In the first month, I was making a ton of final tables but never making a big score. I had one 5th place and several 8th-10th place finishes in that span. In the second month, I just got wiped out. It was one of those times where everything was going wrong, where it got so bad that I was expecting to lose every time I got my chips in. During these two months, I lost money.
Sounds pretty normal, right? We all go on runs like these, especially the second one. But I was starved for an explanation of why I hadn't at least broken even in that span of time, considering how many final tables I had made. I should have been able to pull out at least a couple top 3 finishes, which would have helped to weather the storm that came later.
The explanation was, actually, that I was playing some pretty crappy poker during the final 2 or 3 tables of these tournaments. The irony to go with it is that I was playing the exact same style to get there consistently as I was late, when it was costing me a chance to make a significant cash. I'd end up getting in with the best hand against a much bigger stack, and I'd end up losing right at the beginning of the final table. But this was after failing to accumulate before getting there.
I always hear people say, "I got my money in with the best of it, that is all I can do." I agree with this strongly on some level (it's great to be able to shrug off a tough loss and get past it immediately), but I also think it can be a huge cop out. I agree, of course, that when you lose with AA to 44 when you're in 2nd and the 44 guy is in first, and you end up bubbling because of it, there's just nothing you can do about it except be angry for a few minutes and then move on to the next tournament.
But when you're in 14th out of 14 and end up pushing with AJ and getting called by A8 and losing, a lot of times there was something you could have done---you could have worked harder to avoid getting in that situation to begin with. Sure, you got lucky (at first) and got your short stack all in with a dominant hand, but it doesn't change the fact that you were short to begin.
So what could I have done to avoid being a losing player over a two month span of time? Since the second month was pretty much unavoidable, I needed to do well enough in the first month to cancel it out. It shouldn't have been too hard, considering all the opportunities I had. I was making great reads, and for the most part, my hands were holding up, which is why I was deep so often to begin.
But when the tournament got to the point where the blinds and antes were a significant portion of everyone's stack, I was freezing, unwilling to take the sort of risks that could win me a tournament (racing against another big stack, making an all in bluff, trapping with a big pair, etc.). It was like my goal was just to get to the final table, and I needed to sort of "play it safe" until I got there, which I obviously knew was not the optimal strategy by any means.
I won't go any further in discussing the specifics of endgame strategy, because it's wayyyyyyy too broad a topic to include here, well beyond the scope of this article and covered plenty in other resources (esp. Harrington Vol. 2). That wasn't really the point of this article anyway. The real idea I'm getting at here is that if you go out of a tournament on a bad beat or some sort of cold decking, that doesn't necessarily mean you did all you could have done and were simply unlucky. It doesn't excuse you from responsibility for missing out on other opportunities to accumulate chips, such as folding a 55% favorite because you didn't want to butt heads with one of the people who could bust you.
The solution is to redefine a good play in your mind as one that is tactically correct, rather than one that simply puts you in position to either win the hand as a favorite or lose it to a hand that was an underdog going in (which would then supposedly allow you to say, "I did all I could do"). Instead of playing with the fear of appearing foolish when your cards are flipped up, play with the confidence that your cards won't be flipped up until you want them to be. Take the opportunities when you have a good read on your opponents and exploit those opportunities as much as possible. And lastly, don't be afraid to bust out without getting in ahead. It's gonna happen, and it's a lot better that it happen occasionally than that you only occasionally go deep in a tournament.
When and if you bust out of a tournament, the first person you should look to is yourself, regardless of how you busted---what could I have done better?
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