Likey's Blog

Tournaments are designed to ruin you I swear to god! One minute you’re all chipped up and ready for the final table then the next you go out 9th for a soul-crushing experience. Or it could be that it’s been so long since you’ve gotten deep in a tournament that you’re doubting your ability as a player. Fortunately for me, combined with the nit status that I am – I just min-cash to maintain my sanity!

On a serious note, ‘Tournaments’ have owned me for the past 3 years, I can safely say I won’t be quitting my day job to play these anytime soon as the profit margins are well below what I earn. It’s exciting yet depressing to see my friends all winning 4-5 figures every other day, but for me to win a nice 4 figures it is like winning the lottery. The last time I took down a 4 figure win was at the end of November 08 and the most recent was May 09, that’s half a year ago!

The good thing about playing tournament is the fun yet challenging aspect of trying to beat everyone else, it’s a good job I know what it feels like. It is that buzz of winning, we all remember our first win and it’s usually the same when you win over and over again but does this outweigh all those times when you don’t win? I don’t think it ever will, with the high-variance that tournaments are, I think you’re always going to be disappointed unless you win and not everyone wins enough times. My recent 4 figure win didn’t end in a buzz even though I finished 1st, this was because I did a deal so it wasn’t the same, next time I’ll fight to the finish!

I have learnt a lot over the last year or so and I don’t intend to stop, my game has been in a rut for a while and still making mistakes. I need to stop these leaks otherwise I am just losing money that I should be winning, taking edges to gain chips instead of just giving up in the pot.

I’m sure the best way to win big is to play LAG yet I try that and to me it’s just a form of FPS (fancy play syndrome). I tend to go over the top when trying to do outrageous moves where the pros seem to get away with it or lose the least possible chips doing it. My new approach will be to fix my fundamentals out first and that is to play cash games, hopefully iron out a lot of leaks and then be able to take down tournaments with the confidence of playing deep stacked as you would in cash.

I really hope my game turns around and I consistent start winning like the big boys do, surely it can’t be that hard to win from these donks out there!

Headline news is that PokerStars have recently cut their guarantees down, there’s speculation on the 2+2 forums that it may be because they will introduce the X2 soon but I doubt it. It’s more likely because there have been a lot of overlay across their tournaments due to the recession, WSOP and the $30m+ of frozen poker accounts in the US.

This may be good or bad news, it’s good because you have a better chance of winning a big field tournament but bad because when you get there your reward is smaller than usual. PokerStars are in the business of making money so I don’t blame them, was nice to see overlay whilst it was there.

Thanks for reading, there’s more blog updates to follow so stay tuned…

May that important boomswitch be on for you!