roy

We played in another 3-game tournament last night with 7 people; buy-in was $5 and person with most point got the victory. Pete played very well and solid to take home the whole pot after getting 1st in both games; I got 1st in the third game to take 2nd place.

The interesting dynamics of the tournament was in the point and blind structure. Points were distributed mainly to the top three players (7 for first, 4 for second, and 3 for third). The other four players got 1 point each; there was absolutely no benefit in sitting around and waiting; playing super-tight would leave you with a huge chip disadvantage when there were four people. Additionally, it must be noted that we raised blinds every 10 minutes (or said we did). So basically we started off with $50 in chips, and started blinds off at $0.25/$0.50. The blinds were raised to $0.50/$1, $1/$2, $2/$4, $3/$6, $4/8, $5/10. In one of the games, we did some miniscule raises of $6/12, $7/14, $8/16, but in retrospect it should of moved something like $$6/12, $8/16, and then $10/$20.

In any case, the basic concept (in my opinion) was that aggression was rewarded. Because there was no difference between 4th and 7th place, one would hope that people would make more moves. The point structures were also so that even if you finished 2nd place in two tournaments, you would only tie if someone else finished 1st in one tournament and 3rd in the other tournaments. I liked the point structure, overall. You were never out of the running for the money, but then again it was very hard to clinch the top spot unless you played very well through all three games. Furthermore, it encouraged people to play aggressive; being aggressive and catching a few fortunate hands in one tournament could offset horrible plays in the other two.

But you wouldn't want to bee too aggressive early, which would be equivalent to hitting the NOS too early in a car race and have someone go, "Too soon, Junior" and win the race and then you'd FLIP out and run to your friend but then the asian gangsters would come and shoot you down .

Um, ok.

So I decided to bust out my aggression tactics for the first game, because most other people seemed really passive. Terrence wasn't feeling poker last night, so he busted out real early. A few other people busted out early as well, and I was pushing marginal hands to win some sizable pots. Making the first big jump to $4/$8 is where I started making mistakes. Given my huge chip position, I should of immediately switched gears and started playing tight as I could sense my hands were getting cold ('the streak'). But I didn't, and I started losing my chips. It also didn't help that I was calling a few hands I had no business calling and then losing chips (argggghhh). So I blew my chips in the first game, and the lesson here was that I was too aggressive with the higher blind structure; my table image was already one of that of a huge bluffer, so people were starting to call me down with premium hands on the higher blind structures and I was losing chips.

The second game I busted out on maybe the 4th or 5th hand. I tried to bluff out a nasty-looking board, only to have Yush make a great call with top pair, worst kicker which crippled me. I eventually found myself all-in with a coinflip which I lost. I decided that given the texture of the game, I should of played a bit tighter (people were starting to be a bit more aggressive at the second table).

The third game was a race for 2nd place; Pete had locked in first place with his nice first place finish in the second game. We started with the normal $0.25/$.50 blinds, and people were going CRAZY. There were $6 raises utg with only $0.75 in the pot, and this was _normal_. I just looked over at Terrence and we kind of gave each other this look like, "What the HECK is going on here?"

Amusingly, I got quite decent hands when everyone was going wild; I got stuff like mid-high suited connectors (JT, T9) and nice overcards (ATo, KJo). But given the fact that I would have to invest the pot to make calls with these, I opted to fold instead. The nastiest hand came when Bobby made a great read on Godwin with a board of Jxx and called Godwin's all-in (77) with pocket nines. The river was horrible to Bobby, as a 7 hit the river and saved Godwin from elimination. The problem with these two last night was that once Bobby got on tilt, he played crazy (and by crazy, I mean somewhat stupid). He started going all-in with weirdo hands instead of patiently waiting for a better position; given the loose play at the table, Bobby could of easily doubled up and gotten back in the game. Godwin was also playing all-in strategy, which I made a mental note of. I later busted him out with KK against his AQ which make two pair off the turn but got busted by a K on the river (ouch).

So the lesson's learned from this? I am pretty pissed at myself for playing so poorly in the first game given my huge chip advantage; I have the tendency to leak chips once I get a huge chip lead, and this is something I need to watch, especially in the higher blind structures. The second game was a complete wash; I shouldn't of tried bluffing out with small blinds and out of position. Given the call on the turn, I should of known a river call was inevitable. Oops.

Oh well, lesson was well-learned from the first two games. I look forward to doing these types of games more often; we still have to tweak the blind structure (10 minutes is still too fast given the fact we were 7-handed; I think we should of opted for slightly longer periods, but faster blind raises).

Perhaps we should do something like number of people W x 2.5 for each blind period, with the times being reset every W/3 people being eliminated, with times only being adjusted twice. The blind structure should also start off a bit higher.

I'm thinking given we start with $50 in chips, we should do something along the lines of: $1/$2, $2/$4, $3/6, $4/8, $6/12, $8/16, $10/$20, $12/$24, $15/$30. If there are 6 people, each period should be 15 minutes. So with this structure, we'd be at $6/$12 in one hour (assuming two people go out in which case the blinds would be raised every 10 minutes), which is roughly where a big chunk of everybody went out in the first game.

Edit: ooh, this is still turning into a crapshoot. It's so hard to figure out good blind structures!