|
|
 Things that I learned from my Stars $5 R&A Experience
Things that I learned from my $5 R&A Experience:
Essentially this will be a synopsis of my play in the Poker Stars $5 R&A on 1/13/05, this may end up being a stream of consciousness post, however I will try and keep this as coherent as possible. I figured I would share this with everyone in the hopes that it may actually be a help to some of you. Perhaps it is stuff you already know, it is certainly stuff I thought I knew, but in reality I just learned this first hand and I'm excited to share.
I had a rough start initially; there was a maniac at my table that was pushing All-In every single hand for nearly the whole first hour. I was very clear that he was pushing with any two as when everyone folded he would show the worst cards imaginable. I finally got a hand 15 minutes in and decided to play with him, long story short - He sucked out against me and one other person catching running 3 or some such nonsense. I re-bought twice immediately and took a couple pots while he was catching his breath at the 30 minute point (he had re-bought at least 12 times by then). I again clashed with him and he took another 4000 chips from me in a pretty awful beat….he was just getting stupid lucky at this point, and I was pretty disheartened and thought about cutting my losses and nearly did not re-buy, I decided I was not going to let him get the best of me and chose to r-buy for 3K “one more time” (there was about 15 minutes left in the re-buy period.) He had amassed a sizeable stack so he was starting to slow down. I was fortunate to catch a couple hands and turn my 3K into roughly 5K and when there was only a minute or two left in the first hour I again took him on as well as a short stack. I ended up finally beating him an was sitting on roughly 12K chips at the first break and added on another 2K for an additional $5.
During the second hour nearly everyone calmed down and started playing what I would call normal MTT poker. I played solid cards as Soupie would say, not a whole lot of poker, but I did put a few moves on people, caught some hands – stole some (my own personal brand of poker) and ended up at roughly 23K at the second break.
There was an hour or two of pretty boring poker in there, and then I sitting on about 60K with somewhere around 80 people out of 620 left. (ITM was 64 I believe) At this point the story becomes interesting - Soupie really started pushing me to play outside of my comfort zone…quit playing straight-up ABC poker and start shoving all you chips in the middle, no matter what two card you are holding. I would fold and Soupie would type (in IRC)…WTF was that and I would reply 5-2 off suit – he would retort so what push them in….NOW.
Really Important Part
I decided to stop fighting Soupie and let go of my apprehensions and just follow his advice on faith. Let me tell you - IT IS NOT AN EASY THING TO DO….letting go of the style of play that got you to that point. I now understand why it is important and the right thing to do. It truly is the only way to give yourself a chance at making the final table. The blinds start getting very high and people are either becoming very tight or super aggressive and unless you catch A-A and K-K repeatedly there is not other way to survive. Let me say this again There is no other way to survive other than to steal blinds and re-raise all-in against min-raisers. I have heard Rada, Micheal1123, Ripptyde and Soupie say it over and over again, and in theory I understood and agreed, but in practice it is an EXTREMELY difficult thing to do. You have been playing your heart out and you have to push all-in with 9-3o two positions away from the money and risk not getting anything….nothing at all for that four hours work. After you do it a couple of times you start to realize that even if the have 120K in chips and you have 50K they are not going to call your preflop all-in with anything other than super premium hands. They can not afford to risk 1/3 or ½ of their stack calling you, because you may actually have a hand this time. As Soupie says…you give yourself and additional way to win – their fear. If you do run into a premium hand then there is nothing more to do than hope you suck out – shake it off, and push on the next hand. Do not be completely reckless about it, look for weakness, do not do it into a significant raise unless you have a very good hand….…etc (common sense really). After you double up exclusively from steals, a funny thing happens 1) You become much more confident, you feel like a complete animal 2) The people at the table truly start to fear you. They stop limping-in for fear of losing that 6,000 preflop limp….they either get pre-emptive about it and push themselves with a hand they want to play (and often battle w/ each other and knock themselves out) or they sit passively by and allow you to steal from them. The table stops playing mediocre hands and checks it to you….and you can’t let them down – push all-in again. You have to be careful of people camping for monsters to trap you with (I am still working on this skill) but it worked incredibly well for me.
In the end we whittled the final table down to 4 people and I made a few truly terrible plays and bone-headed calls….call it stage fright, some fear and confusion….call it self destruct. Whatever it was, it happened to me….sitting on 1.2 million chips there is no way I should have gone out in 4th place – at minimum I should have taken second, but live and learn. There are things I wish I had done differently, but I have no real regrets the most important things that came from last night is experience and confidence. I have been to the final table….and now I know I can get back there. The only difference next time will be I am going to win it – no 4th….no 3rd…..no messing around with second best – I AM going to win it.
|
Reply With Quote
.
Originally Posted by Yeldud
