Coin-Flips

I played poker with Tarot cards last night.  I got a full house and four people died.  -- Steven Wright.

In poker, the player who bets the most wins.  The cards are just used to break the ties.  -- Overheard at a table recently.

I spent last weekend in Las Vegas.  Actually it was a work-related trip, so I didn't have an opportunity to play much poker, but of course I did play some.  I was staying at Harrah's, so I played there mostly.  I stopped by Treasure Island's little poker room too for a little while.  I tried a couple of times to get into the Venetian, but the wait list was so long that both times I just gave up and went back to Harrah's.

This wasn't really a problem though.  The games at Harrah's are really soft, and even though the limits are low, I can sometimes make more at a $1/$3 NL game there than I can at, say, the $8/$16 limit game at Bellagio.  I played a tournament there once last year, something called a "bounty tournament".  I paid $100 to buy in, and got $10 back for every player I knocked out.  There were around 40 players total in the tournament, and I took out eight of them!  So I was nearly free-rolling even before I made it into the money.  I finished in third place and took down a decent prize.

So while I was there last weekend, I did end up playing a tournament there.  It was not a bounty, just a $100 buy-in standard tournament.  I think there were around 30 players total who played the tournament.

There's a saying that to win a poker tournament, you need to win the coin-flips.  That means when you and an opponent both have a roughly 50-50 chance of winning (say, two overcards versus a small pair), you have to win more of those "coin-flips" than you lose.  I think it's probably true.

At this point in my poker experience, I fully expect that in any tournament I enter, I should make it into the top half of finishers every time.  If I don't at least achieve this, I've almost certainly played extremely poorly.  So top-half is my baseline expectation.

On the other hand, if I'm playing very well, I should make it into the top quarter.  This is where I ended up during last year's WSOP Main Event.  But that still won't make it into the money, which usually pays just the top 10-15% of players.  So to get to that point, that's where the luck in involved.  That's where I need to win the coin-flips.

In the tournament I played last weekend, I found myself in three coin-flip situations.  I lost all three of them, and finished in ninth place (they had just assembled the final table and I was the first one out).  So I finished out of the money.

I think it speaks well of my game that I was able to survive not just one coinflip, but two.  It took three of those situations to knock me out.

The first time was early in the tournament.  I had just knocked out one player and was one of the overall chip leaders.  I held pocket fives in the big blind; the small blind (who was seriously short-stacked) went all-in with Ace-Queen, and I called.  A Queen flopped, and he doubled up.  I was knocked down to average chipstack size ... not a big hit in the grand scheme of things, but a coinflip loss nevertheless.

The second time, I had Ace-Queen in the big blind and called the all-in of a short-stacked guy with pocket Jacks.  The board bricked out, and now I was down to a short stack.

The final coinflip was when I raised pre-flop from early position with Ace-Jack.  It's not a move I recommend, but I was pretty short-stacked now and I had to start making some moves.  I was called by a lady with pocket Eights.  A third (and rather redundant) eight came on the river, and I was out.  She went on to take second place in the tournament, so I guess I shouldn't feel that bad about it.

Next week is the World Poker Challenge at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, and I am taking some time off work to go play in it.  It used to be a World Poker Tour event, but it isn't any more.  There are actually seven tournaments that will be played while I'm there, although I'll probably only play in two or three of them.  I'm hoping to spend sometime downtown while I'm there, because I remember last time I was there the games were ridiculously soft.  It's also where (I think) I played a poker game against Jamie Gold, before he won the Main Event.  I'm really looking forward to the experience!