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July 18, 2004
Orleans Open, Day Number, ummmm, I forget. Been here too long.
Friday I met one of the people who read this blog regularly for a drink at the microbrewery in the Monte Carlo casino. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy so it was nice to talk to him. It is good to get a sample of the people who read what you write, and makes it more enjoyable to write.
Other than that I didn’t do much until the tournament today at the Orleans. It was a $230 Limit Hold'em with one $200 rebuy, which I took. I was doing very well throughout the first 4 hours or so, and spent most of the time as the chip leader at my table. For the last couple of weeks or so I have felt as if I have been playing better than ever before, and today I was definitely on my game. I made all of the right moves at the right times and stole a ton of small pots. I won a couple of nice sized pots too where people let me get out on them and then dumped in a ton of money. Those are always my favorite.
After the second break I had excellent control of my table. By this point all of the very bad players at our table had been knocked out. To be honest it may have been the toughest table I have been at the whole time I have been out here, maybe the toughest in months. So it was no surprise that the 3 or 4 bad players who started at our table or were moved there were gone, and everyone left knew how to play the game at least fairly well.
At that point my shorthanded experience really started to pay off and I accumulated a very large stack. I felt like I had everyone set up and I must have because every time I got a decent hand I won a good pot, and every time I had junk I stole. For a time I may have had the chip lead in the tournament (hard to tell in real life) or at least I was close to it, and I felt like I had a good line on everyone at the table. So of course I got moved.
At my next table the players were quite different. Only one or two had any idea what they were doing. Of course the blinds were so steep that one bad hour was pretty much fatal, and that is what happened to me. A few blind steal attempts were three bet back at me and I missed the flops. Then the worst player at the table bad beat me twice and I was out of the tournament.
I was pretty angry about this because the dunce who took my chips because he had no shot of winning. I always find it annoying when that happens, because even taking my whole stack is of absolutely no benefit to him but it is bad for me. He is like a kamikaze, just committing suicide by calling raises with 8 9 off all day and taking me down with him. After I got knocked out I went to eat and came back and sure enough he was gone, even though he had a huge stack just one hour earlier.
If nothing else I feel that I played very well. I truly feel like my game has improved quite a bit in the last month or two. I suppose poker is like that, you learn some new things, and apply them. Then you go on playing for quite a while and learn a few new things. Whereas when you are new to the game growth is a steady process when you are more advanced it comes in spurts. At least for me it does. Maybe it is that way for everyone or maybe it just is the way I learn. Either way as long as I am continuing to learn I will continue to improve and continue to move up through the ranks. In a coming article (maybe I’ll write it on the plane home) I will try to document what it is I have learned and how it has helped. Maybe.
Posted by themaroon at July 18, 2004 5:38 AM
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