I went to the local Pokertorium the other day to try my hand at one of the daily tournaments. Where I go has four each day with varying buy-in amounts, chip stacks and round durations. I decided on a noon tournament costing all of $60 to enter; $5 more for dealer appreciation – something I am completely in favor of – got me another 2,000 chips for a beginning stack of 5,000. Twenty-minute rounds were OK for stacks that size and expected duration of the tourney was maybe 4 hours with four tables in the event.
The event was not quite sold out at 40 players (10 per table) and it quickly became evident any pre-game strategy I had devised (and I do think about that prior to any tourney) was going the way of the Doo-Doo. That means it quickly became extinct. Dead. Non-viable. Wasn’t working. There was/is a ‘Rule of Combat’ that states, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Well, that’s what happened.
Before the second round ended I was down to a very short stack. I had been beaten down by gut-shot draws getting there, open-ended draws coming in, flush draws receiving a miracle card and so forth. Frankly, I was expecting a meteor through the roof at any second to put me out of my misery. I was down to four big blinds remaining after the last beat and saw the blinds homing in on me. When I looked down at two red Queens my only move was, of course, the all-in. I got one caller and at the dealer’s command we turned our cards face up. He had pocket Jacks and for the briefest of moments I thought I had a chance of survival. A Jack right out of the chute ended my participatory opportunities in that tournament.
So I had to ask myself: Whatcha Gonna Do? There were no live games available as everyone was in the tournament. The next tournament was a little over two hours away. I could wander up the street checking on live games somewhere else or (desperation time) I could head home and finish up some chores. Or…I could buy an open stack and re-enter the tournament. Well, it’s only $60 plus $5 and the stack I’d get would be down only a few blinds. So I re-bought into the tournament and fortunately got a seat at a different table.
It was like night and day; I tightened up when I had to and avoided traps and getting slammed by better hands. I loosened up when appropriate and picked up blinds and dead money. By the time of the first break – after four rounds – I had double the original starting stack. In essence, I had all the chips I would have had after two full buy-ins. Things were looking up, and it wasn’t for any loose interstellar space rock arriving at my locale anytime soon. (Whew! I was sweating that one out.)
For the rest of the tournament, the planned strategy I had developed for this tournament turned – amazingly – into actuality. I was able to connect on a number of draws when my opponents disbelieved I held what my betting represented. I was able to play strong hands properly and even had Pocket Aces hold up after I slow-played them before the flop (By the way, don’t ever do this. I just happened to be in the absolutely right position and had good reads on my opponents. Normally, it’s best to protect Pocket Rockets like they were your first-born child). I was even able to make a player lay down a better hand by a well-timed check-raise.
We all agreed to a save for the Bubble, who busted out a few hands later. The fourth-place finisher went out a few hands after that. The remaining three looked at each other: Two of us were nearly equal in chip stacks and the chip leader had 30,000 more than our average. A deal was agreed upon and for a total of $130 for my two buy-ins I netted $550 minus the save for the Bubble. Not too bad for four hours work. We also toked the dealers for their work, something I advise every tournament casher to be generous about, for those people indeed work hard for their money and deserve every dollar we give them.
I figure I did well in correctly answering the question “Whatcha Gonna Do? after the first bust-out. I only wish all answers to that question turn out as successfully as that.
