the closest one to my house but is probably my favorite one to go to on a regular basis. They give good membership comps, the staff is really nice and I now know a lot of the dealers which helps me not get bored when I'm not getting cards. Boredom can equal some very bad play. I also golf so my time on the tables gets me "free" rounds of golf on a very very nice course. Setup wise I prefer it over Torrey Pines which is 5 minutes from my doorstep. Torrey has better views but the Barona golf course is usually in better shape.

So started my tournament campaign. I went to Harrah's with two friends on a Saturday morning because I heard rumors of horrible play. The buy in was $40. We had 33 players in the tournament. I ended up chopping the 1st and 2nd place prize money for $424. Not bad for tournament #1. This was to cut my teeth which worked out pretty well. Barona started to hold their first tournaments starting the week after my first tournament and win. Mon-Thurs at 6:30pm and Sat and Sun mornings at 10am. I have visited 4 of these tournaments. My first Barona one was a Sat morning tournament which has a buy-in of $30 with $5 of the money going to the house. We had about 74 players and I cam in 15th place. I made the final two tables. Not bad but no money back. Then I went the next day for the Sunday morning tournament and ended up finishing in 10th place. Better but money is paid out to the top 9. I was the bubble boy. Out of 68 players not bad. The following weekend I went back on a Saturday morning and ended up winning the tournament that had 68 players. My win gave me $514 dollars. The great thing about the win was that Barona also entered me into a Freeroll tournament on July 4th. Only winners of the tournaments will be in it. It's free, only 110 people will be entered and the prize purse is set at $15,000. I like my odds on this one. I was pretty happy as you could imagine. My last tournament I was in was the Thursday night tournament at Barona. It's a $40 buy in and the # of people is much larger so that means so is the prize purse. Out of 115 people I finished 5th. My payout was $219. First would have been over $800. I was pretty happy getting through that larger field and making some cash.

So out of 5 tournaments now I have a 1st, 15th, 10th, 1st and 5th place finish. I'd say so far so good on my record. Now of course these are all considered small time sit and go type tournaments that don't last longer than 3 hrs. but I'll gladly take the wins.

I am now planning on going to a bigger tournament this Saturday up at Pechanga. A couple of my poker buddies are headed up with me. It's the 91x radio station sponsored poker tournament. The buy in is $91 and the prize pool is guaranteed at $10,000. So we'll see how many people show up and what the prize pool ends up to be. I'm expecting a couple hundred minimum and hopefully they pay out to the top 10 spots. Also some radio personality named Cantore will be playing. If you knock him out you get a pair of tickets to the Cochela concert this year which is pretty sweet. Anyhow, this is more for experience in a format more similar to the World Series of Poker type tournaments. Blinds only go up every 30 minutes and so we'll see how that effects people's play. The sit and goes I've been in so far raise the blinds every 15 minutes which causes a lot people to play mediocre hands way to strong. They think they are on TV or something. Hopefully I win all my races and let my big hands hold.