Foiled by Technology
On Wednesday, I played through a few single-table tournaments to kill a little time. The first two were frustrating, but they were really just a warmup of frustration preparing for the third...
In the first tournament, I performed well up until the usual four-player slowdown (when everyone tightens up, hoping anyone else will go head-to-head all-in and allow them to passively advance to the "money spots", or top three placings), but then took a horrible beat going all in with pocket aces against K Q suited, and seeing two queens land on the flop and turn. It only took a second all-in and a reasonable draw beat to end that first venture.
In the second tournament, I intentionally committed some poker hari kari when it became obvious after about 20 hands that I was in a table full of overaggressive players who would not let a single hand go by without a large, over-the-top preflop raise (usually 125 even in the 10/15 round). Since I knew I would just end up getting frustrated and probably losing anyway (I am ususally a fairly conservative player and won't take wild risks), I just began going all-in pre-flop with anything... pocket pairs of any size, suited cards with at least one facecard, or suited consecutives... I knew I'd get caught eventually, but I did manage to take very satisfying revenge before going out, on at least four of those over-aggressive players who kept getting caught unwilling to go all-in after their over-the-top initial raises.
In the third and final single table tournament, I was able to play within my own comfort range style, and I took a significant lead. I then hanged back for awhile, until a couple of almost consecutive hands with high pocket pairs (kings and aces respectively), and in both cases I was bizarrely fortunate enough to not only catch a lot of aggressive opponent action as I slowplayed the pairs, but to catch the trips, and then have someone else go all-in before me, masking my own play. After those two hands, I had a commanding chip lead, with more than 50% of the chips on the table in front of my own hand. I know how to play a commanding chiplead online, and I have a very high success rate when I get that far, leaving little that can stop me.
Of course, one of the only things that can stop me is technological failure. Sure enough, with just five players left, the game stalled, and it became quite obvious with just a little investigation that the error was on EmpirePoker's end. Knowing my chip lead was so great, I kept the window open overnight (hoping it would re-establish, and knowing it is likely that my competitors would have closed the window or blind out), but found the window self-closed the next morning. Yesterday evening, I received an email from EmpirePoker apologizing for the error and awarding me an "even" split of the table prize ($10)... frustrating, since I was fairly confident that my chances at winning the first prize ($25) in that particular tournament were better than an odds-on favorite.
Ah, well. Time to turn my attention to the large matter at hand: the upcoming Poker Frog tournament, which potentially could well determine the regular season champion.
In the first tournament, I performed well up until the usual four-player slowdown (when everyone tightens up, hoping anyone else will go head-to-head all-in and allow them to passively advance to the "money spots", or top three placings), but then took a horrible beat going all in with pocket aces against K Q suited, and seeing two queens land on the flop and turn. It only took a second all-in and a reasonable draw beat to end that first venture.
In the second tournament, I intentionally committed some poker hari kari when it became obvious after about 20 hands that I was in a table full of overaggressive players who would not let a single hand go by without a large, over-the-top preflop raise (usually 125 even in the 10/15 round). Since I knew I would just end up getting frustrated and probably losing anyway (I am ususally a fairly conservative player and won't take wild risks), I just began going all-in pre-flop with anything... pocket pairs of any size, suited cards with at least one facecard, or suited consecutives... I knew I'd get caught eventually, but I did manage to take very satisfying revenge before going out, on at least four of those over-aggressive players who kept getting caught unwilling to go all-in after their over-the-top initial raises.
In the third and final single table tournament, I was able to play within my own comfort range style, and I took a significant lead. I then hanged back for awhile, until a couple of almost consecutive hands with high pocket pairs (kings and aces respectively), and in both cases I was bizarrely fortunate enough to not only catch a lot of aggressive opponent action as I slowplayed the pairs, but to catch the trips, and then have someone else go all-in before me, masking my own play. After those two hands, I had a commanding chip lead, with more than 50% of the chips on the table in front of my own hand. I know how to play a commanding chiplead online, and I have a very high success rate when I get that far, leaving little that can stop me.
Of course, one of the only things that can stop me is technological failure. Sure enough, with just five players left, the game stalled, and it became quite obvious with just a little investigation that the error was on EmpirePoker's end. Knowing my chip lead was so great, I kept the window open overnight (hoping it would re-establish, and knowing it is likely that my competitors would have closed the window or blind out), but found the window self-closed the next morning. Yesterday evening, I received an email from EmpirePoker apologizing for the error and awarding me an "even" split of the table prize ($10)... frustrating, since I was fairly confident that my chances at winning the first prize ($25) in that particular tournament were better than an odds-on favorite.
Ah, well. Time to turn my attention to the large matter at hand: the upcoming Poker Frog tournament, which potentially could well determine the regular season champion.
posted by Greg J. Hipius at
11:21 AM
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