One of the skills of a winning poker player is patience. In cash games if you play maniacally you usually end up losing. In tournaments, though, sometimes patience must take a back seat to naked aggression.
My good friend Aaron played in a home game satellite for a spot in a major, live tournament series. Twenty players began the tournament, and the key was to finish in the top three to advance to the playoffs. The structure was fast. Each player began with T1,000 and the blinds increased every 15 minutes. There were two heats with the top three players from each heat advancing to the playoffs. The playoff had a slower structure, and each player stared with T5,000 and the blinds advancing every 25 minutes.
Unfortunately for Aaron, all he looked at for the first half hour was a steady diet of junk. At a ten-handed, player-dealt table, it can easily take 15 minutes for an orbit. In fact, after two levels only 18 hands were dealt at Aaron's table.
Aaron used aggression to win a hand in the third level. In the fourth level, with blinds already at T50/T100, Aaron had T1,375 when he was dealt Ks-Kf and was second to act. He raised to T275, with the button, Liz, and the big blind, Al, calling. The flop was 9c-5h-2d. Liz checked, Aaron bet T400, Al hesitated for a few moments; then folded. Liz, though, check-raised all-in. Aaron folded. As he told me, "Liz has never made a check-raise bluff. I hated to throw away my kings, but the only question in my mind was whether Liz had top set, middle set, or bottom set." She had top set as she showed her pocket nines.
The rest of heat one did not go well for Aaron. Now short-stacked with T700, Aaron re-raised all-in from his big blind with Ad-Kd and lost a race to pocket fours.
In the second heat, Aaron again held trash. He did make the final ten players with a below-average stack. The one significant hand he played occurred when they were seven-handed. Dan raised all-in from the small blind with a very short-stack. Aaron knew that Dan's range was quite wide. Aaron made the call with Ah-10h, and his opponent was drawing very slim with Af-4f. The board bricked for both players and Aaron gained some needed chips.
With just nine players remaining Aaron's stack was down to T900. He was under-the-gun (the blinds were T150-T300). Aaron looked down at Ah-Ad. Before Aaron could act, Kurt in the big blind told everyone he was all-in for T300. Aaron, of course, moved all-in. Liz, with a huge stack, decided to call with 9c-9d. Kurt showed Ks-8s. When the board showed 6s-5s-6h-7s-9s Aaron found himself in third place.
"I really wanted to play a hand earlier at the final table," Aaron told me, "but all I was dealt was junk. And on almost every hand there was significant action before it was my turn to act. Had I raised-really, moved all-in given my stack size-it's almost certain one of my opponents would call given the stack size situation."
I wasn't there, so I have no way of judging the veracity of Aaron's remarks. That said, Aaron is a smart player, and when he told me this story he wasn't upset in the least. "If you play tournaments," Aaron said, "you have to be prepared to lose most nights. This was a fast structure, so the luck factor was magnified. Sometimes it's just not in the cards."
Russell Fox is the co-author of "Mastering No-Limit Hold'em," "Why You Lose at Poker," and "Winning Strategies for No-Limit Hold'em." He's a federally licensed tax preparer specializing in gambling, with a blog at taxabletalk.com. E-mail Russ at rcfox@claytontax.com.
