Live Tournaments

I am definitely struggling to stay focused, and to spend time studying and keeping my records organized.  When I don't really have any kind of goal, it's much, much harder for me to stay focused.  I shouldn't feel this way, but it is nonetheless a fact when I don't have any study goals such as topics to work on during the week, or a certain number of hours, it's very easy for me to, in true ADD fashion, just not get around to it.  I've been doing a lot of that lately.

Fortunately, I do have one thing that I can focus on.  My wife and I talked about the car situation, and we agreed that with tournaments running seven days a week at the Big Game Room, I can get the car at least one night a week to play live.  I'm really excited about that, and it's given me one aspect of my studies to focus on.

I'm constantly tweaking something, and lately it's been how many hands to play from each position (from first to last to act in the hand.)  Since most of the live tournaments are deep for at least an hour or two, all of the options that I'm reading and learning about are open to me.  If I want to semibluff with small pairs or suited connectors, I can open those hands from any position.  If table or tournament conditions change, I can switch back to what has been my usual default tight style.  I can switch back and forth at will, making me nearly unreadable to my opponents.  To that end, I've come up with some new hand charts, where I could be playing up to 10% of my hands in first postion, and up to 53% of my hands when last to act.  Almost no one does that except at the highest levels, but it's mathematically correct to raise that often when last to act, even with a hand as weak as 97o. And coming from an old white guy known to be a tight player when he played live a couple years ago, it will be completely unexpected.

Playing a bunch of hands is definitely a high-variance strategy, which could get me knocked out pretty quickly  It could also get me first place a lot more often.  When fourth place is $90 and first place is $360, as was the case in one of my recent tournaments where I won the $90, that's a risk worth taking.

I will still have to be somewhat careful.  My live bankroll is only about 5 buy-ins, and I would rather not have to add more to get it going, so I have to be at least a bit risk averse.  I really can't start to relax until I have around 20 buy-ins, and I'm not really safe until I have at least 100, but -ins, which would mean a live bankroll of around $4,000.  But I can start mixing things up in spots and get used to playing more hands, which in the long win should be a big winner for me.  From what I've seen in my first four live tournaments, the fields are weaker than in a $1 online SNG.  I need to make sure that I push every advantage that I have.