COMPARING AN APT "LIVE" TOURNAMENT VS. $100 LIVE TOURNAMENT Part 1
After 6 months, give or take, of re-indoctrinating myself to playing poker I NEEDED (okay wanted) to try my newly emergent skills against random, live opponents, as opposed to the safe confines of my APT online, live tournaments where I have many hours facing a "far from random" group composed of the APT, live tournament player cabal. The APT group can, generally, (IMHO) be counted upon to act like very skilled amateurs in most cases and like pros in several cases. A tough and often tricky group. I knew the world outside the cozy confines of APT be different.
Little did I realize how different.
I've been, for several weeks now, playing at events run by ChicagoCharitableGames, (http://www.chicagocharitablegames.com/) which every Friday, Saturday and Sunday runs both cash and tournament games in the suburbs surrounding Chicago, typically from 2 in the afternoon until the latest tournament ends (can be 1 in the morning easily). The closest location to me is in McCook Illinois about 5 miles from my home. Piece of cake..............
My tournament of choice has been the $100 super deepstack with 20000 chips and a 10000 chip $5 add on and rebuys for the first 5 levels, So to start you have 200 BBs with 20 minute levels.Seems like a very reasonable medium event.
The players are all over the map as you might expect. Not as chatty with a new player as the APT regulars but friendly in most cases. The age range runs from 18 to 90. One stunningly good older player has a number of impairments which, at least I think, cause some of the other players to vastly underestimate his skills.
The player's styles run the gamut also. This has made my first couple of live experiences interesting to say the least. A notable hand the first night at the 200/400 50 ante level was one where I, the HERO, while playing very conservatively, just trying to get the group sorted out in my mind, caught KsKh while sitting in the cutoff with a stack of over 50,000 which I'd added to by showing down only 1 hand where I had a small set beating 2 pair. The hand I'd shown down was against the VILLIAN in this hand (younger then I am, 30s, well dressed fellow who seems well known by the group) who appeared to be itching for revenge against me, the interloper. Several people limped I raise it to 2400 wanting to clear the field. Villain is the BB. Button and SB fold and it's on the BB who asks me what I have?
"AK? That's not gonna do it this time.............," he says." Selective memory here, I'd beaten him with a set of 8s. I just look at him and wait. He hems and haws and then raises to 6000. I have him outchipped considerably. Everyone else bails out so we're h2h. I ask if he has AK himself. He says I have to pay to find out. I don't think he much likes getting talked back to. So I call and say I'm curious. I wanna see the flop hoping no ace hits it. The flop is all spades As Ts 2s. He laughs and bets 3,000. The pot is $21,850. $3,000 seems suspiciously small. A probe bet? I think a little and call. He chuckles audibly as if to say I got you now sucker. You know the flop is a spade right? Cause I'm the HERO. J of spades. WOOHOO I have the nut flush. He's quiet now and I'm all but biting my lip. He checks to me. I'm thinking it's time to look worried. I think for a bit and raise it to 9,000. His chips are in before mine practically. I'm stunned and I think I look it. He's all in............. and laughing at me. I call. He asks what I have I say you raised. The dealer tells him he must go first. He turns up JhJd for a set of Jacks. I bite my lip now to show something (not sure what exactly) as I flip over my Kings............... showing the flush. He smiles and then realizes what he's looking at. His jaw drops and he starts to say something but stops. The case Jack can save him. Someone says they mucked it already. Wah wah wah. He slinks off to the bar. I've made an enemy I think...........
Much later that night my flopped 2 pair AA88 gets nailed by a full house 3s over 8s. The flop is Ax8x3x. He has 83 and later claims he always plays it because it was the year he was born. Go figure. Naturally he catches the 3 on the river to bust me after calling my all in on the turn. I'm out 11th of 52. Wah wah wah......
So I've realized that some of these players aren't playing like the people on APT do now. First lesson they have superstitions that I don't share in.
Stay tuned for further adventures in Syn's adventures in live play.
Syn
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Comments
What a great story, and told so well! You should be a blogger. I can hardly wait for Part 2!
