As is always the case, the biggest reason why I haven’t posted anything lately is because I haven’t been playing very much poker (and the corollary, which is that I’ve been really busy at everything else going on in my life). Up until yesterday, I’ve only played a few hands the past few weeks. One of these will give you an idea of how my poker’s been going recently: I have Ace/King, opponent has Ace/Queen and has me covered. Flop is Ace-Rag-Rag. All the money ends up in the pot. River is a Queen; I lose it all.
Yesterday, I managed to get about two hours in. I played only two hands the entire time – pocket Queens, and the very next hand with pocket Aces. When I got up and left, I’d doubled up my buy-in. Not bad for only playing two hands!
My co-worker Steve has been playing some good poker lately, recently taking down second place in an online tournament that brought in over $3000. He also plays in a weekly home game tournament in Chicago, and keeps threatening to get me into the game on one of my frequent trips out that way. He told me this humorous story about his last time there.
One of Steve’s opponents asked him for the secret to his recurring tournament success. “It’s very simple”, Steve said, reaching over and picking up one of his opponent’s chips. “No matter what you do, never ever ever bet this chip.” He put the chip back down on his opponent’s stack. “As long as you remember that warning, and never bet that chip, you will be certain to win the tournament.”
Roughly half the table got Steve’s point immediately, and chuckled obligingly (including, fortunately, myself, who heard the story some time after it happened). The other half of the crowd figured it out after thinking about it for a short while. Unfortunately, the guy Steve had been talking to was completely perplexed. He picked up the indicated chip and inspected it very closely, as if it were somehow magnetically charged or differently weighted.
“I don’t get it,” he complained. “What did you do, put a hex on it or something?” This generated another round of chuckling from the assembled table. Indeed, at one point this player went all-in – minus only the one chip Steve had identified. (He won that hand, which merely added to the mystique.)
Eventually, Steve was heads-up with this player, who still hadn’t deciphered the Secret of the Magic Chip. Sadly, whether magnetism, magic, or cosmic rays were responsible, it didn’t prevent our victim from losing the heads-up to Steve – although he did eventually figure out what Steve’s statement actually meant. Just not in time for it to do him any good!
4 comments:
ok i must be stupid... i have an idea but fill me in
I have been making deep runs into 1000 plus player tournies... cashing in the 1st round of cash then busting on some stupid shit... gotta figure out how to make it to the next level
There's nothing the least bit significant about that chip. Steve's point was that as long as you still have ANY chip, you haven't busted out yet. After you've busted out, you've lost that chip ... and can't win.
It's another way of saying the only hand you need to win is the last one, or that you only need to bust one player to win a tournament.
I believe in order to win one needs more than their fair share of luck, especially if the field is large or has other really good players in it. So I guess I can't offer any advice for how to do better in tourneys. I don't even know if I'm right or not about that, but it seems to be the case to me at this point in my experience.
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