Back at the virtual table

Posted on September 18, 2005
Filed Under Poker

I haven’t played much poker online lately after having an absolutely awful 6-8 weeks which saw me lose most of my bankroll. So, I decided to just take a break for a bit. Then, last night while doing some work at my desk, I loaded up my poker software and saw that a $25 tournament was getting ready to start. There were already about 150 people in so I figured it would be a good size field and a good sized payout to win it. When the tourney started, there were 210 total players. I played fairly tight for the first hour or so. Was trying to avoid any big confrontations. I dumped a bunch of hands that I might have normally played (K/J, Q/T, etc…). I just sorta kept to my game plan which was to lay low for the first 2 hours and only put my money in the pot when I knew I had the best of it. This worked pretty well and I built up from my 1000 chips to about 3500 at the end of the 2nd hour.

Then, during the 3rd hour, things really slow down in the tournament. As it approaches the point where people are in the money, they start playing “hand-for-hand”. This means that all 4 tables in the tournament play the exact same number of hands. If your table’s hand finishes quickly, you wait for the other 3 to finish before the next hand is dealt. This makes it so people don’t slow play hoping that people at other tables will go out while they wait… But, during that time, people with few chips tend to play really tight as they don’t want to get knocked out right before they hit pay dirt. So, it’s much easier to steal chips. And this is what I did. I made SEVERAL steals when I knew I didn’t have the best hand. But, I had chips to gamble with. Then, 3 separate times I got in to big pots after flopping BIG hands. So, during the 3rd hour I went from being an “about average” stack to being the 3rd biggest chip stack.

When the 3rd hour ended, there were 32 players left. 2 away from making the money. I decided to go back to playing tight until the bubble burst. I would only get in to confrontations with people who had WAY less chips than I did. If somebody had 60% or more the chips I had, I’d let them steal chips if I didn’t have an absolute monster hand. The bubble finally burst and then play sped up. I knocked out 2 guys in one hand when I flopped a set of 9s. Things were really going my way and I was feeling great.

Sadly, I didn’t win. Actually, I didn’t even make the final table. I ended up finishing 17th. I had lost a few decent sized pots and ended up being fairly short stacked. I picked up pocket 6s on the button and a guy in mid position raised the pot with a minimal raise. So, I figured he likely had 2 big cards. I decided to push all-in hoping to get him to just fold right then and take the pot. But, if he calls, I feel I’m starting with the best hand. Sure enough, he calls. He had A/Q. After seeing a Q on the flop, my evening was finish. But, I was rather pleased to have made the money on my first multi-table tournament in close to 2 months.

Next stop, final table…

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