Yeah, this is going to disappoint those of you who were rooting for me, but I'm out.
I won three hands in the first two levels. I think I saw a grand total of 15 flops of almost four levels of play, and did not have any luck stealing preflop, either. I don't know what my image was like, but I don't think "nit" is quite harsh enough. Aso, I've either severely underestimated the average skill level of a day 1 main event entrant, or I drew a really tough table. At least five of the players at my table were high stakes online players (0ne of whom were Josh Arieh, who also had the chip lead for awhile, and he was 3 to my left).
So my stack was blinded down to about 15k, when I ran a bluff with 97s in the hijack versus the guy on my immediate left but while he looked unhappy about continuing versus the local nit, he flopped top pair with AJo and I lost about half my stack. After that, it was push/fold mode and it lasted a little while into the last level of the day when I started out 3bet-shoving the first two hands (AA and AKo respectively) without getting action and then going mostly card dead again until I 3-bet-shoved 77 on the button versus a loose cut-off opener, took it down, went card-dead, and then open-shoved 99 in the cut-off and button calls with aces - and I'm busto.
But here's the dirty little secret:
I don't enjoy tournaments. And I don't particularly enjoy live poker. So when, during the dinner break, I go to the bathroom and am sitting on the can, I think to myself: "what am I doing here?"
[Did I mention I started push/folding after the dinner break?]
See, tournament poker feels like drowning to me. It's like being chained up inside a tank that's slowly filling up with water. If you get really lucky and manage to double up, the water level will become half of what it was before, but it's still rising and it's only a matter of time until it's unnervingly close to your nose. I don't think I can explain it in any better way.
Now I have some reading to do and some water to drink; I'll try to write a more comprehensive summary tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Vad synd, hade hoppas på minst dag två.
At least you can say you've been there, congrats on that & the CC peeps are proud :)
Are you impressed? - I'm impressed!
This was just not your kind of cup of tea :-)
Puss på dig,
Sis
Terrific analogy there at the end -- I often feel the same way in these suckers. Obviously there are those who float along above the surface without any apparent anxieties, but I ain't one of them.
Great to meet you last night & while I know you'd like for the adventure to have lasted longer, it's a great achievement nonetheless. Hopefully you'll get to enjoy Vegas a bit before departing.
Sorry to hear that. I'd hoped you'd at least survive day 1. But if you're card-dead or run into a really bad beat, the tournament can end just like that. (I'd rather have a bad beat than spend 8 hours being card-dead, myself.)
Of course, tournament structures are meant to give you that progressively-drowning feeling, they're supposed to force players into making moves rather than sitting back and waiting for the right spot. (But you probably know that already.) Some people love that feeling, other people hate it.
For me, poker is a fairly social activity, so I enjoy live poker. I've actually played hardly any on-line poker, though, so I don't have much to compare it to. But with an interesting table, the witty banter and conversation can be fun, as well as the play itself.
Are you hanging around Las Vegas to see the sights and play more poker, or are you heading out shortly? I imagine with the WSOP in town there are lots of good cash games available!
Post a Comment