Tournament Review

Regular reviews are an important part of improving your tournament play. Its amazing how much you learn, by replaying a tournament, about your own play and your opponents. After busting 20th in the last 3 180sngs that i went deep in i decided that i had to replay each to see what went wrong.

I learned that i missed several spots to pick up chips and i was busting out because i did not change gears or adjust correctly to stack sizes. My game is standard tight aggressive... tight early, getting progressively aggressive as the blinds rise. Until i'm probably extremely loose aggressive late; raising anytime its folded to me from HJ to Button and sometimes utg.

Normally this style is ok on the button because i usually have a huge stack... but when i have a medium/average this becomes a problem for two reasons. Big stacks are more likely to look me up (even if it will cost them 2/3rd of their stack) with weaker hands. And with huge blinds and small stacks i sometimes have to make calls purely on odds after raising with a weak hand and having a small stack push on me.

So I went on to play some tournies lastnight. I normally play four at once so i started 3 $3/45 turbos, 1 $4/180 and also signed up for a $2.20 FO MTT starting in 35 minutes. The $3 turbos are really soft and i soon have huge stacks in all three, busting in one, making the money in another and take first in the other. these are really just to keep me occupied while playing the early stages of the 180, I don't review them.

I play a really solid game in the 180 and made the final table. I am pleased that i made the necessary adjustments and the results showed. I feel i played some of my best poker in a few weeks. Unfortunately i did not stay focus the entire final table because i busted 5th. Basically got distracted by one of the players asking for a chop in the chat, to which i responded negatively. I've noticed that whenever i chat during a tournament things just don't go well for me... so i lost the focus i had and busted... guy asking for chop went on to take 2nd.arrgh.

At the time i busted the 180 i was going nicely in the $2 FO with an above average stack. I played for another +2hrs and was again pleased with my play. The Tournament had 1525 entrants and payed 297 spots. I made the money easily enough and successfully nurse a short/medium stack of around 11k chips late in tourny enventually double to 20k. When the blind increased to 800/1600 i remained patient, making the occasional steal.

Blinds increased again to 1k/2k and i pick up AKs in MP... first good hand in about 30minutes... one player limps utg... I shove, he calls with A8s and i double to 43k with about 50 left in tourny. A few hands lata I pick up AKo utg and i can feel i'm about to double, go on a serious rush and win this thing or atleast make the FT. Here's the hand.

AKo utg
OMG! lol. nh. gg.