Online Poker Tournament Rankings

Lately, I've been pulling back on the online play.  It's probably because: a. I'm not very good and b. I can't put in the kind of volume needed to find out if I'm correct about "a.".  So I've been spending some time playing locally, both in limit/spread limit cash as well as the new tourneys they've unveiled at Bay and GC.  Good times.  I've been on a nice run at the GC tournaments, although...they are more like 45 man SnG's as they don't often crack the 50 player mark.  I've cashed a few times over there recently, min cashing in 8th place, taking 3rd and then chopping another 5 ways for 1k (which officially put me in 3rd).  Even though I think I had an edge the pay scale escalated as such that it would have been disaster to come in 5th rather than chop for better than 3rd place money.  That's how I saw it anyway.

Well, after a nice run last weekend I jumped back into a 3/100 spread game last night where variance was on my side once again.  The SB was good to me as I took 100, ran it down to 75 and then looked down at KK.  There was an open to 6 and the button makes it like 45...such a massive overbet.  Well, I just stick my 75 in there and get a complete, of course, from the button.  The flop runs out K88 so I'm feeling pretty good with my flopped boat.  But just in case the button made a play with p8's, the river came K giving me quads on my all in and doubling me up, plus a little more. Not horrible. :)

There was a casino employee playing and he was pretty much killing the table, I was staying out of his way as he seemed to be hitting every flop with every hand.  He got up to leave and he began to rack his chips.  He waived off the dealer for the hand but she delivered it to him anyway.  He looks down, laughs and says "OK, one more hand..." and then open limps for $3.  Just about the rest of the table calls and then, once again in the SB, I look down and see AA looking back at me.  Some quick calculations, 7 players each in for 3...let's make it 18 to go.  The BB calls to my surprise and then back to the casino employee who insta makes it +100 to go. Folds back to me and I don't make a big deal of it, just grab my stack...totaling about 130 left, and shove it in the middle.  The BB then hems and haws, wanting to play (he's sitting on AKcc he later revealed) but folds and my opponent says "oh man, I should have just left...I call".  No bad beat story here, I double up when my Aces hold vs. his JJ on a dry board. He leaves about 150 lighter than he would have had he left 2 minutes earlier and  I leave an hour later +440 and in good spirits.

Not that anyone will read this and if they did, they probably wouldn't be in the Bay Area but if so...check out Garden City's new daily tournaments.  I think there's a ton of value there.  5/6k starting stack, 20 min levels and frankly...some horrible play.  I'm no poker genius by my own admission but I have yet to find myself outplayed in one of these.  Outflopped, sure..outkicked, ok...sucked out on, usually...but outplayed, not yet.  These guys are either maniacs, novices or supernits so if you have the wherewithall to be reading P5, you probably have an edge.  Aside from that, they are well run and pretty fun! 

Sometimes it's nice when things go your way.

 It's funny, I can't stand bad beat stories...or how someone shoves on the button with A9cc and runs into KK in the BB and they lose.  All of these things are standard and I'm left unimpressed about how horrible your luck is as mine is just as bad, I just don't bother other people with it.  But I do sympathize with negative variance, especially lots of negative variance in a short amount of time.  It may seem unremarkable, or you may not believe me, but in 72 hours I haven't been dealt a pocket pair above 9's (I think it's actually 7's, but I'm positive I haven't had 10's so I'm being cautious with my estimates), a AQ (suited or not) that's hit the flop as well as an AK (suited or not) that's hit the flop. Now if you just play recreationally, this may not be a big deal...but in this time I've put in 3, 4+ hour live sessions.  Played a live tourney (25th of 88th despite my bad run of cards - I won 2 races with 77 vs A10/AJ). In addition I've played 6 or 7 sng's, 8...maybe 10 MTT's and 2 full ring game cash sessions.  When you have a cold deck for even this long it's as if time is standing still, you think you'll never see two kings in the hole ever again.  You see your OPR stats getting killed and your BR vanishing and there's nothing you can do but hold on tight, play even tighter and wait for the poker gods to even things out for you.  So next time you want to unload on me about how your flopped set of Jacks got rivered by some donk who flushed it up by calling your preflop raise with 53hh, just be thankful that you've seen a set of Jacks and hope you encounter that donk again.

 So, it's my thought that one of the keys to be a consistently winning player is game selection.  A little background...I'm a low limit MTT enthusiast.  I play $3/5/10 MTT's regularly, according to OPR I'm ITM about 19% of the time and overall I'm a losing player (I'd prefer to consider myself breakeven, but the numbers - no matter how slim the margin - don't lie).  Lately though, I've been finding that I'm more likely to cash in some tourneys that I play with regularity than in others.  I play my fair share of the $3 KO 90 Man SnG's on Full Tilt and while, of course, I've taken it down now and again, cashed here and there and I'll usually KO at least one person...overall, it seems to me that when I'm finished, it's time wasted and another Mid Tourney Finish percentage point.  While on the other hand I really enjoy the $10 6max MTT (@ 8:30 PST) on Full Tilt and in this tourney I've taken it down outright, finished 2nd, finished 4th, cashed in it a number of times and in the past 3 evenings gone 13th, 11th and 7th dating back to Monday.  So why is it that I *seem* to do better in a bigger buy in tourney with less people and I personally think it's because this particular tournament suits my style of play.  With a great structure, long blind levels and, because it's 6 max, a ton of hands getting to be seen, I have the luxury of seeing a ton of hands and at the same time being extremely patient (one of my strong points I think).  I recognize I'm not a fast and loose player, ready to risk it all for a .50 KO Bounty and while I love the thrill of the hunt, getting it in light when only $3 is at risk, I have a deeper appreciation for going deep in something like the $10 6 Max.  I think that players like me, those who are currently students of the game, feel like they have an understanding but need more experience, could greatly benefit from being more selective of which games they opt in on and then try to define which games give them the largest edge to exploit.

 Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to donk around in those KO SnG's, as while I'm competitive and have a deep desire to win, I still like to enjoy myself at the table.  If you see me at the tables, say hello won't you?