Well, the last few days have been interesting, that is for sure. I have never really done all that well in larger tournaments, limiting most of my play to sit and go tables (online) and 2-4 2-6 or 4-8 tables in person. I am NOT a big spending high roller or anything like that. I wisely keep my playing within reasonable numbers, and as a regult, I get to enjoy the games more and worry about the outcome much less.
Things started a couple of days ago, when I decided to play some of the $1+0 and $10+1 bigger tournaments. The $1+0 ones are truly interesting, as they certainly attract a very wide crowd of people (usually 2000+ players) and the skill levels go from decent to great to total clueless beeyaches. Let me tell you, it really seems to help my confidence and skill level when it comes to spotting the players and spotting the easy marks.
Anyway, I noticed that I was doing pretty good in these things. Routinely coming in the top 20% or so, and I made a slight bit of money ($3 or $4) in a couple of them for making it into the top 10%. During the same time I had been playing some $5 and $10 sit and go tables, and I was really doing well, probably 50% in the money and at least 25% wins. Not terrible, and keeping my bank reasonable and happy.
Well, I decided (quite randomly) to give a $50 tourney a shot. I hadn’t played anything over $20 since i started back, but I was sort of in a what the fuck kind of a mood and I decided to give it a shot. I was mostly interested because the number of players was reasonable, and as it turned out, the payouts went back almost to 10%, which is pretty decent.
Anyway, long story short, I made it into the money (solidly in, and then I blew it playing a hand I should have stepped away from) bringing me about $150 for my $50.
Kewl, I thought. Maybe just luck, whatever.
So today I pick up an afternoon $20 tourney. Bigger crowd (about 700). I played carefully, staying just about 10 times the blinds pretty much consistantly. I picked up a couple of good size pots… and the money number was 70. This game stayed on 71 players for about 15 hands in a row. Finally the dam broke and someone got knocked out. So I was in the money again. I finally made it up to about 45th, which paid me about 5 times what I put in the front end, which is fine by me.
Most importantly, I stated to get the feeling I was just a little bit better of a player today than I had been in the past. I really seem to have started down a more positive route for these tournament things (I am playing a $1+0 right now).
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