I sat down for my first tournament in 2011 last weekend and I was doing fairly well, up to a point. We began the event with 50 players at five tables with a payout for the final five – $2,500 first place money for a $150 buy-in is not bad at all for a local evening’s competition. I was able to steal a few blinds and win a pot here and there, so by the first break I was up about 50 percent from my starting stack of $15,000.
Things began to run cold for me during the next few rounds and I dropped back to around my starting chip stack, so I decided to tighten up a little and wait for the proverbial quality starting hands. They didn’t come for the rest of the rounds prior to second break, so again I dropped about half my stack in blinds and the occasional good-starting-hand that turned out to be second-best by the river. By that time we were down to three tables and players could sense the money like a ship’s lookout could see another ships’ smoke over the horizon.
After the second break, I now had just 7,000 chips and the blinds were beginning their rise towards to point of soon making me a desperate short-stacker. In a late position after the two blinds and two other players limped in, I looked down to find A-7 suited. Not a quality hand but I had to make a move sooner or later, so perhaps a 7,000 raise would be just enough to scare everyone else out. Wrong. Everyone and I mean everyone, called my all-in bet. I’m almost of the mind that there were two players on the table next to mine who wanted to call as well.
The flop came A-9-6 rainbow; the player to my left went all-in at that point and was called by another, the fourth player mucked his cards. At the dealer’s command to reveal our hands, I tabled my A-7, the player to my left showed A-J and the remaining player Pocket Kings. I knew I was drawing thin, so I asked the dealer to bring a seven. Pow. No waiting. A seven on the turn made me two pair, and then a blank on the river allowed me to scoop the main pot while the A-J took the remainder.
Later, in a similar situation but slightly better stacked than I was before, I called a short-stacked player’s all-in bet with Q-J of diamonds when he held A-Ten unsuited. A Jack on the flop and no other high card allowed me to sweep that pot and return to a fairly respectable chip position. I had gotten lucky twice; and actually it was mostly luck the first time and some luck and a good read for the second one. I felt he would play any weak Ace and I was correct.
Now, before concluding this minor saga in poker life, I will address a concept about which this article’s title concerns. First off, tournament play is an exercise in patience, waiting for a strong, playable hand in a good position and then striking hard. These kinds of hands come around infrequently and so the desire and temptation to mix it up with second-rate starting hands is strong. But truly, the key to tournament success, in the early-to-middle stages is the exercising of patience. The most common mistake of neophyte tournament players is to play too many hands; so one key is to tighten up and wait the opportunity to pounce.
The main point of this article, and something I’ve heard and/or read from a number of highly successful tournament players, is that one has to get lucky a time or two (or three) and also cannot make more than two small mistakes or one large error. In my experience, this rings true much more often than not. One has to play an almost perfect game, no mistakes or costly errors at all, to win a tournament. It certainly helps if one can get lucky a time or two, but it’s the mistake(s) that will kill your tournament dream.
So I made a major raise with A-Q suited and was reraised by an all-in bet from the other side of the table. The moment I called, and I did not stop to think longer about this as I should have, I knew I made a mistake. The raiser was a solid tournament player and wouldn’t do that on a drawing hand such as I held that late in the tournament (we were down to 12 players). His Pocket Cowboys held up and I was out of the game…sooo close and yet sooo far. Phooey.
In summation, there it is…you’ve got to get lucky a time or two AND you must avoid any major mistakes (such as mine) to get into the money. By such lessons, we live and learn. Or is it live and don’t learn? I’m still working on figuring that out.