Agree, great story and kick a$$ play
The thing is here that my wife says I think I'm better then a lot of people and that my prejudices are reflected in my both my lifestyle and the way I play poker. She doesn't mean better in a nice way though. She's saying that I'm a curmudgeon and because of the work I did (I was an executive recruiter specializing in the trading industry in Chicago and New York), where I live, the car I drive, our lack of debt and on and on, that I prejudge a lot of people. Well LOUISE that's what a recruiter does for a living, which until I retired and sold the company it paid for a lot of your nice lifestyle.
Headhunters evaluate people in a hurry, based on their "alleged" resume, how they communicate, schools they attended, how they dress, who recommended them, and on and on. Skills that in my opinion transpose easily to playing poker. Particularly in the Chicago suburbs for cheap stakes but maybe not Las Vegas for real $$$. To put that in perspective, my wife spends more on yarn then I do on poker (until recently anyway). Admittedly it's nice yarn and her knitting needles are carbon fiber.
I guess what I'm saying is this. The people playing the tournaments I've played, on the nights I've attended, seem nice enough but in a lot of cases there seems to be a little desperation lurking below the surface. The $100 entry is pretty much irrelevant to me and if I won the $12 -1500 for 1st place I'd just hand it over to my wife. My bankroll comes out of community funds in our home you see. I haven't figured out what $$$ number would cause my wife to raise her hand and ask a question.Yet.......... But I didn't grouse when she went off on a redecorating binge after she retired and pretty much redid every room in our home or when she bought a new piano on a whim. If she did raise her hand I'd remind her of winnings handed over without a blink years ago that were instantly commingled with household $$$. Truthfully though I wouldn't want to relive explaining to her what happened on "Black Friday" and just how much $$$ I had sitting at FullTilt, PokerStars, UltimateBet, and other sites that I've, over the years, forgotten about. I was happy to tell her it was ONLY $$$ and she needn't worry about the Feds knocking on the door and arresting me (I thought about that at one point).
More later................
Years after Black Friday I did eventually recover money that was 'lost' on PokerStars. They eventually sent me a check. I hope you were able to get some of the money out of the 'locked' sites.
Sounds like you have a lot of life experience reading people, very useful in live games. I started my training on PokerSchoolOnline pre-black Friday days and transitioned to online cash games and tournaments. I was able to net $$$ but I still have a lot of holes in my game (hence APT). I took a 7 year break from poker when I found myself in a rut and I'm now just trying to get the rust off my game and take training to the next level.
LasV3gas
Ohhhhhh I did get $$$ back from several sites and some is "allegedly" on its way real soon now from UltimateBet/Absolute. I wrote it all off in my mind many years ago and, thankfully, I didn't depend poker to pay our bills EVER! Your situation sounds a lot like my own except I live in Illinois which is a poker wasteland.
My game has improved DRAMATICALLY since I joined APT and as I dig into recent and current poker books, read other forums, and study videos and play more live tournaments i expect to make incremental progress. I have no deadlines or budgets to adhere to so it's comfortable.
Keep at it...
Warm regards,
Corey "synthesist" Gimbel
>
Why?
Ummmm
Errr
Uhhh
By "community funds" I just meant household money. I don't need a separate poker fund! We have no debt, and our financial situation allows me to indulge myself in my occasional gambling adventure.
Back in the day, prior to Black Friday, when I was playing on multiple sites things were different, I had a poker fund then, and I tracked my play carefully for tax reasons.* When I first started out, before I'd ever made a deposit, somehow I managed to win a free roll for over $2,000 which got me going nicely back then.
Warm regards,
Corey "synthesist" Gimbel
When I first started playing live, before there was online poker, my bankroll got healthy after flopping a royal that had a $2500 jackpot in my scary $3/$6 game. First time I ever played live in a card room in the Bay Area. Calmed the nerves a bit, although all the regulars were pissed that some newcomer had hit their jackpot (each suit started at $50 and went up $50 per day until hit, so we are talking 50 days...I never saw one get that high there ever again).