A Revelation

[Andy Holt]

I read a sticky in the Beginners' Circle a while back that said something like, "Learning is only half the battle, absorbing and applying knowledge is crucial."

I think I finally understand.

I was in the zone tonight, in my normal late-night $5 MTT. I put a new experimental strategy to use, and it really paid off.

Here's how it went: Early on, I would limp from late with just about any two cards, in order to spot weakness and buy a pot, or hit a great flop. I did this for the first hour, falling into a rhythm and quadrupling my stack.

After the first hour, I switched gears for the most part, looking for preflop weakness instead of postflop, taking down blinds to slowly increase.

Once ITM after about 2 1/2 hours, I came across the following hand that changed it all:

on the button.

Someone went all-in, and I thought to myself, "Well, this pretty much puts me all in too. I'm probably drawing live here, and they're suited, and I would really like to double up (my stack was about 20x BB) and increase my chances of making the final table. I might not get another chance to double up again, maybe this is the hand."

The guy turned over pocket 9's. See ya!

Well, I made what might have been the dumbest donk-ass call I have ever made in my entire life, forget my first ever Party $6 SnG or my first time playing hold 'em in my friend's basement... This surpassed all donktastic calls that I had ever seen anyone ELSE make!

I mean, this was really bad!!

After busting, I sat and I thought for a long time. I had just made what might have been the stupidest call ever, during one of my best MTT runs in a few days... Call it a brain fart, call it what you will, that was DONKTASTICALIDOCIOUS.

Why did I lose focus? Because I didn't use my head. Why didn't I use my head? I didn't think I needed to, I was the best flippin' poker player in the world who made all the right calls, why should this one be any different?

I guess what I'm trying to say to everyone is, don't lose focus in the last stages of an MTT, don't be a donkey, and apply the stuff you learn. BE A POKER SPONGE and apply everything you learn so you don't have to be put in a situation where you think you're the BEST and totally blow it.

[chardrian]

Learning to stop donkmoves late in tourneys is essential to making FTs.

[drawman]

I try to never make a call that will put my whole tourney at risk unless I have a monster like KK or AA.

[Theeggman]

I know the feeling. You spend 2-3 hours of careful stack building to push your chips in w/a weak hand. Hey, at least you did it preflop thinking your cards were live and didn't call w/bottom two on a flush board. What I usually think of when I'm faced with that kind of temptation is, "how much do I have invested in this pot?" At the time you had zero in so you had nothing to lose by folding. When will you get another suited 2 gapper or better? Within the next orbit probably. Live & learn holmes.

p.s. I've come to like limping into pots at a weak table early on too.