WHAT I LEARNED AT THE BLOODLETTING

Getting Bad beat out of the World Series would normally shut a guy down for a while, but just by accident I had happened to win entry into another final WSOP final tourney for later in the night. It came on a $6 buy-in where 1 in 40+ make it to the $215 party. That tourney saw 480 players sign up with 8 guaranteed seats. I was cruising early and by the second break I was 7 of 85 with 31,000 chips.

Things were starting to get tough as the antes and blinds increased. A guy two to my right kept firing at pots pre-flop a little too often and I figured I'd wait for a hand and make him make a decision for all his chips. It finally came in the reality of KQs, and it worked like a charm because I hit a king. The bad news is that he folded like I expected but the big blind just happened to have AA and I was gone from the tourney. 60 of 480. I needed to make something happen, but I made the grave error of isolating a player and ignoring the others.

As I played the WSOP I was also playing a $20 tourney in the background. I didn't pay attention to my table and simply made a decision and moved back to the WS. With 75 players left and 70 making money, I was sitting in 42 place when I received QQ under the gun. I decided immediately that I would not call off all my chips pre-flop with it, and therefore I wouldn't call a re-raise and therefore I would simply cold call The man one off the button made a 3.5x raise and when it folded around to me, I decided that I was squarely in the lead. He either had Ax, or a pair lower than QQ. The bet just seemed a little too strong for AA or KK. I decided that I give up the hand if an A or K flopped and check-raise all in if the anything lower than a Q came.

The flop came 983 and I didn't even need to check raise because he bet me all-in himself. Now I was even more sure that I was looking at JJ or TT, because he simply did not want to see the turn. I called and he turned over JJ, and much to my horror he hit runner, runner flush to knock me out. Not playing it safe cost me $72, and the old me would have been angry with myself. The new me was just happy that I made the right decision and gave myself a better opportunity to win the tourney.

It was a good feeling to win my first tourney a few weeks ago, but finishing so close to a seat yesterday made me realize that it wasn't a fluke. I tried to pinpoint what has improved and it's simply being better able to do online what I've been able to do in casino, figure out the situation. I seem to have a better feel for whether I am the favorite than before. For instance, not only did I get knocked out of the WSOP via the bad beat, but I didn't suck out once during the entire tourney. I never got into an all-in situation as the dog. Twice I did bet decently into hands representing strength only to get called, but one of the calls was a toss-up had I been playing and the other was either a good bluff read or simply desperation.

Why is it easier? I think because the structure of a tourney is such that you can start to depend on players making certain kinds of moves depending on their stack size in relation to the blinds. What I noticed since March when I began playing tourneys more religiously is that I'm instinctually evaluating the situation and most the time the correct reply comes without a whole lot of thought needed. The other thing is that I've stopped worrying so much about how much money I paid or I can win and simply try to win the tourney.

When I made the $1000 WSOP final on Saturday night, the bubble was worth $560 more than 20x my original satellite buy-in. When the payout structure got near I asked myself if I would be better tanking and grabbing the cash. I decided that I would be a fool to not try for Vegas. I'm in a tourney groove and while the $560 would have come and gone, I might never get another chance at the series. I realized that I use to get nervous playing in tourneys trying not to make a mistake. Not only was I not nervous this time, I really believed I would win a ticket, even though I had never played in a $1000 buy-in before. So the end result that time was sour, but that I showed I could hold my own even at that level has given the confidence to think that my time will come.