The wild variance of tournaments

Tournaments are great fun because you can turn a 60 buy in into a few hundred of few thousand dollars in three or four hours. I enjoy them because the competition is generally week because people don't adjust their play to tournament constraints. Adequate cash players become bad tournament players and bad players become terrible in tournaments.

The flip side is the variance is high. While 30-50% of cash players at a table come out ahead only 10-15% of players in any tournament make the money. As well, with short stacks, you can't be patient and one mistake or one unlucky hand can do you in. Today was a day like that.

Played the Snoqualmie $60 bounty tournament. In addition to paying the top 10 players, you get $10 for every player you bust out. It's a reasonable tournament -- the players aren't very tough but it plays pretty fast. You have to take some chances. Today I had three key hands in huge pots, which coincidentally all involved the same hole cards.

Experts say that when you get under 8-12 big blinds, you should either go all-in or fold preflop. In part that's because you shouldn't raise for 1/3 of your stack and then ever fold. I generally agree but I've found that in these fast tournaments, bad players react almost the same to any raise size. If you have 10 BB whether you raise to 3 BB or 10 BB, people will look you up with TT,AQ+ and fold everything else. A small raise puts a few more hands in play. Thus a small raise has almost the same benefit is a big raise without risking your tournament life with 5-high. That said this play can sometimes get you in trouble. Because of my cards, stack size, and position, I wound up with a few hands where I raised, got called and was all-in on the flop.

First time I had king-rag, flopped a king and both players folded. Then the last hand before the break, the first key hand came up which hurt me. I read an article where the author declared the worst thing that happens in poker is when a third party makes a stupid play which affects the outcome of the hand. And I ran into this here. A MP limps, late position player with a short stack limps in, I complete the SB with JT, BB checks. The flop is 5-2-2 rainbow. This seems like a good spot to bluff -- except for BB, there's no reason anyone should have a 5, 2, or 43 -- so I make a small bet, BB calls (oops), LP calls (double oops). Even if I hit a J or T on the turn, I'm going to be careful. Turn is a T, I check BB bets 1200, LP goes all-in for 1800, I think a long time and fold -- one of them must have me beat, BB says "I have to call". BB has 95, LP has Kh7h, there are not two hearts on the board. LP simply decided he wanted to go home. He made obvious mistakes on all three streets including a naked bluff with no fold equity; it's his money he can do what he wants BUT his stupid play cost me the pot and truly donated chips to BB. I could call one player here, but not two.

Next key hand. UTG limps and it folds to me in the hijack with 7h5h. I decide to steal here, though to be honest I missed that UTG was in until I declared raise. The BB and UTG both call. Flop is Th-8h-5s, pretty good for my hand. Both players check, I shove all in for 2/3 of the pot, BB folds but UTG tanks and finally calls with JdTd. His call is easy if he knows what I have, even though I'm a slight favorite, but this is the exact peril of limp calling (see a couple posts below) with a marginal hand. Even if you hit, you have no idea if your hand is good. Turn ace, River 7. I survive.

Last hand. One mid position limper. I have AJ in SB and raise to 1200, BB is only caller. Flop is J-T-x. I bet 2000, BB raises to 4000, I got all in for about 5500, he calls (uh oh). He has JT. The turn is a ace, but he resucks with a river ten and I'm done. This worked great for him, but I think he'll get in trouble calling here with JT. If he doesn't hit the ten, he's going to lose a lot of chips here.

Poker is a game of skill, but in the short term, luck plays a pretty huge factor. And my luck wasn't so good today.