#9 A couple good days

2/11 and 2/12, 4 tournaments, 2 cashes, +$5.80

February to date, +$16.30


I didn't get to play on the 10th, and not much on the 11th. On the 11th and 12th combined I only played 4 total tournaments, but I cashed in two of them, so I still moving in the right direction.


It's annoying winning, and playing for, such small amounts, but I played with a small bankroll once, and it wasn't pretty. I've never going to do that again. When playing on a small bankroll and not moving up without 50 buy-ins, it can take a while to move up. If poker was easy, a lot more people would be doing it.


I had a near miss in a 90-man tournament. I went out 17th (12 players cashed). That was one of those tournaments where one or two better hands could have made a big difference. But those near-misses cause me to think about what I could have done better or differently.


I had a hand where my hole cards were Q5 and the flop was QQ7 (3 suits), there were a couple callers, and everyone folded. Yes I had a big hand in late position, but if I had been thinking I would have realized that since there was only one queen still out there, the flop almost certainly didn't help anyone. I should have tried to check it down until someone hit a card that would help them enough to cause more money to go into the pot.


I won the pot, but I could probably have extracted more chips if I had been more patient. The standard play is often to slowplay a set, but trying to be unreadable, I went against the standard play, and I bet out with top set. It was definitely level 1 thinking--I have a good hand, what I should do?


What I should have been thinking was something like this:


There is only one queen left, and the odds are against someone holding it. Someone could have a pocket pair worth betting, but you are only dealt a pair about 1 time in 12, and someone with a small pair would probably fold to a raise anyway. There was a 7 on the flop, but again, if someone flopped bottom pair, they might fold to a 1/2 pot bet.


The logical conclusion is that my big hand (top set) is probably so far ahead of the field that if I want to get any action, I need to slow down and give someone a chance to hit something. With no flush or straight draws, there isn't really anything that I'm scared of, and I should have waited. That misplayed hand may have been the one that kept me out of the money.


The bottom line is that I've been working on betting in more situations, and putting more pressure on my opponents. But that spot wasn't the time to be strong. I didn't take the time to think about ways that the hand might play out, and I lost a chance to win a bigger pot. Lesson learned.


Tomorrow I'm playing a live tournament, just my second of the year. I'm excited about doing more live playing. I'm definitely getting better at the mechanics of the live game, at least as far as keeping track of stack sized, pot size, etc. I'll probably work on those things again tomorrow, and perhaps try to get a read on one or two players at the table.


Of course, it's fun to get out and play poker against real people. Making my living online, it's not unusual for me to go several days without even leaving the house.


I'll have a report on that tournament, along with my results for the week, early next week.