Tourneys

Didn't I used to be good at tournaments? What happened?

I don't know. For some reason, while I was drunk last weekend, I got the idea that it would be a good idea to play in some tournaments. I guess that was the gambler in me talking.

So I waited until I was sober, logged into Poker Stars and played six tournaments, finishing 0-for-6. D'oh!

But I guess that's OK. Most of them were multitable tournaments, which seem like a crapshoot anyway.

I like to think of tournaments like the baseball playoffs. The Atlanta Braves make the postseason every year, and have won the World Series only once during their 13 straight seasons of winning their division. Some people say this means the Braves don't have what it takes to perform when it's all on the line, but I argue that it means that anything can happen in a short series.

From the Baseball Prospectus Web site: "Once you're there, lady luck is often your dominatrix and all bets are off."

Low buy-in tournaments seem like a fairly safe bet though. I gave my brother $50 for his birthday to open a poker account at Ultimate Bet, and he quickly dropped down to $2 playing $5 buy-in tournaments. But he clawed his way back up through the $1 and $5 tournaments, and is now sitting pretty with a $150 bankroll.

While I'm rambling on the subject, I think the poker community (ahem, Card Player magazine) focuses way too much on the live tournament scene. Only a small fraction of us will ever play in these $5,000 and $10,000 buy-in tournaments, and most of us only care about the major tournaments anyway.

These articles would be more useful if they talked more about strategy, tactics, other games and poker news. I get frustrated by the attention paid to poker celebrities and no limit hold em all the time.

Link:
How many 5 year olds ...