To paraphrase Tom Hanks’ line in A League of Their Own; “Frustration? There’s no frustration in poker!” To which I must, in all sincerity, respond by exclaiming “bullpucky!” I have just gone through a week’s worth of attempting to qualify for a major local tournament by seating myself in a number of pre-qualification satellite events. I am getting more and more convinced I hate satellite qualifying for tournaments; I’d rather buy into the tournament and get down to playing.
Yes, I understand by qualifying through a satellite one can participate in the larger tournament for much less money up front, but let’s face it – so many satellite players are there not because they are good players but because they are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle and win an entry to the main event. Trouble is, they play the satellite just as they play in live action; playing “wish poker” and hoping their fifth level hands get there. And get there they do: I was on the button when everyone else folded around to me. I looked down to find A-Q offsuit, so I raised about four times the Big Blind. The small blind folded and the BB, after some moments of “deliberation” elected to call my raise. The flop came Q-T-7 rainbow; I had flopped top pair, top kicker. Long story short – no, this is not a bad beat story – he called my before-the-flop raise with 10-7 of diamonds and then flopped two pair. As he pulled the pot in, he looked at me and said, “Well, I just thought you were trying to steal my blind.”
Steal your blind? With Ace-Queen? Oh, no way was I ever, possibly trying to do that. What a Doofus – defending a blind against a four-times raise with ten-seven, even if “It was ‘suited’?” And like the proverbial blind dog finding a bone once in a while, this genius just happened to catch miracle cards on the flop when he decided to defend his blind with trash. So…does this make one wonder about the caliber of players in satellites? You better believe it! Just a little bit frustrating? Oh, not really (not!).
I find – and this is a perfectly individual observation – that it is not the throw of the cards and luck of the draw that provides the catalyst for frustration in poker. I understand the probabilities of hitting a straight or flush with four cards to them. One hand I played illustrates the point: I called the blind from late position with 7-5h, and then flopped an open-ended straight and heart flush draw. There were two other players in the hand, a bettor to my right and a smooth-caller to my left. Again, long story short, with the odds of making my hand one way or the other at approximately one out of three – and I was getting appropriate pot odds with the other two players in the hand – I ended up missing everything and had to fold when the river card didn’t help. The winner, the player on my right, won with a straight; the “dumb end” of the straight even. He had played a 3-5 – yes, it was suited – and again the braying of the donkey at his great play and “3-5 is my favorite hand” was heard over the noise of his stacking our chips. I had accurately assessed my chances, knew what the odds of making the hand were, had the correct pot odds and expected value and then missed. Hey, I rolled my dices and took my chances. That part I can deal with…
What constantly amazes me is instead of playing smart poker, thinking poker, probabilities poker, there are all those players out there playing favorite hands, defending with trash not because it’s a smart play but because their ego is challenged, and all the other unintelligent reasons they do what they do.
So after all of this, how does one deal with the frustration brought on by genius players? I sat out on the deck with a $5 cigar and a glass of 12-year-old scotch and watched the birds at the feeder. You know what I realized at that point? I realized that if anyone says so-and-so “eats like a bird,” don’t ever think they’re a light or picky eater. Those birds eat like pigs.
