I just busted out of a $50 multi-table tournament on Party Poker. Five hours, and I make it to 15th place where I prompty proceed to semi-bluff off all my chips. I raised a fairly tight limper PF with AhJh, and got it heads up. The flop came with two hearts and low cards. He bet out 1/3 the pot, and having watched him play for some time, I was pretty certain he was on a lower pocket pair, and hadn't tripped up. So I called, and the turn came a K. He went all in and had me covered by a small amount. I was getting over 3:1 to draw, and had to wonder if he had a set, and whether I should take the gamble if he didn't. I can't imagine him playing a set like that, since I'm fairly sure it looked like I had either a higher pocket pair or AK. Why would he shove his money in when he had me crushed? So I figured he was making a desperation push with his low pocket pair, hoping I could fold. If I won, I'd have the chip lead, and if I folded, I would be fairly shortstacked, and since I wanted to win, I figured I had to make the call. So I did.
He turned over pocket threes, and it turns out I had all 13 outs, which should've come through %30 of the time, in which case I would have had the commanding chip lead and a great shot at winning. The river was an offsuit brick, and I really don't know how players handle busting out of huge buy-in tournaments; you feel like shitty shit afterwards, even in small tournaments like this.
It was a learning experience though, since this was the second showdown I had gone to in 300 hands. I had made all of my money off stealing the blinds, and bluffing tight players off of hands on the flop. The trick is to be aggressive enough that players don't want to battle you without a real hand, so you make big enough bets to push them off of most of their holdings, but small enough that you can easily get away if they call or raise. This works really well, since you tend to get a lot of action when you make a big hand. I just didn't have anyone play back at my few big hands. This strategy is even more important deep in the tournament, since the blinds are much larger relative to the average stack size, and worth battling for. Stealing the blinds once or twice a round, isolating the low stacks and picking them off, and avoiding confrontations with other big stacks is the way to go. Even though the way I played the last hand tonight wasn't an awful way to play it, I could have dumped the hand on the flop and avoided the whole situation, and stuck to the sure bet of stealing blinds and bullying with my large stack. Live and learn.
So this marks the fourth time I've made it deep into a huge tournament field, and every time but one I've managed to bluff my chips off. The other time I had a huge chip lead over the entire field with 30 left (out of 1500), and got all my money in PF against the second chip lead with pocket kings. He of course had aces, and I lost a great shot at the $13k package offered to the first three places. I've since come to learn how silly that gamble was, since I probably could have logged off and blinded into third place. The other two times I made it to the final table in 800+ fields, and went out in tenth both times on stupid continuation bluffs.
Tournament poker is so much more enjoyable than ring limit and no-limit, and the money can be incredible. I think I'll start playing more, and possibly play tournaments exclusively. Party has great daily tournaments with huge first place prizes ($40k+). Getting into the money on a regular basis is pretty rare though, so you can go months without winning. Which requires a pretty deep bankroll and a lot of patience and commitment. You need all the skills and knowledge that cash games require, and then have to learn the dynamics and strategy requisite to play consistently well in the tournaments. Uhm. So most of you probably didn't understand or care about any of that, so I offer you this:
Many Bothans died to bring you this information. Also, you can't miss
this!
