Tournaments Seriously Suck

Posted by admin on Feb 26, 2009 in 5400fpp, coolers | 0 comments

I know, I know. I'm about to play in my biggest tournament of my life on Saturday and here I am posting that tournaments suck. Obviously, I haven't been running well in them and am not used to walking away a loser in 5 straight events. I have been playing tournaments the last few days as a warm up of sorts and basically have seen the same formula in every single tournament:

- I'll double up early against a donk
- Table Luckbox goes into Godmode
- I go card dead
- I win some hands after finally getting some cards
- I then get seriously coolered to exit

After 6 tournaments and no ITMs, I'm once again stepping back from this form of poker mainly because I am not used to the mindset of "No Cashes then 1 BIG cash" that playing to win requires. Although I don't expect the level of competition to be any good at the $5-$15 buyin range, I am just tired of losing with the best hand.

Brilliant Tard in the $15k Guarantee

That hand really sucked. I was about half way through the field with an average stack and thought this double up would seriously give me some momentum. I had just suffered a loss shoving QQ into AK earlier against someone so ... yeah ... balls.

Lose a Coinflip to die in the $70k Guarantee Rebuy

This one was a coinflip through the hand until he spiked his flush at the turn. Pretty standard but to exit after 2.5 hours of play and walk away -$33 kinda sucked. I just really hate putting my life on the line (albeit the right play) on a flip. But that's poker!

Did That Just Happen - The $10k Guarantee

I'm really in a pinch here with a woeful stack that's almost exactly at 10 big blinds and considering the antes it was definitely time to shove. Again, a cooler.

Final MTT Thoughts
Although I'm a little bitter at tournament play I am really surprised how soft the fields are out there in the sub-$20 tournament world. I really have zero respect now for anyone that regularly cashes in these things ... it seems like the theory for success is to make a deep cash 1 out of 6-10 times and the rest is just you eating crap via coolers. Is this how people make money? I don't think I could handle it, and I'm heading back to the cash tables to grind out some money hopefully.