Poker Articles

Ever win a big multi table tournament? Even if it’s a freeroll or a five dollar buy in there’s nothing like whipping the entire field. The colors in my eyes are brighter and every song on the radio is exactly what I wanted to hear. There hasn’t been a spring in my step like this for months. Those of you who haven’t experienced it I wish you luck; it’s a feeling like no other.

I was in a bit of a slump in MTT’s actually, no big wins for quite awhile had me questioning whether they were worth all the money I sunk into entry fees only to get knocked out after two hours of play with nothing to show for it. Multi table tournaments had begun to seem like a ridiculous long shot to me, but not this time.

Tom McEvoy talks about going an entire year on the tournament circuit and ending up down for the year in his book Tournament Poker. Down for the year! I can’t imagine that. It would break me. That’s why I don’t rely entirely on MTT’s for my income; the variance is just too much for my bankroll right now. At least it was until… Well I’ll get to that in a minute. I kept telling myself it was just the way things are in poker. Kept believing I would get a big score again soon and everything would be cool. I kept the rent paid and gas in the car playing single tables and chasing bonus money and I waited, taking shots at the big tourneys when I could afford it. If Tom McEvoy, one of the best tournament players in the world, can go for an entire year without a big win then I can’t cry about 6 months of rough waters can I?

Well the rough waters have passed my friends, and damn it feels good! I entered a 30+3 on Partypoker a few nights ago with 680 entries and I could do no wrong. My stack was tripled within twenty minutes and just kept climbing from there. Only once did my stack get small, with about 50 people left. The blinds were 400/800 and my stack was about 3K. I looked down at AQo in early position and the 1200 already in the pot started looking awful good to me. Was it time to make a stand? Did I need those blinds to survive? We were already in the money and there was no big jump in prize money until the final table so I decided to take my stand. I moved all in and prayed for an easy victory without a fight, because if I get called I’m in bad shape.

The first piece of bad news came when a middle position player with a big stack put in a reraise. That usually means a big hand, at least AK and often it’s even worse. While the button thought for a while I checked my software for records on the raiser and the news got even worse. He was tight as a drum! Over 600 hands he had raised preflop only 3% of the time, and that didn’t take into account the fact that he was reraising an early position raiser. He had to have AA, KK, or AK, most likely one of the big pairs. I figured I was probably facing kings, and another 3 hours of play for a measly 40 bucks.

Just as I began to pray for an ace on the flop the button moved all in for another 14K. I stood up from my desk in disappointment and swore. My chances of winning this pot now had to be below 10%. Sure enough the middle pos raiser flipped over KK and the button showed AA I just ran the hand through a simulator, and over the course of 50,000 hands my AQo only won 5.28% of the time. It didn’t look good for the home team, it didn’t look good at all.

The old saying goes that you have to get lucky at least once to win a tournament, and I have seen the truth in that old saw over and over. A Queen on the flop and another on the turn left me with over 10K in chips and a couple of very ticked off big stacks. I made the right play, and I would make it again so I had no apologies for them. The table was broken a few minutes later and I didn’t see either of them again. Everything went beautifully for me the rest of the way, my bluffs worked, my big hands held up, and almost five thousand dollars was deposited into my account within an hour. My bankroll more than doubled, my mood improved greatly and I was once again an eagle soaring above the tables, swooping down on my opponents at will. Chump to champion in a moment’s time. The heads up battle with a player named something close to dimondjim was amazing, some of the finest poker I have ever been part of and it took close to twenty minutes.

It’s the beginning of the month so I’m back to chasing bonuses for a few days on the crypto sites, making $13 an hour trudging along in limit ring games like I do at the beginning of every month. Look me up if you play any of the cryptologic sites (Interpoker, Pokerplex, Caribbean Sun etc.) I play under Mr.Fox and you can find me at low limit tables for the first week of each month. Sure I’m slogging through bonus dollars again, but I’m writing about my big tournament win while I do it and that makes it a lot easier.

On a fun side note my girlfriend staked me with a thousand bucks about 6 months ago, and she now gets twelve hundred bucks back and a $300 Coach purse that she’s been eyeing. I always try to reward those who have had faith in me, they make things a lot easier.

See you at the final table,
Fox

P.S. Check my pal Adam Stemple’s poker blog Bare Feet and Bad Beats. Adam is the guy who got me into poker a little over 2 years ago. While we often argue about who is the better player (it’s me), there is no question that his writing skills far surpass mine, making for an excellent blog.