tournaments can be bad for your wealth

The 15-30 games in the afternoon on Party look pretty tight at the moment, and the 5-10 games are no better. Following my new self-imposed diktat that at these levels game selection is more important than self-improvement, I have not been sitting down. So, what to do? Well, how about a couple of these 90fpp satellites on Stars?

Once again I ended up one for two, with the PLO qualifier being almost embarrassing. With 11 qualifiers from 118 players, there were only 46 left at the first break. At which point the inexperienced players start thinking "hang on, I've got a chance of qualifying here", so what had been a loose call-fest where I hardly played a hand, turned into a tight rock-fest where I hardly folded one. By the end of the second hour I had mysteriously accumulated 50,000 of the 165,000 chips in play, and there were still 25 players left. Not one to fall to the temptation of walking away and playing something else while the others ran down the clock in an attempt to survive, I merrily continued raising every hand, causing mayhem everywhere I walked, but the wins and losses about averaged out this time, so I had a "mere" 60,000 chips when it got down to just eleven left.

Now, if super sats are always going to be this easy, I might start taking them up again. The second hold'em one went wrong when I bashed in an all-in raise from the BB with a pair of 10s (five limpers), only for a KQ off to decide that a hand that wasn't worth raising on the button in the first place was worth calling for 10 times as many chips. The inevitable Queen appeared on the flop and I was then working from a short stack. I think that I went out with that powerhouse K3 in the BB vs A4 in the SB. The flop came A42, but for some strange reason the Pokerstars magic did not work and my straight failed to appear on the river to beat his two-pair.

So, how is this FPP accumulation bad for your wealth? Well, for a start, it's a waste of time, in the literal sense. It's the kind of thing I wish I had an eight-year-old son and daughter for, because I could delegate the FPP accumulation to them -- the play is that automatic. After it's over I am (a) tired and (b) asking myself if it was worth it.

Secondly, there is no way that you can sit down in a cash game afterwards, unless you have some incredible ability to switch gears. Although I have known this intellectually for many years, it's beginning to sink in emotionally how aggressive "big stack" play in tournaments is phenomenally different from cash play. I think this might be why cash players naturally gravitate towards a more accumulative style when in tournies. It requires a style of play that is technically closer to cash games.

The mind-set that you get yourself into when you are in this "dominating" manner would get you killed in a ring game. It might work, just might work, in short-handed, against five players who are playing at too high a level for their bankroll who aren't very good. But as a general principle, I would say that if you play too many tournaments in this way, it must inevitably leak into your cash game, with wealth-afflicting effects.

some blogosphorics

All silent in the world of Big Dave D at the moment, with Keith The Camel running him a close second. Meanwhile, Lady Jo of Pokerstars and Tooting (not necessarily in that order), manages to write several hundred words a day (some of them on a subject other than Richard Herring), which very few people read because she keeps her blog even more secret than I keep mine.

But, enough of this bitchy tittle-tattle. I'm in a good mood because the poker gods smiled on me despite some fairly 'B' Game play. OK, it probably cost me no more than three big bets in three hours, but I'm getting fussy about these things. At 15-30, that's a fair amount of money I have thrown away. Fortunately I more than made up for this with an unusual event in Limit, a couple of absolutely A-rated plays that knocked seven shades of shit out of the opposition. One of them won me a $282 pot and the other won me a $352 pot. In the first I had A-10 over opponent's A-3 gutshot draw (pair of fours on board, my 10 kicker played) and in the other I had A-Q over a Q-9 flush draw (two pair on board, Ace-kicker played). And in BOTH cases I think that my raise on the turn pushed the third player with a better hand off the pot. Swallow that, scumsuckers. Hmm, perhaps I've been reading some of the aggressive chat too much.

So, that got back $180 of the $400-odd lost this afternoon (darn, what am I talking about? Think Caro. Don't worry about getting even. You already are even). But what was pleasing about it was that in 200 hands I got 10 pairs, none higher than Queens (which lost). In fact I had a bundle of crap mainly, in a game where three of the four players on my right were loose-aggressive. Profit from sessions like that, despite a couple of silly errors, are all the more pleasing.

But, back to the blogosphere. LasVegasVegas writes The Vegas summers are brutal reminders of global warming, active volcanoes and hell. . So why are flights to LV fromthe UK more expensive in August? Because the British either don't know or they don't care. I'm sorry, but I think you have to be clinically insane to want to travel to Vegas in July and August. To pay Virgin even more for the privilege is just pouring acid on the already boiling pavement.

So, I am going in December, on the 4th, and coming back on the 23rd. Anyone else going for any of that period? I still haven't decided where to stay. The Westgate on Flamingo West, accompanied by a hire car, is one possibility. But then staying on the strip also has its attractions. And there is the final blow-out option of the $575 a night at Bellagio for a 1350 sq foot penthouse suite. OK, maybe that would only be for seven nights rather than 19.

Elsewhere, Ben Grundy (Milky Bar Kid) writes Anyone who thinks that playing poker for a living is easy should think again. I have more stressful days doing this than i ever did when i was working. Its great when its going well but hellish when your luck is out.

Now, I don't know Ben personally, but he comes across as a nice enough guy. However, from his past writing about high-stakes PLO (and the massive wins on Betfair) I got the feeling that he had never hit the really bad run. And at PLO, well, we all know how horrific that can be. It looks as if he might be suffering at least a short-term blip at the moment. This is the real tester (and one that I, of course, would fail abysmally).

Then we have the twin cities of Miros-St Ward. I don't know Bill Purle, but his intermittent blog http://bitharsh.blogspot.com/ is always entertaining, and I have always admired him for his famous "give me a grand extra" coup in an online WSOP satellite. He kind of comes across as a genial upper-classish chap for whom everything is and always has been fairly effortless, including strolling through to wins in tournaments every other week that some of us dream of winning oh, about once a decade. Of course, it all could be a veneer and underneath it all Bill might be harbouring therapy-inducing crises of confidence that we can hardly imagine. But somehow I doubt it. Anyone who can avoid worrying about being the hate-figure of virtually all the tosspot online poker railbird gang must have reserves of illimitless self-confidence that I can only dream of.

Anyway, I twinned the Miros with St Ward because both chopped off four-figure wins in tournaments this week, and congrats to the pair of them, the gits. As with Negreanu, perhaps we should stop recording all numbers that don't reach five figures. Well, perhaps we could record them, but just don't mention them, since to do so might be considered declassé, or even a fraction vulgar. Like staying at the MGM-Grand when in Vegas. Either Bellagio or the San Remo!

Then again, five-figure wins or losses might be rare at 15-30. At least, I would hope that the losses would be.

Amazingly, despite looking at a still $400-ish loss for the month, I've got some confidence back. I know that I am not playing my 'A' game, but tonight I could put it down to tiredness, and at least I spotted the mistakes fairly quickly. And I still won, despite fairly horrible cards (did I mention that I twice ran into flopped flushes when I had two pair? No, Should I? No? OK, have it your way.).

Onwards and sideways ('cos that's what the profit line has looked like for quite a while....)