Aggression!!
(I was going to adapt the lyrics from Fiddler for "Tradition!" and then realized that it was too much work, would be lame, and would alienate both of my readers - one wouldn't know what the the hell I was talking about, and the other would think rightly that it was lame)
At any rate, what a novel concept. Act aggressively, and steal some blinds. Then when you actually have a hand, people don't just fold, but try to fight your aggression. Huzzah!
I played a $2+.20 tourney on Stars last night. I thought I'd give the aggression a try - and wound up taking 10th. Just out of the big money, but not too shabby as there were over 2000 entrants. We lost a good third of them in the first half an hour (there's aggression, and then there's unmitigated stupidity).
The downside? I violated one of the prime rules for tournaments, namely don't enter them if you don't have the time to play them out. 5 hours of sleep isn't acceptable for the rest of my life.
(An aside: a new form of tilt discovered - I Need To Be Asleep! Tilt) I called a bet that I knew I was beat on - took the chance for the 4 outer because I wanted to either eliminate someone or go to sleep. Fairly tight player to my right min-raised, I called with KQo (and, I was tightening up in some places I should have stayed aggressive - reraises preflop bought me a lot to get to this point), flop comes TJx. He bets, I three bet with the up and down draw. He calls. Hmm. I put him on Ax - probably x = T or J. Turn comes T. He goes all in for $150k more - about half my remaining stack. I put him on AT. The river coming A would give me Broadway - but him full. This is where a really good player (or even me, in less pressing circumstances) would make the lay down. I was still in 2nd or 3rd place at that point. But I called, hoping for one of the 9's - and the river was an A. Fudge. After that I quickly overaggressively donked off the rest of the chips - with 12 left I was short stacked - made it to #10 and then got it all in with A8 vs. KQ, K on the flop sent me to bed. I couldn't sleep for about half an hour, beating myself up for calling with the straight draw.
I'm still pretty tired - but it felt good to get that far in a field. I made about $30 (and the wife said something about $6 an hour for the 5 hours I put in when I finally came to bed - she doesn't sleep well when I'm not there so I have that to repay as well), but would have really liked to climb a few more spots and get into the serious money again.
A new resolution: don't start tourneys if I can't invest the time to play right at the final tables. Oh, and something that helped the aggression along - I hit an outrageous number of flops. It was making up for every tourney and SNG I'd played for the last few months where I couldn't catch a flop to save my soul.
(I was going to adapt the lyrics from Fiddler for "Tradition!" and then realized that it was too much work, would be lame, and would alienate both of my readers - one wouldn't know what the the hell I was talking about, and the other would think rightly that it was lame)
At any rate, what a novel concept. Act aggressively, and steal some blinds. Then when you actually have a hand, people don't just fold, but try to fight your aggression. Huzzah!
I played a $2+.20 tourney on Stars last night. I thought I'd give the aggression a try - and wound up taking 10th. Just out of the big money, but not too shabby as there were over 2000 entrants. We lost a good third of them in the first half an hour (there's aggression, and then there's unmitigated stupidity).
The downside? I violated one of the prime rules for tournaments, namely don't enter them if you don't have the time to play them out. 5 hours of sleep isn't acceptable for the rest of my life.
(An aside: a new form of tilt discovered - I Need To Be Asleep! Tilt) I called a bet that I knew I was beat on - took the chance for the 4 outer because I wanted to either eliminate someone or go to sleep. Fairly tight player to my right min-raised, I called with KQo (and, I was tightening up in some places I should have stayed aggressive - reraises preflop bought me a lot to get to this point), flop comes TJx. He bets, I three bet with the up and down draw. He calls. Hmm. I put him on Ax - probably x = T or J. Turn comes T. He goes all in for $150k more - about half my remaining stack. I put him on AT. The river coming A would give me Broadway - but him full. This is where a really good player (or even me, in less pressing circumstances) would make the lay down. I was still in 2nd or 3rd place at that point. But I called, hoping for one of the 9's - and the river was an A. Fudge. After that I quickly overaggressively donked off the rest of the chips - with 12 left I was short stacked - made it to #10 and then got it all in with A8 vs. KQ, K on the flop sent me to bed. I couldn't sleep for about half an hour, beating myself up for calling with the straight draw.
I'm still pretty tired - but it felt good to get that far in a field. I made about $30 (and the wife said something about $6 an hour for the 5 hours I put in when I finally came to bed - she doesn't sleep well when I'm not there so I have that to repay as well), but would have really liked to climb a few more spots and get into the serious money again.
A new resolution: don't start tourneys if I can't invest the time to play right at the final tables. Oh, and something that helped the aggression along - I hit an outrageous number of flops. It was making up for every tourney and SNG I'd played for the last few months where I couldn't catch a flop to save my soul.
posted by Sparky | 7:30 AM
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