Good News Bad News

Mostly good news actually.

I outlasted over 500 players last night at HPC's Poker Derby tournament Event #1, a deep stack NLHE $125 freeze out. I finished 17th.

That's the good news.

The bad news - I only pocketed $490 total for my ten hours of work and walked out of the casino at 5 in the morning. And although it was a non-smoking room, people were cheating in the hallways because it was so cold outside, so my eyes and lungs burned throughout the event.

I did have fun, but talk about a grind. I said aloud when I sat down, after glancing at the structure and seeing how many players there were, "This will last till 7 in the morning." The table mate to my right (who it turned out would bust me over 10 hours later) said something to the effect of "Oh no, this will be shorter than that. Fast structure here."

Wrong. I nailed it - I knew what had to be done to go deep. And I almost made it just right, I just didn't get lucky at the end when everyone was virtually short stacked anyway. The real money was in the top 6 players. That would have been sweet.

Still, it was nice to more than double my money I guess - there were plenty of others who played for over 9 hours and made 30% on their investment or less - and even those who played for 8 hours and made nothing.

And don't think that this is a regular thing for me now. I had planned for almost two months to play in this event; the other tournament I played on 12/21 was an impulsive getaway. Sven and I had been talking about going to this event together for awhile and it was kind of fun to make it happen. Though he felt the same way about the smoke and the grind - he busted at about 100th place, and was one of those who had invested cash and substantial time only to walk away with just smelly clothes and burned lungs.

I love live poker, but I won't be doing one of those again. I'll be sticking to the 10K guarantee on Sunday at 1130 in the morning. HPC's regular tourneys are in a much less ghetto and much less smokey area of the casino. If I do ever another deepstack in the smoke room (I did in fact love that the structure favored skill, plus there was a chance to win real money for a low buy-in) it will have to start in the morning.

Not much to say about my play - except super tight with an occasional move thrown in seemed to work out pretty well. I got paid with my monsters, especially when I was deceptive (limping with Aces, etc.) and I did manage to c-bet successfully on a number of occasions despite my lack of connection with the flop.

I feel good about my game and play, but I know I still have lots to learn. What I don't want to be is what the majority of players are when they get a big stack - aggressive without selection. Time after time I saw a big stack sit down, and then splash around without a plan of escape or even worse, without an aggressive follow through.

I had a big stack through the last third of the tournament, and I basically folded my way to the second table, before once again I was eaten alive by the monster blinds. Not great, but so much better than imploding with A7 suited the way a lady with a mountain of chips did, tangling with the only other big stack at our table who woke up with kings. And then she got mad at the dealer. Classless and just plain stupid.

Not for me. My goal is that when I get the stack, to EFFECTIVELY bully with SELECTIVE aggression. There were a couple of guys who had it right, and accumulated rather than spewed their chips. Someday, I'll get there. For now, I'm just having a blast.